#straight-dropping hair is so pretty but it's also an adversary for me- only in that I can never make it as pretty as it should be ( ; v; )

[mewkwota]

Had a MegaMan on the mind one evening, and it's one I've never drawn before surprisingly, so there he is. I think Juno is such an interesting character, with that aura (and hair) that he has.

(He should be A Lot Bigger in that last shot, oh well.)

[theodora3022]

Claim (Yandere Chuuya Nakahara)

Pairing: Yandere! Chuuya Nakahara X Fem reader

Summary: You have the courage to mock Dazai when he flirts with you casually, different from almost every other woman Dazai throws himself on. Seeing his nemesis being stepped on brings Chuuya great joy, which escalates to him taking a special interest in you.

Notes: So...If you read my BNHA fics you should know I have a thing for wind superpowers, so reader is going to have a wind ability in here as well. Be gone if you have problems with that. My first take on BSD, on Chuuya nevertheless... Hopefully this does not flop. I thought about writing Kunikida for this one, but I just could not get Chuuya’s smirk off my mind (Along with Fyodor’s but that is for another day) Also this is self indulgent as hell, so be warned. I’m not satifised with the final result, as some parts feels a bit forced...But there you have it. 

Word count: 2.8k 

Warnings: Drugging, coercion, mention of knife and blood, implied non con  at the end

You were sitting beside a floor window of a café when Chuuya first saw you, when he was on his way to get some beer. At first, it was not you that drawn his attention, it was that guy on the opposite end of the coffee table.

Osamu Dazai. Also known as the bane of Chuuya Nakahara’s existence and his greatest adversary. Out womanizing again, he never changes. He was about to ignore those shady behaviours and just carry on, until he hears how you are attacking Dazai with your words.

“Dazai, please. I bet you said that to every woman you met.” Slowly stirring your hot beverage, you smirk as you took a little sip. “It is a miracle how you got this far unscathed.” You seem to see right through Dazai, how clever. Now Chuuya have to hear how this can go down. His own drink can wait, this little comedy show is more worthwhile.

“But beautiful! Your eyes shine like the brightest stars, I just cannot let that go unappreciated.” “If you are so found of shining things, I can get you a pack of glitter to stare at. I would actually appreciate it if you stop staring right into my eyes, thank you.” This is a mistake, you thought. You thought Dazai was just being a good Senpai when he invites you to join him for a quick coffee at lunch. And of course being the naïve new recruit, you said yes without hesitation.

A pack of glitter? Oh dear. Out of all those years Chuuya has known Dazai, he had never seen the brunette getting such a good roast. Placing a hand over his mouth to muffle his chuckles, Chuuya is beyond amused. Most women would be too busy swooning over that pretty face, but you did not even flinch and insulted him just like that. You got some sass!  That is the first time the mafia executive had taken a formal notice of you. You are indeed a fair woman, no wonder Dazai would choose to hit on you.

He does vaguely recall recently hearing about the ADA obtaining a new recruit. A young woman with a wind ability. But you are far more interesting then that. “This has been pleasant, but I think it is time to head back to the office.” When Kunikida told you Dazai can be a handful yesterday, you did not expect this is how you would find out. You stopped him from taking out his wallet, shaking your head: “Dazai. I will pay for myself. Besides, you are in enough debt as you are now. See you back at the agency.”

Not even Chuuya can make Dazai appear this defeated, this discouraged. Just who are you exactly? Forget the beer, Chuuya needs to know all about you at once. 

Reading through your file back at the headquarters, your info is enough to make even Chuuya raise his eyebrows a couple of times.

You can command any gas to your will? That is a rare gift, even the Port Mafia had yet to secure that. Too bad you are on the wrong side, Chuuya can just think of so many ways of using your ability to its full potential. The file was put back to the storage, sure. But you had impressed him back at that café and peaked his interests. It would be hard to make him unsee Dazai being humiliated. But you did not linger on his mind much after. 

However, that would not be lasting too long. Chuuya was shocked to hear some of the members has died in dark alleys of yokohoma, apparently from lack of oxygen, but without any traces of choking or even a cut. Mori even called him to the office to discuss about this.

Pictures of you, in causal and business attire lay across the expensive office desk. You were smiling in all of them, although that smile does not look like an amused one to Chuuya now.

“Do you recognize this woman?”

How can Chuuya forget about you? The woman who gave him the best comedy show, who stomped on Dazai’s philanderer ways so mercilessly. “A new recruit of ADA. Her air control abilities must have enabled her to suck the oxygen particles out of human bodies. It also gives her the ability to levitate and an incredible speed, which is such a headache. Even Akutagawa cannot seem to finish her.”

What a little troublemaker you are. Consider Chuuya motivated. He knows you are strong, but not anyone can escape from Akutagawa. Where is the fun without a little challenge?

“I will go. My abilities would allow me to get the job done.” Heck, this once he would get something Dazai cannot have! In this mini game, at least, Chuuya would be the winner. 

“Chuuya, you seem awfully enthusiastic about this. May I ask why that is?” Stroking Elise’s hair, Mori carefully observe the young man’s expressions. “She has the guts to insult Dazai, should be a fun one. I do not plan to kill her, however. That would be such a waste.”

“Yes, that would be most ideal. Her ability would be a valueble asset, here’s some drugs if she is being too difficult.”

Oh but you are so much more then the wielder of a powerful ability to Chuuya.

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

Work has been a pain in the ass lately, so on your afternoon off, you choose to take a walk along the water in the park. Everything looks so peaceful, children running amok, couples holding hands, the sound of the birds chirping, all sounds so natural and calming. You let out a sigh of relief as you settled on a bench beside a tree and closed your eyes, breathing in the forest scent, still sleep deprived from the nightmares.

Although you only killed those gangsters to defend a civilian, you regret it somewhat afterwards. You expected revenge, but not from someone like Akutagawa? You can only remove the target’s oxygen from their bodies when you are standing still and concentrated, never while fleeing for your life. If it is not for your unparalleled speed, you were sure one of those dark spikes is going to be your ultimate demise. It was too close for your liking. Before you were always able to leave safely with your ability, but this time you barely made it.

Dozing off in a park while the Port Mafia is on your trail? Chuuya would advise against that. 

However, he would say he much prefer this compliant, soft look on your face compare your sarcastic, confident grin towards Dazai. Dark circles under your eyes? Have you been having sleeping problems? Looks like the little hero is not as brave as she lets on.

Now, he needs to be careful. Even though you look as harmless as a little bunny now, Chuuya can still recall the last expressions his deceased subordinates made. Dying from oxygen loss surely does not look pleasant. While the file said you can only use that special method once per week, Chuuya cannot leave any room for errors. 

Ah, it seems you had carelessly dropped your handkerchief on the ground. You did not seem to notice. As if you want him to come near. Who is he to decline a lady’s invitations?

Sensing his approach, you jumped out the bench and distanced yourself from Chuuya. Always on your guard, this should be interesting. Instead of kept closing in the distance, Chuuya bend down and picked up your handkerchief. “Did you drop this?”

See, you were overreacting! He is only trying to tell you that you dropped something. Feeling the guilt of mistaking him for an assassin churns in your stomach, you put up an apologetic smile: “My apologies, sir.  And thank you very much.” Yet you cannot shake off the feeling of you saw him before. Is he a government official? Or perhaps a store clerk? It would be rude if you actually do know him. Yes, you definitely seen his handsome face somewhere. Reaching out to his outstretched hand, you tried to retrieve your handkerchief. But as you take the little square cloth into your hand, his slim but firm fingers snapped around your wrist like handcuffs, seizing you with a smug smirk on his face. “Let go of me, Sir. You wouldn’t want me to use my ability on you.” 

Your gaze turned cold as the winter snow, as if you are willing to punch him in the face then and there. 

A good chance to observe your ability in action. How can Chuuya miss this opportunity? You tried to wiggle out of his grasp while activating your winds, but to your horror, it does not seem to have any effect on Chuuya. Sure, his hat and hair are flowing because of the strong wind, but he has not moved a single inch, still clenching your left wrist in his hand, lips still curling upwards. Turning to your second solution: bringing rocks to hit him until unconsciousness. Why wouldn’t the rocks move? Just who is this man? “Are you with the Port Mafia?”

That took you long enough. Chuuya let out a sinister chuckle, pulls you into his embrace with ease. Locking his right arm around your waist, he whispers beside your ear: “Of course, cutie. And you just walked straight into my trap. Now, it is best if you do not move, I would hate for this knife to leave a scar on your fragile little neck.” Feeling a thin, cold blade pressed against your throat, threatening to cut into your skin, you nervously gulped. Who is he exactly? You should have memorized the faces of the big names of the mafia-

Your ability is impressive. Even Chuuya has to admit that much. If it were not for the reinforced gravity he applied on himself, he would be on the other side of the park by now. Such a shame you are working for that little agency. Crap. You finally remember. Cursing sleep depravation under your breath, you recall where you had seen his face: the files back in the agency. One of the executives, Chuuya Nakahara, with the powers of manipulating gravity. That is why your winds cannot push him away. Just how did you end up with an executive’s knife pressing against your throat? 

Under ideal circumstances, you would order the oxygen particles to stay away from this man, but that ability could only be used once per week. You have not recharged enough, and the fact that you are not in best condition does not help either. 

“Now, you got two options, sweet. First, you can try to get away, and it would not end pretty.” Chuuya laughs he feels you shiver, clearly frightened by the idea of your blood spilling out like a fountain once he slices open your throat. Your resistance has pathetic impacts on him, but you have to at least try. You have been neglecting your physical training because you often rely on that extraordinary speed your ability grants you. However, that also means you are helpless in close up situations such as present. Not so confident now, aren’t you? “Second, pay a visit to our headquarters. The boss would like an audience with you.” You certainly do not want to fall into the hands of the port mafia. However, there are civilians in the park. They did not seem to notice how Chuuya is holding you at knifepoint.  Letting yourself, an ADA agent die here would mean the agency’s reputation is done for. Getting yourself killed in broad daylight, in a public place no less! How incompetent. Looks like the only option is to go with him, for now. “Fine. I will go with you.” “Smart choice. But I would expect no less from an intelligent woman like you.” He carefully removed the knife, and just when you were about to relax and think of a retaliate method, you felt a sharp pain on your left arm. A syringe. Just what did he injected you? Watching you fall onto the ground by your knees, barely able to lift a finger due to the sedation drugs, brings him a strange sense of contentment. Chuuya does not consider himself as a sadist by any means, but after seeing how you treated Dazai, shining with confidence and smugness, only made this submissive version of you so much more satisfactory. “Do not look at me like that, dear (y/n). Just a little insurance that you would not leave without permission. I hope you understand.” You do not, but that does not concern him. Swooping you up effortlessly, Chuuya carries your weak body out of the park, straight to a van that awaits there for a long time.

You never imagined, not even in your wildest dreams, that you would be in the Port Mafia’s headquarters like this. Being carried through corridor after corridor ,by one of their executives like a doll, although not by your own free will. Guards everywhere, almost at every turn point. Maybe you can break one of the windows and fly out? Alas, that would not possible if all you can generate is little breezes due to your present condition. 

“Do not worry, (y/n).” Feeling your body tense up, Chuuya choose to reassure you, or at least try to. “If simple murder was my objective, you would be dead in that park.” 

There are worse things then death. You really did mess up this time. You do not even want to imagine what they could do to you. 

“Enter.”

Placing you gently on the carpted floor, like a fragile china artifact, Chuuya bowed to the man behind the desk. “I brought (y/n) here, as you requested.” A cloved finger lifts your chin up, forcing you too look up into his eyes. You did not flinch, instead you stared back with unveil anger burning in your (e/c) eyes. 

“Quite a feisty one. Would you like to join us? Your wind ability completely outclasses my other assassins. That speed and that special method! Truly impressive. You should not waste your talents in that agency. The Port Mafia could offer you more.”

Using the little strength you had left, you got away from the mafia’s boss’s reach and shook your head: “I would rather die a gruesome death then working for you. If you want to kill me, you can do it now.” 

“Then, I suppose we need to change our method of negotiation-” Great, you can already feel those cold torture instruments.

“I can handle it.” To your surprise, Chuuya stopped the man from saying any more. 

The older man looks to his subordinate with curious eyes. “Chuuya? Are you sure? Wouldn’t it be better to leave this to our experts?” 

“Leave it to me, boss. She would be compliant within a week, I can guarantee.” Why would he want to trouble himself with this? Well, he merely wants to claim what Dazai cannot, as simple as that. 

“As you wish, then. As long as you do not break her beyond repair, she is all yours.”

You want to shout, to scream that you are not some object to be hand over, but you just do not have the energy to do so. There is not much you can do beside being a silent observer on the ground. 

Instead of a torture chamber, Chuuya took you to his personal quarters in the Mafia base. Perhaps he wants to do this the tender way? Sway you with high salary or numerous other perks of working in this mafia? 

It is when he thrown you on the bed, straddling over your helpless form, tearing your clothes off mercilessly, you realize how wrong you were.

“You look so good under me, where you belong.” He did not even bother to unbutton your blouse, just ripped the fine fabric off swiftly, grinning at your horrified expressions. “Come on, do not look so scared. This is not like you. Where is your fierce spirts when you insult Dazai?” Has he been stalking you? How could he-

“Ah, no matter. That jerk tried to win you over, but it is me who would get you.You would forget all about him when you are busy screaming my name later. Do you think you can handle my torture methods, dear (y/n)? Gods, you are beautiful. No wonder why Dazai would be head over heels for you.” 

How you bit your lip to supress your tears, trying to cover your chest for some modesty, only made his lust increase drastically. This time, Chuuya can finally be proud of his accomplishment: claiming a prize Dazai can never possibly won.

[evemizutohi]

Shadows Fall Behind

Chapter 2

Reader X Class 1-A (for now)

ps. sorry if I spell names wrong I google everything and I find multiple different spellings pls tell me which ones are wrong thankssss

At this point weeks have past since Shinso and I joined Class 1-A. Full days looked like nothing but class lectures and chaos. Ultimately I kept to myself as much as possible with the exception of Shinso and I’s conversations. He has always been super easy to talk to. I still haven’t become accustomed to everyone in this class. They’re much different compared to my friends from our former class.

 I’ve talked a bit with Midoriya only because he has this thing where he mumbles to himself. Once I thought he was talking to me and I couldn’t help but have a one sided conversation with him. Which only ended in him apologizing profusely for doing absolutely nothing wrong. I learned that it was pretty normal for him. I also had a partner assignment with Todoroki. He was very nice but also had this ominous aura around him. I liked that.

“Are you still studying?” I looked up to see Shinso with tired eyes. He was wrapped up in comfy lounge clothes. His hair very erratic and sticking up in every direction. I nodded and then looked back down to my notebook and continued highlighting any important. Which at this point might’ve been my entire notebook. “I can’t seem to get this concept down.” I scratched my nose with my pen still reading.

I was about to ask Shinso about what I was going over when a crashing sound erupted beside us. We both looked over his shoulder and saw Kaminari face planted into the floor and his feet in the air across the room. Then an explosive blond following into the room. “That’s what you get for being an idiot!” 

Shinso stifled a laugh and turned back to me. “What is wrong with that guy?” He shrugged his shoulders and sat down in the chair next to me. “Help me please?” I pointed to a question in my book while pouting my lips and giving him puppy dog eyes. God I hoped it would work. “No way I haven’t  even started.” It did not. 

“Oh come on.” My eyes wandered back down to my pages. A big sigh leaving my mouth. “You could ask Bakugou, he’s doing the best in class right now,” Shinso suggested with a tiny but noticeable smirk on his face. I snapped my head in his direction and gave him the most questionable look I could muster up. That would be the last thing I would ever do. We literally witnessed him toss a kid to the other side of the room. And yes maybe Kaminari had it coming, but he still threw the poor guy. 

It was always obvious to me that Bakugou was rough around the edges. Even before I transferred classes. You could hear his ungodly yelling from across all halls. However, I also learned that he’s pretty okay when unprovoked. He minds his own as long as everyone does the same. Kirishima and Kaminari know that but chose to talk to him against his will anyway. I see the soft spots for them every now and then.

“Yeah right. I don’t want to be tossed next.” I groan and Shino laughs. He watches me close all of my books and cross my arms on the table shoving my face into them. 

“As long as I steer clear from him my limbs will remain connected.”

the next day....

“Okay and Majikku you’ll be with Bakugou.” 

The second those words were spoken by Aizawa I slapped my hand over my face. 

Today was planned sparring and improving our attacks. We were getting paired up to warm up and eventually start putting fighting techniques into practice. Although after being partnered with a human grenade I realized I would most likely be working more on defense than offense. 

I dropped into a squat hugging my knees to my chest. Cowering and thinking about all the ways I might be set on fire today. Until I heard feet approaching where I was squatting. “So are you gonna sit here and waste my time?” Slowly I lifted my head matching stares with intimidating red eyes. He huffed and walked past me moving to the other side of the training arena. 

I stood up from where I crouched and looked for my purple haired adversary around the room. We met eyes and he was already laughing to himself. I subtly flipped him off and went off to follow Bakugou. He stood waiting for me impatiently. “Hurry up extra! I don’t have time to waste.” I fiddled with my fingers standing a couple feet away from him. As soon as my feet planted a sweat induced light beam was hurled at me. I gapsed and hit the floor in order to dodge it. I panicked as more of Bakugou’s quirk was released in seconds. 

He groaned seeing as I would just dodge all of his attacks. He began running in my direction. I felt a tick in the palm of my hands. 

I could help myself right now if I wanted to. I could use it and it would be fine. I could control it and make it better. I could use it for good. Good. 

No.

I suppressed the feeling and dodged Bakugou’s foot from flying straight into my face. His fists thrown in record time trying to connect with any body part he could reach. I blocked an elbow he almost dug into my face and hit his stomach with an uppercut. Which in retrospect wasn’t exactly a smart idea. 

The furry and fire in his eyes only grew. His breathing grew heavy and his chest was heaving with all he had. Oh shit.

He grabbed my shoulder and shot a blast from his hands into my abdomen. Sending me across the floor. I landed straight on my side and rolled over slightly. A stinging feeling in my side grew within the matter of seconds. “Majikku. Y/N. Are you alright?” Aizawa shouted from his spot near Mina. 

I lifted my arm giving him a thumbs up, not moving from my position. “What a weak ass,” Bakugou sputtered. I forced myself to sit up ignoring the sting. Taking all I had to get to my feet. I walked towards the door. Not minding that I was leaving my partner behind. “Where the hell do you think you’re going dumb ass? We’re not done here.” Bakugou seethed. 

I ignored him and kept walking out to the hall. “Hey I’m talking to you!” 

Bakugou tugged at my shoulder causing me to hiss. He moved back watching me adjust my hand on my ribs. He still had a hard expression on his face. Nothing changing but his urgency to get me to fight him. I flicked my eyes to him and then back to the hall I was trying to get down. “The training room is this way you freakin extra. I told you we’re not done.” 

“Well I am.” I sassed him continuing to walk down the hall. Deep and what I would call annoying growls emitting from the anger filled gremlin. He stomped over next to me keeping up with my slow pace. I could smell his burnt aroma and it was distracting. His shoulders were tense and toned from top to bottom. The sweat built up on his skin shining from the natural light reflected off the windows.

He cut me off and stood right in front of me. “Stop ignoring me dammit! You got somewhere better to be?” 

“Yeah to recover girl because you knocked me on my ribs you ass.” He looked taken back for a second but quickly recovered continuing to follow me. He sneered and looked about ready to explode...again. “Maybe if you use the quirk that got you into this class you wouldn’t be bitching about a broken rib.”

“Ribs. Ribs you jack ass. Plural. And I can use my quirk whenever I want. It’s not up to you whether I do or not.” He rolled  his eyes stopping in front of me again. “What a joke! I bet you didn’t even get close to the top at entrance exams right? That’s why you transferred in late.”

I scoffed pushing past him again trying to ignore his presence. “Just admit it you don’t belong in this class. Let alone maybe the hero course.” I stopped and turned to him ready to bash his head in. “Listen you idiot, I got in on recommendations okay! There just wasn’t enough room for me at the start.”

Bakugou stopped in his tracks and laughed. He chuckled in a way that made me feel vulnerable. “Oh I get it now. Another rich kid with a quirk and absolutely nothing to show for it. You’re pathetic. You’re going to burn in this class. You’ll never be a hero. Loser.” I let my head fall as I listened to Bakugou’s steps back to the class. One hand still on my side and the other clenched at my side. I continued walking to the infirmary. 

“One crack of my quirk and it would be over. Asshole.”

[thiswasinevitableid]

Personal Demon (Indruck)

@pantstacular requested: 58 Is such my entire jam I’d pretty much die if you did it with Indruck.  “I’m a demon, you’re a witch, we’re enemies but when I show up to kill you, you’re crying and I really don’t know what to do now.” SFW

A talented, young warlock will employ the most complex, innovative, and powerful wards on their home. 

A seasoned warlock who was never that excited about all this in the first place will employ straightforward but deeply aggravating wards on their home. 

Indrid’s nemesis is in that second category. His wards are never fancy, but they’re durable and reliable, an utter pain in his tail to break down. Some cannot be broken by spells at all, and even a demon of his skill could burn through all his power trying to destroy them.

Which is why Indrid simply pays a passing human twenty dollars to kick a gap in the salt barrier, grits his teeth passing through the Rowan trees while his skin feels like he’s getting a full-body tattoo, and uses an oven mitt to open the iron door knob (the door is lined with iron, so he cannot slip as a shadow beneath it), hissing in pain all the while. 

“Duck Newton…” He lilts, certain the warlock will be terrified to hear his voice in his strong hold, “it is time to end things once and for all, dearest enemy.”

He keeps his eyes on the present, not wanting to spoil the fun for himself by peeking at the futures. He glides into the human’s bedroom, plants his feet on the floor, “your worthless soul is mine.” 

“Ughhhh” a muffled sound, Indrid flicking on the lights to find the human face-down on his bed, “are you fuckin serious? Now?”

“Yes, Duck Newton, now” dark energy crackles in his fingertips. 

Thwump

“Ack!” He shakes his head, Duck now sitting up, preparing to throw another pillow at him. 

“Get out.” Duck glowers, voice flat. 

“You dare to order me-”

Thwump

“Get!” Duck’s eyes are wet, red-rimmed, and Indrid notices he’s in sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt that’s damp in patches. 

“Have you been crying?” 

Thwump and his glasses are knocked askew. 

“How many of those blasted things do you have?” 

Two hovering pillows turn to four and all collide with him at once.

“Clearly you are, ow, in no mindset to, ow, duel me as I, ack, see fit. I shall return!”

He dissolves into shadow and speeds out the door, materializing on the sidewalk and paying a passerby ten dollars to fix the salt ring. 

Not willing to let a plan go to waste, he repeats this process the next night. This time, Duck is laying in the darkened living room. 

“Now, my greatest adversary, it is time to meet your end--why are you still crying?” He cocks his head as Duck magics the light on. 

“Because I’m in my own fuckin’ house and can do whatever I want.”

“But you seem upset.”

“No fuckin shit, sherlock.” Duck raises a throw pillow and Indrid covers his face far faster than he’d ever admit in public.

“I merely mean that, ah, perhaps a duel would be a welcome change of pace?”

“I look like I’m in the headspace to duel to you?” 

“Not at the moment, but that could change, yes? I do wish to destroy you, is that sufficient motivation to shake off this fog of misery that’s hanging about your soul like stale cologne?”

Duck groans, but straightens, reaching over the far arm of the couch. Indrid perks up, approaches at a safe distance, certain he will see a familiar sword or spell in a moment. 

What he gets is misted with holy water.

He hisses, wiping his face in a hurry. His power is so great that the diluted mixture doesn’t harm him, but it’s as if someone is squirting him in the face with lemon juice. 

“I banished you worse ways than this, demon, but I’m fuckin tired and you ain’t worth the goddamn energy and you don’t wanna end up straight back below. So get.” He raises the spray bottle, spritzes him again and Indrid backs away, spluttering and hissing. 

“You, you think you can threaten me, shoo me out like OW some common ghost GAh that was in my nose that time fine, fine I am going.” He stumbles over the threshold, falling on his ass on the pavement as Duck slams the door. 

Perhaps a new plan is in order. 

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

“You wanna know Ducks’ what?” Aubrey taps her spoon on the edge of the potion she’s mixing. 

“His favorite food. I wish to cheer him up. Unless of course, you wish to simply tell me what is troubling him.” Indrid grins at the witch.

“You know the rules, Cold; I don’t trade information between sides. And, like, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you what’s going on with him. It’s...personal, okay?”

Indrid sighs. He expected that answer. Aubrey is the child of a witch of the light and a witch of the shadows, giving her a rare balance of powers. It also means entities of all moral alignments will come to her for aid. Her rules are simple; no fighting in her house and no getting her in the middle of major conflicts.

For all that, Indrid still has never told her his true name. She calls him ‘Cold,’ as everyone does. 

“French Onion Soup. That’s his favorite thing, from the Wolfe Grill downtown.”

“He likes that coffee fudge too, the one Barclay makes” Dani, Aubrey’s wife, adds from her spot spinning fur off a massive angora rabbit. 

Barclay is a kitchen witch, one with whom Indrid has a shaky truce (he egged on a fight in the restaurant, needing some quick points with the higher demons. It’s not his fault one of the humans knocked over a candle). He can probably manage to buy fudge without being scolded.

Duck’s added more fortifications since yesterday, and Indrid only needs a few moments anyway. He finds a sliver in a plane that lets him slip into Duck’s mirror, knowing the human is getting ready for bed. 

The human senses him, looks up from the sink, toothbrush still in his mouth. He blinks once, to tired to even count as annoyance.

“ ‘wat ‘ow?”

“I have brought you food.” Indrid waits until Duck spits into the sink to pass the two bags out of the mirror. 

“Why-”

“It will cheer you up. It is your favorite. Then you will have your fight back, and be ready to face me.”

Duck takes the bags, then several steps back, “y’know, most demons would see this is a chance to get me while I’m down.”

“Well” Indrid sniffs haughtily, “I am not most demons. Besides, what good is claiming your soul if it was like stepping on an ant?”

The warlock looks at the food, then at Indrid, “I ain’t gonna eat this.”

“Bu-wha-I got it specifically to please you!”

“And it could be poisoned or cursed or some shit.”

Indrid growls in frustration, “fine, wallow in your misery.” Then he’s out on the street again, ready to cause some evil. Or to go back to the bakery and drown his aggravation in a caramel eggnog latte.

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

Duck stares at the bags, still sitting on his kitchen counter. If he’s not going to bed any time soon, he should at least eat something. Not that though. Even if it’s his favorite. How the fuck did the demon know that?

Cold has never quite been like other demons Duck’s run across. When he’d yanked him out of Boyd (because Ned decided to read the inscription on a new artifact for the Cryptonomica), he hadn’t taken it personally, but proceeded to try and tempt Duck for two days solid with everything he could think of. Then he decided he liked Kepler and could do plenty of demonic work in it, which had Duck worried. The demon is powerful, he can feel it when they fight. But, while he still worries, Cold sticks to being a mid-level threat at best even if he keeps promising to destroy him.

God that soup smells good. 

He picks up a piece of amethyst, runs it over and over the air around the bag. No trace of anything dangerous. 

Fuck it.

Twenty minutes later his belly is full, he actually feels kinda sorta almost borderline happy, and he hasn’t turned into a frog or been transported to the underworld. 

When Cold inevitably shows up again a few days later, Duck doesn’t even look up from the model ship he’s working on . 

“Thanks for, uh, for dinner.” 

“How did you know I was here?” The silver-haired man steps out of the hall, red eyes glowing behind redder glasses. 

“I may not be able to sense auras or souls or shit, but you and I been dancin around each other for long enough that I can tell when the hair on my neck is standin up thanks to you.”

“Then you are prepared to fight?”

“No. Look, I dunno now how it is for demons, but takes more than nice food to make a fella get over somethin serious.”

���I see…” Cold looks around the room, “are you certain you are not interested in even a small bit of conflict?”

“Nope. Busy.”

“Well I am not!”

“Can’t you just go find another warlock to bother?””

“No! Well, yes, but I do not wish to. You are my adversary, the one I devote most of my time to tormenting.”

“That’s kinda an exaggeration. And it don’t change that I’m workin on this.” He points to the model, “so I’m just gonna ignore you until you leave.”

There’s a huff, followed by the fluttering of his mail as the demon knocks it onto the floor. He glances up and notices that Cold’s tail is now visible and twitching with agitation. When Duck does nothing else, he knocks the remaining mail on the ground. 

“That ain’t changin my mind.”

A roll of glass on tile, Cold pushing a water glass towards the edge of the counter with his finger. 

“Y’won’t like what happens if you do that.”

The glass tips over. As water spills onto the floor, Duck summons a towel with one hand and a dish of salt with the other. Before the demon can stop him, he draws a salt circle, trapping him in a small spot by the table. 

“Erase that this instant.”

“Nope. You been poppin in and out the last two weeks and not leavin when I ask nicely, so now you’re gonna stay right here until I decide you can leave.”

The demon drops down onto the floor, arms crossed and tail thrashing, “I just do not see what is so severe it makes you uninterested in anything but work, sleep, and making ships that cannot go anywhere.”

“Don’t expect you to understand.”

“Yes, but you also will not tell me so how can you know if-” a future flickers into vision, “your romantic partner left you.”

“That’s cheatin’.”

“That is what has upset you so?”

“Yeah, because we were together for six fuckin years, and she watched me grow up since I was eighteen and was my mentor and it feels like a big constant in my life is just fuckin gone.” He leaves out the part where he'd felt it going for awhile, where part of him knew it needed to but the rest wanted things to stay as they were. 

The demon cocks his head in that way of his, smirks but says nothing.

“Nevermind. You’re a demon, love ain’t somethin you got a concept of.” He stands, retrieving another bottle of adhesive from the too-empty living room. 

As he picks up the next piece, Cold murmurs, “It is not so foreign a concept as you might think.”

Duck shoots him an incredulous look. 

“I was a creature of the divine once, beings capable of great love, even if many of them do not utilize that capacity. Even if I was not supposed to in my role. But more than the memory of that feeling, I have moments in which I suspect I can feel it still.”

“Like when you see someone do somethin real wicked?” 

The demon doesn’t rise to the paltry bait, “When I go sit in a park, or those woods you like, and draw and watch people coming and going in a thousand little moments of mundanity, I feel something more than mere tranquility. Sometimes I will go to movies or to concerts, to feel the swell of joy and excitement, and it almost seems as if I love those around me.”

It’s the last thing Duck expects him to say, and so all he can do is stare at him a moment before returning to his work. The demon, content with the silence, watches cross-legged. When Duck grabs a packet of cookies from the kitchen he pauses, then hands one to Cold. 

The demon sniffs it, proceeds to nibble on the edge before making a delighted sound and shoving the whole thing in his mouth. 

“You never had Girl Scout cookies before?”

“No. I do not need to eat, and often only do so when temptation requires it. Or when Barclay makes something with eggnog in it.  Which is a pity; I really enjoy human food, you come up with such interesting things. Now it is my turn for a question. Why are you making those?”

Duck looks at the near-complete model, “I dunno. Helps me relax, nice to just be able to focus on one thing rather than worryin’ about work or warlock stuff or dyin’ alone or if you’re gonna randomly turn up in my goddamn bedroom without warnin’.”

“Knocking is not exactly demonic.”

He says it so matter-of-factly, the smile on his face oddly honest, that Duck cracks up. Giggles spill out of him as he rests his face in his hands. His elbows slip on the shiny tabletop, collapsing him forward, laughing loud enough to startle the cat from her hiding place. 

“Yeah” he sniffs, finally sitting up while wiping away tears and still chuckling, “guess it ain’t.”

The demon is smiling again, softer than his usual grin that glints like a knife in the dark. 

“Will you show me more of your ships?”

“You ain’t gettin outta that circle that easy.”

“I am aware. But you could bring them where I could see.” He seems genuinely excited at the idea. 

Duck stands, hands him the packet of Thin Mints, “I could do that, yeah. Sit tight, I’ll be right back.”

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

Duck picks up to the two reusable grocery bags, locking doors and throwing up extra wards behind him as he walks to his car. 

He slides into the drivers seat, sets the bags in back behind him. Turns around and finds the passenger seat occupied. 

“Venturing forth at last, I see.”

“I ventured forth plenty.”

“That was only for work. You have been the picture of a hermit since you were dumped, Duck Newton.” Cold adjusts his glasses in the rear-view mirror. 

“Have not. And it was mutual.”

“Shall we get out of the car so I can destroy you?”

“We could do that. Or…” he points at the bags, the demon peering into them curiously, “we could take these two bags of snacks to a concert in the park.”

Cold bites his lip. Duck holds his breath, already gearing up his spells in case the demon says no.

A seatbelt clicks, “very well.”

They find a spot under some trees, far back from the crowd. Cold is in his human disguise, but Duck would rather not risk being seen if his tail or horns make an appearance. The concert is all movie soundtracks that Duck doesn’t pay attention to. He’s too busy watching the demon gleefully explore the food he brought (he chose the weirdest desserts and snacks he could find, wanting to give him a taste of things he’d never had) and talking with him about more or less everything.

As they’re getting into the car under the light of the half moon, Cold sighs happily, “we should do this again sometime.”

“Yeah, we could. Just uh, don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

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

Duck is up to his elbows in the pieces of an IKEA dresser when Cold’s voice comes through the mirror.

“I need to be let in right now please and thank you.”

He sounds pained, so Duck hurries out to the front yard and opens the circle, allowing the demon to pass through. He’s hunched at an odd angle, clutching at his back. Once they’re inside he strips off his coat, revealing a splinter at the base of his neck. 

“Shit, what happened?”

“I materialized in the house of a well-prepared witch and was immediately backed into a Hawthorne bush. Lucky I am not a vampire, but gracious it stings.”

“Why come to me?” Duck is already guiding him to the couch.

“I thought you might be able to help. Also it is movie night.”

Duck examines the injury; it’s a small splinter, but the skin is already looking sickly. 

“Should be an easy fix. Lemme get my tools and I can get to work.”

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

Indrid waits patiently for Duck to return, tries not to hiss at him too loudly when he pulls the splinter free. The human works quickly, and soon a tingling salve coats the sore spot. 

Rather than pull away, Duck smooths his hands down Indrid’s back, “damn, you’re all knotted up.”

“I was trying not to move too much and aggravate it.”

Duck’s thumbs rub small circles along his back, “here, I can fix that real easy.”

Indrid foresees where his fingers will touch next and let’s his desire overtake his caution. When Ducks hands come down again, he whimpers and wiggles happily. 

“Uhhhhh”

“It is my wings. In a way. They exist on another plane when not manifested here, and where you are touching is the place where it feels as you are stroking them.”

“That a good thing?”

“Yes, but you do not need to continue if you do not waAAhnnnt” he gasps as Duck slowly, steadily, runs his fingers over the spot again and again. 

The human leans forward, giggling, and whispers in his ear, “you’re purrin’.”

“I am awarerrrrrrrr.” His tail and horns appear, seeming to understand there is no need to hide here.  One of Duck’s hands skates up to his head, petting his hair and stroking his horns.

He whines, pushes his head into Duck’s hand for more. 

“Is this-”

“No Duck Newton, it is not sexual. It can be, but at the moment it simply feels comforting and pleasurable.” He purrs louder as Duck rubs the base of one horn. 

“That’s a good, uh, good demon? Bein’ so patient while I patch him up.” Duck coos. 

“Yes.” Indrid whimpers. 

“Lookit you, goin all mushy on me, so goddamn cute. Who knew you had it in you.”

“Duck.” Something is coiling through his veins, warm and ecstatic, as the human keeps up his stream of praise.

“Right here, demon of mine, just relax, lemme tend to you, there we go, you’re bein so good, such a charmin demon.”

Tears prick his eyes; he can’t, he can’t handle Duck speaking this way but speaking as if Indrid could be changed out for any one of his kind. He wants to know he means those words for him, he must, the feelings flooding him are incomplete without it and if they remain so he will wither away.

“Indrid, please, call me that.”

“Indrid.” It sounds joyous in that drawl as Duck adds a hint of pressure to his touches, “Indrid, you oughta stop gettin into trouble, oughta just stay here and put your head in my lap.”  The human is getting carried away, the fantasies becoming more elaborate, interspersed with his name, until the name itself becomes the litany. 

Indrid cries out, the energy in his veins enveloping him utterly for a moment, wings of absolute darkness flashing into view for an instant

He collapses forward, shaking, hoping the thanks pouring from his mouth are intelligible. 

“You, uh, you doin’ okay--Oh FUCK!”

Indrid whirls, finds Duck staring at his arm. There are glowing markings on it, blue and black light fading into a facsimile of ink on his skin. 

“What did you do?”

“What did I do? What makes you think this has anything to do with me?”

“Because this wasn’t there a minute ago! And you got one too!”

“I…” Indrid gapes at his forearm, where a matching symbol is setting in his skin. “Oh dear.”

“What?”

“It is, ah, well, it is a soul bond.”

“How in the everlovin’ fuck did that happen--wait, fuck, is Indrid your true name?”

“Yes.” 

“Shit! I thought you gave me another false one, or I never woulda kept saying it. I ain’t that kind of warlock, I don’t want a personal demon.”

“I am not exactly thrilled either. I cannot return to the underworld, and for the first few days of the bond I will need to stay very close to you. All the same, that was rash of me and I am sorry.”

Duck rubs his forehead, takes a deep breath, “we’ll deal with it tomorrow. Right now, all I wanna do is sleep.”

“I as well. I suspect that took a lot of energy from both of us.”

The human stands, heading off towards the bedroom. As soon as he’s out of sight, pangs pulse through Indrid’s chest.

“Ah, Duck?”

A groan, “yeah, I feel it too. Get in here.”

Indrid hurries to the bed, finds Duck down to his boxers as he turns over the covers. 

“I, ah, I can sleep on the floor, or get a blanket for that chair, or lay by your feet.”

Duck pats the bed, “sleepin next to you ain’t nothin’ compared to bein’ soul bonded. Bed feels too big anyway. And none of that by my feet talk; you’re my equal, not my fuckin pet, even if you are a pain in my ass sometimes.”

Indrid crawls in beside him, lays stiffly on his back as the lights go out. After so much contact, his body aches to touch Duck again. 

A hand rests in the space between them, and Indrid takes it.

“Duck? I, ah, I am glad that if this had to happen to me, it was you who it happened with. I cannot think of another warlock I would actually enjoy being linked too.”

“Feelin’s mutual.” Duck squeezes his hand, voice gentle.

Indrid rolls to face him, and in the dark he can just make out the slight smile on the warlock’s face. 

“Goodnight, Duck.”

A yawn, then, “sleep tight, Indrid.”

[yconic]

Guess who was bored and decided to make a Stonytasha pirate AU sjsj

Alright so!! What I had in mind: Th name of infamous pirate captain Tony Stark , stretched across all land for being the skilled and more than ruthless bandit that Steve Rogers, son of a navy/military general, finds himself to be too infatuated with.

Like, proper and posh Steve, with just a whisk of innocence and fragility falling for charming and flirty sea bandit that is Tony , who stops mid battle with his dad's crew to kiss his cheek while evading getting hurt?? Cuteness, I have no self control sksksk

When Black Sabbath ambushes the town of Brooks, Joseph Rogers is crimson to the hairline at being caught so unprepared. Due to celebrating his son's birthday the day prior.

Half his force stood ditzy on their feet, still so drowned into the debauchery they failed to realize the pirate ship they were supposed to guard was floating carelessly at the docks has been there for two hours.

In their surprise, Tony and his crew aren't spreading chaos or destruction. They carry the calmness of a silent storm, not thunder but raindrops as they collect what they can carry. From bare necessities such as food to a random jewelry that caught their eye.

Steve knows retaliation wouldn't result in a victory. At least 10 men against one aren't odds that favour him. Not only is he outnumbered, but he is also undertrained. Despite being a soldier in name, his father had been adamant about actually introducing him to the practice. Steve is tore between being grateful or regretful about his incliation to arts now.

They're not hurting anyone. That's what confuses him.

He would love to paint the Captain, however. Even a quick sketch would have sufficed, even if it wouldn't do justice to the undeniable beauty in front of him. Tony was a rarity he couldn't pry his eyes off of. Hair dark and soft looking curling at the nape of his neck, Skin kissed by sun, complimenting the gold beam smile that's too enchanting for it's own good.

The pools of brown lock with him for a moment, but it was enough to make his legs buckle slightly. Those were the Deadeyes, he told himself, that put fright in monsters and men alike. Except the cruelty, coldness, and blankness from the tales he's heard was missing. Tony was alive, and he was laughing.

The smile grew bigger as he advanced in his direction, dropping the sack of goods he's been carrying not even a moment ago. Steve made the effort of keeping his eyes past the pirate's shoulder instead of the sight of his bare chest, provided by the low cut red blouse.

Steve felt his face burning, which only seemed to amuse the Captain further if the chuckle sending shivers down his spine was any clue worth following.

"You're Rogers blood, " Tony commented easily, tone full of glee. Even if he was taller between them, Steve never felt so small. His form turned to wood when calloused fingers rested on his jawline, touch gentle.

Almost too loving for what they probably done. Steve wanted to melt into it. "Pretty fella, aren't you, sweetling?"

Steve's dry throat was, at once, workable again. "And you, the pirate sacking my town, " he responded, voice silkier than he intended. The darkness of Tony's eyes intensified with just a shade, but it was enough to make him swallow a whine. "You'd have better luck in Quinz. From what I hear they've been recently restocked. Why us?"

A rich laugh boomed from Tony. "Darling, " he started, grin crooked and voice dripping in honey. "You don't KNOW what a sacking done by me looks like." Steve was positive he never wanted to find out.

Silence washed over them for a moment before the pirate spoke again.

"We're just taking what we need, not want. We're housing a few extra guests and we regrettably ran out of food, which is terribly embarrassing for me. I've been told I hold the title of the best host over all 50 seas. My people shouldn't expect less than the best, as I'm sure you understand."

"If you wish, we can also provide you with an appron, " Steve said, waiting for the thin ice to crack. Tony's lips quirked upwards and somehow the nobleborn knew he won't sink just yet. The blonde's hand extended in invitation. "I'm not certain what the manner pirates use to introduce themselves, but here we shake hands. I am Steve Rogers."

"It may shock you, but some of us swap spit. I suppose however, since we're on your land I'll comply to your rules, " a wink and a tongue leaking with sarcasm, accompanied with a firm handshake enough to make Steve's skin raise upwards. "You know who I am."

Steve nodded. "Deadeyes. Parents and eldery tell the children about you."

"Jesus, " Tony swore. "I'm not sure if I should be proud of by my everlasting popularity or offended that so many consider me an ancient ghost ship. Why parents think I'm an appropriate subject for discussion escapes me."

"They do it so the children won't grow up like you."

"Grow up? Oh no darling I'm afraid I only grew old, " Tony chuckled, eyes dancing on the blonde's body, making Steve feel warm. "But only in certain fields."

"You could have tried to buy something if you were in need. Like all people do."

"I would love to, but not only are my pockets in great mourning, I must say your system makes it very difficult for people like me to make ends meet."

"The criminals?"

"The poors."

Before either men could say more, a fire was shot in the open. Tony reacted in a blink move, pushing the blonde to the ground with a shocking force. He heard someone shout Tony's name, but the ringing in his sensitive ears dafted all sound trying to stab in.

"Stay down until the fire dims, then find shelter!" The pirate's order came in form of a yell, but to Steve's ears it was more of a soft instruction. He could spot familiar boots with the glittering royal emblem shining blindly through the dust blinding his vision

The force is chasing the crew, more drunk than awake, shooting at whatever they can aim. The blonde's heart slammed against his ribcage, adrenaline and fear for his people coursing through his blood at an alarming speed as the men flooded the market place.

Steve was quick on his feet, body becoming it's own host as he helped the two men, -- whom by the looks of it were apart of Tony's crew, -- lead the people to the town's church where they would be safest. The tail of his eye spied a flash of red darting above them on the roofs, but before he had the chance of getting a better look, he was knocked aside by the crowd.

The gates were locked shut.

Steve resigned behind the closest beer barrels, placing his hand on the pistol harness tucked safetly on his hip, ignoring the slight tremble of his digits. He leaned over to peek through the tangle of soldiers and bandits huddled up together like fight dogs in a ring, at the violent scenery Tony painted with a mindnumbing grace.

The footing was almost too hard to follow with the bare eyes. The pirate seemed to barely touch the ground, blade cutting through the air with a force that temporality privated Steve from air. He was accustomed to battle, twin swords in each hand seeming at home and comfortable.

He trapped the wrist of one soldier between the edges of his weapon, head moving just in time before the bullet shot could crave his skull. The military man received a kick in the gut, sending him straight to the floor.

Tony was swift on his toes, predicting the sloppy moves of his adversaries and dodging them with ease, smirk sharp and lethal as the men around him hit the ground like rain. By gun shot, he realized, put to the ground by a shower of lead. His eyes hunted every direction in hope of finding the gunslinger but with no such luck.

The soldiers groaned from their spot on the ground, each holding onto their bleeding legs. Most of the damage was done to either their hands or inferior limbs area. The coin dropped. Whoever it was, their objective was not to dig graves, but a weeksworth of bed rest, if that. The symphony of battle got quieter and quieter for Steve, who failed to register Tony making his way to him.

"Love, we have to stop meeting like this, for the sake of your heart. " He thought he heard. Steve couldn't make out the words properly, sentences becoming incoherent .

Everything became white noise and unclear, blurry dark silhouettes. The nerves in his body all numbed, lost of feeling until a rough hand curled around the nape of his neck. The firm but tender touch provided him some much-needed grounding.

His senses awakened again, his being coming back slowly. His mind was sober enough to hear the pleasant graveness of Tony's voice whispering sweetly against his ear as he raised him from the soil that tainted the fine cloth.

"It's over now, " he soothed as a child does a spooked animal, thumb rubbing circles into the sweat coated skin. Tony did not hesitate to brush his lips across. "Please, sweetling, return to me, will you? You were brave, doing exactly as I told you. I have you. You're safe now."

"I was a coward, " he retorted, mouth bitter and eyes burning. "I HID from battle, from the danger, while my people were attacked. What kind of soldier does that?"

"So what? Better a dead hero than a living man?" Tony asked sternly. "Your people are safe, are they not? You lead them to the church, Steve. You protected them, and--" the cock of a pistol made them both pause.

A tiny gasp slipped past Steve's lisp as the soldier who they both missed sneaked behind them, firearm aimed at Tony's back. The smaller man planted between him and the attacker, not letting him be exposed to danger.

"You don't want to do this. Trust me." Tony warned mildly. "I am trying to give you a way out, you'd be smart to take it." The soldier was stilled, and the gun wasn't lowered. His finger caressed the trigger.

"I see, " strangely, he could hear a hint of smile in Tony's voice. "So. Is this the end of me?"

Steve's eyes were clamped tight, fingers clenched around the thin material of Tony's dress shirt as the bang of fire lingered in the air. After a passing minute, he felt something fast and hot shredding the oxygen right beside his left ear.

When the black faded away, Steve was not expecting to see Tony still standing, and the soldier shot down clutching at his injured soldier. The shot hasn't came from him, but from behind him. Whipping around, Steve paused in mild shock. A small woman, not tall enough to reach his shoulder without raising on her tips, had her slandered arm extended and wileding a pistol.

Her looks was deceivingly innocent, features soft yet sculpted pleasantly resting in a mask of winter were captivating. Her hair was red and her most eye catching asset, warm auburn and planted in a bun, reminding Steve of autum leaves painted in rusty undertoned he loved to collect when the season was of middle.

Fierce green eyes melted as they landed on Tony, the stone in them cracked. A glimpse of adoration washed over them, clearly exposing the nature of their connection. Steve felt his heart clench.

For some reason, her voice decreased some of the burn his chest scorched with. "Not today, Captain."

[agreementtale]

Chapter 13: Mother who?

“Prove to me you are strong enough to survive!”

They felt themselves aggressively being pulled into a fight.

* Toriel blocks the way!

The strong vibration on her soul nullified any other sound in the room, they could see the world turning black and white, and at the same time shining with brighter colors, like their perception had been split into two windows.

In one, the world around had disappeared, there was nothing more than the encounter, the adversary standing against them, no colors to be seen, except four yellow options at a hand’s reach and a red soul floating ahead, ready for battle.

In the other, they could feel their feet preparing to run and dodge, their tense shoulders moving at each breath, they could see yellow fire illuminating the narrow corridor and her purple robe swinging with each new flame that danced too close, her red eyes illuminated with rage and a little brown boot casted safely aside.

But the music… the music could be heard from both perspectives. And in both it was heart breaking.

* Toriel – ATK 80 DEF 80

* Knows best for you.

They couldn’t avoid checking her, she was as strong as they supposed. And she wasted no time with pleasantries.

The fire came in waves, and they urged their feet to move, two streams of fireballs flied crossing each other, engulfing almost all the width of the corridor. They dodged between the gaps, where the streams had less fireballs, getting close to one of the walls.

* Toriel prepares a magical attack.

Pressing the mercy button, it was her turn again. Their intent was enough to make the fight progress fluidly.

With a few hand movements bigger balls of raging fire appeared floating around her, and a sweep of her paw shoot them all in their direction, bouncing at the walls, the attack was stronger than before, and it appeared to follow them, despite their dodging skills, pain blossomed on their leg.

After the worse of the attack a quick look showed the white numbers over the black background. HP 35/20. Luckily they were both well rested and well fed.

* Toriel takes a deep breath.

One button, and was again her turn.

New waves of fire went through the hall, this time several flew really close to the walls, not allowing them the same safe spot, they had to dodge between the gaps constantly, jumping to their sides, the walls were full of them, they couldn’t avoid another blow, taking more 4 damage on their HP.

* Toriel looks through you.

Their brother was silent, as were they and their mother. The ACT button was alluring, but there was nothing to be said, so again, they just spared her.

New streams of fireballs, too thick to dodge, forming a helix, their only chance was to keep themselves carefully in between them, it was too quick to pass through, but they were not careful enough, and now their HP was void of the bonuses they were counting on.

“What you think you are proving?” Her cold voice surprised them, with both of her paws new waves of magic burned through the air. Despite the new damage, they stood strong on their decision.

*MERCY

*Spare

“Attack or run away” The helix of fire brightened the hall, it was impossible to see from where the attack was coming, it was all burning blinding light. It shot pain through their limbs and exposed skin every time they were hit.

If it wasn’t for the vision of the red heart and the cartoonish fire on the black and white board, they would have taken fatal damage.

*MERCY

*Spare

“Sparing me won’t save you” But she was wrong. Sparing was the only option.

*MERCY

*Spare

“Fight me or leave” And they would keep sparing her.

*MERCY

*Spare

“Stop it” Even if being hit was painful.

*MERCY

*Spare

“I won’t let you leave” Even if being burned was agonizing.

*MERCY

*Spare

“Go back” Even if dying by her hands was terrifying in ways that torn their soul apart.

*MERCY

*Spare

The possibility of failure…

*MERCY

*Spare

Was the scariest thing they ever felt.

*MERCY

*Spare

“I know you want to go but…” Her soft voice broke pattern that had been established on the last turns, the music of her soul getting so weak they could barely hear it “Please stop fighting now” a slowed, sadder melody following her words “I don’t want to kill you” Her red eyes were illuminated by the wavering orange “You won’t survive another blow”

They had nothing to say, their intent to spare her was enough to let her know.

“And I can’t let you leave either” she motioned her hands “He will kill you… and then all humans” but they were trembling too hard “Man, woman and children alike…” her voice carried a heavy weight “Please…”

It hurt see her that way. They could feel the truth of her words on the way her intent manifested through her magic.

“I promise I will take good care of you” and she knew they believed her words with all their soul “We can have a good life here” but she also knew it wasn’t enough to make them stay “Why are you making this so difficult?”

They wanted to run to her and give her a hug, to tell her about their plan and how she would be happy if she just waited a little longer.

“Ha ha…” She shook with her whole body “Pathetic” falling on her knees “I cannot save” tears running free “even” they wanted to comfort her “a single” but they couldn’t “child” because that’s how they died last time.

In the blink of her eyes, all the flames floating around started to spin, the attack grew faster and more intense, the whole hall was covered in raging fire.

There it was.

This vortex that killed them last time.

Strange, displaced, but not unfamiliar, it just didn’t belong here.

The four waves of small fireballs curved themselves in a double helix pattern, it was stronger near her, and weaker and sparse near the beginning of the hall, all accompanied by a hot wind, like the flames were physically pushing them to go back to the house.

Stubbornness and low HP had led to a pretty bad outcome, they could feel the heat on their hair, the memory of the smell taunted them, their arms ached from the burns they might get if caught again between the flames, the Faded Ribbon doing nothing to shield the attacks.

They ate the Candy on their inventory, if only to gain a little more health before their next move.

The waves were stronger, but they had to get to her.

The fire touched their limbs in painful scratches, they covered their face, where the skin was more sensible, it felt like jumping straight into a camping fire.

Here, near the source it was so much more suffocating, they couldn’t possibly avoid a fireball hitting them in the face, there was no time to dodge, so they just blocked with their right arm, their HP dropping to 1 and physically burning their skin.

But they didn’t have time to waste on the white pain blossoming on their hand or on the steaming air clawing at their lungs.

They were hit.

As a muscle reflex, they sprinted ahead. In any other situation they would be killed by the several fireballs still in the way.

But they had just been hit.

And they had a small window where they had to get past the attacks.

A small frame, between her attack hitting them, and the magic signature that it carried fading on the battlefield. In this little time window, when her magic signature was already causing them damage, no other of her attacks could also hit.

For half of a second, they were invincible.

They didn’t think.

Feet carrying them past the deadly embers.

They didn’t know how they knew this, it wasn’t important.

One thing was important.

She was suffering.

Wailing for them to turn around, unwilling to let another be killed, blindly striking anything that got too close, just for the fact that she was too kind to aim, too motherly to harm any child on her sight.

She has there on her knees, face hidden on her hands, tears glistening in the dancing flames. Blind to the world around her. She was the strongest and the weakest they ever saw her, at the same time.

Crossing the line of fire, they hugged her as tightly as they could.

And the flames calmed, cooling the air into a warm embrace.

______________________

First

Last

Next

[vkelleyart]

Regarding “Impostor Syndrome” and other deadly maladies.

In the mid 2000s, I took an anatomical drawing class with the Art League in Alexandria, VA. It was my first (and only) art class, and while my fellow students represented a wide range of artistic experience and ages - the youngest was a candy-haired college student and the eldest looked like Gandalf if he’d gone vacationing in Boca Raton - I seemed to be the only one there without some kind of legitimate background in art. These folks were art majors, art teachers, or art enthusiasts. My artistic experience? I drew Harry Potter fanart for fun.

On the first day of class, everyone showed up with their well-worn pencils and sketchbooks and decal-decorated toolboxes full of charcoals and crayons. They knew what to do with the massive easels with the clippy thingies I was too short to reach. I was there with a large sketch pad and a ziploc bag containing only the basic set of tools mandated by the class, both of which I had picked up at the Art League store earlier that day. 

I have no idea what I was expecting. This wasn’t the same as posting my sketches to LiveJournal. Online, it was easy to hide that I was an illegitimate artist. There, sitting in a circle of easels while a real artist talked about shapes and contours as a woman sat on a stool in her bathrobe waiting to undress, I was painfully aware of how exposed I was. 

But there was no backing out now. I’d saved up nickels and dimes (literally) to pay for this instruction and I clearly needed it, given how frustrated I was every time I tried to draw the human figure. So I told myself to lay low and just do my best. But every time the teacher walked around to observe us, he would stop behind my shoulder and make recommendations for adjustments. I could feel my classmates’ eyes burn into me as they glanced at me from behind their easels. No one else was getting their hand held this way. 

I was devastated. I didn’t realize I was so behind.

The third or fourth week into the course, the instructor of the class (whose name I wish I remembered, but who’d contributed illustrations to the Washington Post and the New Yorker when he wasn’t straight up producing fine art to be sold for thousands of dollars) told me to stay behind after class. 

Here it comes, I thought: my invitation to leave and transfer to “Drawing for Beginners.”

He asked me if I’d had prior instruction. I told him I didn’t. 

“You clearly have an instinct for this,” he said. “Your classmates have yet to demonstrate what I’m seeing in you, and we’re only a third of the way through the course. This is something you should really pursue and develop. I’d like to teach you privately.”

My jaw dropped. I didn’t know what to say, so I’m pretty sure I started stammering, because that’s what I do when I’m gobsmacked. I couldn’t give him an answer on the spot, so he made me promise him a decision after the course was over.

At the end of the summer, once the class had finished, we exchanged emails but, ultimately, even after he lowered his fee several times, there was no way I could pay for his tutelage on the salary I was making. 

I remember the night I sent him the last email, in which I thanked him for his generosity and for his faith in my abilities but had to decline his offer. I simply couldn’t afford private instruction. 

I hit ‘send,’ and then I cried myself to sleep.

Fast forward to today, and I’m still haunted by that summer. Every so often, I wonder what kind of artist I’d be if only I’d had the money to go further with my teacher the way he wanted me to. Every time I reach for the eraser or I find myself leaning too hard on shortcuts, it kicks up that feeling I had when I was sitting in that class on the first day of instruction. That I’m not a true artist because I don’t have the degree or the experience or the validation of critics. 

That I’m an impostor.

While I’m getting better at bearing witness to that critical voice when it arises (as opposed to identifying with and integrating it), it occasionally worms its way back into my consciousness to dismantle my courage and subvert my creative energies. And when it does, it’s like coming down with the flu. I’m fuzzy. Derailed. Diminished.

If I’m not careful, that line of thinking becomes a legitimate adversary that  steers me away from anything that feeds my soul. It tells me lies about being useless, being unoriginal, and having nothing to say through my art. That I’m not worth a higher price tag on the art I do produce, and that a life beyond cobbling together standard-looking vector art for yet another government training module belongs to artists who have the fine arts diploma on their wall.

This is precisely where I was at last August. And then I picked up a book that inspired me to pick up my pencil, and it was astonishing when inspiration began to crowd out the ways I was immersing myself in self-doubt. Astonishing because that negativity had built up so slowly over the course of 8 years that I didn’t realize I was drowning in it until I’d pulled myself back out with my sketchbook.

It’s like this:

A friend of mine through the activism group I belong to said she was once asked to describe herself the way her friends and loved ones would describe her.

“They would all call me a leader,” she said. “But for some reason, I couldn’t call myself that.” It didn’t feel honest for her, even though her actions, her convictions, and her ability to galvanize others proved that she was, indeed, leadership material. She was suffering from the same impostor syndrome I was.

She and I both decided we were going to go to the mattresses against that inner “censor” this year. And, lemme tell you, it’s hard because every day, it adjusts its strategy against me, attacking from different angles and finding new weaknesses. Today, it’s scrolling through the work of an artist I admire and feeling inadequate compared to them. Tomorrow, it’ll be something else. But whatever strategy it employs to take me down, I’m fortifying my defenses every time I pick up the pencil and draw in spite of the voice that tries to convince me there is no worthwhile end game to my efforts.

I share this here, not only because writing this out is part of my personal fight, but also because I know there are many other creative people on Tumblr who feel this way and grapple with not feeling “enough.” 

It doesn’t matter what your path was before today, if today is the day you decide you are a creator. And if, after living your truth, your inner critic makes you doubt who/what you are, find someone who knows and loves you to put you right again.

When I feel like less than what I should be, like I’m Pinocchio waiting to be a real boy, I’m going to think about my son. I’ve never told him my job title for the government, and while he sees me drawing all the time, my professional activities go largely undisclosed. But this past December, when his Kindergarten teacher asked him what his mommy does for a living, his answer was, “She’s an artist.” 

And I believe him.

[dukemassetti]

09.12.2018

In dear Verona, where we lay our scene...  [ ENTER Edmund, who has summoned Miranda and Orsino to his home. ]

EASTON.

Easton read and reread the text, already experiencing a sinking feeling in his stomach. The month had been a complete disaster, with Maeve killing someone, with Orion punching him in the fucking face, and with his own insecurities exploding from every pore of his body. For someone who had pretended at confidence and security, he felt as if he had just been beaten and bruised for two weeks straight. Instead of any reprieve, as if he was naive enough to think he’s have one, the text arrived brutally. The ding that it sent off made Easton’s body tense, and as he read through, he knew this was something he couldn’t fuck up. No more playing at Captain, no more sending his team in without backup. The lessons he learned were swift and eye opening, and there would be no second chance.

He kept his phone out and quickly started typing in the group chat he had for Orion and Maeve. “Meet at my place in ten, new mission to go over.”

How was he going to pull this off? The job didn’t exactly seem difficult, but as soon as the door rang he would immediately be waiting to be attacked once more. And while his relationship with Maeve was cordial at best, he had a hard time believing she’d be happy to see him either. But failure was a word he refused to swallow. He didn’t want to prove everyone right. Bastard could just be an insult, not the rest of his life. The only thing he had to do now was wait. Wait, and plan, and settle upon the fact that Maeve and Orion had done great things without him, and they could do it all over again.

Easton stared at his door, his leg shaking, and his hands wringing. The time to prove himself was now, and although he could still feel the bruise that graced his face thanks to Orion, this was no time to reopen fresh wounds. As soon as the knocks came, he would be ready to face the mission head on. 

If you don’t, then consider yourself demoted once more.

The words were burned in his mind, and the only thing left to do was prove that maybe this would never be his team, but they could be a team. 

The knock comes, and soon both Orion and Maeve are walking through his front door.

ORION.

Orion almost slept through the text. Would have, honestly, if not for the fact that he’d fallen asleep at his desk with his phone under his cheek. It chimed loud enough to startle him, and he fumbled with it a moment, non-verbally arguing with Touch I.D. until it worked and allowed him to read the text.

Ten fucking minutes? Really, you brat? 

Alright, maybe it wasn’t the normal time for people to be asleep, but he was having to do a ridiculous amount of research ahead of his other mission. He didn’t have time for this. Yet this, he reminded himself, was the test Cosimo had set out for him. He needed to do everything, from going to Japan to helping Easton and Maeve to helping Vivianne with Marcelo. It was all about proving what he could and could not do, and for his autonomy, he would do a lot.

He pulled on a jacket and headed out the door, raking fingers through his hair but not really bothering with much else. Orion barely remembered to strap on his holsters, but having a couple guns was more important than having a non-wrinkled shirt. He stuck a couple knives in his boots and called it good, breaking into a light jog once outside in order to make it to Easton’s on time.

MAEVE.

She was naked when his text came. Fresh out of the shower with a towel tucked around her frame, Maeve’s fingers were still damp when she unlocked her phone to read Easton’s command. Her stomach dropped at the words a new mission. Her recent failure – both to her own moral compass and, apparently, to Easton as a captain – still burned across her memory and stung whenever she dwelled on it for a second too long. Was this punishment for it?

Orion’s abrasiveness certainly didn’t help, either. She was used to his sass and unique sense of humor, and usually it made her laugh – but usually, she had Everett’s even-temperedness to balance him. But Easton and Orion both were atomic bombs, and it was up to Maeve to keep everyone happy and getting along.

She sent a quick text (I’m coming!) and met her eyes in the mirror. “They’re going to get frizzy Maeve today,” she said out loud with a sigh, throwing aside her pajamas and throwing on a romper instead.

ORION.

Maeve was already there when he arrived, and he caught her before they entered, hand at her shoulder. “I’ll follow your lead,” he said quietly, trying to keep a promise. Trying to let Maeve be responsible for herself rather than giving in to instinct to control what happened, though he wanted to very badly. “You ready?”

MAEVE.

Her hand was in mid-air to knock on Easton’s door when Orion caught her by surprise, and Maeve got a soft shriek at the sound of him. “Orion Spaghetti,” she scolded – but a smile had already begun growing on her lips before she even fumbled his last name. “Thanks, Orion. For…” Helping me get rid of a dead body because I had no idea what to do. “Everything.”

She looked back to the door of Easton’s apartment and sighed, the mood quickly changing at the thought of their team meeting. “Let’s see what capitano wants, hm?” Orion’s presence emboldening her and his sneak attack still causing her heart to race, Maeve reached for the handle and pushed it open.

“We’re here, capitano!” she sang, sitting down on a loveseat and grabbing the nearest pillow to hold to her chest. “What’s so urgent? Did you just get lonely?”

ORION.

Orion rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, pleased that Maeve was willing to joke with him. He had — well, he wasn’t afraid, necessarily, but he was wary of how she might treat him differently, after having to deal with him in such a different context. “Maeve baby,” he replied, “Sorry: strong, fierce, independent baby. If I got that right.” Don’t thank me, he wanted to ask, just call me earlier next time. It wasn’t the right time to have that talk, though.

He followed Maeve inside, curious as to what Easton’s reaction would be when seeing him again. He couldn’t help a slight smile at the sight of his face, but that was all the antagonizing he allowed himself before sprawling next to Maeve. It was a deliberate choice to put himself beneath Easton, rather than standing and giving them an equal playing field. Orion’s way of saying he was listening, and he was going to be a good little soldier boy or whatever. For now. 

EASTON.

Easton watched both of them sit, and tried to pull himself up straighter, as if to assert that he actually had control over the situation. He didn’t. This was an attempt at trying to piece together what was left of any control he had at all, and there was no point in him wasting time with pleasantries. Maybe there would be a time when he could air his grievances and directly point out the fact that he was indeed in charge, but now was the time to strap on his gun and get to work.

“Cosimo sent me a message,” Easton began, not bothering to modify his voice to seem bigger or louder. Orion had already given him the floor. “There’s a church near the neutral territories that the Montagues and their clients have been using as a trade spot. He wants us to take it. He seemed urgent, but everything he says is urgent.” 

He paced in front of them, already anxious to get things rolling, to learn his fate once and for all. “I’ve done a preliminary check of the area, and the church seems fairly covered with little exposure. I know this has been a—rough transition, but it seems like this should be a pretty simple take, especially if we catch them on an off night.”

There was a pause as Easton waited for the pair to jump in. He especially looked to Orion, who, while he currently outranked them, was the more experienced one in the room. There was plenty of vibrato that Easton pumped out, but he wasn’t stupid. Orion was a great shot, an impressive fighter, and he was clever. While Maeve was still green, still scrubbing blood off of her hands, there would also be potential in the girl that he betrayed.

ORION.

Easton seemed more measured this time, which could be due to the fact that they weren’t outright fighting, who knows. Orion racked his brain a moment, trying to remember if he’d ever been in a church in Mont territory. Once, maybe. Yes. “I did surveillance there a while back. Maybe eight years ago, but they haven’t changed much around there since.” One of Orion’s more valuable abilities was slipping in and out of Montague territory, and he hadn’t seen any increased guard presence there, not more than the usual increases that happened after Faron Vasiliev’s death. It wasn’t a particularly strategic location, but this wouldn’t be about strategy, would it?

This was punishment as much as it was pushing the Montague buttons. Multiple Montagues had already died or been sent away lately, but it wasn’t enough, not when Cosimo himself had been shot. Pushing and covering more territory right after recapturing Measure by Measure would only solidify the Capulet position.

Damiano, he thought with a disinterested pang, you should’ve offered me more when I was 21. 

“Who’s covering the area?” he asked. Out of the three of them, he had the most experience with their adversaries, and if there were any recognizable names on that list, he wanted to know about it. If they were low-level soldiers, he wasn’t worried, but if someone like Marcelo or Zhang controlled the area, they’d be facing off against more training. “They have increased presence after Vasiliev’s death, but they have to be reorganizing their territory now that they’ve lost Measure by Measure. Cosimo’s right: this is the only time to do it. Have you been permitted to bring additional soldatos?” Easton’s command included more than just Orion and Maeve, but even though Maeve was green, having been personally trained by him and Everett gave her a leg up on the rest. They would only be cannon fodder, but it was better to put them between themselves and danger, in Orion’s view, if they could.

MAEVE.

She remembered what her papa had told her when she was first assigned to a captain: The Capulets are not kind. They will throw you into boiling water and will not let go of your neck when you try to jump out. You chose this life, stella mia. You wanted it even when I begged you to walk away. So I will not be kind, either. You will not jump out when the water boils. Maeve hadn’t expected a break, from Easton or from Cosimo; but she didn’t expect to be trusted with another mission so soon. Especially not by Easton, not after she had failed.

It was a small kindness, mercy doled out in sips and teaspoons. Maeve was thankful for it, nonetheless. She put the pillow away once she realized the three of them would be talking shop, organizing their efforts and putting their heads together.

Stella mia, my heart walking outside of my chest — this is what being a Capulet means, her papa had told her, holding a bird in his hand and snapping its neck. Doing what is necessary for the greater good.

For her papa, the greater good meant avenging his wife. It was her papa’s way of reclaiming her mother’s death, of resurrecting her from the grave with the blood of other countless innocents. He went into every mission with Maria’s face in mind, but Maeve — Maeve usually wanted to make Everett proud, Orion grin at her when she made a clever comment. 

And now, she wanted to redeem herself. Holding a pillow to her chest like a child was no way for a soldier to act, and Maeve was determined to prove herself again as a soldier.

“I’ve passed that church on my way to and from work,” she said, fondly remembering the flower shop on the outskirts of Montague territory. “I see one soldier there a lot, and he’s almost always stoned. Always on Thursdays, just after the sun sets. Seems like a good place to start.”

EASTON.

A strong sense of pride started to surve in Easton’s chest. This seemed to be as good as any of this was going to get. They were bouncing ideas back and forth, and adding in their own experiences. To many it would’ve been small and insignificant, but for Easton? It felt a lot like freedom. Every passing moment felt as if they were going to pull this off. That maybe, by the skin of his teeth, he’d get through December retaining his newly held title.

“It was specifically stated that I’d have the pair of you and no one else.” It would have been easier to bring others along, but by the way the conversation was going, they wouldn’t need anyone. If Maeve’s story checked out, this would be the easiest mission he had ever been a part of, but he knew better than to underestimate a situation. Montagues were like that. They were slippery and devious, and although many of them lacked skill, there had to be enough intelligence among them to continue on the way that they had.

Easton turned to Maeve now. “They don’t have any big names covering the area, at least not that I’ve heard. So, I think you might be onto something. That doesn’t mean they won’t slip someone in extra to throw off too much routine, but I don’t think this is exactly their most coveted area to hold.”

He didn’t need Orion and Maeve to like him on a personal level, but he did need them to respect him enough to keep the discussion going. The rest of his life hinged on his ability to read the room, and their willingness to work with him. 

“We need to plan for at least five targets being there. If this is a common trading zone, they’d keep plenty of people inside with any merchandise that might be laying around. There’s no way in hell they’d keep goods guarded by just one stoned idiot.”

ORION.

Already, Orion was reviewing the layout of the church in his head. It had been many years, but he tried never to forget a part of Montague territory, just in case he needed to pop in and wreak havoc. He stood and searched around the room for a moment before grabbing a scrap of mail and a pen, ignoring Easton’s privacy in favor of sketching out a very, very rough map. 

It was a one-story building, old and small, historic but not historic enough to bother most in a city full of landmarks and old buildings. History was built into the very bones and soul of Verona, and what was a treasure in a more modern city was but a building your eyes slid over if you weren’t paying particular attention as you passed it on the street. 

While Easton and Maeve discussed the soldiers and how to prepare, Orion focused on the diagram. He didn’t worry about things like differentiating where the tabernacle was or drawing the Presider’s chair, outlining every window and door in as best detail as he could remember, as well as obstacles like the altar or the pews. “Don’t plan for a number when you’re just guessing,” he said almost absently. “The stats on getting the number right aren’t ever in your favor, and it means you’re more likely to fuck up when the numbers are off what you were thinking.” He pointed out the stained glass windows he could remember, as back-up exit strategies, though he was loathe to destroy the art. At last, he sat back on the couch, throwing an arm absently over the back of the couch on the side where Maeve was sitting.

“Start with us, not with them. What are our strengths?” He knew his and Maeve’s fairly well, and Easton’s only some, but he wanted to hear Easton’s assessment. This was the other test Cosimo had set for him, after all: could he use his soldiers to the best of their abilities, or was he going to continue throwing them at the wall like spaghetti? 

MAEVE.

She was trying very hard not to smile with pleasure as Easton and Orion continued to talk logistics. Anything less than an insult from Easton was a compliment, and this was the first time the three of them had met and felt cohesive. Or at least, as close to cohesive as they could get. It would take time to adjust to this little group but she was confident that with time, and perhaps with an unreasonable amount of trust in each other, they could become a family.

In random intervals, her lips lifted and fell as Maeve struggled with the pride she felt blossoming in her chest. We can do this, she thought, looking back and forth from Easton to Orion. This isn’t so hard.

As Orion spoke, Maeve leaned over to peer down at his doodling. Or rather, the semi-crude diagram of the church they were discussing. “Do you think they’d recognize one of us?” she asked, recalling how easy it was for her to slip in and out of Montague territory for work. “Maybe I could go to the church for confession and count.”

It took every muscle in her body to stay still and not lean into Orion’s side with his arm behind her. In any other situation, she would have curled up beside him and pouted until he allowed a brief but severely affectionate cuddle. But Maeve knew Orion wouldn’t be comfortable around Easton enough to allow for any vulnerability — not yet, she reminded herself.

“Oh, let’s all go around sharing what we think everyone’s strengths are,” she said happily, straightening at the team bonding exercise. “I think it would help us see the bigger picture of this team and how we should approach this.”

EASTON.

Easton ran a hand over his face and let out a sigh. Things were going well, and he could already feel them working as a unit. He was happy that Orion was at least there to correct him, to pull him from walking off the cliff in a wrong direction. But it was all still new, still unknown. There was a strange feeling that came with being in a position of power that he hadn’t ever felt before. Here, standing before Maeve and Orion, there was no use in pretending as if he was another nameless shoulder. Someone in the higher ups had seen the use in him, and maybe it was time he stopped faking his confidence and started growing into it.

“Okay, we’ll go over some strengths.” He looked at Orion first, already having a list of things ready to go. “You’re experienced. You’ve been in the fights, you’ve killed plenty of people. That means you understand weak points, you know where to hit people. You’re also intelligent, which means you won’t walk in places blind. Other than that, I’m assuming you’re a good marksman, and I highly doubt you’d miss working on your knife skills. I’d also bother to list hand to hand combat, but that seems like an obvious.”

Next, Easton turned to Maeve, understanding that this was the part that actually mattered. Everyone knew Orion was a good soldier, a good person to have next to you. But Maeve had always been a weak point, and it was time he choked down that thought. “You’re small, which means you’re more agile and you’re a harder target to hit. That makes you invaluable when it comes to getting into small places. Sometimes, too much muscle can get you into trouble, and the ability to avoid unnecessary conflict is the way to go. Along with your size, you’ve been trained by people who can fight, which means they haven’t left you defenseless.”

“So far we have stealth on our side. I’m not saying we avoid a fight, but I do think it’s important to play on Maeve’s skillset.” He pointedly did not start listing his own attributes, in part because he was waiting for Orion to laugh all of them off. It was better to build up his team than give them any reason to think him a complete lunatic.

ORION.

“And where do you fit?” he asked, curious as to Easton’s assessment of himself. Orion tried to be honest with himself when he could be, as a part of his whole honesty deal, but there were times where the brain tricked itself without one’s knowledge. Still, he thought he was infallible, mainly because he didn’t go into a situation thinking he would be. Over-confidence was an easy destroyer, but confidence when knowing the stakes meant you didn’t hesitate.

Or he just had a very great deal of overall self-interest and vanity. That could be a contributing factor. 

Easton did a good job of evaluating Maeve’s strengths without giving her more credit than was due. Orion would take the hard part, since he thought Maeve might cry if Easton listed her weaknesses and then he’d have to deal with that. “Yes. No one looks at Maeve and thinks ‘ah, yes, stone cold killer.’ It may be best to have you distract the guards outside while we take whoever is in the building, stella mia, as they are in the best position to bring reinforcements into play.” It pained him to say it, because if she couldn’t do it well and was caught, she may end up being held hostage.

On the other hand, not trusting Maeve with something important or asking her to participate less than he would be sheltering her, and she would never grow as a soldier if they did that. It wasn’t shaking someone down, and it required minimum bloodshed. “Do you agree, capitano?” He wasn’t going to challenge if he didn’t. Well, unless Easton’s idea of something better was stupid. 

EASTON.

Easton almost shrugged his shoulders before catching himself. No wasn’t the time to fall back on old instincts. He’s faux bravado was necessary, and if he wanted to lead this team, he had to explain just why he was worthy of the title. Anything less, and it was further proof that he should’ve been sitting on the love seat next to Maeve, and Orion would be standing there, giving them their orders.

“I never miss a shot. I’m strong, and capable, and I have no qualms killing someone.” Easton paused before continuing. “I’m also great at disappearing, at remaining quiet even on the most uneven and noisiest of floors.” This was a skill he had picked up when he was younger. He would hide around corners, flat against the walls, listening to what was being said about him in another room. Disappearing had been the easiest trick he had ever learned, and although he grew to be 5’11, he had mastered the magic with ease. Easton revelled in the darkness of shadows.

“I’m usually pretty great in a fight, but I suppose my weakness would be opening front doors.” He smiled slightly as he scratched his chin. There was no stubble to be found on his face, but the action felt soothing.

He listened to Orion’s suggestion and nodded along. “It plays to her strengths, but doesn’t keep her out of a fight. Maeve?” Easton wasn’t about to budge regarding her role to play, but without asking her what she was thinking, any teamwork that they had feigned would seem empty.

MAEVE.

She had never stopped to consider her strengths as a soldier. Her identity was in being a human being, a person who chose love even when it broke her own heart. A girl who believed in good and redemption and hope. As a soldier? Maeve didn’t have the slightest clue how to assess herself. So she listened carefully now as Easton and Orion discussed her capabilities for her own sake as much as theirs, learning about her potential as part of this slightly awkward but not completely hopeless team.

But they had forgotten one thing. “I’m familiar,” she pointed out, “at least to them. I pass by that church on my way to work, smiled at them when we met eye contact. They don’t expect me to be a Capulet, because why else would I be near Montague territory?” The information would have been easy to use against her. Miranda, the unfaithful Capulet. Miranda, the traitor soldier who extended a friendly smile to the enemy.

But she knew the information was useful. She knew it would help them in the mission. “If it comes to a fight, then I’ll fight. It’s easier to knock someone out cold than… the alternative. But I think they would be surprised enough to give me time to make the first move before it comes to anything serious.”

She looked at Easton, then back at Orion. “I’m not… the most violent person, and I also don’t play dirty. But I play smart, and I can handle this.” At least, she hoped she could - for the sake of the three of them getting along.

EASTON.

Easton looked Maeve over and considered her point. There was certainly an advantage to be had when it came to a friendly face. She could lower their defenses long enough to let Easton and Orion sneak by. The obvious issue was, if they did decide to get smart, she would be right in the crosshairs. His gut feeling was to take the chance, to let herself be placed in that situation, even after the entire month so far had been a fight for the contrary.

“If you think you can handle it--” His eyes quickly moved over to look at Orion. “I want you training extra before Thursday. Added sessions. There’s no point in repeating past mistakes, but if you think you’re ready for this, then it’s settled. You take point with distracting the soldiers that are there. Lure them away from their posts.”

“As soon as something feels wrong, you need to react. Don’t second guess yourself.” He felt the need to repeat himself, to give her confidence but to make sure that she knew, as soon as things went south, she would be by herself. Orion and Easton would already be inside, and as quickly as both of the men could run, sometimes that wasn’t enough.

ORION.

Pleased by their progress, Orion didn’t see anything he could complain about. It really wasn’t that complicated, as far as missions went. He nodded at the pointed look Easton gave him, but mainly focused on Maeve. “Do you want to go to the range? A gun may be your best option.” He did not point out why knives might be a dangerous idea, particularly as Maeve was still going through a certain amount of trauma after her first kill. He wasn’t sure he could trust her brain not to freeze her up when it came to harming with one again. A gun had a very different feel to a knife, though, and was easily hidden on one’s person. It also came in handy in knocking people out cold.

He would prefer she load it, but if she didn’t, it was still formidable with the right momentum behind it.

“You and I should train too,” he reminded Easton. “Since we haven’t before. We need to know how we work together.” 

MAEVE.

A gun was always meant to be her last option. Her papa had tried, curled her fingers around a handgun and threw a fit when Maeve immediately released it and let it fall to the ground. It makes the kill safer, he’d insisted — and then, with a soft look in his eyes and a quieter voice, added, and easier. 

But that was exactly what Maeve was afraid of. “No,” she insisted, more fiercely than she planned. “I’m sticking to my knives.” If she had to spill blood at all, then it would come at a cost; it would hurt her and horrify her. 

“But I want to train with you guys too,” she added, looking from Orion to Easton with a growing pout on her lips. “Don’t leave me out, now.”

ORION.

Ah. This was Maeve being stubborn. Orion was well-acquainted with this version of her, and it was one of the ones that made him proudest, even if he thought her reasons behind this move were soft-hearted. Don’t let me run away from this, okay? Maeve’s fragile tones in his ear, with a hint of desperation and beneath that, shame. I don’t want easy forgiveness. 

To Orion, there was nothing to forgive her for. He’d done more brutal things on an average Tuesday, yet she asked for him to make it hard on her. He tried to think about it like Everett would, with all the self-flagellating involved, but it mostly made him want to roll his eyes. He still made a point to keep trying to understand them, though the two of them fascinated him exactly because he never would understand. 

Reaching out, he set his hand over Maeve’s and squeezed. She was a tactile person, soft-hearted but strong-willed, and asserting her thoughts meant something to him. Independence was one of the key things he stressed in talking to Maeve, in light conversations or serious ones. He had to trust that she knew herself well enough to know she’d use the knife when it came down to it. So rather than contradict her, he would try and raise her spirits.

“You just want to put me on my ass in front of our new capo senza paura,” Orion said with a pout. “But I accept your challenge, bambina feroce. Bring it.” 

EASTON.

“Sounds like we need to get to training, then.” Easton looked on at the scene and smiled. Even with the pit in his stomach, he knew that this was just the start. An opportunity. All of this is what he should have done three weeks ago, but life rarely worked so smoothly. Pain was just a part of the process. It tugged at people, ripping them apart, and just as quickly, they were sewn back together. No matter how much Maeve and Orion ended up respecting Easton as their leader, it didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

They were on the same side, which in the mafia meant they were family, whether they wanted to be or not. They would bleed and die together--and wasn’t that what Easton wanted? The chance to not only find his family, but to grow among them, and to become something more dangerous than ever. All he had to do was get through this mission and prove to himself and Cosimo that there was more to him than being a shadow.

He could step into the light, and this time, there wouldn’t be hasty mistakes that would get people needlessly killed. This time he would walk hand in hand with his comrades, gun out, jaw set.

“Anything else?” Easton looks at the pair sitting on the couch. 

MAEVE.

Maeve squeezed Orion’s hand back, flooded with appreciation for her fellow soldier who always managed to make her feel completely at home in her own skin despite their stark differences. It was a different battlefield with Easton as Everett’s replacement, but this feeling was familiar: a warmth in her chest as Orion made a joke that signaled the end of a meeting, a layer of confidence added to her sense of identity as a soldier, a yearning to please and prove everyone who had doubted her place amongst the Capulets wrong. 

This mission had to go well; the peace between the three of them was at stake, and Maeve was willing to go to war to protect the relationships in her life, both familiar and new. Her eyes trained on Easton’s bruised cheek, she tightened her resolve to play her part and more. For Orion and Easton’s sake.

“I propose a movie night if the mission goes well,” she announced, with no room for negotiation in her voice. “But other than that,” Maeve beamed and kissed the back of Orion’s hand on a whim, “I’m good to go.”

16.12.2018

[ ENTER Miranda, as Edmund and Orsino await her signal from the shadows. ]

MAEVE.

The weight of her first mission after taking a life was heavy on her shoulders. It presented a challenge, an opportunity, to prove she was more than a solo mission failed on all accounts. Maeve was ready to meet it head-on. She wanted to see Easton smile, she wanted to make Orion proud, and she wanted to prove to herself that she could see a mission through successfully without repeating the same sin.

Maeve pressed a kiss to the blade of her knife, a tradition she had forgotten to follow on the night she had to take a man’s life that she would never forget again. 

She sent a quick text to Orion and Easton, who stood away from her in a more hidden location. I’m going in. Give me two minutes.

It was the stoner guard, and Maeve’s heart dipped with relief at the sight of his absent eyes. “Ciao,” she said, waving a hand. “I wanted to introduce myself, since I see you all the time on my way to work and…” Bashfully, Maeve lowered her gaze and recalled an intimate moment with Cyrus to summon a warm glow to her cheeks. “Just thought it might be nice to get to know you.”

“I’m Miranda,” Maeve continued with a smile, extending her hand. “And you are?”

She wasn’t listening to his response, only enough to make a few comments to goad him into drug-induced rambling. A few nods and hums were enough to keep him going, and Maeve kept an eye out for other guards in the meantime. When she saw one coming around the corner of the church, Maeve turned to Matteo with renewed interest. “I think your friend has visited the coffee shop I work at - maybe you can introduce me?”

Matteo blinked, as if he hadn’t expected anyone else to be in the area. “Oh, yeah - of course.”

It was easy to fool men into believing you when you were young and seemed harmless. A pretty girl like you, they called her, and Maeve smiled and slowly adjusted her footing so their backs were facing the church. Tell me more, she persuaded them, if you two have the time. 

It was just the two of them guarding the church, and Maeve had them under lock and key with the batting of her eyes and laugh alone. 

She felt a little sick to her stomach, but it was what Easton and Orion needed. Go, she tried to send a telepathic message to them both, go now.

ORION.

Perhaps Everett would’ve watched her with anxiety or trepidation. Orion didn’t have room for that. Instead, his surveillance on Maeve’s progress was filled with curiosity, and with an eagerness to see how she’d changed following her ordeal. Would she act differently, or was she still the same Maeve he’d ran a dozen small missions with under Everett’s strong hand?

No, he thought, delighted with this discovery, she’s better. 

There was no fumbling from her; Maeve made it look easy to wrap the guards around her fingers. When they were both in the same area, speaking with her, Orion went back to meet Easton, waiting in an alley close to where the small back entrance was. “We’re good,” he said almost soundlessly, drawing the gun from his back and readying to enter. “I’ll follow.”

EASTON.

So far the plan had gone off without a hitch. Orion had come back towards Easton, signalling that Maeve was taking care of her job, and it was now their turn. Easton nodded, gun in hand, safety off. They had been training together, and in just a few short days, he already felt comfortable with the fact that Orion was going to have his back. Trust wasn’t the right word for it, but he at least knew that if someone shot at him, he wasn’t going to be left behind.

Easton pulled open the door quickly and quietly before putting his gun out in front of him, checking either side of the entryway, and moving inside. Already he could hear voices as they chattered on about their days. Little did they know that they might not have much to complain about soon.

He began walking swiftly, trying to discern how many of those complaining voices he could hear. Three? Five? Six? They had walked into the lion's den, and although they knew this wasn’t the most prized possession of the Montagues, every building mattered. This was a war of attrition, fought tooth and nail for churches like this one that could already feel the neglect that came with being in the possession of the mob.

“We take out anyone we see in the perimeter, all of those in the main sanctuary will have to be last,” Easton whispered, his heart starting to pump on overdrive.

ORION.

Though they mirrored each other more in their mannerisms and ways of handling things, fighting with Easton was not really like fighting with Everett. There was more snappiness to the littler Craven, more bite in areas Everett was circumspect. It had taken some adjustment, and there was nothing of the fluid way he worked in tandem with Everett after 12 or so years fighting together in various ways, but it was enough that they wouldn’t die here. He could match his style to Easton’s with rudimentary competence; a pity that, should things go according to his plans, he wouldn’t need to do much more of that. It was fun, in its way.

Orion nodded at the instruction, following Easton as they entered into the back hallway, which seemed mostly used for storage. In front of them was a tall, heavy curtain, and beyond it was the lectern, which would be clearly visible from the pews. Based on where the voices were coming from, he thought it was likely they were within the benches; if they were cutting rough product, especially, or bagging it, that would be the place to do so. 

He fought the urge to laugh as an image popped into his head of some Montague trying out Theo’s new Faerie Blood strain in a confessional. No one had access to it, but watching them as idiots the way he’d felt? It would’ve been pretty damn amusing.

There was a small space with a door off to their right, which would lead them into a narrow space where one could exit without hopping onto the lectern itself. There was a side entrance just beyond it, from what he remembered, but the space was otherwise open. “We should be able to peek,” he whispered, “if careful.” Just to get a solid count on who was beyond the lectern. He hated that the church’s layout didn’t allow them easy access to the front rooms, which they wouldn’t necessarily be able to hear from here, but this would have to do. If reinforcements came from the front, they would have to take them head on.

EASTON.

Easton continued to move forward, listening intently to to Orion’s summation of the layout. Orion’s knowledge, along with Maeve’s familiarity, made the entire plan quicker and easier than it would have been otherwise. No matter how fuzzy his memory, it saved them hours of pouring over old plans that might not even exist anymore. He would bother to thank Orion, but Easton was sure that the man didn’t need much encouragement or positive feedback.

He squeezed himself into the narrow space, his gun still in front of him, and his ears listening in on the conversation the closer they got. The lack of knowing how many people were inside was dangerous, and risky, but Easton didn’t mind. He lived for the fear. The uncertainty was almost made it worth doing in the first place.

Before he lost his nerve, Easton peeked around, willing his eyes to process the information as quickly as he could manage. Five. No, eight people were in his direct line of vision. He felt slightly foolish in only having three people be there, but an order was an order, and there was no point in arguing with Cosimo when what he wanted most was acceptance.

“Eight. You?” He mouthed the words, unwilling to let any more noise than necessary escape. The gun in his hand felt heavier.

ORION.

Orion peeked around the curtain at a different point, confirming from another angle. He counted nine, but one was passing back through to the front, where two other rooms waited for them to explore. Upon seeing Easton’s mouth move, he shook his head and held up nine fingers, four of which were held over the barrel of a gun. 

“One headed out,” he mouthed back, “eight left.” Of course, the ninth would be a thorn in their sides once they made noise, but Orion chanced another look, trying to see if anyone was easy to pick off from the crowd.

One paced near the front door with a semi-automatic, truly a mafioso stereotype. Another walked back and forth in front of the lectern, ending his pacing near Easton. It was almost funny, how close he got to where Easton was and never with a clue what was coming.

Orion headed back toward Easton as the close-up guard walked the other way, taking the chance to whisper. “One pacing toward you,” he said, barely a breath. “Others minding their business.” If they could muffle and grab him, they could take one out with a silent weapon before the others noticed, though it would only be about a minute. “Front pews for cover?”

EASTON.

Easton quickly peeked back out, and confirmed Orion’s suspicions. He then nodded, noting that he was up for the plan, and willing to try what they had set out to do. Right now, the numbers weren’t in their favor if they started to open fire blindly, especially with a semi-automatic rifle in the mix. The best chance was to take them out as quietly as possible, and thanks to the complete lack of awareness, their first target had no clue just how close he was to dying.

Before anyone else could enter the picture, Easton moved, appearing from behind the wall and roughly grabbing his target. Without a second thought, he pulled him back to where he had been previously standing, took the silenced gun that was at his side, and squeezed the trigger.

There was too much noise among the men for anyone to hear the pistol being fired, and Easton quickly scrambled to the front pews, waiting for Orion to join him. His hands were dirty, but that was just a hazard of the job. The man he killed didn’t suffer, but most importantly--now there really were just eight men left in the room standing between them and their final goal. But bulldozing through the room wasn’t going to be easy, no matter how accurate their shots. Moving targets with guns were always far more impressive than stationary dummies.

“We won’t be able to do the rest of this quietly.”

ORION.

Easton was as quiet as he said. No one could make this sort of death perfectly silent, but he did a damn good job of trying, and those outside were none the wiser. Orion thought about perhaps waiting for others to come over and investigate where their man went, taking them out like that, but when Easton scrambled out from behind the curtain, it was a moot point.

Orion sighed and waited until their backs were turned a moment before slipping out, getting across to the other side of the pews and kneeling, mirroring Easton. At the barely-vocal summation, Orion nodded, watching the tall figure that started to pace up the aisle. It was the one with the rifle, curious as to what happened to his fellow.

Perfect timing.

As he reached the point of no return, Orion reached upward and grabbed him by the wrist, hearing a brief “che cazzo—” before he pressed his silencer to the man’s chin and pulled the trigger. Blood spritzed the air like the devil’s perfume, and Orion slid the semi-automatic off the dead man’s shoulder as the room exploded into chaos.

Orion grabbed the additional mag from the corpse, rolling his eyes. What many only brought one additional magazine to a party? Che idiota. Still, it gave Orion 20 more rounds to work with, and less time wasted on reloading.

The mag went into a holster on Orion’s kevlar vest as a rain of bullets came from the back of the room. “I’ll cover you,” he said, knowing they didn’t have much time before those bullets started hitting the pews. Unlike the movies, if a real live shell hit the wood in front of him, it’d go right through to his head. The soldatos didn’t know their exact position yet, but it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out. Both him and Easton would need to keep moving to stay alive.

EASTON.

The chaos that erupted made Easton’s mind narrow. There was no more thinking about the bigger picture. No more lamenting his own troubles. His entire history was erased from his memory as he started seeing red. No one could have imagined what a dangerous duo Orion and Easton made, especially not when Orion held a semi-automatic, and nodded to Easton. A surefire sign that things had escalated, and neither of them were going to start running away. They were the kinds of people who thrived best when surrounded by impossibilities.

Easton popped up and shot at the first person he saw, nailing them in the chest as he started weaving in and out of the pews. They provided poor amounts of coverage, thanks to their wooden bases, but it was enough to prevent his own head from being blasted off. The only good thing about the situation was the fact that there was no need to be quiet anymore. Everyone in the Church knew very well that the Capulets were there.

He turned and watched Orion firing, and for a brief moment, Easton managed a smile as he ducked down when a bullet came sailing over his head. More people were trickling in from the front of the Church, and suddenly--Maeve popped into his brain once more. There could be no more dancing around. If everyone here knew what was happening, Maeve was now in the midst of a battle for her life as well.

Easton grabbed at a clip he had shoved in his pocket and reloaded his gun. He was a Captain among the Capulet mafia, and despite the fact he could feel a bullet hit his kevlar vest, he would not bow in prayer before the Montagues assembled before them. In short, all hell broke loose, and Easton simply continued his pattern through the Church, shooting at anyone he saw, and know very well that Orion was putting on a show of his own.

The Church would be theirs. He only hoped they’d make it to Maeve in time.

ORION.

The moment Easton moved, Orion focused on two things: making sure Everett’s kid brother didn’t die, and making sure that he got to Maeve before she needed them. It was annoying having to duck and weave while basically on his knees as he moved between rows of empty wooden pews, but he knew the moment he stopped moving, he or both of them would die.

So he kept going. When Easton coaxed people into shooting at him, Orion shot them in the neck, head, or shoulder, depending on what he could line up easy. That only worked three times before people started splitting their attention, and he laid down, managing just barely to fit under the space between the bench and the floor. If he’d counted correctly, the updated number of those still upright in the room, even with additionals coming in from the front, was down to six or seven — he couldn’t be sure. In any case, he hoped that left very little reinforcement to deal with Maeve.

He watched as footsteps approached, clearly trying to take advantage of the distracting barrage from the front and side-swipe him from behind. Orion smiled; at least one person here had an ounce of sense. He slid his pocketknife out and flicked it open, waiting until the crouched legs stopped to look down the row they expected him to be in, and slashed out at her achilles. The pain caused her to lose her balance, and he rolled, pressing the semi-automatic against her chin and pulling the trigger. It was messy, but it got the job done; he just hoped Easton had survived his briefly diverted attention.

MAEVE.

Honestly, Maeve was beginning to like them. Matteo and Samuel, they were nice boys. On any other day, she would never have suspected that they had pledged their souls to the Montague cause and spilled the blood of those who blasphemed against Damiano. When Matteo put his arm around her shoulders as he laughed, she knew they couldn’t possibly see her as a Capulet, either, and it felt good to do something right. To do something well. She almost wished someone were there to see and be proud of her.

The moment she thought it, the sound of a gunshot split the air wide open. In one fluid motion, Maeve pulled the stiletto knife from her pocket. Keeping it hidden behind her wrist, she smiled as Matteo and Samuel began to hastily excuse themselves. “Not yet, miei amici,” she called out.

They were still processing exactly what she meant when Maeve struck. Turning nimbly and letting her practiced footwork lead her, she buried her knife deep into Matteo’s shoulder. She visibly winced at the sound he made. “Spero che mi perdoni,” Maeve whispered as she pulled her weapon from his arm and took nimble steps away from Samuel’s reach, daring him to come closer.

But instead, he ran. “Coward!” she cried out, her heart hammering with adrenaline, with regret, with fear that Easton and Orion would be hurt because she could not injure two throwaway soldiers. She would not disappoint them; she would not disappoint herself, either. 

The knife in her hand was one of her favorites, a trusted companion of hers whose weight and sharpness she knew intimately. Throwing it at Samuel came easily, and she sent a quick prayer (ignoring the irony of it all) for her aim to strike true. The knife sunk into the back of his thigh, and she wanted to cheer and sob the moment Samuel fell to the ground.

A few feet away, Matteo looked up at her with a hand pressed to his injured shoulder. His tears fell to the ground and Maeve hardened her heart against the sight of it; she would not kneel with him, she would not give him the opportunity to take advantage of her mercy and use it against her. She would not let her blood join his for kindness’ sake; Easton and Orion were depending on her.

“I am sorry,” she said — loudly this time — as she reached for the knife in her boot, “but you bleed gold. I had to.”

“I’ll see you bleed too,” he spat at her. “I’ll see you bleed silver.”

But she was already bleeding, even as she ran past Matteo and Samuel both to sneak into the church. She was bleeding the only way she knew how: by sacrificing everything she knew and cherished for the sake of loving others and the potential to be loved in return.

But she had forgotten the first lessons Orion had ever taught her. Desperate to help her friends, Maeve had both turned her back against the enemy and underestimated them. Behind her, Samuel reached for his own weapon and aimed for Maeve’s spine with his handgun. 

A spot of red blooming on the back of her shoulder, Maeve crumpled to the ground.

EASTON.

He could feel the places where the bullets had struck his body armor. Easton was well aware of the fact that those places would hurt for days to come, but other than that, the only thing he had was a few passing grazes from bullets, and legs that were starting to feel more like lead than anything else. He was fucking exhausted. It felt like he had run an entire marathon. Ever shot of his gun made his muscles ache with the recoil, and it was then that he heard commotion that wasn’t coming from inside the church.

Maeve.

After what happened last time, Easton knew it had become his responsibility to make sure that she was home in one piece. Everyone knew that her role was a tricky one, and with the guns firing wildly within the church, it was only a matter of time before she was in the direct line of fire. His only hope was that she was able to get them before they could get her.

One last pull of the trigger, and Easton sprinted out the main door. He could see a form crumpled on the ground, and without further need for inspection, he knew it had to be Maeve. She was so much smaller than he remembered.

Behind her form was her attacker, gun in hand, mouth set hard. He didn’t flinch when he felt another bullet hit his chest, the armor absorbing it, but still almost knocking the wind out of his lungs. Easton kept his own gun raised, and pulled the trigger. In a matter of minutes, everything seemed to go silent. Where there was once a fury of gunfire, now there was an eeriness as he could hear the labored breathing of people in pain.

ORION.

Orion was too distant and too well hidden to realize one gunshot among the rest was embedded in Maeve. What made him move, accelerating the way only someone with about half a decade of experience on these soldiers could, was Easton scrambling away, foregoing their remaining few enemies in a sprint he knew could only mean one thing.

Maeve needed them.

He’d already killed five people this night, but when he poked his head up, there were two more barely hidden around the room, taking pot-shots at Easton as he disappeared into the foyer. No longer enjoying the cat and mouse game, Orion rolled forward and put a bullet in a woman’s eye from across the room, flattening out again while her compatriot rained fire on his location until he heard the sound of a magazine being ejected and knew he had precious seconds while the remaining soldato was forced to reload.

This might have been where he interjected something witty, but Orion, for once, had no care for pithy remarks. He needed to get to Maeve, and he needed to line the streets with the blood of whoever harmed her. There was no other goal in his mind; Orion’s remaining kills within the church itself were nothing more than obstacles.

He fired the semi-automatic five times before the last man in the room lay dead, his brain in pieces on the ground behind him. Orion didn’t spare him a glance, moving forward with savage grace as he tossed the weapon to the ground, one hand holding a knife and the other the gun he’d brought, silencer still screwed on tight. 

There was a moment where he took in the scene — Maeve on the ground, face down, blood pooling around her as Easton stood above her, firing out into the open air in front of the church. Though he saw one body hit the ground, another was stumbling to his feet and toward the street to make an escape. Orion’s need for vengeance warred with his need to protect Maeve, a vicious feeling beneath his skin that wanted both, now, immediately. The thing that decided him was nothing practical, not when logic said it would be more efficient to keep running and let Easton do triage on Maeve’s wounds, as he was already frozen in place.

Cool logic faced down raw emotion, and whatever that shriveled thing in his chest was… it won out, stunning him even as he fell to his knees. “One runner,” he said to Easton as he assessed Maeve’s damage. The wound was to the back of her shoulder, her every move causing blood to flow faster. Orion put a hand on the back of Maeve’s neck to steady her, knees and hands quickly sticky with blood. His eyes were nothing human when he looked up, nothing but the animal of chaos and wild fury as he stared at Easton. “Move. I have her.” 

And he would not leave her to Easton’s care. He didn’t trust him. With Everett or even Rafaella, he could leave Maeve to hunt the ones that had hurt her, but not this man who’d already endangered her once. It was still too fragile a bond between them, too nascient for the faith required to leave Maeve behind. 

His phone smeared with blood as he got it out and used Siri to call Taide; there was no way he was dragging Maeve blocks and blocks to where they’d parked the car tonight. Instead, he used his driver’s emergency line, knowing she would break every traffic law known to man to get there, even having barely rolled out of bed.

Orion didn’t use the emergency line unless things were desperate.

“Stay awake, sorellina,” he said, stripping out of the kevlar vest and then down to his undershirt, using the fabric to put pressure on the wound before putting the kevlar back on, just in case. “It’s going to hurt, but it’ll hurt me if you die. Do you know that? I won’t let that happen.” His white shirt was slowly soaking through, but it wasn’t immediate; that was something, right? “Tell me about how good you did out there. No one called for reinforcements at all.” Anything to keep her from falling asleep, even though the blood loss would tug her further and further in that direction. His phone chimed.

2 minutes. 

EASTON.

Easton didn’t flinch when Orion spoke to him. He knew that the trust they held was fragile, and would easily break. There was no point in fighting during this kind of situation. Besides, if anything, Easton would have preferred taking down the runner than dealing with Maeve’s injury. At least right now he could feel like he was doing something more than just waiting. So Easton turned, and didn’t look back on the scene. That was a private sort of moment that wasn’t meant for him, and he would add this to the list of things that he wouldn’t fully grasp.

He could see the runner clutching his shoulder, and he knew Maeve must have got him good. There was complete desperation in the man’s movement, and Easton understood that he had to get him before he could sound the alarm. Nothing else mattered besides making sure that no one else would come upon his small team. Maeve could barely move, and Orion was clearly compromised for the moment.

Before the man could step foot into the range of other people, Easton grabbed him by the mouth and dragged him back into the shadows. There was blood everywhere. He could feel it soaking through his own shirt, dripping down his hands. This was a messy sort of business. No matter how much planning was done, nothing could stop the chaos from spreading, especially when guns were involved.

The man moved to say something, and Easton didn’t let him. He took hold of either side of the man’s head, and in one quick motion, he snapped his neck.

Easton walked back to the scene of Maeve and Orion, dragging the corpse of the Montague soldier. He would throw him with the rest of his friends. The place was a mess, but there was no use in spreading the blood across the city. Containment had always been key. 

“I’ll stay behind and clean up the best I can.”

MAEVE.

She doesn’t realize she’s been shot until she opens her eyes and sees the blood on the ground. For a moment, Maeve assumes it belongs to Orion; how can anything so vibrantly and furiously red belong to someone with a glowing pink soul, like her? But then she looks up to find Orion’s eyes and realizes she’s the one on the ground, she’s the one with the wind knocked out of her. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” she promises Orion, though she flinches as she tries to move her hand to hold his cheek. There’s an edge to his voice she’s never heard before, not like this, and it makes her ache more than the burning feeling on her back. “It doesn’t hurt, don’t worry.”

Turning her head, Maeve watches Easton. She doesn’t blink as he grabs one of the soldiers out of her vision. It’s strange, to feel a distant numbness when Maeve realizes Easton will kill him. She should feel guilty, sad, mournful; instead, she’s just glad she got the chance to apologize beforehand. She’s just glad Easton will be successful and Orion is alive.

How silly it is, that she is the one to get shot when she only had two boys to control - while Easton and Orion secured an entire church full of far more lethal Montagues.

Orion’s still speaking, his voice raw with an emotion she can’t name because she’s never attached it to Orion before. It’s almost soothing, and Maeve smiles up at him serenely. “I’m not going to die.” She puts her hand on his arm that’s holding her steady. “You won’t let me.”

It’s true; her faith and trust in Orion and Easton are absolute and bottomless. She knows that they will do everything they can. Because they’re a team. Because they’re Capulets, and this is what Capulets do for each other. She recalls Rafaella or Vivianne or perhaps even her papa preaching something about loyalty and families forged by blood. Finally, she understands. 

So this is what it means to be a Capulet. It’s the last thought she has before her consciousness slips and the hand on Orion’s arm falls to the ground.

ORION.

She means to be comforting, but knowing it doesn’t hurt only increases Orion’s inner panic. Outwardly he’s positive he looks almost deadly with it, control and violent anger merging into a face too placid to be real, but on the inside he feels... gutted. Shredded by the thought of her bleeding out, though he knows she won’t. Taide has never once failed him, and she won’t now. Still, 2 minutes is a long time to bleed.

His hand returns to the back of her neck and squeezes, gently, so gently, trying not to do anything that’ll hurt her any further. “Don’t move, Maeve. You have to stay still.” There’s an air of command to it, but there’s desperation there, too. “I damn well will worry,” he argued, wishing he could laugh and hating that he couldn’t, the way the sound stuck in his throat even though he knew it would comfort her. 

He sees through her platitude but stops short afterward; it isn’t what he expected to hear. He knows he won’t let Maeve die, knows it like he knows his own name, but that Maeve knows sends a wave of anxiety and tenderness through him. Trust. So rare to come by when you were Orion Massetti. All the more precious, for its own sake. 

Taide’s car screeches to a halt in front of them, not quite two minutes after she said she’d be there. She does exit in nothing but a rather sheer nightgown, something so much more femme than her usual taste he would normally comment, but there’s nothing to say as she throws open the door and helps him gently put Maeve inside. She’d passed out by now, and Orion thinks it’s both horrifying and some kind of blessing. This much movement probably would’ve hurt her a lot, but he knows passing out means close to brain damage levels of blood loss. He won’t let that happen, running around to the other side of the car and pausing only to nod at Easton’s words as he returns.

He can’t focus on Easton, can’t focus on anything but the way Maeve’s blood stains his hands. It’s the first time he’s ever felt terrible having this much blood on them. The first time he’s cared so much.

His phone might break after this, but he doesn’t care, one arm stabilizing an unconscious Maeve while the other dials Everett’s number almost on autopilot. 

His first thought should’ve been for Maeve’s father, but it wasn’t. It never would be. He and Everett had taken responsibility for her when she entered his borgata, and he knew hearing Everett’s voice would be the only thing to slightly ease the sick panic in his chest as Tiade violated every law in the book to get them to the hospital.

Maeve, of course, could not die. As the world knew, Orion wouldn’t allow it.

[hattywatch]

Healthy Competition - Jimmy Vesey

Jimmy Vesey 28.  “I can’t believe you just did that.” Requested by Anon

Author’s Note: This is likely going to have a part 2. Good selection, anon.  You stared across the bar, but cool-ly. Would someone know you were staring? Definitely not. Just kidding, everyone knew because you were spastically trying to catch your friend's eye and stop her from completing whatever ridiculous act she was trying to pull off.

“He's so fucking ca-yoooote,” he happened to look up and catch your eyes and give a little wave, so you gave a half smile before looking down awkwardly. Reaching across the table and grabbing another of your friend’s nachos, flipping it over to shake the jalepeño off, you thought over your cowardice. It was pub-quiz night, and you two were planning on killing it for the third week in a row. Team “Honor Roll with Butter” consisted of just the two of you and it was your favorite part of the week. There was only one team that was ever any competition. Four guys who drank too much beer and were the reigning champs- before you and your friend started your dynasty, anyway.

You had your eye on him for a few weeks now. He always smiled at you when you walked in and always said hi when you found yourself next to him while waiting for the bartender. Sure, you wanted to progress the conversation, but you're awkward (please see aforementioned wave encounter) and you didn't want to sound like you were trying too hard, and if he really wanted to, nothing was stopping him from coming by your table after you eviscerated his team in pub-quiz. So, you just smiled and assumed he probably wasn't interested like that, just making polite eye contact since you’re both always here week after week. Gazing at him over a plate of nachos was fine, no need to embarrass yourself further.

But anyway, back to the matter at hand. Your team of two was just crowned champs, again- thank you very much, and your beloved partner has since taken it upon herself to celebrate by trying to embarrass the life out of you. She’s incredibly difficult to corral after a few drinks, so your protests fell on deaf ears as she checked her hair in her phone’s front facing camera. She promised noble intentions of “getting you some intellectual intercourse” followed by a crass wink, walking over to fraternize with the enemy, Team “Periodic Table Dancers” (Honestly, points for the team name).  

In all fairness, it wasn’t an entirely selfless endeavor. She had been trying to make eyes with another of the “Periodic Table Dancers” since week one, she just didn’t want to leave you sitting alone when she went to flirt. Her sympathy had worn thinner with each drink it seems, especially since the seat next to the tall, dark, and chiseled was vacant. So as you frantically tried to catch her eye and lure her back to your table before she could do any damage, mouthing, “Get back here now!-” she did her best to ignore you, before hopping up onto the empty stool at their table.

It was difficult to read her lips from where you sat for a variety of reasons, consisting of- but not limited to: how drunk she was, how tipsy you were, how far away she was, and your lip reading skills being abysmally below par. It looked like she was leaning across the table to say “My friend thinks you're cute,” which was enough for you to vacate your hightop in favor of filling your cup at the bar. No need to sit here and watch your night become a veritable shit show.

Waiting at the bar and doing your best to avoid the feeling of eyes watching you, you prayed for the bartender to come over so you could grab another drink. She caught your eye and nodded to let you know she saw you and would be coming your way next. You glanced down at your phone while waiting for her to finish pouring out shots at the other end of the bar for the rowdy team who always placed last.

Feeling someone lean against the bar-top next to you had you looking up, hopeful it was your friend, finished making a fool out of the two of you. It really was the best quiz night in town; going to another one after this would just be disappointing. Luck wasn't on your side, though. Stood next to you wasn't your teammate, but the cute adversary you'd been carefully trying to avoid eye contact with for the better part of two hours. Luckily the bartender swooped in, “Another, hon?”

“Yes please, Sandra! Thank you.” You looked at him out of the corner of your eye, “Get him one too. I'm pretty sure my friend's been harassing his table for the past 15 minutes and it's the least I could do.” Sandra smiles and looks up at him and he places his empty glass on the counter and requests, “Just another beer, please.”

You stay quiet as Sandra fills another pint glass and pops it onto a coaster in front of him, “No charge for him. He's earned one since you guys keep kicking his ass week after week.” She winks and walks away, leaving you stood there wide-eyed and frantically wishing to disappear through the sticky floor tiles.

“I'm Jimmy,” he holds out his hand for you to shake and you do, tucking your hand into his giant one and giving him a jerky handshake.

“Nice to meet you, I'm (Y/n).” You're quiet for a beat before you feel it get a little awkward and you're antsy to fill the silence, “I'm… really sorry about her. She had a rough day at work. She doesn't usually get so drunk, but ya know… After a few drinks I can't really be responsible for her antics.” You take a long sip of your drink, just for something to do with your hands really, and to have an excuse to stop talking.

He doesn't want to stop talking it seems, because he doesn't let the silence sit, and he picks up where you left off, “Yeah, she said as much. She also said you were too shy to come over and talk.” He looks you in the eye, head tilted innocently and smirking, daring you to combat the statement.

Your face is hot and the bar is warm and there's so many places you'd rather be right now, because how fucking embarrassing??? You totally need a new friend after tonight because, honestly who does this? Not cool. Not. Cool.

“I mean, I'm not shy-” you start, trying to extricate yourself from this cluster fuck. You can literally see no way out of him knowing that you have a big, gross crush on his stupid face; you’re just too antsy, “I didn't want to intimidate your team. I figured you guys lose enough on your own. You don't need me and my giant brain getting into your heads before the game, ya know?” There we go. Sarcasm, right? Best defense mechanism there is. He seems to like the banter because his smirk becomes a smile and it feels really nice to be the one that made that happen.

He's looking at your vacant table, which won't remain empty for long- the post trivia crowd is starting to make its way in- and jerks his head in that direction before walking towards it. You take the invitation and follow him, climbing back onto your stool as he drags the one across from you closer, right next to yours, before plopping down on it. He's tall, which you knew, but his feet graze the floor, while yours dangle freely and you realize just how much bigger he is in comparison.

Under different circumstances, you could be... well not cool, calm, and collected, but at least slightly less frenetic You're worried about what Lucy-loose-lips may have let spill before he decided to get up and walk away from her word vomit, and you don't like him having all of the power in this situation.

It seems he can sense how uncomfortable you are, because he coughs and looks at you before trying again at a conversation. “Your friend likes Chris, huh?” He tips his glass to point over to his table. She’s pulling out all the stops; she's leaning in to talk to him with her hand on his forearm and you can tell she's laying the charm on thick. He seems into it though, smiling at her and listening intently to whatever she's saying. You smile a little because her last boyfriend was a douche and Chris seems like a nice enough guy.

“Yeah, she won't shut up about him.” You smirk and are finally a little more relaxed, now that you're getting the chance to focus on her crush over your own for 5 seconds.

You manage to keep light banter going for a while, him claiming they were undefeated before you showed up and ruined his life, and you claiming you’ve been holding back and he doesn’t even know what he’s up against. The conversation flows organically, Sandra even brings over another round on the house (you knew you liked her). You explain how you tricked your friend into coming here that first time you came. She thanked you since she got to stare at his friend, Chris, all night which led to you guys returning the next week and then not being able to stay away after your back-to-back wins. He laughs and admits that he was happy you guys started coming, since none of the other teams were very good and he liked a little healthy competition. He's almost done with his beer and he pushes the glass back and forth between his hands a few times before giving you a side-eye and letting that smirk settle back onto his features. “What? Is there something on my face?” You wipe your hand over your mouth, nervous that he won't stop staring at you.

“No, you're good. I was just thinking about what your friend told me.” The smirk was back full force and not going anywhere and damn if you don't have a streak of curiosity running straight through you. So, you steel yourself, finish your drink, and meet his eyes; “Well then, do tell. What did Chatty-Cathy have to say?”

You've used up just about all of the courage you possess, so you drop your eyes and play with the frayed edge of a rip in your jeans. He finishes his own drink before clearing his throat, it has the desired effect, since you look up and he continues talking. “She said, and I'm just quoting here really, so you can't shoot the messenger-” he pauses to make air quotes with his hands, which are large and strong and hot damn do you want them on your body, “-‘My friend thinks you're cute, but she's too much of a chicken shit to come over here and talk to you. You should go talk to her because she hasn't gotten any in a while and you’re just her type.’” He flourishes the end with another air quote and bless him, his face is just as red as you’re sure yours is.

You can't help but smirk back because this whole situation is so fucking ridiculous and he's even cuter when he's red like this and technically none of what she said was a lie. Might as well go for broke, since worst case scenario you just never come back here ever again. Might as well “shoot your shot” as the kids say these days, no?

“Okay, full disclosure? None of what she said is a lie?” It's not a question, but your inflection turns up at the end, since it's implied you're trying to figure out if he’s as into you as you are into him; would he really have come over here if he wasn't at least a little interested?

How many drinks have you had? Who is this confident girl who is practically asking this guy to come home with her? It can't be you, you're clearly being possessed by a spirit who cares about you and wants you to get laid.  You're mulling over the likelihood of a benevolent ghost being responsible for all of this when he finally speaks up again.

“That's good to know. If we're going on the ‘full disclosure’ rule right now, I also think you're cute and have been trying to get your attention for the past 3 weeks, so I'm glad your friend got toasted and let it slip... Because I was also too shy to come over here.”

He's got his hand on your knee and he's looking you in the eye, so you give him a nod to let him know you're okay with it, but he keeps talking, “I have also not ‘gotten any in a while,’ sooo if that's a thing that you wanted, I would also be okay… more than okay, actually, with that happening.”

You're pretty sure your heart just stopped because fuck yes, please. You’ve never been this forward in your whole life but he's into it, he just said it, and you know that you're into it, and his hand feels so good on your leg, gently squeezing and getting a little higher than you'd consider strictly decent in a public setting.

“Well, we should probably fix that then. For both of us. We could leave?” You look over to his table and your friend is fully in Chris’s lap now. They're laughing and he's got his arms wrapped around her, and the two other teammates are nowhere to be found, smart of them to leave, honestly.

“Let me just,” you jerk your thumb towards your friend, indicating you need to say goodbye.

“Uh, yeah, definitely. I'm just going to go close my tab.” He looks excited that you agreed to this, if not a little shocked and you're feeling the same. But no complaints, since you want to feel him all over every inch of you if you're being honest.

Not wanting to interrupt, you tap Chris on the shoulder gently, “Can I just, steal her away. One second. I promise I'll bring her right back,” you hold up one finger and grab her hand before tugging her a few feet away, not waiting for an answer. She's got a shit eating grin plastered on her face and starts talking before you can get a word out.

“I see you met Jimmy,” she raises her eyebrows and nods her head over to where he is. He's sitting back at your table watching you two, but when he catches your eye and knows you caught him staring he looks down, the red coloring making its way back, sitting high on his cheekbones, “You're so fucking welcome.”

“I did, yes. I can't believe you just did that…. But I'm going to let it go. I'm taking him home. Find somewhere else to go tonight, okay? It's the least you can do for embarrassing me, you brat.” You tug her in for a goodbye hug and wave to Chris before making your way back to Jimmy.

“Okaaaaay, um-” you tuck a loose piece of hair back behind your ear, “-ready to go?” Jimmy stands up and tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket. He nods and cocks his elbow out for you to loop yours through as he leads you out of the bar into the cool night air.

[impfiltration-archive]

The Victory Garden

Some drabble fun for @ardentsoldier​ because an idea I sprung up with them filled my head up with so many mental pictures that I needed to scrabble it all out

Warnings: Self-indulgent and too many plants

Haxus has never been much of a gardening person; overall, he found himself rather neutral when it came to any matters of botany. 

There were some Galra that were raised on colonies with lush vegetation, and it wasn’t uncommon for the cadets recruited from these lands to try and smuggle ferns or grasses into port. As a sort of momento to remind them of home. Others were raised in the protective hulls of civilian cruisers, and could get anxious when their world opened up to forever-rolling hills and way-too-tall trees teeming with unknown life. 

Haxus, on the other hand, was raised along the banks of Dreia-55. He found beauty in ripples and comfort from the sound of water running over rocks, but the ugly weeds and spindly trees that grew along the shoreline? He never developed any attachment to them, thus his sense of neutrality. 

He has found a new, twisted fascination in gardening, now, though. The Lions, you see, had elemental alignments, and this seemed to be transferred to their paladins.  

Some have asked if that was just an Earthling thing—they’ve come across a number of aliens with peculiar, evolutionary features—but the Champion never bled the sparkling, black goop he does now when first under their care. Which brings us back to the gardening. 

While fighting the Green Paladin, her (As opposed to the “his” they presumed) little drone knocked him over into the engine well. He was plummeting to his death, cursing his ignorance—why had he let himself underestimate an enemy just because of her baby-fat face—when he managed to snag himself on one of the ledges that narrow the drop. All the momentum went straight to wrists, making him keen in a way he hasn’t since interrogation-exposure training, but as the Galra mantra goes, “Victory or death,” so he clambered back up to the catwalk. 

Having lost his sword during his fall, Haxus had nothing but his agility and claws to finish his mission. So.. Actually, scratch that, since it seemed like he also had the element of surprise on his side. He found her running mad down the halls, cycling through the different files on her gauntlet and oblivious to his stalking. He was quick to slink up left and nick her along the side. 

He smirked, already counting down when his venom would make her to keel over with a whimper like a sick yupper, when all the sudden quiznaking plants burst out from her between her ribs—taking them both by surprise.

It started with an ivy-line that burst out before falling into a limp droop, followed by hard stems that twisted together into budding red ends that seal up all her cuts. Most bizarre of all, probably, was the a glowing, purple pulse that slowly seeped up the stalks protruding from the wound, outlining jagged lines of a nonsense pattern as it throbbed out. Likely the toxins meant to murder her, now being leeched out of her body.

It was unexpected (Was there any other word that fit?), but one of them was a child, and the other a solider who has been scarred again and again in learning not to lose focus. The battle was pretty much over by that point.

While she flailed and gawked at the leaves and stems spurting from her side, Haxus brought her down with a sickening thud, heel slamming against her breastplate. 

That seemed to bring her out of her stupor, since the paladin was actually trying to aim her bayard. Unfortunately for her, Haxus wasn’t playing any coy, battle games this time. His boot went crunch against her wrist, and her bayard scattered down the hall before it could take proper form. 

Then, in a fluid motion that could’ve only been trained into him, he brought out a magnetic pair of cuffs from his side-pack and slapped them onto her—ignoring her screech when he mishandled the hand that was very much bent the wrong way, now.

No mistakes this time.

With the paladin properly incapacitated, Haxus can’t help but admit that he finds himself rather.. curious about this strange occurrence.  

He walks a wide arch around her left, head tilted curiously before he bends down, glaring absolute contempt into her frenzied, tear-filled eyes. He at least meant to, but after neon-tipped clovers sprouted from wherever he dragged a claw over the girl’s face, there was no hiding his fascination. His fallen contender squirms, panting that sort of huff you only get under immense pain; still, the sprouts running down her cheek is a glaring blemish that absorbs most of the attention. 

Now, it’s important to know that Haxus is not exactly like Sendak. The Commander liked to play around with any of the more challenging adversaries they come across, whereas Haxus prefers his enemies cold and dead wherever he got a hold of them, but this little imp? The idiot child who nearly managed to wreck a 10,000 year long mission of the empire? The brat who almost hung all that humiliation on his shoulders? He’d be lying if he said it didn’t make giddy to watch her struggle and grimace. 

Besides that, he wasn’t quite sure how to kill her yet. Burning or spacing would probably work, but from what he’s observed, anything that could be inflicted right now would just result in more of those fauna-scabs or whatever they should be called. That’s when the twisted idea came to his head: Why doesn’t he start a garden?

He pressed the comm-piece fastened to his wrist before raising it up close to his face, hopefully muffling the girl’s sniffling about family this and help me that. “The saboteur has been aprehended; the mission is back on course.” 

Sendak replied back in a smooth voice. “Good.” Or was that a hint of relief he heard? “Get those engines back online.”

“Aye, Sir.” He waits for just the briefest of pauses. “There has also been a new development I’m sure you’ll find.. interesting.” 

Enter the greenhouse deck of the third fleet, some odd movements later.

A level like this is something you usually only find in specialized shuttles, given all the expenses and resources they require, but after returning the lions to Emperor Zarkon, they could’ve asked for commemorative luxite plates if they wanted to. But no, he was fine absorbing all the glory now fixed to his name (It came with so many benefits, like a bigger pension, a multitude of favors, his Commander’s pride), and requesting a housing unit for his little experiment. 

In there, Katie was more than less in a permanent kneel. Rather than shackles, Haxus had cut along her forearms and introduced the blood-smudged vines—all scrawling and numerous like veins—that spilled from her wounds to the soil covering any sign of metal floors. They had taken root quickly, keeping the girl bound to the ground like the life support system that left a mask strapped across her face, and multiple tubes either stuck into her back or arms. 

It all read her vitals or pumped in one nutrient or another. Whether she needs the oxygen-flow or not is debatable, but the specialists who examined her said it was better safe than sorry. Haxus could agree to that; however, he wasn't so attached to persevering this whelp's life that he'd let her medical needs to ruin this fine aesthetic of torture—meaning that all the blinking lights and vials those tubes are connected to were covered up by a thin layer of dirt, as well as the little viridescent buds littering the room.

One way or another, she was tethered to the ground and kept behind locked doors, where only those with the proper clearance could marvel at this spectacle:

Great big leaves flowing from her shoulder blades like wings, their ivory outline making wrinkles through the middle and enclosing the spry green that runs even deeper along their underside. Between these appendages sits big flower in per-bloom. 

The petals came together like a kiss, colored a pale pink turning fusa along its soft, frilly edges. As if guarding this rare beauty, a thorny batch of navy blue stems that fade into a softer blue around each pointed end circle it; although, some of them flowed past their ward. Several spill over her shoulders, others warp themselves into her remaining hair, while the rest stretch over an iris moss that runs down the girl's spine. Knobbly, bark patches infringe its borders before reaching well beyond her girth, housing all sorts of exotic plants that make up odd colors and shapes like small bushels of flowers with dovetail petals and patterned leaves. 

Even more of her back is claimed by succulents that build up like scales, or the swirling thistles, and while more flesh from her front has managed to survive, it is very much the same—like an overgrown garden bed. It stands much more shielded, though, having Katie’s own shadow conceal it; however, that also just accentuates the purple-ish, glowing outline of the different greenery dotting her stomach. 

Meshed with pale, smooth skin, it was all beautiful until you came to her human face—where green, leafy flakes slowly grew over her cheeks. As long as her mouth and nose were covered by the oxygen-mask, the girl’s eyes stand as her most prominent features, especially with the sad, mournful song those honey hues sang. They lost their watery beat a while ago—there were just too many tears—but they're the type of dim and tired seen on any work camp salve. 

Yet somehow they still manage to be expressive, as seen by the anxiety that filled them when the doors opened up to Haxus.

When she could still talk clearly—because the roots of all those stems and thorns hadn't grown into serrated, overlapping lines through her throat yet—she'd always try to make remark or another. Then, after the mask went on, she relied on her eyes to muster the same gusto or pleading she'd squeal before. Now, she just stared at him with an exhausted, half-distressed look, as if to ask, "What now?” 

That's how Haxus read it, and he responded in kind. "Don't wilt now, little Katerlily," he only called her the plant name he made up for her (Or more likely scrounged from her files) these days, "I brought a new addition for you."

Katie, no, the Katerlily would’ve burst into a sob right then if she still could. She didn’t want anymore, he’s already done more than enough—she can feel all these things growing through her insides. 

Unable to cry, she’s limited to staring insecurely at the potted seedling in his hands. It didn’t look like much, just an ugly, little weed, but where he usually just maimed her in some grizzly manner, then kept whatever grew out of those wounds watered, there were other times that he’d jam in different seeds or sprouts wherever he sliced her up to see what would bloomed. 

That’s how she ended up losing her voice to thorns, and the pads of her feet to sundew buds—perhaps the most excruciating points of her torture.

Haxus could feel her apprehension as she gawked, but that just made him light in the chest. It shows in his smug face, and the spring in every daunting step he takes around the room.

“I’m sure you’re going to love it. An.. acquaintance of mine gave it to me, after gasping on about some hackney metaphor all about how ‘it doesn’t look like much on the top, but the extensive root system underneath is beautiful all on it’s own’.” He paused to roll his eyes, quietly gagging to himself, too. He was never a fan of all the annoying poetics that people try to jam into every little thing. 

Haxus perks up, though, when he sees the Katerlily shuddering and trying to discreetly look over her shoulder to see what he’s doing, as if she doesn’t know exactly where this is going.

Just to goad her even furthur, he lets his dramatic pause swell some more, then walks up right behind her with a click, click, click of his heels. Her shoulders go rigid with how tense they are, and she keeps waffling between peeking or just letting her head hang—still unsure whether it’s better to watch or look away. It’s delicious enough of a sight to make him purr his words. “I’m sure you’d love the priggish sentiment it represents.” 

There’s a quiet shing of a dagger being unsheathed, and the Katerlily finally settles on nestling her chin as close to her chest as she can. It helps, she likes to tell herself, when you count, so she tries focusing on that instead of anything happening around her.

1, 2, 3—There’s a small clatter as Haxus lets the pot for his ugly plant fall, probably holding the newly uprooted sprout in his dagger-free hand—4, 5—What’s that shuffling?—6, 7.... 8.......

All the sudden there’s an eruption of pain from the small bit of space between her kidneys, where Haxus plunges his knife before pulling it back to create a pocket of fat and muscle. 

It feels so unnatural—she can actually feel Haxus’ fingers in her as he jams the sprout into the wound—and oh god, it hurts.

The Katerlily crumples into a series of screams. They’re muffled and strained from her mask and punctured voice-box, but they’re tortured screams all the same, and pair well with the way she contorts, arching her back with trembling shoulders and closing her eyes as tightly as possible.

Haxus watches it all with a cool, relaxed posture, making a quiet, “Oooh,” sound as he watched her skin meld over the protruding head of the weed then wriggle around beneath her first few layers of fat and muscle.

It was slow at first, that extensive root system from before was just starting to take root, then it erupted into fleshy ripples and the squishy sound that comes from guts. At that, the Katerlily thrashed about screeching, almost covering the beeping of monitors from someplace around the deck. If his ears weren’t so sharp, Haxus would’ve missed them, not that he was going to do anything about it. 

The beeping was the monitors indicating one health failure or another, but as far as he’s aware, this is a perfectly acceptable death for a rebel brat.  

Today’s not her day, though, since she’s still twitching when the bulging eventually stops. In another tick she’s limp and panting loudly, shaking like—for lack of better wording—a leaf. 

Haxus imagines she would’ve collapsed into a puddle of her own bile if in the position to do so, but she can only rest on sore knees while her head lolls around from what he presumes is a rapidly fading consciousness. 

Well, there was no fun for him here anymore. He kicks the little pot from earlier to the side and sheaths his weapon, letting his hand graze over some of the Katerlily’s leaves and branches as he strolls past her. “Well, I suppose a creature like you still requires sleep.” 

His claws come up to where her hair and thorns connect as he breaths out a quiet laugh to himself. “Let’s see if that’s still the case after we plant something in the back of your head.” It seems as if his victim is too tired to even try to flinch her head away, so he just tuts and leaves the greenhouse.

The doors slide close behind him, and his garden left to grow.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super #122

Whenever I look at these posts on my phone, it shows me “recommended” posts from earlier in my blog, usually stuff with the same tags, so whenever I write about a new episode of DBS, I see all these older posts where I wrote about older episodes.   What amazes me is how much I despised those older episodes, because these Tournament of Power eps are really kicking ass. 

This is just a hot take, but maybe it turns out that Dragon Ball characters are best suited for fighting, and if you have a bunch of them slug it out for thirty straight episodes, it makes up for other production shortcomings.   All those people rushing to the defense of episode 5 missed the point.   We all knew that DBZ had similar quality issues.   The reason everyone was picking on the SSJ3  Goku vs. Beerus scene was because we’d already seen it before in Movie 14, and doing it again only highlighted the drop in quality.   If Trunks had spent more time fighting and less time talking, no one would have cared what color his hair was, or who’s kissing whom.  Instead, they wasted the whole arc trying to explain how alternate timelines and kais work, and that’s not what anyone wanted to see. 

The U6 vs. U7 tournament might have gotten it right, except they held back too much.   U7 didn’t even deliver a full roster, and U6 was sorely outclassed, leading to a tournament full of mismatches, non-fights, and bickering over the rules.  I remember that I used to dread the Tournament of Power, because I thought it would just be a bigger, more complicated version of U6 vs. U7, but thankfully they got it right.  And it looks like the home stretch is going to be just as good as what we’ve seen so far.  Spoilers under the cut.

I was wondering how they’d pair off for a five-on-three battle, and I’m satisfied with the results.  Frieza vs. Dyspo is a fresh matchup, and it showcases each guy’s fighting style.   Dyspo is sticking to hit and run tactics, while Frieza isn’t using his Golden form yet.    I would assume that Frieza has the advantage here, even though Dyspo seems to be winning right now.    He’s just keeping Dyspo busy while his teammates handle the other two.   If the others have trouble, Frieza can go Golden and tackle Dyspo for real, but for now Frieza can afford to wait and see.  

The irony is that Dyspo may be the fastest being in all the universes, but he’s wasting time.   Frieza doesn’t need to beat Dyspo because his team is ahead, but Dyspo desperately needs to eliminate Frieza so he can even the odds give Toppo a hand.  I don’t know if Dyspo understands that or not.   It may be that he realizes he can’t beat Golden Frieza, so he’s purposely distracting Frieza to keep him from going on the offensive.

It makes sense to put 17 and Gohan against Toppo.  A while back I was saying that I wasn’ sure whether 17 or Gohan is the weakest member of the team, but I’m reasonably sure they’re the 4th and 5th strongest out of who we have left.   If they’re working together, the exact order is unimportant. 

The only question now is how much weaker they are than Goku or Vegeta, since Toppo was able to hold his own against each of them.    If they’re pretty close, then this should go smoothly, since Toppo would get crushed if Goku and Vegeta double-teamed him.   But so far it looks like Gohan and 17 working together isn’t enough to stop Toppo.   Maybe they haven’t gone all out yet, or maybe Toppo’s the one who’s been holding back this whole time.  Again, like Dyspo, he may just be keeping Gohan and 17 occupied until one of the other Pride Troopers can create an opening.  

It’s also possible that Gohan and 17 aren’t quite the well-oiled machine they need to be to successfully double-team somebody.   This is the first time they’ve  interacted since History of Trunks, and that was an alternate future version, so these two really don’t know each other that well.  Maybe if Piccolo or 18 were still around instead, Toppo would already be finished.  

That leaves Goku and Vegeta against Jiren, which I’m enjoying more than I thought I would.   They’re not double-teaming him so much as fighting over which one of them gets to take Jiren on solo.   Goku got his clock cleaned, and now Vegeta seems to be taking point, and doing better against Jiren than anyone gave him credit for. 

So far, my analysis of Jiren is that he’s more interested in his private agenda than in winning the tournament.    He’s like Goku in that sense, except that while Goku is trying to enjoy himself by giving his opponents time to reach their full power, I feel like Jiren has something much darker going on in his head.   Not necessarily evil, but he’s had several chances to toss Goku and Vegeta off the stage, and he’s not using them.   It’s like he’s goading them to try harder, either because he wants a better fight, or because he’s trying to break their spirits, or some other reason that doesn’t translate into the objective of the game.  He kind of reminds me of Toguro from Yu Yu Hakusho, where his ultimate goal basically came down to finding someone who could give him a worthy death.  I don’t know if that’s what Jiren is really after, but it could be. 

Anyway, Vegeta’s stepping up to the plate.    I’ll be honest, I enjoy Vegeta unironically.   I would like to see him utterly crush a major adversary in a big important battle, though I accept that this probably isn’t going to happen any time soon, especially while Goku’s right over there.   My hope for this tournament was that Vegeta would get his hero moment against Toppo, since Toppo is strong enough to be a threat with or without Jiren on the board.  Taking out Toppo would be a big feather in Vegeta’s cap, and it would clear the field for Goku to have his climactic showdown with Jiren. 

But that idea ignores Vegeta’s Saiyan Pride(tm).  The idea that he should square off against Jiren’s sidekick is insulting to him.  He wants the big dog, specifically because the big dog whipped Goku like it was no big deal.   In this sense, Jiren reminds me a lot of all the movie villains Goku and Vegeta tried to tackle together, like Meta Cooler, Super 13, and Janemba.  They’d rather do it solo, but they can’t, and they’re too impatient to take turns anyway. 

The important thing here is that they’re not just having Jiren destroy Vegeta like a jobber, the way Beerus did in Movie 14, or Hirudegarn in Movie 13, or Janemba in Movie 12.  Or Super Buu.   Or Hit.   Or... look you get the idea, okay?   It’s kind of fun watching Vegeta get massacred because he bit off more than he could chew, but this isn’t the time or place for that.   The whole point of putting Vegeta in this tournament was because he was about as strong as Goku, and if he can’t pull his weight in the endgame, then there was no point keeping him on the stage or this long.  Jiren already demonstrated his superiority by dominating Goku and eliminating Hit.    Having him effortlessly defeat Vegeta would be redundant now. 

It’s a lot more fun to have Vegeta play the spoiler, like he did against Semi-Perfect Cell and Android 19 and Kid Buu.   Jiren may think he can godmode his way through this tournament, but Vegeta’s going to make him work for it.  He probably won’t beat Jiren, but he’ll make you wonder for a while.  

I don’t know what the deal is with Vegeta’s power increases in this episode or the next one, but we need things like that to keep Vegeta relevant in that role, or else he’d just fall so far behind Goku that there’d be no role for him in the story.  If he’s not going to learn Ultra Instinct, we need to see what Vegeta will do instead.   Maybe that’s a new technique, or a new transformation, or maybe we’ll just see an exploration of strengths Vegeta has been relying on all along.   For all of Jiren’s power, Vegeta was still able to quickly analyze his attack and devise a counter.   Things like that are how he’s been able to hold out in all those hopeless battles he’s been in. 

I’m mildly disappointed that he used the exact same trick he used against Perfect Cell in DBZ, goading him into taking a Final Flash at pointblank range, then getting demolished when it doesn’t work.   And I feel like they’re sort of setting up a similar reprise of Vegeta getting up again to challenge Kid Buu.  Callbacks are fine, but I want to see something new.    On the other hand, I get the sense that they’re only using these chesnuts in order to get them out of the way for the real meat of Vegeta’s offensive.  He powered up and hit Jiren with his best shot, he’ll take Jiren’s beatdown and get back up for more... and then something.   Hopefully something worth the buildup, or they might as well have had Frost eliminate Vegeta a dozen episodes back.

There’s eight minutes left, and Episode 122 was one minute long (yeah, I know), so maybe this arc has eight more episodes to go.  That would be kind of nice, since they could devote a couple more to Vegeta’s efforts and still have plenty of time for Goku’s big finale.  I’m feeling pretty confident that whatever happens from here will be good stuff.

[thewadapan]

Cowboy

(I wrote a short story for the Homestuck Discord’s first writing contest. This is where I’d put a content warning, but if I’m any more specific I’ll spoil it, so consider this a warning of its own.)

Mad Joey had never been much good at naming things. He was good at cards, and drinking large quantities of terrible lager, and had quite the uncanny ability to walk more than ten feet on his hands alone - but whenever he was asked to name something, he’d just pick the first thing that came into his head. On his tenth birthday, his mother had bought him a cat, which he’d named “Kitty” - it had ended up dying a couple of months later, in an unfortunate accident involving a litter tray and a lighter. His mother had herself died only a few months after that, coincidentally in another incident involving a lighter - although, in this case, it had not been a litter tray, but rather several gallons of petrol.

The name “Mad Joey” had been his own invention, too. All of his friends (well, both of them) agreed that it was a terrible name: Joey was not mad - so they argued - just a bit of a prick.

Despite the fact that he’d been riding on it for almost two whole days, Mad Joey’s workhorse had yet to receive a name of its own. It was a tired thing, propelled along by four spindly legs which somehow managed to transmit each and every undulation of the ground beneath up through the worn saddle and straight into Mad Joey’s ass - even though not one of its legs touched the floor. The workhorse’s repulsor technology worked fine on the level roads found on the core planets, where remaining a fixed difference above the ground made for a relatively smooth ride. Here in the outer reaches, however, its lack of suspension was sorely felt.

“Piece o’ shit,” Mad Joey muttered, thinking that’d make a fine name for his steed.

Glancing back through the thick cloud of fine smoke being kicked up behind his vehicle, Mad Joey could see the faint outline of his pursuer’s speeder - noticeably bigger than the last time he’d looked. He was losing ground.

Searing pain shot through Mad Joey’s arm, the product of a harpoon fired by the pilot of the craft behind. “Fuck!” he yelled as he let go of the reins and tried to pull it free. “Son of a bitch!” It was no use. The cable was already taut; he found himself being dragged from the craft, face-planting into the dust below and rolling to a stop.

By the time he’d recovered, the other speeder had come to a stop. He ignored it and remained where he was on the windswept ground. With his good arm, he tore off his helmet. Though it stank something fierce, the air here was just about breathable - of course, it’d have to be, for what he was planning.

Mad Joey sat up, retrieved his flask from his suit, and took a long swig of the whiskey contained within. It tasted like piss, and he almost choked on it. He watched out of the corner of his eye as the speeder’s occupant climbed out and approached through the settling smoke. “A’ight mate, this has been a laugh, but enough’s enough,” a voice crackled from behind the mirrored glass of their helmet. “You gonna come quietly? I got a taser.”

Mad Joey laughed at that. He was busy stuffing a rag into the flask - a difficult task, with just one hand to work with, but not an impossible one. “Not a chance, partner,” he said, trying the word out for size.

“The fuck’s that voice you’re doing?”

Slowly, Mad Joey got to his feet. “Here’s how this is gonna go down,” he drawled. “You’re gonna turn around, get back in that speeder, and mosey the hell away from this dustball.”

His adversary took a step forward. “And why the fuck’s that?”

Mad Joey gestured around expansively. “Gunpowder.”

“You what?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Mad Joey chose to repeat himself. “...Gunpowder.”

“Nah mate, I heard you, it’s just…” They trailed off, their helmet swivelling as they took in their surroundings - as if for the first time. “Wait, that’s what this shit is?”

In answer, Mad Joey brandished a lighter. This proved tricky, because his good hand already had a flask in it, but he managed.

“Naaah, that’s fuckin’ batty. The whole planet’s made of this shit. How the fuck would a rock like this even form?” They shook their head. “This is why you’re doing all cowboy shit, innit?”

“Ah’m gonna blow this whole place sky high,” Mad Joey said, “go out in a blaze o’ glory.” His bad arm was stinging like a bitch. His good hand was shaking. “They’ll see the blast from the central planets.”

The lawperson looked around again, one hand raised to their helmet to shield their eyes. It was almost midday, and the sun bore down brightly. “No, they won’t - there won’t be any blast, mate, the wind’ll put it out.”

Mad Joey faltered. “Reckon it’ll be enough to take the both of us out, at least.” He looked down at the cable dangling from his arm. It was like a lasso, he thought. “Get outta here. Tell ‘em Mad Joey won, tell ‘em he burned his way into hell.”

“You didn’t win shit,” they snorted - forcing a burst of static out through the speakers in their suit. “They had the fires out in like, ten minutes - fire service’s a lot better than it used to be. They literally only want you for wasting everyone’s time.” They advanced, arms spread wide - but Mad Joey raised the lighter, and they froze. “This is fucking daft,” they pressed. “Mate, look, I dunno who you are, I dunno how you found this rock, but you gotta admit this is a bit much.”

Mad Joey looked away, and his gaze fell upon the workhorse, which had crashed into a nearby dune and now rested with all four legs pointing in the air. “I killed my mu- mom,” he stuttered. “I burned the house down with her in it, ‘cause she was a bitch, and nobody knew I did it.”

“You…” The lawperson reached up with both hands and removed their helmet. From beneath the mirrored glass, Mad Joey saw a face emerge which was a faint reflection of his own - older, with bleached-blonde hair - and heard a distantly familiar voice. “...Joel?”

“Mum,” said Mad Joey. He staggered forward, dropping the lighter and the flask. They fell into the gunpowder, which didn’t ignite.

“I didn’t even recognise you,” she said, tears running down her cheeks. “You look like shit. Also, you were talking in a fucking cowboy voice, you twat.”

“I just thought it’d be cool,” sobbed Mad Joey. “Cowboys are so fucking cool, Mum,” he bawled.

“Shh,” Joel’s mother said, drawing him into a hug. “You don’t have to be a cowboy to be cool.”

“I know, Mum, I’m so sorry-”

“-No, I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing him tighter. “I’m sorry I was such a shit mum. After- after the fire- after I’d thought you died- I tried to sort my shit out, really.”

“You did, Mum,” said Mad Joey. “You’re a fuckin’ police lady. That’s cool as shit.” After a couple of moments, he pushed her away slightly. “Watch this,” he said, taking a couple of steps back. He sucked in a deep breath, then quickly bent over forwards, flipping up so that he was standing on his hands. Unfortunately, one of his arms still had a harpoon sticking out of it, and it gave way instantly - sending him crashing into the dust with a shriek. “Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!”

“I-” started his mother, not really sure what she’d just witnessed.

“Nah, nah, I’m all- fuck! I’m- I’m all right. Fuck. Was just… I can do this cool thing, where I walk on my hands, y’know.”

“I know,” she nodded, not knowing. She knelt down next to him and put an arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry I shot you - we’ll get you to a hospital or something, get it looked at, yeah?”

“Are- are you gonna arrest me?” asked Mad Joey, haltingly.

His mother nodded again. “You did crimes, Joel. I’m sorry.” She reached into a compartment in her suit and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. “I know I’m your mum, but crimes are against the law.”

“Yeah, okay.” Mad Joey wiped the tears from his eyes, before holding out his hands. Once the handcuffs were on, his mother helped him into the speeder, and - as they flew away - he stared down at the planet of gunpowder in pensive thought. After thinking for a while, he spoke up. “Mum… now that we’re up here… do you wanna set the gunpowder off?”

She turned around in the driver’s seat. “Haven’t you burnt enough things today?”

Joel supposed he had.

Commentary

The Homestuck Discord got a new #writing channel towards the end of December, last year, after a survey in which a few users requested one. For some reason I didn’t post there until over a month later, but - as the amount of time I spent in the server increased - I found myself growing fairly invested in the channel. See, it’s always struggled a lot in terms of activity - often playing host to one or two short conversations, if that - and, as it was introduced on an experimental basis, it’s always in danger of being archived.

This isn’t really the place to examine the channel in detail. What I will say is that perhaps its most important role is to provide a place for people to shill their own writing, where it would otherwise be buried in #general or laughed out of #mspa-lit.

I’m pretty sure I was the first person to meaningfully suggest doing a #writing contest, all the way back towards the end of February: “could be a two-week contest with a decent prompt, where idk the winning story gets posted in #shilling or something”. It wasn’t until after spiral became the art-cosplay pseudo moderator that anything came of this - only instead of one prompt, there was to be four, and instead of a #shilling post being the prize a couple of the server’s resident artists offered to grant a free commission to each of the winners.

Determined to put my money where my mouth was, I got right to work on my own entry. First, I had to pick from the prompts:

DIALOGUE PROMPT: "You don't want to live in a society like this, yet you don't want to do anything about it!"

ART PROMPT: “Chilly Night” by Martyna "Marcia" Chmielewska

SETTING PROMPT: A vast, barren planet devoid of most resources except one rare mineral.

SENTENCE PROMPT: In the ballroom, full of swishing skirts and duplicity, there was one thing left unaccounted for.

I was sorely tempted by the “we live in a society” prompt, but didn’t think it’d be possible to incorporate it naturally into a piece.

(As it happened, a few people did choose that prompt, and I was pleasantly surprised by how effectively they used the line.)

In the end, I settled on the one which fell within my own comfort zone - the setting prompt. I remembered seeing a post by Drew Linky which mentioned “nitroglycerin”, and - even if it didn’t quite fit the spirit of the prompt - I couldn’t get the idea of a planet made entirely of explosives out of my head. So I ran with it.

I did a bit of research into what large amounts of dynamite looked like when they exploded - by which I mean I watched some random YouTube video - and decided that gunpowder would be a much more evocative substance to make a planet from; it’d look like black sand.

The thing that I found most rewarding when writing this story was that each new idea felt like a natural progression from the last. Gunpowder evoked Western stories, so I decided to present the story as a standard Western - only to pull the rug out from under the reader as the description of the “workhorse” progresses and it becomes apparent that the story’s set in place. I wanted to have an outlaw and a sheriff of sorts, and they needed to be on the planet for a reason.

You can probably guess how the story’s opening line came about. I was staring at a brand new Google Doc and wanted to give it a title, and went with the first thing that came into my head: “Cowboy”. To get myself in the mood, I wound up reading some article about gambling in the Old West (effectively none of which made its way into the story). All of the little details and anecdotes in the first couple of paragraphs were pulled pretty much from thin air; I very much wrote this story by the seat of my pants, rarely stopping to go back and edit or to plan ahead, so in retrospect I’m pretty pleased with the extent to which I was able to incorporate them into the story’s climax.

The idea that Joey’s workhorse has no suspension was probably inspired on a subconscious level by the scooter which I used to ride as a kid. It had solid wheels, which meant you felt every bump in the road. Boy, that thing was fun. The ground’s described as having undulations, by which I meant the wavy patterns left in wind-swept sand; the fact that the planet’s windy is important, as it’s later stated that Mad Joey probably won’t be able to spread a fire across its whole surface.

I liked the idea that the workhorse was kicking up a big cloud of gunpowder as it went - kinda like those ships in The Last Jedi - which seemed to mirror the semi-literal trail of smoke which Mad Joey had been leaving all his life. Speaking of things inspired by sci-fi, didn’t somebody get a harpoon through a limb in Firefly? I had a specific image in my head when I wrote that scene, but I’ve forgotten where exactly it was from.

The line about the air being breathable plants the idea that he’s planning to set something on fire - of course, by then, we already know he’s capable of arson.

I probably only included the beat about whiskey because of the infamous “pass the whiskey” voice line from Fistful of Frags, which I’d briefly played a month or so prior to writing the story. From there, the idea that he’d make a kind of Molotov cocktail using the whiskey was a natural step - see what I mean about this story writing itself?

It’s around this point that the dialogue kicks in. When I wrote this story, I’d been working on “The Beast Within (My Pants)” for a good couple of months, and I quickly found myself slipping into the abrasive cartoonishly-British voice I’d used for many of those characters. Mad Joey himself speaks with my own poor impression of a cowboy, which seemed about right. In all honesty, I’m not sure how well the conversation comes off. My goal was to juxtapose the absurdity of many of the lines against the fact that Mad Joey is getting talked down from the edge, so to speak.

I found myself tripping over the fact that I hadn’t established a gender to his pursuant - I’d given them an opaque helmet and described them in ambiguous terms to keep my options open. In reality, this effectively shut down other avenues for the story’s resolution, because - in terms of economy of narrative - I had to provide some kind of payoff. Glancing back at the beginning of the story told me that I had only one option - Mad Joey was being chased by none other than his own mother. I felt like this was an effective twist because her dialogue seems pretty... laddish? It also generally seems to fit the themes of contrivance and absurdity I’d established with, y’know, a planet made of gunpowder.

The turning point occurs around the time that Mad Joey looks at the workhorse and sees it lying dead on the ground. You see him almost drop his persona in the line “I killed my mu- mom”; he soon drops the drawl entirely.

After the twist is revealed, the dissonance ramps up to eleven. I’m particularly happy with the exchange “Cowboys are so fucking cool, mum” / “Shh. You don’t have to be a cowboy to be cool.” Also,  “You did crimes, Joel. I’m sorry. I know I’m your mum, but crimes are against the law.” Something I’ve always found is that, in real life, emotionally-charged moments like this are often very ugly things, where the things people say would seem very strange to an outsider. Mad Joey’s attempt to walk on his hands serves to emphasise this theme.

In terms of the story’s main theme, it’s... kind of a story about shilling? Or at least, within the context of #writing itself, it’s about doing things you don’t really want to do just for the sake of being known, of having people pay attention to you. Ultimately, the story presents this as something harmful - it almost leads to Mad Joey’s oblivion - and says that resolution comes from people who already care as opposed to the nebulously-defined world at large.

I paid a fair bit of attention to the presentation of the story, because I wanted to draw people into it. Once I’d written it, I deliberately cut it down until it fit on four pages instead of four-and-a-bit; I thought people’d be more inclined to read a four-page story than a five-page one. I’ve been trying to minimise my use of italics for a while now - it’s a crutch, and it causes trouble when copying text around - which I suppose would hypothetically make it easier for people to post quotes in Discord without having to mess around adding markdown back in. There are a couple of places where I had no choice but to use italics, but for the most part I think this was a successful effort.

The plan, once I’d drawn readers in, was to challenge them. The use of profanity is excessive. The story’s central conceit doesn’t make a lot of sense. The twist is contrived. The ending doesn’t quite feel complete. Like Mad Joey’s own persona, this was, to a certain extent, an attention-seeking stunt. Why, then, was this story met with abject silence?

See, #writing is slow enough that most of its users see everything that happens there. A lot of other stories got feedback of some kind. If you think I’m going somewhere with this, I’m not - I was genuinely quite perplexed by this response, and still am. Oh well. The three winning entries all turned out to be genuinely better than my own - which I was glad for, because the thought of this piece o’ shit being the best thing the Homestuck Discord could muster is pretty depressing.

Speaking of depressing, the second contest is in a very strange limbo at the moment, having received only a handful of entries and having provoked little to no discussion. I’ve been pretty busy working on other stuff, and wasn’t too fussed on the prompts, so I guess I’m at least partially to blame for that. Hopefully the channel will flourish a little more in the future...

If you enjoyed this story, you might enjoy the short stories I wrote for the r/WritingPrompts subreddit a couple of years ago, which can be found under the header What Our Future Looks Like on the list of things I made. Some of them are pretty ropey, so read at your own risk! In terms of my longer works, I recommend checking out Retrace Steps.

See you space cowboy...

[ntrending]

Sandia Lab wants to keep nuclear material out of the wrong hands

New Post has been published on https://nexcraft.co/sandia-lab-wants-to-keep-nuclear-material-out-of-the-wrong-hands/

Sandia Lab wants to keep nuclear material out of the wrong hands

Steve Hill paces—patrols, really— in front of four projector screens in a classroom at Sandia National Laboratories, outside Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has close-cropped hair, a straight back, and a swaggering demeanor that together suggest he’s either former military or law enforcement. If you were unsure, your doubts dissolve when you hear him call dice “a tool to determine chance-based outcome.”

The phrasing could be right out of a police report. So yeah, he used to be a cop. And now he’s a “high-risk security professional” at ­Sandia. On this May afternoon, Hill is standing in front of a room crowded with regulators, power-plant employees, research reactor runners, and other types who work with nuclear materials. They’ve come from all over the world to take the lab’s security training course. Through lectures, tech demos, case studies, and hands-on exercises, they learn how best to keep their radioactive stores out of the wrong hands by constructing the strongest possible protections around them. Though used for good purposes at their facilities, uranium and plutonium are uranium and plutonium—if they get out of peaceful hands and into other ones, they can do very real damage.

Hill is giving his trainees instructions for a tabletop exercise in which they will form opposing teams and game out an attack on a fictional nuclear complex, the Lagassi Institute of Medicine and Physics, where a stash of plutonium pulses at the core. The good guys will try to protect it from the bad guys, who will devise a plan to infiltrate. By playing out scenarios on paper, participants can find weak knees in their own site’s design, and dream up ways to brace them.

During my two-day stay, I’m never left alone. My chaperone, a press officer who is not permitted to be more than a few feet from me at any time, leans over and whispers, “This is getting to be more and more like Dungeons & Dragons.” She’s not wrong.

I look around the room at the attendee name cards. Each lists the person’s homeland: Australia, Canada, Congo, Japan, Lithuania, Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates. Some people here are in charge of security at a specific facility, while others are regulators and policymakers, or plant inspectors.

Yoko Kawakubo, a woman from the Japan Atomic Energy Agency in Tokai, takes studious notes. Back home, she’s in charge of a national training course on nuclear safeguards that serves not just the island, but also emerging Middle Eastern and Asian countries. “I just started,” she tells me later. “I’m new.” And that’s true, but she’s been working for years on other nuclear security projects and on nonproliferation, both especially fraught in the only country where an actual nuclear bomb—dropped by the nation running this course—has detonated.

My attention returns to Hill as he explains the rules of nuclear D&D. Time begins, he says, when the good guys first detect the bad guys trying to penetrate Lagassi. “I have an AK-47,” he says, pretending to be a bad guy. “I’m going to pull it out. Bang-bang. That’s a point of detection.”

Although this seems an obvious detail, the students jot it down in their notebooks. Hill closes with a final thought: “If there are an equal number of good and bad guys, the bad guys will likely win.” Because the bad guys will choose the time, place, and method—all of which they can tailor to suit the facility’s vulnerabilities. “The adversary has the element of surprise,” he says. The class exits and heads toward other rooms, where we’ll play the game.

The exercises are Kawakubo’s favorite part of the course, she tells me. Practice makes perfect, she believes, and there’s only so much of that you get in real life. Plus, she relishes the opportunity to ask questions of people who aren’t new to this. “During lunchtime, I ­always interrupt my leader,” she says.

Kawakubo and her 49 classmates are far from the first scholars of this strange discipline. In fact, this is the 40th anniversary of the program. Formally called the International Training Course on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities, it began in 1978, when Congress passed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act. The legislation focused on limiting the breeding of nuclear weapons while simultaneously fostering peaceful uses of atomic energy. That’s a tough balance to manage, because while only some radioactive material is pure enough to be called weapons-grade, nearly any radioactive ­material can be used to make some kind of weapon.

The act also demands that the U.S.—as the country that officially set off the nuclear-arms chain reaction—shoulder some ­international responsibility. To wit, “the Department of Energy … shall establish and operate a safeguards and physical security training program,” it declares.

To create and run the course, the DOE looked to its national labs. The government had founded many of the research centers during the Manhattan Project, which developed Little Boy and Fat Man, both dropped on Japan. The labs have since helped create a host of other bombs that were detonated in the desert or still sit in silos. Sandia National Labs generated the nonnuclear parts of that first weapons initiative.

Sandia comprises a sprawling complex, much of it inside the gates of Kirtland Air Force Base. Its low, bland buildings, a mix of brick and cement fashioned into the rectangles popular on 1970s college campuses, spread over open terrain dotted with bunkers and the occasional wind tunnel. To the east, the Sandia mountains—so named because, like the desert, they turn watermelon-pink during sunset—loom over the flat floor, looking like they’re lit from within. This lab leads the others in expertise about physical protection: how to keep people physically away from your valuables—your uranium, your armory, your people. That’s why it hosts this training course. Additionally, the instructors are experts in transportation security, nuclear safeguards, international policy, and risk management.

Nowadays, the course is co-sponsored by the National Nuclear ­Security Administration, which responds to atomic emergencies around the world, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United ­Nations–affiliated group that fosters peaceful nuclear technology.

Kawakubo and her peers work on those applications—the kind that make energy for cities and scientific data for physicists. So it’s a ­little strange for them to contemplate the violence that others could invoke. Kawakubo says that up until the 2011 earthquake that took down the Fukushima reactor, her country was experiencing a nuclear ­renaissance and people had pretty positive feelings about it. “The fear was not so big for the public in that period,” she says. “We had some kind of mood that we should promote nuclear power.” Fukushima left people feeling warier. And not without reason. Now, Kawakubo has to think through all the other things that could go wrong.

As the five game groups edge toward their tabletops, I decide to use the bathroom before the exercise starts. My chaperone insists she has to come with me and stand outside my stall door. I joke about escaping through the window, and she counters, very seriously, that I’m not allowed in bathrooms with windows, so that won’t be a problem.

We can debate the necessity of restroom guarding, but the course itself is more important than most people realize. It turns out the IAEA has logged 1,174 incidents of confirmed or likely acts of trafficking nuclear material between 1993 (just before it established its database) and 2016. Those are only the ones they know about. Besides that, there have been 1,894 incidents of unauthorized transport of nuclear material. ­Today, trainees practice on paper how to guard against it.

I follow a group of nine led by Robert Bruneau, a tall guy with a closed-mouth smile, who specializes in the cybersecurity of nuclear power plants. He stands outside the circle of students, who begin to set little plastic Army figurines on a blueprint of the Lagassi Institute—half of them representing the invaders and half the protectors.

On a big sheet of paper taped to the wall, a sample attack plan shows, in neat columns, what the bad guys might do: Drive up, use a ladder to climb the barrier wall, approach the inner facility on foot. The good guys, in their own columns, start to track how they will react. For each step, both sides slide the plastic figures around the blueprint.

When it’s time to get away, a trainee playing one of the bad guys takes Matchbox cars out of a Ziploc bag, and like a child playing Quiet ­NASCAR, rolls the vehicles toward the facility.

“Wait,” the team referee says. The cars brake. “Are those blue squares buildings?” he asks, referring to shapes on the blueprints.

“Yeah,” the driver says.

“You can’t drive over them,” the referee responds. It’s a strange reminder that this is all just a representation, for pretend. Nonetheless, we still have to follow all the rules.

In another room nearby, led by instructor Matt Erdman, who is a Sandia physical security expert, the bad-guy team’s plan is also taped up, and also involves Matchbox cars: “1. Run to wall 2. Jump wall 3. Into car 4. DRIVE INTO SUNSET.”

Right after I walk into this second scenario, the red (bad) team reaches the inner door and rolls the 10-sided die—the tool to determine chance-based outcome—to reveal whether a gunshot kills a blue team member (yes). Then a blue shoots a red. Roll the die. Red dies. Another die roll. Another blue dies. The bad guys push on, breach the vault, and grab Lagassi’s radioactive material.

Jeana Lee Sablay, a research specialist at Philippine Nuclear ­Research Institute, picks up the die and tapes it to the red team’s ­escaping plastic man. “The plutonium,” she explains, smiling.

It is key, students learn, to detect intruders as soon as is possible; the farther away you can see your trespassers coming, the better. Build a better detection system, station more cameras and more guards. Next, they should delay the thieves so as to increase the time between trespass and actual encounter with radioactive material. More walls, more fences, more locked rooms. Separate your valuables so it’s harder for the bad guys to grab and go. That can mean the difference between figures carrying a radioactive die into the world or being carted into court (or coffins, if we’re being morbid). Unfortunately, at the close of this exercise, the bad guys DRIVE INTO SUNSET.

The next day, everyone returns to learn that perhaps the problem isn’t always a red team trying to drive off into the sunset. Perhaps it’s just a guy who wears a red shirt, a guy you see every day, simply doing his job. Until he’s not.

“We want you to understand that there is an insider threat,” says Joel Lewis, a nuclear security specialist from Lawrence Livermore Labs. Also: You could be it. “All of us are insiders at a facility,” he continues. “They’d let us in the gate. We have the potential.”

Take Leonid Smirnov. The engineer had been with the Luch Scientific Production Association in Podolsk, Russia, for 25 years, working on reactors that supplied nuclear material to the country’s space program. In 1993, a time when post-Soviet wages were down and Smirnov was hard up, he read a newspaper article about the value of the kind of highly enriched uranium he handled every day.

He needed a stove. He needed a refrigerator. He had an idea.

He began moving minute quantities of the element into ­lead-lined jars when his co-workers weren’t looking. He’d take them home, stash them on his porch. He was patient, taking only amounts smaller than the facility’s error margins. When he’d done so more than 20 times, accreting more than a kilogram, he set off for Moscow, confident he’d find a buyer. Instead, authorities apprehended him at the ­Podolsk train station—not because they suspected him, but because he’d run into neighbors who’d been stealing batteries from their own workplace, and police searched the whole group.

A lot of nuclear villains are like this: not reprobates, merely humans who need something and see a way to get it. The gap between good and bad isn’t as wide as it seems. Which is something the ­Inter­national Training Course slams home hard.

It’s strange to think of a seed like that stuck in the core of our beings, waiting for a critical mass to pop through the surface. After the lecture, we all look at one another, I think, a little more suspiciously, as we leave the classroom and walk toward a facility that, until 2007, held ­Category I nuclear material—the kind most likely to become part of a missile. ­Sandia kept the place intact, with its old security measures and ­radioactivity containers, to help train teams like this one.

Outside, the sun beats down and blinds. We walk past a high fence and through a set of double doors, one of which has a sign warning “there has been an increase in unauthorized disclosures to uncleared individuals.” This building leads to an interior courtyard, where a walkway goes down into the old processing facility. There are metal detectors, badge sensors, pin pads, and guys with guns. This latter aspect is strangely unfamiliar to Kawakubo. She laughs nervously as she edges past them into a poorly lit room. (We learn later the firearms were fake.) A bunch of containers that look like paint cans sit on an industrial metal shelf. Tamper-evident seals resembling blue painter’s tape span their lids, pretending to protect the imaginary radioactive material inside.

This, Lewis says, is the Springfield Processing Plant. The class is to look for something amiss—anything indicating insider tampering. The students poke around, pick up the cans, set them down, and generally try to look busy. Then Kawakubo finds it: a broken seal. She walks over to a scale and discovers that the container is lighter than it should be. ­Radioactive material is missing—but where has it gone?

The students scour the space for the atoms that, were they real, could kill them. Soon someone finds it in an empty can, ready to be hauled out with the trash.

Lewis urges Kawakubo and her peers to think like criminals and imagine how this room abets theft. If you were an insider, how would you pull a Smirnov? And if you wanted to thwart a Smirnov, how would you do so?

Don’t put your empty cans in the same place as your full ones, the students say. Install more lights. Add cameras to the corners. Wand a Geiger counter over ­employees when they leave. If there’s an emergency evacuation, wand everyone once they get to the safe room.

“Your security needs to guard against ­mistakes—because they are exactly what an insider threat will exploit,” another instructor, Michael Tuell, tells us. And what stops people from going rogue isn’t an appeal to their moral compass. It’s knowing there’s a speed trap. “One of the things that helps everybody stay good is their chances of getting caught.”

RELATED: Why can’t we decide what to do about nuclear energy?

As everyone trudges back to the classroom, Kawakubo and I visit an area where Sandia scientists test out security systems for industry and defense organizations. Inside a gravel-​covered, fenced rectangle lurks a multitude of physical protection mechanisms. We walk in front of a microwave sensor, which works like the lasers that detect intruders in bank-heist movies. Then there’s a chain-link fence crisscrossed with fiber-optic cable. If you touch it, the light’s path through the cable changes. Pretending to be heisters, we bend it before stepping into the active infrared sensor, which feels for human heat. Beware, the guide warns, the backward-barbed wire.

They don’t just proactively test equipment here, the guard points out. They also demo it to special forces so they can learn how to circumvent these same obstacles—should they, say, encounter a fiber-optic fence while ­infiltrating an enemy installation.

This unsettling duality—in the potential of raw elements, in the nature of everyday people—had needled me throughout the entire visit. Especially when I would get up after a lecture to toss a coffee cup into the trash can 5 feet away, and my chaperone would shadow me: When people treat you like you’re about to do something wrong—escape through a bathroom window, pocket some plutonium during a fire drill—it almost makes you want to rebel. I felt like running away only because someone treated me like I would. The surveillance made me feel not just like the authorities thought I could be bad, but like I actually might be, or might want to be.

All of us, like this technology, show one of two faces, depending on the circumstances. We could be the defenders or the infiltrators. The protectors or the threat. Plutonium powers spaceships and also explodes over ­cities. Bombs both defend and kill. Kawakubo smiles at our guide and nods, silent, as she places her hand in front of another sensor. It’s up to her, and her classmates, to make sure the good guys stay good—and win.

This article was originally published in the Winter 2018 Danger issue of Popular Science.

Written By Sarah Scoles

[neshatriumphs]

S.T.A.R.S. AU Samcedes Sci-Fi Fanfiction Chapter 19

Previously at S.T.A.R.S…

Mercedes put Jesse, Joe, Wade, and Emma to work on finding out more about the governing party of their home planet.  In the end, she believes that she knows what she needs to know for the sake of her people.  But, Cassandra July is trying to get more power to hunt them harder.  And now… it may simply be a race against time…

The Orb and The Well

The Heavens:

Giselle smiled as she sat the figurines in the sparkling glass case.  Her husband walked in (a spitting image of Jesse, but with hair braided down his back) and as he did, some of the figurines began to glow red.  She bit her lip, waved a hand to stop it and closed the case, without turning around, “I told you that when you’re upset, some of us can feel that.”

He retorted, “They wouldn’t have to if you didn’t insist on being so connected to everyone.  And I wouldn’t be so upset if you didn’t make me miserable everyday.”

She turned to face him, “I’m sorry.  You know that there is nothing that makes me sadder than upsetting you.”

“You didn’t agree with those others, but you decided to go along with them.”

“I decided that my ideas were not confirmed facts, therefore the path of least resistance made sense in this case.”

“You decided that even though you are the head of that table that you would listen to them!”  He fussed.

She sighed, “I decided that to add to a court that has been doing so well for so long would be shaking things up in a way that the universe has not tasked me with.  It would be an easy decision to grant my seat to you instead of even add you to the Pentalpha.  That is nothing that the universe has revealed to me.”  He frowned, glowed red and she moved closer to him, “May I take you to our chambers?  I think I can persuade favor with you.”  She placed her nose against his.  He gave her a tight smile, but walked away.  

*

There were Giselles all over the palace, all doing different tasks.  He passed several of them.  It was almost time for another gathering at the table, and today, he would be heard.  He determined that he would, “Cassiopeia!” He roared.  All of them stopped and one of them came forward, her sparkling gown dazzling behind her, with a round bump on her belly.  He paused and caught his breath, “Excuse my distress.  I couldn’t figure out where you were, in all of the clamour.”  She simply gave him a soft smile.  “I am to be heard, today, at the table.”

“The other queens have agreed to give you audience.  We will set up in the throne room and allow you a portal.”

“A portal?  You will not have me in the same room?”  He asked, glowing furiously.

“I would.  The others would not.  These are the laws, after all.  We were not able to enter before our time, either.”

“You?  You have always been queen.”

“Capricornus…”

“There has always been a Cassiopeia incarnation at the head of that table.  Likely there is one in there,” he complained, glaring at her swollen womb.

“It is a five sided table, with equal heads.  Being Cassiopeia is not some gift.  It is a calling, a duty, an assignment by the universe.  I would be gracious were this burden lifted from me.  Then, perhaps, I could have the heart of my husband, which I would proudly trade all of the love of all of our people for.”  She cradled her belly, “And this is your son.  Whom you molded with me and compressed your energy into, just as I did.”  Tears welled in her eyes and two other Giselles came to gather her.  She still had things to do.

“It is because you’re so eager, so thirsty, that they are suspicious,” One of them said to him.  The universe calls us to lead.  Anything else is of our will.”

“We have will, free will.  Why not exercise it?”  He asked.

She opened a portal to look into other worlds, “Look at them.  Primitive in their awareness.  Savage in their practices.  They go through the work of creating, only to destroy.  They do this in favor of loving nothing more than themselves.  Pride.  Like the stories of Lucifer, who was banished from the glory of the universe, to reign over a kingdom of hatred.”

“We take far too much stock in stories, and tales, and songs.”

“Perhaps.  Or, we have existed for so long, for so successfully, because we aren’t like the stories - the Lucifers, the Zeuses, the Seths…”

“You’re mixing up your characters.  Zeus was one of the good ones,” he commented.

She chuckled, “With that type of view, the other queens will never agree to seat you at a table of harmony.”  She walked away, too.

***

Sheltered in a secret room of the palace, reachable only through a portal,  a troop of Giselles molded as many figures as they could.  So many energies had been usurped by Capricornus, forcibly.  “This is not working.  The Evil King is killing too many of our people for us to be able to save them all this way.  What we need is something that will serve as a beacon for all of the energies.  If we can create something like that, we will be able to guide them to the safety of it and not into the arsenal of the king.”

“We may also be able to take away from some of the power garnered…  To control the levels of those who have sided with him…”  They heard footsteps and determined, “He’s coming!”  She turned into a ball of light and reappeared in her bedchamber as he walked in.  They stared at each other for a moment, then she went to the window and looked out of it.  The kingdom looked and appeared peaceful, but she could see everything happening to all of her people, hear it, smell it, feel, it, sense it…

“Are you purposefully withholding my son and heir from me?”

“I am not.  He will present his form as soon as he has it.  His consciousness has been interrupted by all of the turmoil that he will be born into.”

“I have drained some of the most practiced in the arts of precognition and even they have not been able to give me the strength to see his face.”

“The practice doesn’t dictate the outcome of  the power - only the ability to depend upon it.  The universe reveals to whom it deems fit for the future.”

“The universe hasn’t stopped me, yet,” he taunted.  “In fact, the universe has allowed me to gather up all of our people, take as much away from them as I want, strike them down, if I see fit and claim their possessions for myself.  The universe is simply where we exist.  I. Am. God.  I chose to be.”

She turned to face him, for the first time, and asked, “What am I thinking?”  He stared at her.  “Of all of those you’ve drained, at least 45 of them were very practiced in the art of the mind.”

He winced, “None like you, of course.”

“Of course.”

“The Great Cassiopeia.  The Supreme Queen.  She lives as a community, all on her own and when she lays to rest, another rises to life.  There has always been a Cassiopeia - my mother once said.  She said, ‘She is the one true ruler of all of us.  Always has and always will be.  There is none who has successfully self reincarnated since the beginning of our time.’  My mother was so honored when I was chosen to be your king, by your mother, another Cassiopeia…  But, she was wrong.  Always will be?  That has already been made into a lie by my victorious ascension to the throne.  And as soon as I have my son, the face of Cassiopeia will fade from our people and the memory of the always present entity that you ruled as will be wiped out.  They won’t even know your name.”

“The Forgotten Queen,” she said.  “That will be my name.  You might have known if the power, that makes you strong and formidable was also within your ability to control.”  

He chuckled and said, “As it turns out, I have realized something…  I don’t need YOU to bear me a son.  I have a harem of queens, now.”  He lifted his hand to absorb her power and she levitated, with her head and arms fallen back.

“You don’t have the practice or the discipline to wield all of the power that you are collecting.  All of our people can do everything that you and I can do.  Some of us specialize, just like you do at draining power, we specialize in other things.  Some of us, like me - excel in all.  Someone will challenge you.  Someone will make you fall.  Someone will be better at taking power than you!”  He dropped her and she crashed to the floor, breathing heavily.

“Was that an assumption, or a prophecy?”

“I would never give you a prophecy, but I don’t make assumptions.”

He split into a dozen forms and said, “Send out command, everyone will be allotted limited power.  Drain abilities from everyone, leave them with one and decree that all lives molded will only be given enough energy to hone one ability.”  They  dispersed, even him.  

She laughed and held her aching abdominals, “It worked,” she whispered to her son.  “He’s going to do part of this work for us…”  

***

Bree entered the bedchamber with a tray of food, “Mother, your energy is low,” she said.  She helped Giselle to sit up and then heard her inside of her head, “Where is your father?”

Bree didn’t want to answer, but didn’t want to be caught conspiring, so she said out loud, “He has killed your next Cassiopeia, outlawed mention of even the name and drained me down to nothing more than a pretty singing voice for comfort… and other feelings…”  She held the food to her mother’s mouth.  “He has collected every baby born with the ability to drain powers and is going to raise them as his soldiers.  He has reduced our people to one ability and grown in strength because of all that he has amassed.  He has drafted all of our people who are not royalty into a military.  He has created treaties with other kingdoms, which are simply him extending the kindness of trusting them not to be foolish enough to cross him and he has made a game of war.”  Tears fell from her eyes, “He invites me in.  Says he wants all of his children to know how to conquer.  He uses your molds of the citizens… as pawns.  He invites royal families that are in his alliance to witness and an adversary to play against for absorption of their kingdoms…  Those are of the families that refused to sign treaties…”  

Giselle sat up straight and said softly, “Andromeda….  Do whatever you think is right.  You were one of the youngest queens ever to sit on the court.”  She cupped her face, “I could make a million Cassiopeias, almost with the snap of my fingers.  I could never make another one of you.”  She kissed her on the forehead.  “My reign has ended and your sister has been assassinated.  By right, YOU are the queen of this castle, now.  Do with that information whatever you wish.  I will trust the universe, and you.”

Bree nodded and held her mother’s hands, “I’m so sorry.  I love you, so much…”  She began to drain her mother’s energy from her.  If she was going to claim the castle and get the kingdom back, she needed more.  When the light left her mother’s body, she crept to the window and leaped from it, landing on the ground below on her feet.  Guards spotted her and came running.  “HEY!”  She raised both hands to open a portal and entered into it, vanishing right before their eyes.  

When word got back to the Wicked King, he rushed into his wife’s bedchamber to see her lying, still in the bed.  He knelt next to her and checked her for signs of life…  “Andromeda bested you…  I am proud of her.”  He reached his hands through her flesh and pulled from it the baby boy, then closed her back up.  The boy was as lifeless and he panicked.  “No…  Andromeda…  She…”  He held a glowing hand over the boy, but was unable to grant him awakening.  He rested him on Giselle’s chest and she gasped and awakened.  “Andromeda tried to collect from you… she only managed to kill my son…”  He took a deep breath, “I specifically took that ability away from her.  You must have given her yours, or some portion.”  Then he yelled, “You killed our son!”  And came towards her.  She lifted her hand to deflect the attack that she felt coming on.

The baby was cradled against her neck as she stood up, with one hand pointed at Capricornus and one hand shielding the baby.  “You dare attack me as I hold him in my arms!”

With both hands extended towards her, he wondered, “How are you still this strong?”

“You never knew how powerful I am.  Because, I knew that you would betray me.  I had to let it happen.  The universe didn’t give me a means of escape.”  She cried and violently flung him outside of the door and sealed it.  She frantically molded the orb with her hands, knowing that she couldn’t keep him shut out for very long.   She held her hands over it and it glowed, then she took it and held it above her son.  “They will not speak of the Forgotten Queen, but always know, Mirach - Your mother loved you.”  As the orb was secured inside of his body, his eyes opened and Capricornus bursted into the room.  She looked at him, storming towards her and she lifted the baby in her arms.  “You need to practice using your powers if you ever expect to continue to reign,” she said.

He was relieved to see the baby and she handed him his son.  Whenever he held the boy, he felt weaker… like he was being drained and he set him in the carriage, “What is happening?”  He asked, but when he turned to look around, Giselle was gone.  He called for a caretaker to come in.  When she picked up the baby, he seemed fine, but each time he touched his father, the king got that feeling…  “What did she do to him?  Have him examined by everyone.  See what it is that she did to him…”

Earth:

“So, you see?  Cassiopeia told me when she revealed herself to me that she was the well.  That she was the place that all of the energies to go.  The Wicked King was killing our people, stealing their powers, enslaving everyone else and many were dying on battlefields.  The well was so that he wouldn’t steal those energies.  He didn’t even know how to use them.  The Queen, however had a form every generation.  She had the rebirth mastered and kept it in her genetic code each time she created a new self..  She did the thing that I did.  I lost my memory when I did it, but it was all still inside of me!  That is what she was able to do up until the moment that she vanished…  She vanished because she just changed forms.  She became this, orb…  to protect her people.”  She held the orb in her hands, “And it is hard to gather information on it because she didn’t tell people.  She only let you know about the orb if you needed to hide it…  Which I did.  I hid it.  And we didn’t get the memories associated with it because it was outlawed to speak of her.  She didn’t even give me her name when she visited me, I think as to protect me from accidentally revealing her.”  Sam stared at her.  “I know, it sounds crazy.”

“Yeah.  It sounds like something that makes no sense whatsoever.  She became the thing, then she hid the thing and what?  She was showing her husband an illusion of herself?”

“She showed me an illusion of herself and she was so powerful that she blocked Emma in her OWN DREAM to give me a prophecy.  She wasn’t alone.  There were others seated with her, but I don’t know if they were conscious or resting, or on some Queen of the Damned, sitting and thinking about life and the ways of the world type stuff, but..  If I am not right about this, where is all of this suddenly coming from?  If I am not right about this, why is all of this inside of my head?”

Jesse approached the two of them, and said, “I know why.”

Mirach woke up in the middle of the night to see a woman at his window.  She picked him up and held him.  She kissed his nose.  She called him by name, she pulled out a ball of energy and stuck it inside of him.  She left him to sleep.  This happened throughout his childhood and one night he asked, “Are you my guardian angel?”

She smiled at him and shrugged.  “You can say that, maybe when you’re a little bit older, I’ll tell you for sure.”

Years passed, until he thought that he dreamed her up, but she visited, the night before his wedding and she had a gift with her, for him.  “I’m old enough, aren’t I?”  He questioned.

With a sigh, she nodded, “I’m your sister.  I fled the castle long ago.  You may have been told that I was a murderer.  You may have been told that I was a traitor.  I believe in the universe and I couldn’t live here with our father and his evil.  I’m Andromeda.”

“I am Canum Venaticorum.”  He bowed.

She waved a hand, “No, you’re not.  You’re Mirach,” she said, in her mother’s voice.  And when he heard the voice, his eyes lit up, and he remembered all of these things about his mother…  “Our father killed her and our sister, who was meant to one day… become her.  It is probably an alien concept to you.  No one is allowed to do it anymore.  They don’t want another one of her.  But, they don’t know… she never truly died.  She did lose her body, but that is only because she had to… to give you back life.”  She cupped his face.  “You are her.  You are exactly as she was.  She put everything that she is into you before releasing her energy into the well.”  He had memories of his mother placing an orb inside of him.  “That’s  right,” his sister said and reached inside of him to pull it out.  “Thank you for holding this for her.  I will keep it safe, now.”  She opened a portal and left.

Jesse finished saying, “And legend says that the next day, Mirach drained his father, and became the king.”

Mercedes added, “He sang songs that his sister sang him about the Pentalpha.  She was the fifth seat at the table.  I’ll bet it angered the king that his daughter was on court and he was not.”

Sam pulled his hair and insisted, “Both of you are just talking, now!”

“No!”  Jesse snapped.  These… these events, these histories have been given to us, either through memories that our ancestors embedded in our genetic energy or through the universe and prophecies.  None of these things are things that we’re just making up.  They are things that we are remembering, from even before we existed as our own entities because according to Danica’s report… all of the energy is stored in one place and dispersed through all of these bodies that we compose during gestation!  When it is destroyed, it goes into the well.”

“Everyone used to be able to do everything,” she added.

Sam held out his hands, “Ok, so did they give you what to do next?”

Jesse shrugged, “Some idea…”

Bree had the orb seated on her mother’s shrine.  It had been a shame that they weren’t given proper dedications, but she made certain to create them.  She had taken all of the figures of the fallen.  Whenever the game board cleared, she channeled those pieces back to her castle.  Whenever a royal released their energy, she withdrew it from the ord and gave it its own orb.  She kneeled at her mother’s shrine, “Mother, I am so tired.  I have been doing this work for so long.  I need someone to reign in my stead.  I want to pass this duty to my daughter.  I am so afraid that our world will never be as it was and I don’t want to leave until it is, but I need to…”

She heard her mother’s voice as the orb sparkled, “You have every right to leave.  Pass on this duty to your daughter and join me, in the well.”

“And this haven that I built, will it continue to stand?”

“Yes.  Leave it to your daughter.  Tell her everything that you know and guide her, that when the time is right to tell her child everything that she knows, and so on.  I will stay here and assist them, just as I have assisted you.  Our world will be restored.  I don’t know when, but I saw it.  I saw her.  I saw your descendant.  I saw her as clearly as I did your face the first time I laid eyes on you.  She will make peace with the enemy kingdoms.  She will bring them all together and she  will restore the energies to the universe, that they might fairly be granted where they belong.”

Mercedes gasped, as though awakening from a nightmare and looked at Jesse, “Did you see that?”  Sam and he both nodded.  She held herself, “I’m…  I’m related to the Evil King too…”

Sam shook his head, “That means nothing.  Auriga has always known and it never made him bad.  You two are I don’t know, super watered down cousins, or whatever.  That makes sense, as there were two seats in the court from the same household.”

“That world,” Jesse said.  “The one that Andromeda created…  How do we get there?”

“A portal is in my parents’ castle.  It is the same place that my parent’s throne room is in.”

“Could we…”  Sam thought for a moment, unsure if he wanted to say it out loud…  “Create a portal…”  It sounded worse the more he thought about it, “From where we are to get back to our world?”

“Andromeda’s practice was to take the royal energies out of the orb and give them their own orbs in the shrine room.  Her power to do that wouldn’t have been carried with us on the journey.  It may be in my DNA, but I can’t seem to detect it inside of me,” Mercedes said.

“But… what… if…  A baby has it?”  Sam asked.  “If a baby has it, can you tap into it and magnify it to proper scale to get it done?”

“Why would I do it?  Why wouldn’t you just do it?”  She asked.

Jesse snapped, “Who gives a shit who’s to do it, can we do it and do we have the access to a baby with it?”

Sam widened his eyes and quietly answered, “Aphasia, yes.”  Jesse walked away.

Mercedes commented, “I’ve put him under a lot of stress lately.”  Sam just nodded.  “So, we what…  jump through a portal and go home and then what, try to charge the palace and see when the opening to THAT portal to Andromeda’s hidden world?  I mean…  It’d probably be easier to fight the human and take all their things.”

“They deserve it, but this was a mistake.  We never should have left home.  We need to go back and whatever happens, we know that  at the very least, eventually, we win - because you have been exposed to the same prophecy two different times.”

“I don’t know how.  What if I lose everyone?  What if I lose you?”

“I mean, I’m hoping the universe isn’t through with me yet.  I still got plenty to give her.”

“And we were attacked.  Someone didn’t want us to escape.  Most likely my parents, since we were in their space and now I know that at least one of them has some Wicked King in them.”

“It’d have to be your mom if they’re over there handing legacies down through the queens.  I say that we get ourselves ready to portal there.  Probably go in spurts.  I’ll get with Mu Draco and Eridanus to sort out plans for that.”

“In the event that it is a thing that we can actually physically do…  There  are so many considerations…”

“We’ll figure it out.”  Jesse came back with Aphasia, Joe, Wade, and Emma.  Mike and Tina were heading that way from a different directions.  “For the moment, I think that we’re good keeping all of the Pentalpha and the Orb things between those of us right here.”

“Do we not need the other pregnant women?”  Aphasia wondered.

“You can catch them up in the maternity bunk,” he told her.

“Ok.  Well…  Auriga mentioned that the baby I have can have some kind of space travel power?”

“I actually said spatial manipulation, but…”

Sam offered, “Your son will be able to create portals.  Now…  We know that in the olden days when our people weren’t so stifled by oppressors and programmed to hone whatever gift they were created specifically for, that at least one person created a portal and built a world within the space that she went into.”

“And what, we’re gonna question my baby in utero on how to do that?”  Joe chuckled.  She frowned, still looking confused.

“We are going to borrow his energy to try to do it.”

“Couldn’t we just borrow his energy to try to create a safe space, here?  And then work from there?  I’m feeling nervous about how long we’ve been here without any interference.  Cassandra July is on TV talking about how they need to find and destroy the alien menace…”

Mercedes mentioned, “Cassiopeia did have that underground place where she made the figures…”

“Cassiopeia?  The Greek chick?  Wait, are we…?”

“I think that all of the legends have some truth to them, but no - we aren’t and we aren’t talking about her.  Our queen, when trying to stop the king from taking her energy and taking over.”

“And she failed.  What other plans do we have?”  Aphasia asked.

“We have none.  We have to try them all,” Mercedes told her.

“Look, I appreciate that you’re a princess, expected to be queen and all, but the rest of us have royal heirs too.  I’m not just giving my baby up to you for experimentation.  That’s exactly something the humans would expect.”

“You know we would never ask you to put your baby in harm’s way.”

“I know that you don’t even know if what you want to do can work.  You want to siphon energy from my growing child to SEE if it can help.  How are you any different than Dr. Schuester?”  Mercedes guffawed and folded her arms.

Jesse rubbed Aphasia’s arms and said, “It’s okay.  Thank you for at least hearing us out.”

She confessed, “I want to help, I do…  But, I’ve gotten attached now and this all sounds like speculation.  I know that your baby reached out into the universe from the womb to make things happen, and if mine DID, I would be in full support, but with this uncertainty from our leaders, I don’t feel comfortable signing on for that.”

He nodded and squatted in front of her, face to belly, “Hi.  My name is Auriga.  Centuries ago…  Our people were friends, colleagues.  My family destroyed that and I want to help fix it.  So, if you have the consciousness, the desire and the ability to see if you could help me, help all of us, your mother included; please…”  There was a cracking sound in the sky and they all looked up.

There appeared to be some sort of tear, like light piercing through the space.  Aphasia touched her belly and it glowed as the portal opened, slowly.  Mercedes reached for her hand and when she took it, the sky opened and swallowed the two of them, then closed.  

“JAEL!”  Joe screamed.  Sam grabbed Jesse’s shoulder reflexively.  Joe asked, “Where did they go?”  Sam and Joe both shook their heads and shrugged.  Joe covered his mouth with both of his hands.  

Tina scanned the length of the area, “I am not locating them anywhere.”  Now, Joe sat down on the ground.  Tina sat next to him and said, “I’m sure that she’s alright.  The baby did this.  For the most part, if the baby is only you and hers, not some human bred type, he should be fully conscious and capable of wielding his ability on instinct for survival.”  Joe opened his mouth to speak, but Jesse interfered.

“Cygnus,” Joe looked up at him.  “She is with Danica.  They will be safe.  They all will be.”  Joe nodded his head, content with that.  Jesse, Tina, Mike and Sam huddled and Jesse admitted, “I haven’t the slightest clue where that baby could have taken them.  I mean… They have to be safe though, right?”