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a-gal-with-taste · 2 years ago

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Yours | Prologue

Or, a saga detailing the complex, and peculiarly prolonged courtship, between a Captain of Zaun, and his Lady of the Isle Promenade.

Silco X F!Reader - Regency/Persuasion AU Slow-Burn

3979 WC - AO3 - Next

Warnings: Regency AU, arranged-marriage, slow-burn, romanticism, courtship, family-dynamics, pining, some humor, some fluff, future angst, slight world-building, captain!Silco

You did not weep at the loss.

What good would it do? Certainly, tears didn't stop anything... it would not stop this rain from the bursting-heavens above, or the wind that allowed every droplet to patter against your skin, drenching your hair and your dark clothes. Unsightly, but the occasion allows some relaxation against common-courtesy, a respite against the properness that a lady of your standing should evermore display in the public eye.

Crying, however expectable it might be in the gaze of those around you, would do no-good against the blasted weather, nor would it bring the last of your family back. It certainly never brought your mother, nor your father home - your tears would not bring your brother back, and so you did not weep at the loss.

The water from the heavens above, thankfully, provided more than enough wetness to scatter across your cheekbones, granting you enough of a cover for the fellow mourners to murmur sympathies.

Murmur in theory, at the very least - in practice, they had to often sheepishly shout over the rumble of thunder overhead.

Eyes downcast, you were able to pass for the despairing younger-sibling of your two-person family with ease - stoic in your grief, hardened by previous agonies, and firm in your conviction to weather this recent tragedy, and this physical-hurricane besides. Truly, you had become a pillar of strength against the tide of life's pain, and death's constant touch.

A pillar that so, so desperately, wanted to return to the manor.

Of course, you held affection for your brother - oafish as he was, and ludicrous he proved often to be while he had been home, you loved him dearly. With a smile like sunlight and a warm, all-encompassing laugh like a hug within sound itself, how could you not?

But you had warned him the sea was treacherous. That a bright spirit, however glorious, could be smothered out by the blackest of waves. Sickness had taken your parents, making you both weary of life’s plagues, but you knew those calm, crystal waters of the Piltovian sea were many times more deadly... They were only playing at an innocent nature. When their nature, in truth, was anything but.

"Sweet sister, you mustn't fret so much!" Edmund had insisted, then reached over to prod at the space between your deeply-furrowed brows. "Wrinkles are the bane of women's existence, or so I am told... and you're younger than me!" He grinned, and you had little sympathy left to tell him he had a smear of food staining his upper-lip. "By the Gods, what will that say about me, if I have a little sister who's already gone gray...!"

You were the younger, true, but you were also assuredly the smarter. Even in youth, the tutors had claimed you to be the brighter of the two, a star pupil shining bright against your brother's, bless him, dull nature. While he collected an education of swords, physical prowess and the makings of a man in this modern time, you carefully cultivated an education of the mind.

But not even your practiced, keen-mind could persuade him from his journey, a path he seemed set to go on despite any warnings, or pleas.

"Fortunate lies in the line between sky and sea, sister!" Edmund had claimed amongst your warnings, protests and finally, pleas. Pointing a finger onto the horizon, and an arm wrapped comfortingly around your shoulders. At the time, the very horizon that had then hosted dark-clouds, was almost as dark as the ones that deliver the tempest onto your brother's funeral, today. "What fool am I, if I do not go to where fortune lies!?"

The biggest fool of them all, you thought, glaring down at the symbolic box before you. It held no remains - wherever its owner was, though, you imagined the coffin, wrapped in decorative-linen in the color of your aristocratic house, would soon find its owner at the bottom of the sea.

The biggest fool of them all, my sweet, stupid brother, who has now left me all alone.

And so, you did not weep at the loss. Not with the passing whispers, or shouts, of tender words meant to inspire comfort from the fellow mourners, nor as you gave a short, firm nod to the group of well-muscled men, who took hold of the copper-handles along the sides of the coffin.

You were surprised - you thought an empty coffin would provide little struggle, but there was some strain in the movements of the carriers. Enough pause given for one in the crowd gathered at the jutting-cliffside, to walk up to you, bending low to catch your ear.

"Mistress..."

"My lord," Tone flat, for pleasantries had been allowed to be bygones, you greeted him with all the properness that was expected, save for your physical attention. You kept your eyes on your brother's coffin. "I do so wish it were under kinder, drier circumstances."

"I agree. Such circumstances call for misery, I suppose... not the jokes," The Lord's voice bordered on a scolding at your dry remark, making your jaw twinge under the dark veil shrouded around your face. A pitiful blanket against the torrent, though it allowed you to eye the man from the corner of your gaze with fewer critiques on your lack in etiquette. "Still... we all must mourn in our own way. You have my sympathies, of course."

"Of course," You murmured in assent, some tension leaking from you when one of the grooms finally found purchase in the muddied earth beneath him, and the lengthy box was lifted from its stand.

A hesitancy, rare and brief, from a good Lord of the Isle Promenade - whose name you couldn’t be bothered to recall, though you imagined it included ‘the Third’ somewhere in his lengthy list of titles - and then he soon speaks again, with that same bland, presumptuous tone you had known all your life. If not from his lips, specifically, then from the mouths of a hundred other men, of his standing and his absurd self-assurance, "You also have my company, at your discretion. We've been neighbors for many, many years, my lady. I implore... I insist you reach out to me, should you ever have such a need for me."

A need. For him?

You didn’t even want him.

Gods be good, you sent a silent prayer above, just as lightning cracked overhead. "Forgive me, my good sir, for a fear I have little understanding. What sort of scenario were you envisioning, that would require me to have need of you?"

You did not have to look to know his face was as dark as the clouds at the flat tone, one you gave without bothering to hide the layer of dryness amongst the rain. The man seemed to despise humor, and despise his pathetically-underhanded attempts being called upon for answers even more so. Particularly, when you do them.

Still, by the time the carriers made it to the cliff's edge, bracing to heave your dear, foolish Edmund’s coffin from earth, and into the endless ocean below, the man softened for you. Just barely, and just enough that the hand he placed at the small of your back was, almost, acceptable.

"Comfort, my fair lady. Companionship, something which I believe is only a benefit for you at such trying-times... something I must insist upon, as you go through this dark, dark storm that is your life, all alone..."

Alone, indeed.

Miserable, you watched as a final shove, a shared grunt between gentlemen, and with a final burst of lightning across the sky, the mortal realm released the symbolic coffin of your brother tumbling down, into the greedy waters far below.

The last of your family, swallowed up by pride and by the waves.

The bones weren't even dry yet, and already, there's a man plotting out your future without a single thought or idea of having your own input - such a fate is far, far crueler than that of a simple ceasing of existence, courtesy by the thoughtless sea. It’s more painful, the idea of a conscious creature capable of thought, decides your future with so little regard to your own consultation, your own expectations and desires.

A common fate, but no less cruel.

You had always been content with the idea of a scholarly pursuit in life, in the familiar comforts of home. Though adventure had always prodded at your mind, a lap-full of pages and words had called to your consciousness far louder, and the presence of home, of Isle Promenade, was so sweet a song, that you shuddered to part-with.

But the good gentlemen beside you, whispers not of your life in decent comforts and familiarity. Much like his own character, he speaks of a stifling, boring existence before you - framed in a manner of suggestion, but the just-polite hand on the small of your back is forward enough for you to understand it’s what he’s chosen to be fact. A fact that you, unmarried, alone and the single remainder of a worthy family, are likely powerless to do anything but accept fact into truth.

It’s a life, methodically mapped out, as per his expectations of a gracious suitor and a future wife, a role he’s unsubtly casting you in as he speaks. Such an existence includes a secondary home in the grand, pointedly remote Piltover, proper summers at court, excellent boarding-homes nearby for children to come...

Misery.

It’s not a life - it’s a woven tale, full of misery , one you have never wanted, one you had never desired, and one that is being forced upon you like a wedding-ring made from a collar of obedience. Never, have you wept for the loss of family.

You could almost weep from this.

"Sister!"

At the sound of your brother's voice - impossible as it was, but the sound of gasps around you proved it was not some phantom or trick of the mind - you very near did weep, as you whirled around, your veiled hat becoming askew. In the wind, it tumbles to the ground in a flutter of dark shadows, but it matters not that the rain now soaks your face freely.

Rain now acts like a balm to your hot eyes, and the chill of an everfree wind now acts like a relief to your heart, and the sight before you, acts as a salvation to your mind.

Because there, at the road leading up the cliff hosting his own funeral, your brother half-hops, half tumbles off the fish-cart that offered him a ride, and grins. A man, bearded now, with a streak of gray near his temple, but a bright gleam in his eye and, oh!

Oh, it's your brother! And he's alive.

He's alive, and you no longer have any need to weep for loss, when you feel you are about to cry from the regaining of your family.

Cry, or forgo all aspects of proprietary and respectably, as you hike up your skirt well-above your needs, and abandon your stuffy-suitor in the pursuit of racing to be at your siblings-side.

A living wind, whipping through the throes of mourners, some of which are on the verge of fainting, others in pure-shock at the unsightly sight of your brother, dearest Edmund, still clad in the messy uniform of a sailor. But like the wind, you care not for a single living thing.

Nothing, except your brother.

You want to laugh as you grow closer, and spot the wrinkles he's gained along with the gray along his temple. The elder indeed, but there's a skip in his step all the same, one you recall far too well, and a gleam in his eyes as he jogs forward to meet you halfway. The boyish charm, the gift of a man who will never, ever truly grow up, is almost a joy instead of a headache to see, now that he is in front of you, yards, and now feet away...

And indeed, the urge to laugh in hysteric relief and unbreakable love, becomes too great to ignore.

"Sister!" Edmund says again, and you brace yourself. Brace to barrel into his body, a hug you'll loath to part from for a long, long time. Bracing, for words of sweet reunion, of family rejoined once more. To be braced for whatever comes your way, and knowing that you can weather whatever your dear brother has to offer, now that you can weather the storm, together...

"Sister," He proclaims, spreading his arms wide, and a grand grin upon his face. It's only until he continues, that his smile isn't exactly warm or loving - it's self-satisfied, like he's prepared for you to thank him upon his announcement, like it’s a fact of your life that he expects you to accept, no, rejoice as truth:

"You are to be married! I have found you a husband!"

Any idea of weeping is gone now.

You freeze, mind growing blank as you stare at your brother. At the sole other remainder of your family, and the man who had already plotted one of the greatest details of your life without any prior warning, nor even consent.

Had you been born first, the common-law of primogeniture, regardless of gender or sex, would’ve made you in charge of your estate, as well as your junior siblings’. Though the cards had not truly been in your favor to allow such coincidence, your brother always had been, and just as you never would have dared to demand his hand be given, you had never dreamed he would give yours away so readily, without warning or even conference from you - the marrying party herself.

And yet, here you stand.

Motionless, as your brother beams, arms-wide and ready for an embrace, and the words of your immediate, and unpredicted state of marriage still echoing in the air between you.

And in that windy sky, separating you from your beloved sibling you come to the terrible realization, that you had not braced for every tempest that had come your way.

But, there is some justice at being stuck off-course. It makes your reflexes quick, and your raising even quicker. And, unlike you, your brother had not braced for anything. Let alone your anger, grief, and frustration. Both at the recent restless-nights, the countless searches, preparations, and the far more immediate funeral in his honor.

Edmund is not braced for your misery, the idea of your life plotted out like a biography of simple facts, regardless of your own input, and dismissing the very notion that you might have the desire to take a quill, and write your own tale in verse.

Your brother, bless his foolish, stupid heart, has no knowledge of any of this. He is not a man that is braced for such volatile emotions to take flight, to unveil themselves before man and the Gods. Edmund, is not braced for any storm that comes his way.

Let alone the living-tempest that you have become at his announcement, with your furious fist, rocketing through the air like a bolt from the Gods themselves, colliding spectacularly, and soundly breaking his nose.

"Whom amongst the civilized wouldn’t want to be informed of their potential, upcoming marriage, through a messenger-party?"

"Whom amongst the civilized would want to send just a messenger?" Countering the snarked-reply with a cheeky-grin, co-Captain V. Houndsmen peered over to his fellow-captain. His gray eyes sparkled with mischief and crackled with the light of lightning in the far northern-horizon as he peered at the smaller, wiry man leaning stiffly against the railing, looking out over a familiar deck that was patched with sunlight that had begun to peek through the clouds. "Dear friend, some would think you a coward, for not going yourself."

He is, expectedly, unimpressed with the teasing. "Some, smarter, would think me considerate.”

Overlooking the bustling deck below, co-Captain S. Shimmerson is assured in the knowledge that those under his command can work without direct supervision, and instead levels his focus onto what lies in the palm of his hand, as a frown carves deeper into his face. A frown that not only spoke of a man knowing full-well he was playing the part of a fool, but also a man too deeply engrossed to play any-other role. "Ambushing her with the... good-news, would do little good. For herself, surely, but I fear for myself too, if I am truthful."

The initial impact would not have fared well - he had conquered a thousand seas, but Silco was wise enough to be wary of a woman’s wrath, over any tempest.

"Thought you lived for a fight, Sil."

"Not with her, Vander."

“In love already, are you?” His friend, partner, and brother in all but blood, smiled something bemused, and still endlessly floored by the circumstances that had led them here. And how swiftly they had arrived to the strange, odd new world, in which Silco wasn’t just admiring - the man was utterly, wholly besotted by a woman.

It wasn’t so much a gender that mattered, but rather that there existed such a creature that had captured the man’s attention.

It was not so far into the realms of the imagination, the idea that his co-leader's mind would forever be undivided, wholly encompassing, and entirely focused on the crew at hand... certainly, command and ship hadn't suffered the last several days. Even distracted, S. Shimmerson was skilled at leadership, and took the reins of command with steady, assured hands.

Such a trait gave many, including V. Houndsmen, the idea that the man could be distracted by very little, and distracted only briefly. But for days, S. Shimmerson had barely looked up from the locket he had cupped delicately in his hand.

It didn't so much as worry Vander, as it did bemuse him to no end. And confused him a bit more, besides.

"Careful, Silco," He teased once more, leaning to jostle his friend with an elbow. "Some will start to think you care. And then where will we be?"

Chuckling to himself as he turned, Vander was eager to get on with his own work, and escape before the piercing glare of the dark-haired man could stab through him like a blade. Only just-missing him, Silco still glared after the back of his friend and partner, before two eyes, the color of the slim space where green-seas mingled and danced with the cloudless blue-skies, returned to the locket at hand.

The locket, with a picture inside.

A picture of you.

Silco's face showed none of the twisting, uncertain and unfamiliar nerves coiling deep inside of him as he gazed at your miniature. Tracing over eyes that are captivating and intelligent, a smile that is faint, reserved in practice and yet earnest in truth...

A face lovelier than any other he had ever seen, and there was no uncertainty in his mind, that this picture didn't do justice to your stunning visage.

What had come over him was nothing short of an enchantment - something of a child’s fairy-tale. Something foolish, but like words of old comfort, it lingered annoyingly in every open-facet within his mind, sneaking in like a stowaway amongst his thoughts.

Unwanted, at first. Certainly, unneeded.

But since the moment the locket was pressed to his hands, a gift in response to the rescue for your quite oafish, quite clumsy sibling, Silco had been loathsomely drawn to the image, as he had once been drawn to water. It was a calling, like a siren to a hapless, doomed sailor - and certainly, with how quickly Silco’s fondness had groomed, he knew that he was entirely, and utterly doomed.

All consequences, thanks to the picture of you.

With great reluctance, and with an even greater necessity, Silco thumbs the gold-piece of jewelry shut. Round and round, the chain becomes wound around his palm as it's secured onto his person... though, in whatever remains of his heart, Silco knows the locket was already secured in his mind the moment he saw it.

Bringing it up to his lips, sighing heavily as he fogs the surface of the plain gold-piece, Silco looks back on a stormy horizon. Both riled and resigned, Silco gazes out into open waters and clouded skies, and tries not to think of the Isle they sail from. More residential than the ports he is used to traversing, but regardless of the lack of experience, the fight against the urge to land had been fierce and, even now, Silco wrestled with the idea of turning the ship back. A stupid, asinine idea, but an idea that tempted him nonetheless.

Closing his eyes, he attempts to wield such thoughts away - the thoughts of you are stubborn, and will remain, but the focus on his ship and its inhabitants must override any thoughts, any temptations, or desires that remain.

He had already been called to sea, tempted by the ocean with a desire to navigate the world by water.

Any other ambitions, even the ones that would lead his path to you, had to be put aside.

You.

Never before had Silco felt a desire for love, nor even affection or infatuation. Such flights of fancy were far-more Vander’s style, and Silco had never before played the part of a fool, not ever, and certainly not enough to give-away his heart.

His heart already had an owner besides himself, and once given, Silco had known that whoever was in possession, was destined to never part with it.

With his heart already belonging to the sea, body to the ship, soul and mind to the Sons and Daughters of Zaun aboard his ship, Silco had not planned to give anyone anything more. Not when he had nothing else he could afford to give.

Nothing but words he hoped would explain, or at least bring awareness to its reader. Privately praying that your witless sibling didn’t come close a second time to drowning, on the row from ship to the Isle Promenade, but also that he spared a thought for the letter that Silco had pressed with urgency into his hands, in equal vigor that Edmund had pressed the locket into his own grasp.

It was all that he could afford to give you, at this time. And he hoped it was enough to explain, or if not, at least free him from what plagues his mind and heart, and release him from his hold the moment you release the wax-seal from folded-paper.

It was all that could be allowed.

Straightening, Silco loops the locket over his head as the wind catches, long dark locks brushing past his face before he smooths them in time with a thumb catching over the smooth surface of the locket -the only act of affection he dares to perform, before duty overtakes his role of the besotted fool, and he strides towards the deck.

It’s not allowed, and unacceptable for him to turn away from his standing as co-Captain - and so, with some great reluctance, greater necessity, he turns from the horizon to face his crew, taking the steps two at a time to begin barking orders onto those populating the deck.

All he has, as ridiculously idyllic and fantastical as it was, was a locket and a desire. A locket he has loathed to part with, and a desire that refuses to leave. Privately, co-captain S. Shimmerson knows he doesn’t really want it to.

Certainly, a resolution is far more appreciated, but an entire fleeting of the foolish, but fantastical notion of his private desire - such was as unacceptable, as it was for him to try to follow the desire.

Desire of you, the desire of chance, the slim and too impossible prospect of being called yours...

Indeed, it is a siren’s song, and a call to his doom.

And one Silco fears that he would go all too willingly.

#silco #silco x reader #arcane #regency au #romantacism #regency #silco fic #arcane fic #arcane x reader #silco arcane #regency silco #slow burn #persuasion #persuasion au

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nevertheless-moving · 4 years ago

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thanks again to @dykerory and @willowcrowned for this genius au. this is an incomplete collection of very specific set of headcanons/daydreams i had about a tangential version of your au that made me emotional in the middle of the woods. whenever you feel the time is right, i’m very eager to hear your og version on the ‘but obi-wan, tho!’, because i admittedly pushed this one’s resolution really far chronologically because i wanted batman to be involved.

continuation from here

note: my understanding of dcu is as sporadically informed as my understanding of the gffa.

newly graduated clark kent gets his first journalism job and starts settling more and more into the superman thing. the rest of the justice league has been around but his entrance onto the scene is the one that really inspires the various heroes to actually start coordinating to deal with the weirdness magnet that is dcu Earth. Clark is in his early 20s. Anakin is in his late 30s.

He’s been living on Earth, without the force, for nearly 2/3rds of his life. He has a close knit circle of friends who were kind to him even when they thought he was just a weird and crazy emo cult victim (the gradual increase of public encounters with aliens and superpowers sparks some awkward apologies, Anakin at 38 just waves his friends off, smiling and changing the subject, neither confirming nor denying his high school ramblings of spaceships and magic. it doesn’t really change anything).

He lives an hour’s drive from smallville, and runs a successful auto shop. people travel from pretty far to check out some of his more wild and specialized motorcycle abominations. makes enough money selling them to rich idiots to fund his free auto-class and auto-repair programs for impoverished communities.

It took a while but he eventually came around to the idea of helping people without physical force (ironically, this is happening around the same time Clark is coming to the realization that he can help people with physical force). Generally respected as a pillar of the community. When people start to realize how profoundly weird he is as a person in a number of inexplicable ways, someone will generally pull them aside and quietly whisper that he was in a cult at a child, no one really knows much about it except that it’s what inspired his anti-modern-slavery work, which is a little telling. Not married. Was in a long-term relationship for like 9 years. It didn’t end well but no-one knows the details.

Has several cats.

He’s- wistful but settled. He’s been through a lot of therapy. He meditates every morning and night, clearing his mind and examining his emotions in the way Obi-Wan taught him. He thinks Obi-Wan would be proud of him. He know his Mom would be.

Once he gets used to the idea, he never really stops loving the concept of learning just because. Duel bachelors degree in in african american history and american literature, masters in engineering, masters in astrophysics a phd in theoretical physics, another phd in medieval folklore. He’s worked a lot of jobs.

He was already pretty well versed in astronavigation back at the temple. Over the course of his time on earth, he gets more educated in earth astronomy and physics. With is increased knowledge, his theory for ‘how did i get here’ shifts from slight hyperdrive miscalculation, to big hyperdrive miscalculation, to some sort of hyperlane incident. he realizes that none of the stars he knows are familiar in any NASA database. He must be beyond wildspace, which helps him let go of the last bit of hurt he felt that Obi-Wan never found him.

Then he really learns physics- and- light doesn’t exactly work like that right? He thought it was just primitive Earth understanding but... he gets a phd more or less accidentally, trying and failing to disprove that the speed of life is constant constant.

Get’s another even more accidentally, explaining how alternate universes might form if we assume slightly different universal constants. He publishes his thesis anonymously around the same time metas are becoming a household term, and at least one science journalist speculates on it and how alternate universes might explain the increasing prevalence of wildly different superpowers. He doesn’t claim credit for the honorary diploma awarded to the unknown theorist- he doesn’t want to risk drawing any attention to him and by extension Clark, who’s alien differences are far more of the ‘military experiment interesting’ variety then his.

He stops tinkering with Clark’s ship. He finally gets how it works. Now that he realizes how FTL travel has to work in this universe, tinkering with the mechanical generation and harnessing of the massive quantities of energy necessary to do is startlingly familiar. But it doesn’t matter. No matter how far and fast he travels, he’s never going to be able to get back to the life he used to know.

Perhaps this is what being the chosen one actually means- he’s meant to live a life without the force, so that when he returns to it in death he’ll be able to somehow...educate? the force? maybe?

Ok, he’s not great at the metaphysical spiritual side of things, but he does accept that going back is out of his control, and he’s doing good here, even if it’s not galaxy altering.

Despite all the therapy, he never doubts that his early life was real. He has his saber and deep, deep down he can feel a spark in the kyber. He can’t do anything with it, but it’s there. There’s also pieces of the utter wreck that was his ship in the cellar, next to the sleek unblemished pod that Clark arrived in. Shortly before Clark becomes Superman, he asks for his help in melting down his old ship to make unearthly alloys.

He’s not surprised when Clark tells him he met a ‘real’ ‘magic’ user- it stands to reason that considering how relatively easy it is to convert energy from one form to another in this universe (Clark can fly), at least one kind would bend to sentient willpower in a similar way as the force does.

It’s still a little nervewracking showing his lightsaber to someone new for the first time in a decade. Zantana scrutinizes, bewildered.

“There is some sort of power locked within, but it’s unfamiliar to me,” she admits finally. “I could probably brute force it and force the energy to release itself, but it would likely destroy the container.” Anakin politely refuses.

Later, after the justice league’s formation, Clark mentions to J’onn that he has a friend who might be able to work on his ship. J’onn is extremely doubtful when he’s brought to a bizarre autoshop in the midwest that looks half-like a roadside attraction. Anakin sighs and digs his hands into the guts of the craft, muttering incomprehensibly and yelling at clark to melt down some pieces from the special scrap pile. A few days later he explains the patches he’s done to an impressed J’onn. When he asks how a human came to learn such things, he’s absently informed that,

“I used to work in a junkshop in Tatooine. All sorts of ship parts came through.”

“I’m unfamiliar with this world.”

“Tell you what, if you ever meet anyone who’s heard it of it, send them my way, and I’ll make your next repair free.”

“Oh! I’m afraid I don’t have any earth money...”

“Ugh, of course you don’t. it’s cool, capitalism sucks anyway and everyone’s entitled to free transportation, regardless of the area they happen to live. I do ask that if you can’t pay for the repairs that you spend an equivalent number of hours either attending one of my free auto classes, or volunteer at a community-led charities of your choice, here I’ll get you a pamphlet-”

So the Martian Manhunter becomes a weekly volunteer at a Midwestern Food Waste Reclamation Facility. J’onn J’onzz ends up becoming Anakin Skywalker’s friend well before he becomes comes truly comfortable around Kal-El. For a telepath, 39 year old Anakin’s Jedi orderly mind is a soothing relief.

(again, Anakin has spent far more time meditating on Earth then he ever did at the temple. Before all this, spent five years dutifully memorizing the Jedi way even as he struggled to live up it’s basic practices. For the first few years on earth, religiously practicing every meditation technique Obi-Wan ever taught him, thinking obsessively about the philosophies he never had time to really process, is just a desperate attempt to reconnect with the force, prove himself worthy of it. But even after he gives up on ever touching the force again, he keeps up the practice, he can’t release his emotions exactly, but he does find peace. The tendency to stop mid-rant to earnestly pronounce made up zen bullshit and then sit quietly for an hour before picking up on his tirade again as though there was no interruption is one of the things many things people find profoundly weird about him)

Kal-El doesn’t stop asking new aliens and dimensional travelers if they’ve ever heard of Coruscant, or Hutts, or the Jedi Order. Anakin might have given up, but Superman remembers his older brother scrubbing away his own tears to focus on helping Clark calm down enough to touch the floor again. The more the Kryptonian’s powers developed in alarming ways, the more Anakin set aside talk of missing his home galaxy. Anakin might have claimed it wasn’t like that, but Clark was determined to take every chance his increasingly weird life threw at him, no matter how vanishingly small.

In the middle of his first battle with Braniac, Clark starts insulting his incomplete database. The world collector pauses, demanding a more precise explanation. Clark complies, giving his best technical description of Coruscant’s cityscape, Tatooine’s binary star system, and so on. Braniac is so distracted that Superman recovers completely from his kryptonite poisoning and easily saves the day.

Neither the lantern corp or the denizens of the neutral zone have the answers. Superman doesn’t mention it it Anakin, but he never stops looking and listening.

“How did you even meet that guy?” Flash asks curiously after stopping to say hello on one of their after work laps of the country.

“Aliens among us support group,” Kal-El responds deadpan.

“Oh. Wait, what? He’s an alien? I thought he was from the future or something! You’re messing with me. No way that’s a thing. How many people are in the support group? This is a joke, right?”

“Sorry, most of them aren’t out and I don’t want to violate their privacy- a lot of them have high profile jobs. How do you think I met J’onn?”

“SUPES I’M FREAKING OUT RIGHT NOW YOU’VE GOTTA STOP”

Anakin is just sort of vaguely known by a solid chunk of the super community as ‘that one midwestern zen space mechanic’ and no one really questions it because everyone’s life has just gotten so goddamn weird. A few of them know he used to be a space wizard of some kind. Space wizards now being a regular hazard of life on earth, no one has reason to doubt this, and it’s as good an explanation as any for Anakin’s general vibe.

well. almost no one doubts this. Batman does not simply accept Anakin’s general bullshittery without carefully investigating and drawing his own conclusions. He does not share these with anyone.

But one day Clark- this is well after Superman became Kal-El to him, and not long after Kal-El tells him to call him Clark- comes up to him and asks for his help finding about an alternate universe. Knowing and dreading where this is going, Batman stalls,

“Shouldn’t you be asking one of the league members who regularly travels between universes?”

“I have, over the years,” Clark admits, awkwardly scuffing a boot on the floor of the cave. “But no one’s familiar with the exact one I’m looking for, and I thought since you’re a detective, and also one of the smartest people I know, you might be able to help me...”

“You’re an investigator yourself, and you can survive the vacuum of space,” Bruce shoots back flatly. “I’ve told you before Gotham is my priority, and this has ‘personal project’ all over it.”

“Come on, B, please,” Superman pleads, trailing Batman around the cave like an overgrown puppy. “In a few months it will have been 30 years! He’s my brother! Just let me see the research you’ve already done!”

“Who says I’ve already done research on your brother?”

Clark shoots him a look. And Bruce concedes the point with a grunt.

“I’ll need need to talk with him first,” Bruce finally concedes. “Bring him by the cave. Take the-”

“Take the tunnel entrance, I know, I know,” Clark agrees with a grin. “This doesn’t mean he’s authorized to know your secret identity. Thanks Bruce, this means a lot. I’ll ask him tomorrow about his schedule.”

Superman flies off and Batman scrubs his face with a gloved hand. After a moment he pulls up Anakin’s file on the main monitor. Bruce honestly respects and likes the man, as much as he respects and likes anyone who’s not family. He admires his sense his style, appreciates his upgrades to the batmobile, and is impressed by both this civil rights work and his additions to the scientific community.

That doesn’t mean he’s not convinced that Anakin’s brother is a bit insane. Again, he’s not judging! He dresses like a bat to scare random henchmen and beat up actual demigods! He wishes his rogues gallery was as capable of directing their ptsd-inspired delusions and staggering intellects towards such productive pursuits!

Bruce was already in quiet awe of the Kent’s ability to raise an outrageously superpowered being without blowing up a chunk of the country; their success in derailing a supervillian origin story just puts him over the edge. He stares at the three most likely profiles he’s pulled together. Christen Jones, from a negligent family, death certificate filled out suspicously sloppily at age 3. Earl Lucas, went missing at age 9, both parents dead in a violent assault. And Jake Hayden, who at age 5 disappeared along with the rest of his family in a seismic accident later linked to Luthercorp.

Anyone of them could have suffered on the streets for years and coped by establishing an elaborate fantasy world, aided by self medication, only to eventually be picked up by the Kent’s and start healing. Certainly Anakin had the intellect to create worlds in his mind. All his rogues were smart enough to create their own little realities in their heads- it doesn’t mean they were actually reachable.

Unfortunately Anakin had a Kryptonian younger brother who was determined to actually find the space wizard knight homeworld, even as the 'Jedi’ in question had slowly moved away his reliance on the delusion as an adult. Batman really didn’t see any way bringing up his conclusions to Anakin or Clark could possibly be helpful, and so many alien allies had a ‘If you find about the Jedi please contact Kal-El of Krypton on Earth’ pamphlet that it would be excruciatingly awkward to try and discretely correct anyone.

Bruce was not looking forward to this conversation.

#star wars #star wars au #dc #crossover #batman #anakin skywalker #corn boy anakin au

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lady-lunaaa · 4 years ago

Text

Part 1: Easy Way Out

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Epilogue

Pairing: Porco Galliard x Fem!Reader

Rating: MATURE, minors dni

Warnings: death stranding au, female reader, post-apocalyptic, mention of suicidal thoughts, violence, blood, monsters, reader pisses herself ✌🏻

Word Count: 7.4K

Masterlist🕊️

A/N: I want to say a huge thank you to my wife @dabilove27 for encouraging me to the max and seeing this piece through its many stages, I would have given up by now if it were not for you! I love you forever 💙 also a huge thanks to @gixxie for reading my intro and being a constant pillar of support. And of course, to you my darling @pleasantanathema who told me I was absolutely doing this collab and held my hand throughout, your belief and encouragement means the world to me. I love you bbys 💙 P.S. I know nothing about motorcycles, especially electric ones, and it shows. I’m so sorry 😂 and finally, I hope you enjoy!

🎶

You stand on the mountain's peak, wind whipping around you in a chaotic dance, tugging at your hair and loose fitting bodysuit. You tilt your face to the heavens, lids shut and inhale deeply; cold, delicious oxygen filling your lungs. There is so much air up here it is almost impossible to breathe, the wind stealing the breath right from your chest.

It reaches out to you with a blustery hand and offers you promises of flight and freedom. You teeter on the rocky edge of life itself. You know the second you comply, the short-lived euphoria will be dashed against the rocks below, triggering a devastating Voidout.

How cruel of the universe to set you down in a post-apocalyptic nightmare with no means of escape. You would not take your own life if it meant taking countless others with you.

That was one of the many curses of living in the Death Stranding, the new world. Any human life that ended, resulted in a Voidout, a giant explosion that could wipe out whole cities, leaving nothing but a gargantuan crater in its wake. Of course, those too, disappear eventually; fading away with every drop from the sky. Whatever the rain touches on impact immediately ages, accelerating time itself. Nothing lasts long in the TimeFall.

You open your lids slowly, eyes immediately watering and then going dry at the sudden exposure to the vicious air. Before you is a vast expanse of green landscape surrounded by mountains, spidery blue veins scattered below, feeding water from the mountains out to the sea.

The verdant valley is dotted with greys and browns, rockery extended from the scraggy peaks to the base of the hulking cliff-face and tumbled down the grassy slopes, converging at the water's edge.

The sky is a pale, cold blue, semi hidden from view by fluffy, off-white clouds. They seem to move with speed and purpose in the strong winds, flashes of aquamarine visible as they dance and weave above you. It's fair and clear today, not particularly warm but not cold either.

Except at the summit of this smallish mountain, where the temperature has dipped slightly and the wind adds to the illusion of it being much colder than it is. The sun is high in the sky, obscured mostly by clouds, giving out watery yellow rays.

It isn't the sunniest you have seen it recently but this is optimal weather for on the job. Strong, direct sunlight means you get too hot in your standard issue, full-body Porter suit. It is simple in design, cheap grey material just strong enough to endure several bouts of TimeFall and keep your skin safe from scrapes and cuts while you traverse the rocky wasteland. It doesn't protect you much from the fluctuating temperatures however.

You were a freelance Porter for the expansive company, Bridges. You transport cargo through the barren wasteland and deliver it safe and sound to small pockets, or communities, of survivors, known as Knot Cities. With the dangers of TimeFall and the entities known as Beached Things, essentially dead souls trapped in the land of the living, it's not safe for civilisation to exist above ground. Hence, humankind is connected via Bridges, and Porters, who make communication and trades between cities possible.

You admired the view for a moment longer, the delicate beauty of nature laid bare, before heaving a sigh and hoisting your cargo further up your back. You have a backpack of sorts with a system of straps that secure your packages to the back of your suit. You adjust them, pulling the straps tighter, before finding a suitable place and pulling out the rope kit tied to your left side. You brace yourself and drive the metal stake into the rock-strewn earth as deep as you can.

You throw the attached rope over the edge of the cliff and test it's stability with a harsh tug. Now satisfied it can take both the weight of you and the cargo, you grab it with thick, glove-clad hands and begin to descend, disappearing over the lip of the mountain.

You carefully weave the rope between your hands as you descend, special gloves giving you extra gip, feet planted firmly against the solid, almost black-grey surface in front of you. You go one foot down at a time, the rugged cliff-face providing perfect purchase for your sturdy boots, hands soon following.

Left foot first, right hand follows. You do your best not to look down, eyes trained on the rock in front of you, only wavering to scan for footholds. Right foot down, left hand follows. You repeat this over and over for what feels hours, but can only be minutes, until one of your boots hits solid ground with a dull thud.

You look back over your shoulder to make sure you are able to put full weight onto your legs. You can just stand up here despite the steep slope leading down to the valley. Making sure you are stable on your feet, you drop the rope, roughly memorising this location for future reference when you make the return journey.

Grabbing the straps around your shoulders, you exhale a puff of air. Now time for the slope. You pick your way carefully down the uneven decline, using larger rocks and boulders to steady yourself whenever you teeter or slip on loose rubble.

After ten minutes or so, you make it to the bottom unscathed, now standing in the valley. You are surrounded front and back by dark, rocky borders, dozens of small estuaries winding in front of you. The steady burbling of running water reaches your ears, as it rushes over and around pebbles, in its' great escape to the ocean.

Speaking of, you are thirsty. You have been travelling for a couple of hours and had another hour at least until you reached your destination. Standard emergency rations supply for a neighbouring waystation in the high mountains.

You grab your flask from the utility belt at your hip and twist off the cap, raising the cold metal to your dry, chapped lips and gulping down the cool refreshment. After you've had your fill, you lower your arm and look out towards the sea. You scrunch up your eyes from the bright white overhead, the sun isn't visible from down here, but the sky is bright and harsh.

Well, time to carry on, the cargo won't deliver it yourself, you think as you replace your flask in its holder and continue your hike across the valley, boots kicking loose stones across the ground with a clack, and toes scuffing the grass. You make it across and start your ascent, slow and steady, up the other mountain.

By the time you haul yourself over the last edge, you are covered in a light sheen of sweat and are about ready to sit down for a short rest.

You find a nice flat rock to sit on and haul yourself up onto the surface. Sitting cross legged, you fish a field supply ration out of your pocket and begin munching on the cracker ravenously. Not much taste but it serves its purpose.

The rock you now sit on, is nestled like a jewel in the middle of a large ravine that seems to extend round the mountain. You aren't far from your destination, the Waystation is in these mountains somewhere. Just a little further, you tell yourself.

As you are about to take another bite of your snack, you hear a noise behind you. Something that could have been a footstep, a boot knocking a stone. You tense and spin towards the sound but your new friend is faster and a large, strong fist connects with the side of your head, sending your body flying.

You hit the ground hard, ears ringing and your brain a little foggy. Your vision is blurred with tears as you struggle to roll over and pull yourself up onto your knees. You hastily scrabble at the straps around your back with clumsy fingers, to make sure your cargo hasn't come loose. All good, you note.

As you look up, you come face to face with your assailant. You are met with large and startling green irises, a bright and brilliant emerald that flash dangerously as a hand reaches out to grab the hair at the nape of your neck, yanking your head back hard. You bellow at the pain as your roots threaten to rip from your scalp. Tears stream down your face as you speak your first words of the day "Get your filthy hands off me!" you choke out with confusion, as you glare up at the stranger standing in front of you.

He is decked out in a bright yellow bodysuit, long baton with a glowing electrified tip at his side. A MULE. He isn't wearing a mask though, his hood down and long brown hair tied in a messy bun at the back of his head, baby hairs hanging loose around his face. Shit! He's here for the cargo, a classic hit and run. Typical MULEs.

He has scarily calm eyes that stare back at you, no expression clouds his face, no emotion flickers in those jade orbs. His lids hang heavy making his eyes look smaller than they are, giving him a bored, tired look. He points his electropole at you slowly, expression unwavering and stays silent.

There is a relaxed but dangerous vibe about him that sets your teeth on edge, as if this violence didn't even phase him. He isn't apprehensive or excited about it or crazed even, like most MULEs are, dependent on the courier system and driven mad, obsessed with transporting and delivering cargo. Their only purpose.

No, he isn't anything really. There is nothing you can glean from this man by his appearance or his demeanour, other than he wears the suit of a MULE. He looks young too. Too young to be wearing the empty, hopeless face that stands before you. You feel an immeasurable sadness wash over you as you look into those pretty eyes. Calm, vacant, bottomless. He is attractive, no doubt about that, beautiful tanned skin, as if he spends all his time working in the sun.

You think to yourself that you have never seen someone so alluring who radiates such an aura of despair. Lost in thought you miss his words when he speaks. When you look at him blankly, he shakes your head with his hand that is fisting your hair and repeats himself "I'm sorry it has to be this way, but if it's between you and me, then I choose myself".

Now that was unexpected, most MULEs don't even bother with words, much less apologies. There's something off about this whole interaction…who is this guy?

As your thoughts spiral, he lets go of your hair suddenly, causing you to slump forward in surprise. You stick your hands out to break your fall when you feel him begin to tug at the straps holding your cargo.

Usually you avoid confrontation, MULEs aren't worth the struggle, and it's a guarantee someone will find the cargo eventually and deliver it to its intended target. But something about this man has you angry. He didn't just stun you, rob you and leave. He punched you. In the head. From behind. And judging by how far you went flying and the ringing in your head, he was strong. Why the unnecessary violence?

You wait a few seconds with baited breath as he fumbles with the straps, you hear him curse lightly under his breath, fully engrossed in his task. He is leaning over your frame, legs either side of your head, his boots inches from your fingers that are curled into the earth beneath your palms. Now's your chance.

You throw your head upwards into his crotch as hard as you can. As he lurches away from you, curling around himself in a protective stance, you scurry backwards and haul yourself to your feet. Head still swimming faintly, you sway on your feet slightly as you take off in the opposite direction.

Your legs feel like lead, cargo weighing you down and jostling uncomfortably against your shoulder blades, every step feels like it is in slow motion. You growl in annoyance as you struggle to run. You aren't even sure this route will take you to your destination but you don't care. You just have to put distance between yourself and that psychotic stranger.

As you have that thought, something grabs your hood and yanks you backwards, choking off the shout that had risen in your throat and sending you tumbling to the floor. You groan as your back hits the floor, the impact rattling through your bones. You narrowly avoid whacking your head against the ground, a small blessing, and lay there with your eyes closed as you contemplate why the universe has it out for you.

A low whirring followed by a shout causes you to shoot upright in a sitting position, only to be stopped short by a buzzing electropole, orange light inches from your face, the colour searing into your brain. You blink and hold up your hands slowly in surrender. You follow the tip of the baton all the way up to the person attached and boy, is it a long way up. The woman standing over you is giant and willowy, the definition of statuesque. The whirring grows louder until another MULE riding on a motorbike comes whizzing into view, stopping inches from your outstretched feet.

Their hood is up, mask covering their face. They stop, feet resting either side of the bike, casually perched on the seat. Their gloved hands reach up to pull their hood down and it's a man.

Sandy-coloured, wavy locks fall around his forehead, his eyes a piercing, cool grey, rimmed in thin wire frames that perch on the bridge of his nose. He grabs his black mask and tears it from his face, so that it rests around his neck. He has a full beard, the same sandy blonde as his hair and his features are angular, but heavy. He's handsome. And he looks like trouble.

He leans to one side and jabs the heel of his boot against the kickstand before swinging a long, muscular leg over the bike and walking towards you. He stops right in front of you, your boots toe to toe. You raise your eyes to his, making sure to keep your head still so the pole being held by the woman in front of you doesn't touch your skin and fry your last few remaining brain cells.

He is tall. At least 6ft and he fills his suit nicely. You breathe in deeply and meet his gaze, peering into that cool, grey. Those eyes hold a promise of stability and his aura of authority almost brings you a calm sense of peace in this bizarre situation. It feels weird and wrong. Your instincts tell you not to trust the kind smile he plasters across his face. Those eyes, lacking something, remind you of the other man with the green eyes who attacked you first. But unlike the latter, the former has some unknown fire dancing within. Your anxiety and fear begin to spike, not quite understanding what is going on and how to process it.

Speak of the devil, the pretty man bun slowly approaches the blonde man from behind, a slight uncomfortable shuffle to his step as he walks. You grin in satisfaction, that will teach him to punch people in the fucking head.

If you are to die here, you realise in surprise, you will not die without a fight. You have been through a lot of shit already, and although this life is not exactly ideal, it's the one you have been given.

And now that someone else is threatening your life, you realise you don't want to give it up so easily. Not like you had in that moment on the cliff, peering down into the abyss of peace and freedom. Because that is a selfish choice. The easy way out. Besides, your death will be on your terms only.

You know what you are prepared to do. You are sure this group of misfits won't kill you, MULEs never did. For obvious reasons. These guys seem different but not completely insane….you hope your intuition is correct.

You lift your chin towards the electropole at your throat and glare at the man in front of you with renewed purpose. He chuckles at your open display of defiance and runs a glove through his dishevelled waves before crouching down in front of you, his arms resting across his knees.

"Yelena, lower that thing for christ sakes" he speaks in a low, smooth baritone, words slipping from his tongue in a lazy drawl as he leans in to examine your face. You flinch at his proximity and try to lean your head back away from him but the blonde giant, Yelena you correct yourself, next to you forces your head forwards to meet him head on.

You study the woman above you. She has a rather ridiculous blonde bowl cut and a crazed look in her eyes, smiling down at you sadistically. Great, that face will etched into your nightmares forevermore.

A tap to the side of your face has you turning your gaze back to the man in front of you, jerking away from his touch. This earns you a 'tut tut' from him, and he nods his head at Yelena who moves the pole closer to your throat threateningly, a sick smile twisting her features. This bitch is enjoying this far too much, you grit your teeth and this time when he places a finger under your chin, you do not flinch away.

"Such a pretty little thing. " He comments quietly, almost to himself rather than you, after a long uncomfortable silence of studying your features. He says it with certainty, like your beauty is a well known fact, not subjective. He makes no move to touch you further or say anything else.

You bristle instantly at the comment, not expecting this to be the route he would take.

"I'm not little," you put emphasis on the word, "and did I ask for your opinion on my appearance you bearded fuck? How about you tell your minions to stop threatening me and get the hell out of my face!" You spit out, rage rearing its ugly head. Like hell you are gonna play nice with your attackers.

Yelena does not like this and swiftly pulls a dagger from a concealed slit at her hip and before your eyes even have time to widen, she slashes you across the forehead. You hiss at the new stinging pain and snarl at her savagely "You fucking bitch!"

She raises the knife again but this time Blondie throws out an arm, raising his voice at her "DON'T!"

He speaks with such authority that you both stand down, growls seizing. Yelena reluctantly sheathes her dagger and looks sheepish at being scolded. Still has that damn pole at your throat though, what a nuisance she's turning out to be. Why haven't they stolen your cargo and left already?

Blood is now running down your face in red rivulets, dripping off your brows onto your cheeks and staining your lips rouge. The man turns his gaze to you slowly, eyes softening and crinkling at the corners as he takes in your bruised and now bloody appearance.

You tilt your head down slightly, blinking beads of blood from your lashes and breathing heavily. He takes off a glove and once again reaches out a large hand towards your face. You suck in a breath, heart pounding as he leans in and you anticipate his touch. He gently runs a thumb across your brow, your blood collecting along the rough pad and slowly running down his palm.

"Look what they've done to you…still so beautiful." The words tumble from his lips in a sigh, dark pupils blown wide as he gazes at you with an unreadable expression. Is he…getting off on this? You realise in horror, although not without a shameful pang of heat rushing to your core at the praise and attention. Your fear is starting to pick up, clearly he isn't interested in cargo any longer, and you dread to think what he will do if you do not get yourself out of this situation.

"Let me apologise for my companions, they have no manners." He gestures at Yelena with his other hand and she draws a cloth from her breast pocket hastily and hands it to her leader. He slowly wipes the blood from his fingers and looks at you over his glasses expectantly, waiting for a response.

You gather the metallic tang in your mouth and spit at him, a mixture of saliva and blood hitting his cheek with a splat. Yelena sucks air through her teeth and man-bun lets out a bark of laughter, the most emotion that he's outwardly shown since he ambushed you. You glare at the man in front of you, satisfaction flaring in your veins as you look him dead in the eyes and say "I don't need your empty apologies, fuck you."

Blondie looks at you, a feral glint in his eyes and slowly smiles, you suppress a shudder, determined not to show your fear outwardly.

He wipes at his face with the cloth and hands it back to Yelena, the momentary flash of danger gone from his expression. He whistles long and drawn out before standing up again, looking round at green eyes and exclaiming "You caught a feisty one Eren".

Eren stares at you with a new look in his eyes, as if actually seeing you this time, one of mild amusement but with a hint of annoyance in his angled brows.

"Not a minion by the way." He mutters at you and then turns to the blonde man and addresses him, "That's what you get for playing with your prey Zeke, just grab the stuff and let's go." He turns away, shoving his hands into the baggy pockets of his yellow jumpsuit.

"Ignore him, he's just mad you crushed his nuts and demoted him to minion." He grins at you with a warm and too-familiar smile, like he already has the privilege of knowing you. You are sure others are probably charmed by this façade, and under less dire circumstances, you could perhaps see why. He's clearly a master manipulator, used to getting what he wants however he needs to. How are you going to get out of this one? These people are unhinged and you have a strange sense that you recognise those names. You need to find a solution and fast.

"Anyway, how about you come with us?" Zeke asks in a jovial tone, like he thinks you might actually comply based on your interaction thus far.

You scoff and roll your eyes at him before commenting dryly "Sure. That one punches me in the head, and this one," you gesture at Yelena who's face so far has never wavered from that sick grin, "tries to impale me on that glowy stick before cutting me open, if you think I'm coming willingly, you've got a screw loose. Like this giant bitch." You mutter the last part under your breath and flick your eyes towards Yelena with a wicked grin. You realise you must look deranged as well, grinning wildly, face and teeth red with blood as you antagonise your attackers. Not a smart move. But then you've never been particularly smart with your choices, especially when people are pushing you around.

This instantly draws a reaction from Yelena who jerks forward, leaning her insanely long body down to meet your eye level, practically folded in half. Her nose swooping above you, crazed eyes inches from your own.

"How dare you address our leader like this? Do you even know who you are talking to? I've had about enough of your smart mouth." She snarls, spittle flying from her mouth, face beet red.

You reach up a hand to wipe her spit from your forehead but otherwise ignore Yelena, turning your attention to Zeke instead and drawling sarcastically "This your girlfriend, oh great leader? You might want to refrain from flirting with strangers in front of her, scumbag. I don't think she's particularly thrilled about it". Yelena straightens immediately, bowl cut fringe swaying stiffly, almost comically as she does so, cheeks reddening even further in a furious blush.

Zeke laughs again, a deep, rich sound that bounces off the rock surrounding your motley crew and echoes back to you.

"God no, Yelena is just my right hand accomplice. Nothing more, nothing less."

You grunt in response, like you give a fuck, you just need to get out of here. You need to keep him talking, distract him. Eren has come up behind Zeke and is muttering something into his ear, seeming to get angrier with Zeke's responses. While they are busy, you flick your eyes sideways to Yelena, who is pointedly not looking at you, still blushing. Clearly embarrassed, you have called her out on her blindingly obvious crush on her boss.

You formulate a plan in your mind and turn your attention back to the two men, they are still engaging but clearly coming to the end of their discussion. It is now or never. You count to three and then throw yourself towards Yelena, grabbing her hand holding the stick and forcefully swinging it down so the charged end hits her shin.

She releases a guttural grunt, before falling to her knees, whole body spasming. You waste no time in raising the stick high before swinging it above you in a swooping arc and slamming it into her head as hard as you can. It makes a sickening thunk! as it connects with her skull. Yelena slumps forward, face buried in the grass and you spin around to face the men. Heart thumping erratically, body thrumming, liquid adrenaline whizzing through your veins and making you wild.

You swing the stick in front of you and point it at Zeke, "What's it gonna be Yeager? Do I have to castrate you as well or are you gonna be a good boy?" You are breathing hard, eyes wide and unnerving as you look between the brothers. The names are indeed familiar and while you were planning your escape, you remembered exactly why.

Zeke raises his hands slowly in mocking defeat and smiles a slow, devious grin, "So you do know who we are. What gave it away, sweetheart?" He winks at you slyly and you curl your lip at him in disgust.

"You two are hard to miss, stick out like a sore thumb. You're not like the usual MULEs around here. Plus you're kind of famous 'round these parts, sweetheart." You fling the pet name back at him with as much venom as you can muster. "Who hasn't heard of the notorious Yeager brothers?" You look at Zeke pointedly, irritated that he has underestimated you. You aren't an idiot. You have heard the tales of the bandit brothers who travel the land, stealing, ransacking, generally causing nuisance wherever they go.

Eren steps forward so he is beside Zeke and you shift the stick a fraction so it points towards him "One step closer, pretty boy, and you'll end up like you're little groupie here." You nod your head in Yelena's vague direction somewhere behind you.

Eren huffs at your use of "pretty" and speaks low and even, in his husky voice "That your idea of flirting, Porter? Never had someone be so bold before when we've been robbing them, huh Zeke?" He addresses his brother but his eyes never leave yours, boring a hole into your skull with his gaze. His eyes finally show a flicker of emotion, danger and intrigue as he looks you over.

"Yeah, never met one quite as feisty either. See most people that know the name Yeager, also know that we don't go easy on our prey." Zeke's tone is matter of fact as he pulls a zippo and a cigarette from his pocket and proceeds to light it. You have no doubt the words he spoke are true.

However, his eyes bear a spark of mischief, he looks at you as if this is all some inside joke, as if you know he won't really hurt you. Again with that friendly demeanour. You furrow your brows imperceptibly, confused.

You don't have time to decipher this man's cryptic messages. Trust your luck to meet two of the most notorious crooks out here, you just need to make your delivery before nightfall so you can hightail it back to base and rest for a night or two. Damn, have you earned it.

"Well, I wasn't told that the notorious Yeager brothers are so attractive," you start, slowly inching to the side, "under different circumstances maybe we could have had some real fun?" You smirk at the men standing in front of you, tone suggestive. It's a cheap trick, one they will definitely see through, but at this point anything is preferable to doing nothing.

Zeke stands casually, one arm loose at his side, the other holding his cigarette carelessly between two fingers. His stance drips carefree nonchalance but his stormy eyes swim with interest. A little too much interest.

Eren's hands are still shoved deep in his cargo pockets, he's scowling at you, brunette brows furrowing darkly and those pretty eyes carefully blank. As expected, he is not taking the bait like his brother. You continue shuffling around the brothers, making your way towards the abandoned motorbike, stick still outstretched in front of you, glowing in warning.

Zeke licks his lips and takes a long drag from his cigarette, making no move to stop you. He blows a puff of smoke into the atmosphere, watching it curl upwards before turning his head round to you and saying "Well what a shame indeed, that today isn't under different circumstances."

He smiles at you with that knowing look again, eyes crinkling at the corners, bangs blowing in the slight wind rushing through the ravine. He looks almost gentle now, albeit creepy as hell. The end of the world really brought out the nutters. You reach the bike and move to sit astride it.

Eren looks at his brother quickly before he starts forward but Zeke flings a hand out, stopping him. Eren looks at him in confusion and irritation but says nothing. He relaxes his posture and watches as you check the bike over before starting it up. The electric engine whirs to life with barely a whisper and you look Zeke dead in the eyes.

"Yeah, a real shame." You speak loud enough that he can hear you over the hum and jostling of your equipment, before twisting the throttle with a harsh tug and speeding off without a backwards glance.

The bike shoots forward faster than you anticipate and your heart, and just about all your vital organs, fly into your throat as you attempt to relax and remain stable on the vehicle. The scenery passes you in blurs of green and brown, your hair thrown back behind you, whipping the air fiercely. You fly through the ravine in the mountain and think that perhaps you ought to slow down, you're not sure how far you've travelled and although it's fairly flat here, you are up pretty high.

Rocks and stones jab into your side painfully, tearing at your cheeks and forehead. Your mind is a whirlwind, dizzy from the rolling and the previous impact. You can't do anything but feel every poke, every scratch, every smack. You manage to manoeuvre your arms around your head, protecting your skull and squint your eyes tight, weathering the pain as you tumble down and down.

Just as you begin to ease the throttle and start to brake, the front wheel hits a chunk of rock with brutal force. You are flung forward violently, hands ripped from the grips, flipping over yourself in the air before you land with a sickening crunch. All the breath expels your body in a wheeze, but you have little time to react before you carry on rolling, slipping and sliding downhill rapidly.

Finally, you hit an angle in the ground and are thrown forward once more, your body stops when it connects with a mound erupting from the earth. Your back hits the mound with a thump and you lay there crumpled in on yourself, arms around your head, in foetal position.

Your body is singing to you, crying out all its aches and pains, your brain thoroughly rattled in your skull. You stay curled against the ground for several minutes, unmoving.

Your ragged, panicked breathing slowly lessens to whimpering sobs, a hiccup here and there as you come down from the adrenaline high.

It's now that the pain really hits you. Every inch of your skin has been scraped, scratched and bruised and your back aches like a bitch. As you slowly unfurl from your protective ball, it spasms, sharp pain shooting through your lower back. You gasp, sucking in air at the fresh wave of pain. Every time you move, even a twitch, it feels like there is a taut rubber band pulling at your back muscles, threatening to snap and ping around inside you.

You inhale a deep breath and slowly rock yourself over onto your hands and knees. The pain increases sharply, almost unbearably so and you still, gloved fingers curling into the soft earth beneath you. You feel nauseous. You focus on not hurling as you breathe through the pain.

Deep breath in, hold a second. Long breathe out. Deep breath in, hold a second. Long breath out.

You slowly let your body relax, assessing the damage from feeling alone, as you continue to breathe deep and even. Other than your back, the rest of your limbs seem okay. You wiggle your toes in your boots and flex your fingers against the ground. Your arms and legs can hold your weight and other than feeling very bruised and sore, you are okay. Maybe luck is on your side after all. You stretch your back out a little as a tester, it hurts but you think you can move a little now.

You slowly sit back on your legs and raise yourself to an upright kneeling position. You blink at your surroundings. You are sitting in a lush, green forest.

You were stopped by a sizeable, mossy protrusion in the earth. The ground is covered in moss in fact, soft and spongy beneath your knees. Thick, brown trunks raise from the ground all around you and shoot upwards, beautiful green foliage blocking out the sky. Soft light streams through the gaps and hits the mossy earth, lighting the floor in a warm glow. It's so beautiful.

You stare around you in wonder, taking in the scenery. It's windy even here, the soft susurration of leaves in the breeze bringing a sense of calm clarity to this space. You feel grounded, a part of nature, a part of life…for the first time in a long time. And it feels good.

You smile and close your eyes, breathing in the damp, earthy scent around you. Letting it fill up your lungs, a hint of pine teasing your nostrils. You revel in the peace for a few seconds before using the mound next to you as leverage to haul yourself to your feet.

Now standing up, you look behind you, where you fell down the incline into this wooded area. Judging by the wind overhead, you are going in exactly the right direction towards the Waystation which contains a small wind farm onsite. Small blessings. Although you can't help but mourn the loss of the bike, that would have been handy to hold onto.

A thought wanders into your mind and you blink, eyes going wide before you curse aloud and start yanking at the pack on your back, shrugging it off your shoulders and down your arms. Finally freeing the cargo from its very loose straps, you spread the packages out before you to assess the damage.

Fuck. The metal containers are covered almost wholly in scratches, the paint worn away. There are a few noticeable dents, but it doesn't seem as if the contents inside have been compromised. Thank the gods. You smile at your turn of phrase and then you laugh. Laugh at how absurd it is to pray to any deity when this land is ruled by a demonic power. Any higher, benevolent being that possibly exists has given up on Earth, written it off as the devil's domain.

You return the cargo to its rightful place- certainly not in mint condition but safe nonetheless- and loop your arms into the straps, readying yourself for the last stretch of the journey. Soon you can collapse and tend to your wounds.

Just as you begin to walk further into the forest, rubbing the back of your sore head gingerly, a flash of what looks like watery rainbow glints through the gaps in the leaves above you. You stop abruptly and tilt your head to the side, peering through the canopy above to ascertain whether it was simply a trick of the imagination. You take a few steps forward, still staring up suspiciously every now and then, as you navigate your way down the slight mossy decline in front of you.

It's when you reach a patch of trees that aren't as densely packed as the others, providing a clear view of the sky, that you notice the grey clouds rolling overhead angrily. You stop in your tracks and stare at the sky in dawning horror.

"No no no NO!" you trip over your words in panic, the last 'no' tumbling from your lips in a half-shout. Suddenly the clouds decide to part, a full rainbow emerging behind them and winking in the bright light. It is gone in the next instant, obscured by cloud cover. As the first few drops of rain begin to fall, spattering your beaten suit and windswept hair, you hastily pull your hood over your head to protect your skin. It was specially made to stay up when pulled forwards, supported by plastic rods woven into the material.

You curse loud and colourful as tears sting your eyes and your throat closes in a silent sob.

"This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening." You babble to yourself under your breath as hot tears cascade down your cheeks.

You whisper angrily, "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" You grit your teeth and curl your hands into fists at your side. Of course, of course, they would show up now of all places. Seems you can't catch a break today.

The pretty refractions of coloured light accompanied by TimeFall always signal the arrival of BTs. The temperature plummets to icy degrees and your breath puffs out in front your face, curling in the cold atmosphere. The sky darkens considerably, washing over the once warm and bright scene in front of you, colouring everything in a despairing, dull haze.

You stand in the TimeFall, staring ahead into the endless array of muddy brown trunks. The rain is a cacophony of sound as it hits the treeline, dripping off the veined leaves above and tapping the material of your suit in greeting. It splashes across the many rocks dotted amongst the forest, droplets splattering the weathered stone and bouncing upwards with the force.

Life is cruel, you think to yourself in resigned dismay, but still so damn beautiful.

You have to keep moving, there is no escaping the spirits now. You stifle a groan as you crouch low to the damp ground, slowly sliding over the moss and grass as you lower yourself down the decline into the small thicket of trees below. The rain increases to deafening proportions, obscuring your view and you know that they are here. Their presence makes your skin crawl, gooseflesh tearing along your arms and the back of your neck in an instant.

You shudder in terror as you turn your head to the right and catch sight of them.

Ghostly, inky black creatures vaguely resembling the shape of a human figure, suspended in mid-air. Three of them. The particles of antimatter that make up their being, drip from their lower halves towards the earth and spiral up from their "heads" towards the stormy sky. They move in a slow, eerie dance across the forest floor, anti-matter continually undulating and rearranging itself as it moves, still keeping that vague humanoid shape.

You are one of the lucky few who can see these lost spirits, afflicted by a higher level of DOOMs, you can see their true shape and appearance unlike lesser sufferers or non-sufferers. You don't know why you are graced with this gift but it does mean you are able to avoid them better than most. A high level of DOOMs means that you are more attuned to the land of the dead, on the same wavelength, or however the fuck it works.

Even though you have seen BTs plenty of times during your travels, they never get any less horrifying, any less unbelievable. The sight before you is otherworldly, unnatural, unsettling. They are almost impossible to describe to someone who hasn't witnessed them.

You slowly creep forwards through the trees, heart drumming against your ribcage in an attempt to break out of your chest, doing your best to stay silent and remain undetected. Your breathing is shallow despite your attempts to remain calm and as you plant a step in front of you, a loud crack rings out. A twig.

You freeze, body clenching in fear, as the shadowy heads of the BTs turn towards you in unison. Terror shoots through your spine, crawling along your arms and legs and brushing the back of your neck with phantom fingers. Your heart stops as you suck in a gasp and hold your breath, stuck in your crouching position on the floor, rigid in fear. But it's too damn late for holding your breath and freezing up, they know you are here, and they are coming for you.

Their heavy footsteps thud against the wet earth as they rush towards you, viscous, black liquid splashing upwards in their wake. The earth turns into a dark, wavering floor of oil-like creatures wherever their presence touches. The ever-growing mass of liquid bodies crawls towards you frighteningly fast and you whimper out a quiet sob as you fall onto your ass and scramble blindly backwards. Panic has set in and fully overtaken your senses.

As you kick out desperately one of the many mutated, blobby hands grabs your ankle in a vice-like grip. You scream in fright and anger, yanking your leg back and forth, bellowing obscenities all the while. Your eyes widen as you struggle in vain, more and more deathly hands gripping at your suit and limbs, antimatter seeping over your entire body as they pull you down into the hellish nightmare below.

You grunt and growl, all you can manage to get out through grit teeth, as you pull against the force with all your might, ripping away from the hands and clawing at the grassy earth to your side. Adrenaline is pumping through your veins like fire, igniting the primal will to survive within your bones, animalistic roars tearing through the thunder-clapped skies.

You cry out in terror babbling nonsensically, whether to yourself or the devil's children on your tail, you are not sure. As the creatures rush you, thundering across the earth and bringing waves of damned souls with them, determined to drag you to hell, you feel a warm sensation slowly seep between your legs, wetting your thighs.

Just as you feel yourself being sucked back into the abyss, you hear a shout, and a series of small bangs go off next to you. You throw your face into the earth and away from the sound, inhuman screeches filling your ears. You feel the hands loosen their grip on you and you take your chance, pulling away from them, fingernails digging into the dirt painfully as you haul yourself back onto solid ground with a huff and a groan.

The forest goes quiet again as you roll onto your back staring up into the leafy, emerald canopy above.

You lie there, coming down from your near-death experience, heart rate slowly returning to normal as you breathe in and out deeply. You hear a grunt not far from you followed by shuffling and clinking. Must be the nutter who decided to help me, you think.

"What do we have here?" a cheerful, mocking voice rings out beside you.

At the top of the cliffs edge, where the woman plummeted off mere moments before, two men stand; staring at the treeline below them.

“You think she survived?” Eren asks, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Probably. It’s not that far down.” Zeke notes, smoke billowing out of his mouth with his words. He scratches the tip of his right ear with a pointer finger absently.

Zeke puffs the last of his cigarette and then flicks the butt over the edge, watching it tumble down after the woman, glowing orange tip still visible. Silence hangs in the air momentarily, the only sound the whistling of the wind, as it blows through his straw-coloured locks.

“So, what’s our plan? You want her, right?” Eren drawls in a tone lacking actual fucks to give. He slides his gaze over to his brother, emerald eyes assessing the older male.

“I’m that obvious, huh?” Zeke chuckles, “Don’t you worry, little brother, we’ll find her again. I’ll make sure of it.”

#porco galliard #porco galliard x reader #porco x reader #porco galliard x you #porco x you #porco fanfiction #aot fanfiction #snk fanfiction #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #slight zeke yeager x reader #tw: violence #tw: blood #tw: suicidal thoughts #death stranding au #post apocalyptic au #easy way out 🕊️#stranded souls 🕊️

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fakeikemen · 4 years ago

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Katara's Grief

(This is my first attempt at a meta post and I know that this has probably been already done but I just needed to get it off my chest and go on a little rant and it kinda got long so bear with me.)

A lot of the hate on Katara stems from the fact that she keeps on mentioning her mother's death at every chance she gets and invalidates other people's pain to assert that her suffering is the worst of the lot.

And even though everybody is entitled to their own opinions, I'm gonna point out why I think the aforesaid claims are not exactly correct.

First we'll take a look at; Katara's Backstory:

We know that Kya is killed in a fire nation raid and that Katara had been the last person to see her alive before she leaves the tent on her mother's insistence. Only to come back a few moments later and find her dead body. This, in itself is a traumatising event.

So yes, her mother died. Other people in the story go through far worse. You're not wrong when you say that.

But what is more important in Katara's story is the aftermath of her mother's death.

As Sokka says while talking to Toph in "The Runaway" in B3 Ep7:

Sokka: When our mom died, that was the hardest time in my life. Our family was a mess, but Katara? She had so much strength. She stepped up and took on so much responsibility. She helped fill the void that was left by our mom.

As an eight year old, she had to force herself to grow up to step into her mother's shoes and raise herself and her elder brother and simultaneously look after the entire village after her father left to fight in the war. She had to do all of it by herself.

In face of all her responsibilities, she never really had the chance to simply be a grieving child lamenting the loss of her mother. She habituated herself to caring more about others than herself (We see this trait in the entire series as she acts as the stand-in mom friend for the entire Gaang with an exception of Suki and Zuko). She ended up bottling her feelings of grief, resentment, guilt and rage deep within herself.

She had to give up an extensive part of her childhood where most children focus on figuring themselves out, to become a mature and responsible person who was working as the immovable pillar holding up the family and even the whole village not much later.

She put up a strong front to help others and pretended to be fine even though she was hurting inside the whole time.

She could never find any closure from the situation. She never got over it.

Moving on to the criticisms:

1. Katara keeps on mentioning her mother like a broken record:

Here are the number of times Katara mentions her mother's death (not sure if that's all of it, lmk if there are any others):

1. In her first scene with Sokka

Katara: Ever since mom died, I've been doing all the work around camp while you've been off playing soldier!

2. A short while after she meets Aang

Katara: Well, I just want you to be prepared for what you might see. The Fire Nation is ruthless. They killed my mother, and they could have done the same to your people.

3. A short while after she meets Haru

Katara: I lost my mother in a Fire Nation raid. This necklace is all I have left of her.

4. A short while after she meets Jet

Katara: Sokka and I lost our mother to the Fire Nation.

5. In the swamp after she sees a vision of her mother

Katara: I thought I saw Mom.

6. In the Crystal Catacombs with Zuko

Katara: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

7. A short while after she meets Hama

Katara: We completely understand. We lost our mother in a raid.

8. Repeated mentions in The Southern Raiders episode

(Most of the episode basically)

The first mention with Sokka is in the middle of a siblings' spat where she tells off Sokka for trying to act as if he were superior when it was obvious that in the face of the gaping hole that was left by Kya's sudden death, Katara had shouldered much more responsibility.

When she tells it to Aang, she uses it as a proof that the Fire Nation is capable of immense cruelty and destruction.

The Gaang travel all around the world and meet different people affected by the war in different ways. So when Haru, Jet and Hama narrate their own stories, Katara sympathises with them and talks about Kya's death in lieu of "I understand, the Fire Nation hurt me too."

After they got separated, Aang, Sokka and Katara each had their visions and after they get back together, they all mention their visions and so does Katara.

When left alone in catacombs with Zuko, whom she considered as the face of the Fire Nation— the same Fire Nation that had her mother killed and forced her father to leave to fight in the war, she has a meltdown where she rightfully accuses him of all the bad things he's done and then breaks down while talking about how the war has cost her i.e., by causing her mother's death.

The Southern Raiders is the episode where Katara hunts down the man responsible for her mother's death. If you think mentioning Kya repeatedly in this episode is uncalled for, then I don't know what to tell you.

In all the incidents mentioned above, Katara mentioning her mother's death is a very natural occurrence is the respective conversations. She mostly talks about Kya's death to either extend her sympathy or to use it as an example of the ruthlessness of the Fire Nation.

Another fact to be noted is that 70% of the Gaang's storyline is followed via Katara from a narrative point of view. Plus, being the mom-friend, she acts as the spokesperson. Considering that Kya's death is a major event that played a huge role in shaping Katara's life and is also the source of her severe, unresolved trauma, which acts as the driving force of her story, it is only natural that she brings up this topic whenever she is engaging in a deeper conversation.

It is us as the viewers who have seen her from the start and already know about her mother's death and we see her talking to multiple people about it. Which is why it might come across as repetitive to some people.

While, Kya's death is not necessary information that everyone needs to know, Katara talking about it never comes across as a forced or unnatural.

2. Katara invalidates others' pain because she thinks she has suffered the most:

First of all, if anything, Katara is the most empathetic person of them all. As the mom-friend of the group, not only is she their constant moral support, she also helps them untangle and sort out their own feelings. She is also able to tap into issues that aren't said out loud.

Instances of Katara helping and supporting Aang, emotionally are uncountable.

She is the first one to notice Sokka's sour mood in B3 Ep4 "Sokka's Master". And even though his insecurities seem baseless, she validates him (by saying "I'm sorry you're feeling so down" instead of something like "That's a dumb thing to say") and knows exactly what to do to cheer him up.

In B3 Ep7 "The Runaway" she has the insight to understand that Toph's unruly behaviour is caused by the mixed feelings she has about her parents even though Toph's herself never talked about it.

She even reaches out to Zuko in B2 Ep19 "Crossroads of Destiny" even though she used to think of him as the face of the enemy.

But then there's The Southern Raiders.

Ah yes, that episode where Katara is extremely OOC and a total b*tch.

Agreed that she said some things that she definitely shouldn't have said. But like, she's just 14?? And has been hurting on the inside since she was 8?? And pretended to be fine just for the sake of other people?? Like, there's a limit to how much she can have her shit under control?? And she did a real good job of Sokka's upbringing and taking care of the village and taking care of Gaang on her own?? Some people out there are really willing to forget everything she has ever done just because she was mean for 5 minutes?? A traumatised 14 yo shouldn't be villianised and called toxic because she got mad and lashed out at people that one time??

But here's my take on the scene anyway:

When Aang gets to know that she's going to go face her mother's killer:

Aang: Um ... and what exactly do you think this will accomplish?

Katara: I knew you wouldn't understand.

Aang is a non-confrontational person who prefers running away from difficult situations as opposed to Katara who firmly stands her ground and is never afraid of confrontations. Katara had approached Aang only hoping that he would understand. But going by his dismissal, he obviously doesn't understand the burning need that she has to confront the man who had single-handedly destroyed her childhood. (Most people infer that what Katara means is that she thinks that Aang doesn't understand the pain of losing people. And so does Aang, I guess)

But things start getting even more tricky when:

Aang: Katara, you sound like Jet.

In all honesty, this is probably the most insensitive thing that she could've heard from anyone right then, let alone one of her closest friends. Hearing herself being compared to a homicidal maniac just because she wants to avenge her mother's killer. (No, I'm not justifying murder but there's a clear difference between homicide and avenging someone's death. And Aang may not be my favourite character but I do love him but this wasn't really a good thing to say either. And he wasn't even mentally distressed in the very least to be completely lacking tact or a filter.)

And then the situation escalates:

Sokka: Katara, she was my mother, too, but I think Aang might be right.

Katara: Then you didn't love her the way I did!

After 6 long years of Katara bottling in her dark feelings and letting them fester inside herself, she is finally letting them out and the first things she faces in a span of few minutes are outright rejection, invalidation of her feelings, comparison to a homicidal maniac and nothing akin to the unconditional support that she has provided to everybody. Her own brother tells her that he is siding with the boy who just compared her to a homicidal maniac.

Yes, accusing your own brother of not loving your mother enough is a very cruel thing to do. But both Sokka and Katara know that she doesn't entirely mean it.

But also, there is one very important factor in here:

In B3 Ep7 "The Runaway", Sokka says to Toph:

Sokka: I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly? I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara's been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there. And now, when I try to remember my mom, Katara's is the only face I can picture.

Katara overhears this conversation just as Sokka had meant her to.

This dialogue lets us know that Sokka's coping mechanism has made him suppress all memories of Kya and replace them with memories of Katara in order to attain a semblance of normalcy.

Both Katara and Sokka had very different ways of coping with Kya's death. Katara pressed down her feelings and tried her best to pretend to ignore them while Sokka partially succeeded in forgetting her.

When Katara first hears these words she is shown to be crying. But if she were to remember these very words while she was justifying herself infront of her own brother and a close friend for wanting to avenge her mother, it would've had a negative impact on her.

In her rage, she would've thought: "Of course he doesn't want to avenge mom. Because he doesn't think it's worth it and that's because he doesn't even remember enough of her to be mad about her death."

And for someone who has spent each day of the last 6 years trying to fill in the shoes of her mother and experiencing her absence everyday, the idea of forgetting her mother is a ridiculous concept to her.

Her thoughts would have quickly derailed to: "He didn't love her enough to remember her."

In light of these thoughts, saying "Then you didn't love her the way I did" doesn't feel out of the blue.

No, I am definitely not justifying what she said, I'm just laying out a possible explanation to why she said what she said.

Yes, she should've apologized to Sokka for this and I think that they definitely should've had a long conversation about their mother's death and how it affected them. Between Katara supressing her feelings and Sokka supressing his memories, i don't think they ever had this conversation.

But sadly we are given neither of these scenes.

Tl;dr: Everytime Katara mentions her mother, it's with good reason and I don't think it's fair to call a character toxic when they lack a mind to mouth filter for 5 minutes and say some mean things. And considering all that Katara has done for everybody, it isn't fair at all.

Peace out!

#antis really be out there ignoring everything she does to hate on her because of two lines she said #nvm katara is one strong badass girl stan her for good grades and clear skin #katara #atla #atla meta #meta analysis #avatar the last airbender #water tribe #kya #sokka #hakoda #gaang #atla gaang #avatar gaang #zuko #aang #toph #ira's posts

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rinharu-purple · 3 years ago

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❤️️ BEAUTIFUL PERSON AWARD! ONCE YOU ARE GIVEN THIS AWARD YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO PASTE IT IN THE ASKS OF 8 PEOPLE WHO DESERVE IT. IF YOU BREAK THE CHAIN NOTHING HAPPENS, BUT IT'S SWEET TO KNOW SOMEONE THINKS YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL INSIDE AND OUT ❤️️ 💖💖

Nihao Nonny!

Thank you for giving me such a lovely award and brightening up my day! <3<3<3 Spreading love is one of the best remedies I can think of so thank you for reminding me/us (everyone seeing this) about it.

And you're right! It's the sweetest thing to know someone thinks you're beautiful inside and out. You're such a beautiful soul too ⊂( ◜◒◝ )⊃

Unfortunately I cannot help you with the chain, but I would like to dedicate today's headcanon to you and I hope you can accept this as a compensation. ^_^

MLQC GUYS AS TAROT CARDS

As I read Cheri's translation about Gavin's Divination Date and how Gavin and MC talk about tarot, it raised the question in my mind which cards would be representing each guy's energy?

Tarot is a way of meditation, in which a querent can find answers to the questions in her mind by the guidance of the symbolism the tarot cards represent. It's about discovering one's innermost wishes and thoughts via introspect.

Its a headcanon, so I won’t be associating our guys with the cards representing their astrological signs. (For the ones who would like to know: Victor= The Devil, Lucien= The Death, Gavin= Strength/The Sun, Kiro= The Emperor)

Victor

An older man with wealth and status who sits on a throne giving out a stable, powerful and grounded aura. Sounds familiar?

The Emperor card suggests the querent to focus on their hard work, discipline and self control much like Victor mentors MC in doing. He challenges and pushes MC forward to harden her shell so that she can face the tragic fate awaiting her.

This card also represents a fatherly figure and by the way he nurtures, pampers and mentors MC, Victor might at times be seen as a fatherly figure or as "daddy", depending on your preference of wording.

But there is a downside to this card if its upside down, because he can be authoritarian, stubborn and let his ego take over.

Lucien

This card doesn't even need explanation because it describes a skilled and intellectual man who possesses the resources he needs in achieving his goals.

He is the one who manifests, who creates but at times also manipulates. For his goals are certain and his path is defined by meticulous manifestation.

As I've described in detail here, Lucien is the mastermind of the MLQC universe who observes every character closely and gathers all the resources he can to establish his scheme and acts accordingly. He is a machiavellian and this philosophy might make him make questionable decisions at times and he might get deceiving so beware!

Gavin

The epidome of willpower, determination and focus is the carrying pillars of this card as well as our birdcop.

Gavin is driven by his unwavering determination and seemingly never-ending endurance. He is someone who was dealt with disadvantageous cards and has to create his own fate without depending on others. His life is full of battles with the affirmation "I move forward with clarity and poise, staying connected and protected". Gavin is all about moving forward and overcoming obstacles with confidence. His strength comes from his constant inner growth and later on from his love and faith with MC.

But careful! He also has an unfettered side of him which might show itself in the form of a downright uproar and an uncontrollable outburst. *Fun fact: The stone for the Chariot is amber ;)

Kiro

Innocence, good faith, optimism and enthusiasm for life are inseparable notions from Kiro. His ideals and the world he wants to see are what he is unconditionally committed to and doesn't care for the sacrifices he might be obliged to make on the way of ensuring these.

Kiro has an ever fading desire for independence, to break away, to leave for an adventure that is of his choosing. His life is so defined by the imposed boundaries and norms that this guy just wants a spontaneous getaway and exploring the world on his own terms.

For this he might at times act immature, disoriented and reckless or get lost which is what I always think of Helios. The lost boy in Kiro's heart that wants to come back home.

Masterlist

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snackleggg · 3 years ago

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City of splintering hopes: Chapter 3 "Carvings in the walls"

~~~

Ao3

~~~

As Danny flew through the city he became more and more amazed.

It was obvious the place had been abandoned for a long long time but even so there was no sign of decay, everything seemingly perfectly persevered. Of course there was rubble, entire blocks of buildings that was nothing but collapsed stone but for the most part the ancient city was intact.

He landed down in one of the streets. And took stock of his surroundings.

The stone buildings wooden doors all shut, apart from the rubble and rocks the streets were almost pristinely clean.

From flying over head Danny had noticed that the whole city was built in a very organised system. Rows of houses that led upwards encircling around the large island, every once in a while there was a break in the autonomous rock with what Danny thinks were once well kept parks, now overgrown and spilling out into the streets.

In the center of the city, at the very top of the upwards hill of the island was a very large immaculate building. Danny wouldn't call it a castle per say but the architecture did remind him of ancient Greek and Roman architecture when building lavish housing for emperors.

There were a lot of narrow alleys between houses and buildings that may have been storage or served some other purpose, Danny couldn't tell. There were the standard 'roads' which were paths of stone in regular intervals between buildings, being connected together through the city like a huge grid that wrapped perfectly around the entire island. And then there were very open places, places which crowds may have once gathered or, from the looks of the marks on the ground, merchant stalls may have once been.

All in all it was a very human city.

He had never seen anything like it in the Ghost Zone. The longer he spent there the more sure he was that this was where Halfas had once lived.

He slowly began making his way to the center building, going up stairs and slopes as the ground started curving upwards.

Something else he noticed were common carvings in the walls, most just looked like normal graffiti but every time he came to one of those big open spaces that would have been able to hold lots of people at once the carvings were much more professional, deliberate.

The carvings depicted lots of things. Little stories Danny had no cultural context for, writings in a language that looked vaguely like ghost speak written down but just different enough that Danny couldn't actually read it, like it was the same language but a different dialect.

The most common things carved into the walls, he noted, were birds. Lots of different kinds of birds. Two birds that showed up the most though were crows and owls. That made an ominous sort of sense for a people that lived on the border between life and death.

Finally the compact buildings opened up as he nearly reached the top of the island. There were overgrown fields of strange Ghost Zone plants around the center building, it was obviously important, sacred maybe even.

Not for the first time Danny considered turning around, going home, it was obvious he wasn't going to learn anything from this so why risk accidentally disrespecting a race of people who deserve peace? But again his core seemed to disagree as it tugged at him to go forward.

Danny sighed.

He stood on the steps just before entering the open front of the building, again reminding him of Roman architecture by the pillars and open outside hallways. From the top of the large island now he could see far out into these "Hidden lands".

Unlike the rest of the Ghost Zone there weren't any doors floating in the abyss, not even any random debris. Not a ghost was floating in sight, it was quiet and Danny realised he might be the only living, so to speak, thing here. The quiet was just so suffocating, so absent of just anything.

Ghost were naturally very quiet but even they gave off the smallest sounds of existence. Their cores hummed in a consistent way that other ghosts recognised almost unconsciously. Even the Ghost Zone itself seemed to have this hum to it, a never ending rhythm that nobody else noticed because it was just the constant. Like how nobody on earth noticed the world was turning.

But here even that hum was quiet, as if the Ghost Zone itself was holding it's breath.

Danny was still distracted by the strangeness of the "Hidden lands" to really take note of it when he took a step forward off of the steps leading up to the building to properly stand infront of it and under the overhanging roof.

He did take note of it though when the area around where his foot was started glowing a bright yellow, almost white, light. He jumped back, startled as the light moved forwards quickly in a line. The line lead down the side of the open hallway and as Danny leaned over to see where it was going he noticed something about the walls of the building.

There were large openings and inside the alcoves were strange statues. Bird like statues, except also not. They stood on two long legs with three sharp talon like toes, lines almost like joints scattered across the legs with the most noticeable being where the knee would be on a normal creature. The torso of the statues was an upside down trapizium shape, thin towards the bottom but consistently broadening in a slanting line all the way up to the shoulders.

There was a symbol on the torso, Danny had seen that symbol appear quite frequently carved above every door and on the overhang of the building before he had passed under it. Was it the symbol of these people perhaps? Did it have some meaning Danny would never have the context for?

The arms, similar to the legs, were very long. They had the same strange joint like lines as the legs with the line of where the elbow would be being the most pronounced. They didn't have any hands, instead three long claw like fingers at the end of each arm that had their own joint lines. There was also something else about the arms but pinned against the statue's side Danny couldn't tell what.

The bird similarities came from the head. Each head of each statues was a little different while their bodies were virtually the same. All of them either had beaks or someone kind of carving in their semi flat faces to imitate a beak. Their lifeless and empty round eyes stared ahead unseeingly. All of them had some kind of crown of what looked to be stone feathers carved towards the back of their heads.

Danny examined the strange statues closely, then he looked at the glowing line in the ground that still led down the open sided hallway.

Sighing, Danny followed the line. It had obviously been triggered when he stepped up onto the level of the building which must have meant something. Suddenly Danny's mind jumped to the thought of boobytraps but he shook his head of that notion. An ancient civilisation could never really guess when they were about to fall, let alone have the forethought to install boobytraps for people they could only guess would come to the ruins of their civilisation in the far future. It was one of the things that Danny always found unrealistic in tv shows or movies.

Eventually the glowing line turned inwards towards the wall and split off into two parts that surrounded the outline of one of the alcoves that held the strange statues.

Danny stopped infront of the statue and stared at it. Why had that glowing line appeared and why did it lead to this statue? It didn't appear any different from all the rest.

Then the tall statue that was easily twice Danny's height, it's eyes started to glow and then it blinked.

It blinked before tilting it's head downwards to meet Danny's gaze. Now with the eyes glowing that same light yellow-ish colour as the line that had led him there Danny could see the eyes had thin pupils that ran from the top of the circular eyes to the bottom, distantly in the back of Danny's mind they reminded him of a cat's eyes. More at the forefront of his brain Danny internally screamed 'RUN' before physically turning back to the direction he had come from and bolting.

Another far away part of Danny's brain tried to remind him he could literally fly but he disregarded that as he was currently using all his brain cells on focusing on running and not looking back.

He reached the stairs and started taking them two at a time, still not remembering his powers of flight, his feet hurt from how hard they were hitting against the sturdy stone. Then, in a classic Danny Fenton way, he tripped.

But instead of faceplanting he found his face hovering just a few inches from face planting on the stairs and he was hyper aware of the fact that he hadn't used his powers to catch his fall. In fact he hadn't caught his fall but two sandy pale stone arms encircling his midsection told him exactly who had.

Danny turned his head slowly to get a look at the statue-come-to-life that was holding him like one might pick up a small kitten.

The statue's glowing eyes stared down at him, blinked with a small clicking sound as if they were the lenses of a camera taking a picture, then the statues-come-to-life tilted it's head before going "You should be careful when going down stairs" in a monotone yet also seemingly amused voice.

Danny wanted to shriek, to pull his hair out, to do something because the statues-come-to-life that didn't have any visible mouth just spoke. Instead of any of those things Danny's body did the first thing it thought of doing, twisting around awkwardly to hold one of each of the stone arms before pushing them apart, letting him fall to the awaiting stairs.

Thankfully this time he remembered 'Oh right, ghost powers' and before he could hit the ground he flew away, quickly.

His legs formed into as wispy tail behind him to let him go faster because he needed to get out of here.

He soon flew out of the city limits and towards the cave opening in the side of the mountains. All he could think about was going, go, get out, thanks for the cool clues to Halfa past but I think I'll pass.

Then when Danny was just about to get to the cave entrance, barely 15 feet away, a certain bird statue-come-to-life landed infront of him. Of course this time his brain worked, he would go intangible and phase right through the thing, it was too late to slow down anyway. Except that wasn't what happened because instead of going through the statue he just crashed face first into it's chest at full speed.

Danny heard a crack as his face became acquainted with the symbol carved into the statue's torso and he silently said goodbye to his 1 whole week of no injuries streak because before the pain even blossomed on his face he knew he had broken his nose. All he could hope for was that he didn't break anything else along with it.

The statue didn't even move an inch, not even a flinch. Danny was reminded of the saying an unstoppable force meets an immovable object only in this case Danny wasn't as unstoppable as he liked to think.

Before he could fall the rest of the way to the ground he could feel his arms suddenly pinned against his body as three long claw like fingers held him above the ground and at a literal arms length of the statue creature. Danny tried going intangible but it seemed that didn't work on this creature as his nose had unfortunately come to know.

Then he was being gently set down on the ground and he found himself staring eye level with the statue as it hunched over awkwardly to look him in the eye. Another part of Danny was reminded of those 'How to talk to short people' memes and he almost snorted at the mental comparison before stopping from the sudden pain of moving any of his facial muscles.

"You are hurt" said the voice of the statue-creature-thing.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious" Danny deadpanned, his voice sounding off and a little ridiculous from the unfortunate fate of his nose.

The weird bird statue tilted it's head to the side and blinked it's eyes again, the clicking sound the blink made echoing in the silence.

"What is your name?" It finally said after a brief pause.

"Danny Phantom. What are you?" Danny asked stepping around he statue-come-to-life to examine it from all sides. He could now see from it's arms that it had stone feathers, again hitting Danny with it's strange resemblance to a bird.

The creature's gaze followed Danny as he went around it, thankfully it's head didn't do some creepy 360 or even a 180, just turning around to the other side to see Danny when he left it's view from one side.

"I am an information retrieval droid, model K-18" it answered monotonely.

"So you're... a robot?" Danny asked as he stopped infront of it again.

The bird statue blinked once more before replying "Precisely". Despite the monotone voice it still somehow managed to inject some emotion into it's words.

"Well, you scared the shit out of me coming to life out of nowhere like that" Danny commented dryly. His face hurt and so did his feet, he just wanted to go home and curl up in bed and never doing anything ever again.

The robot bird jerked it's head back a bit when Danny swore, Danny confirmed it specifically reacted to the swear when it said in a repreemanding way "Language"

Again Danny almost snorted before remembering the broken nose dilemma and he sighed.

"Okay, I'm officially too tired to deal with this. Bye!" He said, walking around the robot and towards the cave entrance.

He heard the sound of heavy stone footsteps behind him and he turned around to see the robot bird following him.

"What?" Danny asked a little snappily.

"I am coming with you" It stated matter-of-factly.

Danny was so exasperated. He didn't want to deal with this.

"No, you're not" Danny said.

"Yes, I am" It replied as if it was the most simple thing in the world to understand.

"No. You are not" Danny insisted.

Another blink from the bird statue "I insist on accompanying you Danny Phantom" it said and Danny just knew there was no getting around this. This weird statue robot bird thing was going to follow him whether he liked it or not.

A tired sigh escaped Danny as he assessed the stone being infront of him "Why?" He asked.

"Because it is my duty to keep you safe. It has been officially added as my top objective" The bird robot said and Danny once again felt like pulling his hair out.

"I'm not going to be able to get rid of you even if I tried aren't I?" Danny stated more than asked.

"That is correct Danny Phantom" It nodded, as if Danny finally understood.

"Just call me Danny" He said before turning back around towards the cave. The only indication that the bird robot was still following being it's heavy footsteps behind him.

~~~

First | Previous | Next

~~~

I'll be tagging all content do to with this story with the tag City of splintering hopes so if guys want to you can follow the story easier. You can also use that tag for any questions or content you guys make of the story!

#danny phantom #city of splintering hopes #chapter 3 #danny fenton #Meda-Lean #danny phantom fic #my writing #danny phantom au #dp fanfic #fanfic

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inkformyblood · 4 years ago

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in these bodies we will die

Commander Cody Week Day 04: Post-Order 66 @commandercodyweek

Pairing: Codywan, QuinObi, Cody x Obi-Wan x Quinlan Summary: Cody knows something is going to go wrong when he wakes up on a mission to execute a Jedi. But that is also just a matter of perspective. Most days, the trooper wakes up and finds that he is still CC-2224. The world around him is sharp and dark: the purple crackle of his electrostaff mingling with the steady beat of his heart which remained as rhythmic as a march, until it blotted out everything else. He is nothing but a weapon, and he waits patiently for his orders, whatever they may be.

On those days, he knows his place in the durasteel universe, following his Lord and enacting his will. The sneers — openly worn and honed to a razor’s edge — from the Brothers and Sisters that made up the Inquisitors didn’t impact him in the way they were hoping, because why would they? He is a weapon, one of a few who had been gifted beskar by their Lord, and who served at his convenience.

“Trying for a saber of your own?” Ninth Sister spat one day as she stormed from the throne room, her anger rolling from her like lightning and breaking harmlessly on the impassive countenance of CC-2224. “Trying to be a Brother, clone?”

“I’m already a brother,” CC-2224 tells her, but he doesn’t know why. She turns on her heel and leaves in a swish of black fabric, and he returns to waiting for his next order. He listens to the rumbling breaths from Darth Vader, the slight mechanical click between each hissing exhalation adding to the reflexive count in his head.

When Cody wakes on the transport, he knows that something has gone horribly wrong.

The floor shuddered beneath his feet with each roar of the massive engines, but the room is eerily silent. Before… Before when he was— Cody cut the thought off before it could travel any further. His mind felt fragile, as if it was constructed from freshly spun glass, and he knew that if it broke, he didn’t know how long it would be before he was able to pull control back again. Or even if he would want to.

Bile rose in his throat, hot and thick and acrid, and his shoulders contorted with the effort of keeping the scream trapped in his throat. He had woken up as Cody before but never prior to a mission. Never held the ability to escape, or to die, as closely as he did now.

He could remember, beneath the dark edges of the Executor and the constant hiss-click sound of the man who had once been Anakin Skywalker, a single moment of clarity as he knelt in front of the shell that hid his rotted carcass. Cody had been holding a lightsaber, the edges of it scorched and warped, and the scent of iron lingered in the air from the blue blood that had seeped into the handle. For a moment, his thumb had twitched over the ignition switch that could have been his salvation or his doom, but then Cody was gone once again as Darth Vader raised his chin with one gloved finger.

“Well done, Commander. I am glad to see I chose correctly.”

Cody had to hold on. Eyes squeezed tightly shut, he blindly ran a hand over the wall, fingers splayed until he found the recess, pulling the datapad free.

For an instant, before the screen activated, Cody caught sight of his reflection in the tinted transparisteel and felt the world threaten to fall away from him once more, nothing but the void waiting to consume him utterly.

What had Anakin done?

Obi-Wan — traitor to the Republic, good soldiers follow orders, no! — hadn’t spoken about Anakin’s past, but a trooper would have had to be blind to not see the marks that his past had left on him, the anger that burnt low in his eyes and caused his mouth to twist whenever someone mentioned the troopers being owned. Cody had seen the scar on Anakin’s arm from his tracker removal, straight and well-healed compared to the now-ruined tapestry of scars that had covered his back.

Cody’s fingers didn’t tremble as he raised his hand to his face, trailing a line from scalp to chin. He couldn’t feel anything different, a few new minor scars here and there pitting his skin like the surface of a moon, a far cry from the whorled raised scar that curled around his left eye. But that didn’t subtract from the new knowledge he carried: that Anakin had branded him like property with a red tattoo that would mar his skin forever.

Focus.

Breathe in, then out.

(I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me.)

Cody focused on the datapad, reading over the minimal briefing he had been given, doom slipping over his shoulders like a shroud. He had been sent to hunt a Jedi, to track the whispers of a survivor and kill them.

Laughter, harsh and uncaring, bubbled up in his throat, trapped behind the cage of his teeth. What was one more when Cody had killed one of the men he loved with barely a second thought?

⁂

Cody felt himself slip partially beneath the waves of his consciousness the moment the trooper stepped outside the ship, hiding away from the first flicker of unspeakable terror that passed over a civilian's face at the sight of him.

The CC-2224 knew the motions, just as well as Cody did. Alpha-17 had vanished into the wind, from what little he had managed to find out from scraps of rumors, but he remembered his, and the other trainers, words well.

Move quick, strike hard, complete the mission.

Salt clung to every visible structure, encrusted pillars that distorted the shapes of the shipping crates and barrels into hunched figures as CC-2224 stepped into the warehouse. His electroshock baton lit up with a hiss, bathing the room in a vibrant purple, and the trooper took a step forward. The floor crunched beneath his boot, grinding down the patchwork of salt as he slowly followed the faint trail of footprints, head tilted to one side as he listened.

The Jedi — the traitor, no, all of them, traitors — was cornered with nowhere to run and had never been more dangerous.

He saw the flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, and he is turning before the trooper can even think, but it is Cody who shouts, his voice tinged with a desperation that could have ripped the stars from the sky at a word. “Quinlan!”

The man stumbled, caught off guard for only a moment, before he turned, igniting his lightsaber. The green blade stole Cody’s breath away, Quinlan’s lips drawn back in a snarl as he shifted into the beginning position of Ataru, the muscles in his legs visibly bunching as he prepared to jump.

Cody knew what he would do. He had seen it so many times before; a deadly dance made beautiful by the care and precision behind it: a single leap and twist, with the blade following barely half a second behind, leaving nothing but death in its wake.

His helmet clattered to the ground, the air biting at the tears that rolled down his cheeks. Then, the hiss of Quinlan’s blade stopped as the Jedi deignited it, stumbling forward half a step before he caught himself, hurt emblazoned across his face.

Cody was struck by how different he seemed now to their last parting. Before, where Obi-Wan had been the rising sun and Cody was moonlight, Quinlan was the midday sun, bright and vibrant and intoxicating. He had curled into Cody’s side, one leg thrown across his hip to prod at Obi-Wan, who was motionless, except for the faint rise and fall of his chest. His breath still held the sweetness of the wine from the previous evening, part celebration and part regret at having to be parted once more even as the war slowly drew to a close.

Extracting himself was a journey in parts as Quinlan slowly worked his way free, every movement languid and tinged with a deep melancholy.

“You don’t have to get up with me,” he whispered, cupping Cody’s face with one battle-worn hand, his thumb smoothing over the jut of his cheekbone. Quinlan’s eyes slipped out of focus for a moment, warm brown no longer studying every inch of Cody’s face, but between one blink and the next, a warm grin spilled across his face. “But it is good to see you both.”

“It’s good to see you too,” Cody replied. It felt like a paltry offering compared to the roaring fire that rekindled itself in his chest for sustenance at the mere thought of the other men, but Quinlan only laughed, low and deep, before kissing him again.

“When the war is over—“ Quinlan cut off Cody’s attempt at protest with another kiss, infuriating and effective all at the same time before he continued, intent on daring the universe to defy him. “When the war is over, we will be together again.”

Cody tasted the promise like caff on his tongue, hoping with every shattered piece of him that Quinlan was right. His hands were steady as he untied the small token — a nondescript twist of metal with the edges worn smooth through the Force — from the leather tie around his neck, and pressed it into Quinlan’s hands.

The man stepped backwards, a chill settling in the space between them, and closed his eyes. Cody settled back into the warmth of Obi-Wan’s embrace, watching the peace settle across Quinlan’s face, the edges of his grin softening.

“Beautiful.”

“How?” Quinlan demanded, his voice harsh and broken, ripping Cody from the memory. “Why?”

Cody’s hands spasmed around the handle of the electro baton, the urge to ignite it almost overwhelming. Quinlan was close, too close.

“Didn’t— Couldn’t—“ The words would choke him before he could speak. His free hand shook as he raised it, signing a single clumsy message as he trembled with the effort.

He still tried to flinch away from the blow that Quinlan landed, the heavy hilt of his lightsaber thinking against his temple, then Cody was gone once again.

When he woke, it could have hours, days, weeks, years later. But he was Cody, settling into the body it felt like he had borrowed, with a slight shift of his shoulders as he tested the restraints.

He knew that he was on a ship, could feel the floor vibrating beneath him through the thin padding of the cot he was lying in. His stomach twisted and rolled as the autopilot shuddered into life, and then there was nothing to do but wait.

Pain pulsed through his head like a second heartbeat, blurring his vision when his eyes slipped open in coordination with the door.

“Morning, Cody. Have I ever mentioned how blood-soaked is a very attractive look on you?”

“That makes three times now.” The words clawed up his throat as he spoke, dried blood flaking from his face with every movement. “And you were even stone-cold sober for one of them.”

“Such a liar,” Quinlan teased, his laugh choked and distorted by the tears that ran down his cheeks. The soft sound of metal clinking together followed him as he walked across the room, and Cody caught sight of the countless mementos strung across his chest on a sturdy chain.

“I can’t untie you,” Quinlan said, his voice heavy with regret as he sat on the edge of the bed. “After the first time, when you woke up and you weren’t you—“ He broke off with a grimace, the action mirrored by Cody.

He could barely breathe, regret and hope he thought he had killed long ago wrapping around his throat like a noose. “Are you okay?”

Quinlan laughed, the sound a distant echo from the rich timbre Cody remembered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together in Keldabe. “I’m fine, don’t worry about me. I’m notoriously hard to kill, which I guess is lucky for us both.”

As if sensing the dark direction Cody’s thoughts were starting to spiral in, Quinlan moved closer and kissed him gently, blotting out the universe for everything but soft warmth and the bite of salt and iron.

“I know about the chip. I can’t destroy it, cyar’ika.”

Sorrow ripped through Cody’s chest like a blaster bolt. The memory of teaching Quinlan ‘cyar’ika’ each mumbled repetition punctuated with a kiss until it seemed to fill his very soul couldn’t stand against it, and Cody pulled away from the Jedi, curling in on himself as much as he could.

“I’ll hurt you. Eventually, I’ll slip back under, and I’ll kill you. Please, Quin.”

Quinlan shook his head, his jaw set in sly determination. “I can’t remove it. It’s too Dark for me to distinguish it from myself. But I know someone who can.

“You’re not a killer in the way you think you are, Cody. Obi-Wan is still alive. And he’s going to be so happy to see you.”

“Alive?” Cody felt as if the floor had fallen away beneath him, but he was still here, still in control. “He’s alive?”

Quinlan nodded, and Cody finally allowed himself to weep, pressing his face into the crook of Quinlan’s neck as the other man hugged him tightly, trying to hold his shattered pieces together for a while longer.

#codyweek2021 #codywan #quinobi #purge trooper cody #cody x obi wan x quinlan #star wars #quinlan vos #commander cody #obi wan kenobi #my writing

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seizethecringeofproduction · 3 years ago

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Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris - Chapter 5

Author’s Note: Contains Damirae, but not how you’d expect or want to see them in the “new timeline”.

I still don't know if any of this is really happening…

Part of me thinks that any second now, I'll wake up at my desk back at the station, finding out that the whole time travel thing was just a really super long dream and the original timeline never left at all…

However, I know that if that was the case, I'd have definitely woken up by now…

Barry still was not fully latched to the fact that all that was happening around him was actually real. Every second felt like an intense fever dream of sorts - and the brief migraines and flashing purple vision did not help either. Nor did the fact that his lungs were now receiving a constant influx of smoke and ash from the heated apocalyptic air around him - forcing various coughs out of him. He received a look from Shadow as he did, silently telling him to just keep his mouth closed.

Barry was sure to obey the suggestion.

The air only got worse the farther Barry, Shadow and Rouge were from the remains of the 'future' city. Miles away were the ruins of what once had been a bustling metropolis, and close where dark, blackened mountain ranges accompanied by volcanoes which seemed to be in a constant state of eruption, their lava flows forming entire river systems, their smoke replacing the clouds in the sky, and their flaming rocks taking the place of rain. The ground, for it's part, matched the dark, blackened skies. Patches of dead grass were present, though rare. In the two centuries since the destruction of the world most of what had once been lush grass not only died, but was then stained and replaced by the ash and flaming rock raining down upon it, turning virtually all of the ground to dry, blackened rock and volcanic earth. As Barry traveled with Shadow and Rouge into this bleak realm, he only had one description for all of it:

Are we still on earth?

Or are we in Hell…

The only break from the otherwise dark, dismal lights of the blackened sky and air came from the banks of the lava streams which illuminated the immediate area with auras of heated red light. Even so though, it did not help Barry with telling the time, though considering things were still visible enough to traverse the landscape he assumed that it was at the very least late afternoon.

From what Barry could tell, both Shadow and Rouge were focused on whatever destination they were heading towards, and with how fast the three were going there was no telling how far they had already traveled from the city.

Within a matter of minutes however, their destination was reached.

Overlooking a long canyon itself overlooked by one of the larger volcanoes, their destination was a small rocky, ash-stained cliffside with only two notable pieces of vegetation in the area - specifically two dead, dried out trees that remained standing in a permanent state of silent death. As Barry, Shadow and Rouge stopped the human man could only continue to ponder if this truly was an earthly realm or some far more demonic dimension.

At the very least, the lava that supplied most of the lighting was a distance from the steep cliff that they were on top of - making their bodies less heated by the reddened molten rock.

Waiting for the three was another trio who had already arrived before them - Sonic, Tails and Knuckles. Barry recognized the green-eyed blue hedgehog and the blue-eyed two-tailed fox of orange-yellow fur, though to him the purple-eyed red echidna with the almost lego-like silver plate on his shoes and the white crescent mark on his chest was a brand new sight.

I'm assuming this is that Knuckles guy they mentioned before….

At the very least, I'm not surprised by this anymore...maybe the memories are finally kicking in, though I'm not losing the old ones...

In a fitting fashion, it was Sonic who spoke first as Barry, Shadow and Rouge approached him, Knuckles and Tails:

"Wow" he snarked, "You guys sure showed up fashionably late. What took so long?"

"Oh, us?" Rouge remarked, "We just had a bit of a detour, nothing major though."

It was then that attention went over to Barry, who was in many more ways than one the odd one out of the group. Even though he was in his complete Flash costume, the first thing out of Tails' mouth once he looked the Flash up and down was nothing else but:

"Barry?"

"Huh?" Barry was shocked to hear that, not used to people just figuring out secret identities like that, still, he had to address it: "What, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, now I see it!" Sonic exclaimed with a snap of his fingers, "You're that guy me and Tails ran into back in Soleanna! Surprised to see you here! I'm assuming you got sent to this future with the rest of us, huh?"

"Firstly, yeah, I did" Barry answered, "Secondly, how'd you figure out who I was?"

"Hahaha" Tails childishly laughed, "It'll take more than to fool me! Got an I.Q. of 300!"

"Yep!" Sonic exclaimed, "Tails is quite the child prodigy!" - Tails continued to chuckle as Sonic ruffled the top of his head, with smiles on both their faces. It reminded Barry of himself and his nephews, though in a manner which made him softly smile.

"Ahem" with that sound, the sound of Knuckles clearing his throat, everyone's attention was driven over to him instead: "Guys, I think we can save this chat for later, in favor of ya know, getting back to where we came from?"

"Luckily" Rouge interjected, "We found just the thing to help us do that!"

It was then that Sonic, Tails and Knuckles saw in Shadow's hands the green chaos emerald achieved from the city prior to encountering Barry. Tails himself was pleasantly surprised, and exclaimed appropriately:

"You guys found a chaos emerald!"

"Of course we did" Rouge said as she snarked, "I'm a real treasure hunter, after all" and it was with a smirk that she added, "unlike a certain echidna I know."

Hearing that, Knuckles quickly stormed towards the gloating bat - Shadow silently following him with his eyes with arms folding him. All Knuckles did was say a slightly angered:

"What?", before he stormed back to where he was after a huff, with Shadow's eyes still silently following him. Rouge just kept the smirk on her face. With that small exchange over as quickly as it started, Shadow was quick to resume discussion of business and asked Sonic, Tails and Knuckles but a simple question:

"Have you guys discovered anything?"

"Yeah, actually" Tails explained with a nod of his head, "We discovered a lab in the city, and on one of the computers there I was able to discover a signal indicating there was a chaos emerald around here, possibly in that huge volcano over there!"

Rouge, surprised at the nation of traversing the vast, volcanic canyon before them, could only complain in surprise at the notion:

"You mean we have to go through there?"

Knuckles, with Shadow's eyes following him, yet again turned and faced Rouge directly as she said in a confrontational tone:

"If you don't like it, you can stay here."

"You've got to be kidding."

Once Knuckles huffed back to his place, that was when Barry finally had enough of observing and interjected his own words into the conversation as he was still having quite the struggle with processing all of the information his brain was receiving:

"Okay, okay, can someone just explain to me ho-"

"No time!" Shadow exclaimed, marching forward to be ahead of the others as he interrupted Barry's words, "Let's move!"

With Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Rouge rushing on into the volcanic, hellish canyon it was Barry who found himself left to shrug. He still had barely any idea of what was going on or what it was that needed to be done, but he followed his new allies regardless - at the very least they all seemed to be heroes like himself. Thankfully, he caught up to them all within a matter of seconds - a speed at which even Sonic was impressed:

"Wow Barry!" the blue hedgehog exclaimed as he and the blonde were virtually side by side rushing forward into the dark landscape, "You're really fast! Almost as fast as me!"

"Heh" Barry smirked, "Call me the Flash, and we'll be seeing about that 'almost' part."

"So we shall", Sonic was smirking in precisely the same way.

Sonic, Shadow and the Flash naturally led the charge into the canyon, finding themselves speeding down what appeared to be a flat highway of black earth with the heated air flowing past them as during any regular high speed run. There were brief appearances by what appeared to be lizard beasts made out of the molten rock and flames - though their entire forms were easily dispersed by being rammed by either of them ramming into the beasts at such high velocities of sheer speed.

Barry could hardly believe the geography of the place: one second he and the two hedgehogs were careening down a long, winding path faster than a speeding sports car. The next that same path turned into a loop made of darkened earth, before their speed sent them into the air to briefly overlook the lands before landing onto yet another winding pathway. All the while avoiding seemingly random pillars of fire that would sprout from the ground like geysers, requiring nigh perfect timing in order to avoid being scorched.

This is hellish, but exhilarating

Though, hopefully I don't fall into the lava…

He couldn't have thought that at a better time. Within moments it was apparent that the roads of rock they were racing down were descending, and soon they were mere feet if not inches away from a stream of the red molten rock that fed directly into a small lake of it complete with spires and even platforms of rock emerging from the top of it.

Luckily, all of this proved surprisingly easy to traverse with a good usage of momentum and acrobatics - though Barry could still feel sweat pouring from his body due to his proximity to the heat. He only hoped his suit would not glue itself to his skin.

Jumping from rock spire to rock spire and from platform to platform - making quick work of any lizard or 'bat' lava monster that manifested in their way, the group quickly found a steep wall that headed to a plateau, and headed there. The flat plateau was not very large, but did overlook a sea of lava as well as feature a closed off cave connection to it. The only trouble was the geysers of fire and the emergence of various bat and lizard demons as soon as their feet touched the ground.

What are these things…

The lizard and bat-like beasts were joined by other fiery faces however - large worm-like beasts that casme up from the ground with large flaming mouths that almost looked like two pairs of hooked tweezers, and one large, golem like beast that was humanoid in stance but incredibly large - about as large as that Doomsday beast had been. Though it was not as threatening since it's head was but a pure circle of bright, heated lava.

Still, seeing it triggered a small bout of Barry's headaches as well as purple vision. Though he avoided an outright hallucination, for a few brief moments the beast flashed into a screeching, growling paradoom while Barry himself grabbed his head and hissed due to the migraine.

This was not unnoticed by Shadow, who looked at the struggling Barry curiously while he was destroying one of the lizard beasts with a single chaos spear - alongside all of the others who also managed to take care of the monsters with relative ease. Tails, Knuckles and Rouge all had just as much ease defeating them as Sonic and Shadow: Knuckles' punches, Tails' tail whips, and even Rouge's martial arts kicks all managed to disperse the lava monsters in but a few hits - reducing them to nothing as though they hadn't even existed at all.

The only exception was the golem-like beast, which had enough blackened, heated rock to serve as armor that it seemed virtually impenetrable. It managed to disperse Shadow, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles and Rouge from getting too close to it by tossing explosive fireballs at them - evidently trying to lead them towards the geysers and their regular blasts of fire.

It did not take any account of Barry, however.

Once Barry recovered from the headache, he was quick to notice the predicament that the others were in - and just as quickly he knew what to do. It was actually rather simple really, a mad dash for the mountainous 'wall' behind it followed by a jump off allowed Barry to punch the creature's 'eye' with enough sheer momentum that it dispersed to nothing within a matter of seconds. Barry landed back to the ground as the cave behind them opened up, revealing a short caven illuminated by glowing purple gemstones as it led to another section of the canyon.

"Way to go, Flash!" Sonic congratulated. Barry responded with a smirk and a nod of his head, before the group pressed on to the rest of the canyon.

Hopefully we get back to the wonderful world of air conditioning soon enough.

The rest of the canyon proved rather easy to traverse through once all of the demons within it were proven to be rather physically weak. They continued emerging to attack the group, though just as quickly they were reduced to nothing once more.

The next major section of their journey was as beautiful as it was haunting: a deep waterfall made of lava, dropping down into a small lake miles beneath their feet, though platforms of stone stuck out from the lava flow along with other platforms and even weakened 'bridges' of rock to help them get over to the waterfall. Tails, Rouge and Knuckles easily flew or glided across the chasm, though the three speedsters had to use the platforms.

The entire time, it couldn't be stated enough how both haunting and gorgeous seeing such a large waterfall of lava was. With everything else around it being increasingly darkened by just how bleak this future world was, it served as both the largest source of light as well as a reminder of the doom that occurred many years before.

It also of course, served as a threat due to the heat it gave off. The heroes had no choice but to be up close and personal with it's radiating warmth, making many of them feel as though they were being slowly cooked alive. Having to keep moving at a fast pace did not help.

Nor did the fact that the bridges they tried to cross over began to collapse the moment they were stepped on. Had Sonic, Shadow and the Flash not been speedsters they would have fallen directly into the lake of lava beneath them. They would not have been able to properly jump up the 'lavafall' via the platforms jutting out from it, and from there navigate the small platforms being sent down it's current while land bridges turned red by it's heated light overlooked them from above, forming a pseudo cave-like area.

Beyond that, they reached another plateau where they had to face off with another small team of fire beasts before proceeding. There was little time paid to them, as all of the monsters were virtually now incapable of putting up any serious resistance to the team's attacks. Within a matter of seconds they were already rushing through a second short cave towards what would be their final segment of the outside volcanic canyons:

With the massive canyon that served as their destination now looming over them in plain view of their eyes, they now only had to avoid a steep drop into the wide volcanic river that rested miles beneath them. They had various bridges, platforms and spires of volcanic rock to help them from doing just that. Due to them having to avoid flaming chunks of molten rock raining down onto them like the polar opposite of a rough hail storm in addition to not wanting to breathe in any toxic fumes, there was not much talking between them at this stage. Though there remained easy defeatings of the various fire-based demons that sprung out to attack them.

Before they even knew it, they were all blazing through the air towards the massive volcano before them - on a direct collision course with whatever existed on the inside of it.

As they approached it, it dawned on them all just how large it was. It was the size of yellowstone's grand caldera from what Barry could see, except in the shape of a traditional volcano. Though he gulped as he descended towards it alongside his newfound allies, he had hoped that soon it would all be alright.

That would prove to take quite a while, however.

The descent into the massive volcano was hectic for all of them as they dropped down for what had to be miles upon miles of heated, dark air. They held their mouths shut so as to not take in any of the toxic fumes from the stacks of smoke emitting from the large triangular mountain - though their eyes were forced to struggle.

The stacks of fumes soon were behind them though, only to be replaced by another, arguably more pressing threat. Soon surrounded on all sides by circular walls of rock, the large team was left at the mercy of fire geysers lining the side of the chasm they were falling down. Once he realized what was coming, Shadow was sure to exclaim to the others:

"Watch for the fire!"

"Here it comes!" Knuckles' own exclamation came with him and Rouge having to latch themselves onto the wall around them to steer clear of at least four different blasts of fire that came from the wall-perched geysers. They managed to just barely dodge getting burned alive by the vicious streams. Thankfully, so did the others. Tails managed to grab hold of Sonic, and lifted him to a spot not being occupied by the streams of flame. Shadow managed to grab hold of one of Rouge's ankles, and for good measure sank one of his hands deep within the walls of rock so that neither of them would fall. Barry had to push himself to the wall and with his sheer momentum sank both his hands and his feet into the wall.

"Heh" Sonic chuckled, "This place sure doesn't hold back!"

"You can say that again." Barry muttered in response, agreeing with Sonic's cocky statement. The conversation was then taken over by Tails:

"According to the signal I found, the chaos emerald is in the deeper regions of this volcano, so we're really only half way there now!"

"Assuming we don't get cooked alive down here" Knuckles added in, there was little argument to his statement - since there wasn't much of one to make. Thankfully though, the streams of flame receded and allowed the group to press on for the remainder of the chasm - there were other geysers on the way down though thanks to their timing all of them to the groups' relief only went off after they had already passed by.

Landing on a large circular platform surrounded by a small stream of lava, the six looked around and saw that the cave immediately in front of them was their only way of continued travelling, and so proceeded to rush down the winding pathway connected to their landing sight. At the very least, the cave was well illuminated by the red-yellow-orange magma beneath them - turning all of the cave walls, stalagmites, stalactites and ceiling alike into a red color just like itself.

The pathway did not last long, courtesy of the six's sheer speed. Soon enough of the winding path led them to a much larger chamber of the volcano, one where the light was not nearly as strong as it was in the previous 'hallway' they had just gotten out of.

Almost immediately did they all find themselves struggling to see, the rock pathways they stood on becoming even darker, as did the lava and magma all around them - turning a much darker shade of red in conjunction with the rest of the room. They could tell that the room increased in height on one side due to the small lavafall before them, but they could no longer properly make out what path was safest to go down due to the sudden shift in lighting.

However, Sonic took quick notice of mysterious, levitating purple spheres of rock that were present. Without much in the way of hesitation, he impulsively curled into his ball state and homed in on them - his striking of one causing it to light up and provide a source of visibility for himself and the rest of the group in the immediate area.

"If we just hit these purple ball things, we should be able to find our way through this chamber!" Sonic exclaimed to the rest of the group, though Shadow was quick to remark back:

"Thank you for stating the obvious."

"Heh" Sonic snarked back, "You're welcome too, Shadow."

"Hmph."

The group quickly continued their journey through the cavernous chamber, with each of them making sure to make impact with any purple spherical rock they found levitating in the air once they were outside inside of any generated source of light.

With all of their speed combined, it was only a matter of seconds before they all found themselves out of that dimly lit chamber and in a section of the volcano's insides, one where at the very least proper visibility was a thing. Yet again were they hit with a sight that was haunting, yet at the same time strangely beautiful for their eyes to behold:

They were inside a tall, spacious, hallway-esque cavern, standing on yet another winding pathway of blackened rock, surrounded on virtually all sides by scorching hot, red, glowing and flowing magma. Yet, there was a strange beauty to the fact that out of many large holes within the cavernous walls, flowed large and seemingly endless streams of magma into the one beneath and around their only 'road'. Rather than the sounds of streaming water, was the sound bubbling molten rock and the fire that would occasionally spit out from it. Their flows actually fed into a large, incredibly steep lavafall situated behind them, though they did not venture to see what was beyond that. As horrifying as it was, it was just as mystifying in it's own hellish way. Rouge in particular made note of this:

"You know, as horrifying as this place is, some of these sights actually are strangely beautiful too."

"Yes" Shadow admitted, looking to Rouge with a blank yet agreeing expression, "In a way, they are….but let's keep moving."

As the group pressed on down the winding path through the boiling hot cave, all Barry could focus on was thinking ever fastly to himself:

She's not wrong, this place is kind of beautiful…

In the same kind of way Hell is, I imagine, but still...

Would much prefer a honeymoon in Niagara Falls to a honeymoon in whatever 'Falls' these are called, though, not gonna lie.

Maybe Robin and Raven would prefer this place, though. Maybe.

The winding path ultimately did not last long with how fast the group moved through it - and neither did their ability to properly see where they were headed. Soon enough the group found themselves in yet another chamber that was incredibly poorly lit - quickly forcing their vision to dim down along with it. The difference this time however was that the chamber had winding pathways of its own, ascending up the chamber's lavafall and beyond - along with various platforms and miniature plateaus situated around it at various heights.

There were however two glaring differences between this darkened chamber and the previous one they had been in: one was that there were no levitating pieces of rock, but instead more widely spread out purple-ish orbs of light that were currently turned 'off' from what it seemed. Second, was that the fire-and-rock demons were emerging in full force when it came to this chamber with all currently revealed types of them appearing as though they were adamant about preventing the six from progressing any further inside of the volcano.

It was evident to all of the six that the way to press on likely had to do with those spread out orbs, though with squadrons of fire demons guarding each one in addition to being present along the pathway itself it was evident the group would not be able to deal with this chamber as a single cohesive unit, as such Rouge did not waste much time in coming up with a simple solution for their problem:

"Looks like me and the echidna are gonna have to check out those light orbs while the rest of you guys handle these monsters down here!"

Pounding his fists together, Knuckles remarked:

"Works for me!"

"Just be careful" Shadow spoke to Rouge, "Don't fall into the lava."

"Shadow" Rouge winked, "You don't need to worry about me so much!"

"Hmph."

"Alright, that's enough talkin' for the moment!" Sonic exclaimed, his own loud-mouth self smirking up a storm, "Let's kick some monster butt!"

"You're speaking my language!" - Knuckles couldn't help but add that.

With those things all having been said, the group did as Rouge had suggested - herself and Knuckles took to the air and used the parts of rock that weren't too overly heated or fading slowly into flowing lava in order to climb to greater heights in order to more easily reach the orbs while the remaining four continued on the path and engaged in battle with the monsters before them.

Of course, small groups still attacked Knuckles and Rouge as well. However, they yet again did not prove to be much of a threat.

The lizard beasts proved that they could breathe fire, but being stationary while they did so left them open to drop kicks from Rouge or near kryptonian-strength punches on the side of their heads from Knuckles. They were dispersed to nothing without burning their foes at all. The bat-like creatures generated and dropped fireballs like miniature bombs, though with Rouge's skill at aerial maneuvers, Tails' own similar abilities, and Sonic & Shadow's jumping height they were just as easily reduced to a non-entity within moments.

The large, worm-like beasts along with the tall and armored golem-like ones were slightly more of a threat, though the worms could only take a bit more punishment before fading into oblivion while the golems having their weak point exposed usually only got one strike in before said weak spot was exploited by any one of the six and they were promptly defeated. A well placed chaos spear or even just an aerial punch or kick from Shadow made short work of them - let alone one from Knuckles or Rouge.

Getting beyond this chamber was little more than a matter of Knuckles and Rouge smacking the levitating orbs on either side of the chamber - getting them to light up with bright and almost blinding light, while the others slew the monsters down below with their various powers.

At times, entire circles of the worm-like beasts would emerge, only to be taken down by a stream of kicks to the head from Rouge from the air. Knuckles with a few combined punches made short-work of one ambitious golem demon that emerged in front of him at one point.

The lizard demons tried to burn the others with their fire breath, though more often than not they were taken out from behind as quickly as they started their attack. Lunging at the heroes proved even more fatal for them.

After what we went through with those Paradooms… - Barry thought - This is practically therapy!

Before long, all of the orbs were glowing brightly thanks to Knuckles and Rouge, and equally so all of the monsters that had emerged were reduced to those two objectives being accomplished, the six saw that their way to the next section of the volcano had opened up - like a sliding door, a portion of the cavern had sunk itself into the ground below to expose the way to them. Without any hesitation, the six continued on as a group of one.

What they found once they exited the cavern was the massive, spacious core of the volcano, complete with but one circular platform for them to stay on while a massive sea of lava virtually surrounded them. There were pathways leading other caverns within the volcano, though the sheer size of this chamber pointed to this being where the entire system led to. Behind them was not only the cave they had just left, but also the jagged, rugged volcanic rock that encompassed the outer walls of the chamber itself.

Far above them was the hole, the 'eye' of the volcano, with large towers of billowing smoke and sparks of fire floating up into and out of it into the dark world on the outside.

Most important of all though, was the glowing diamond-cut gemstone levitating in the air before them - spotted just as they looked upwards towards the hole far above them. It's color and glow gave off either a turquoise or cyan coloration, depending on which way one looked at it. Naturally, it was Rouge who with a smirk was the first to take notice of the emerald:

"There's the chaos emerald you guys were talking about earlier!" she said as she took off into the air, flying towards it, saying to it and herself in an almost greedy fashion: "Come to mama!"

However, it was not long before Shadow unfolded his arms as the realization that this was far too easy dawned on him. He quickly shouted to Rouge as loud as he possibly could:

"DON'T TOUCH IT!"

Luckily, Rouge managed to fly back onto the platform with a gasp as well as a flip - as within seconds of Shadow shouting that a massive eruption of flame occurred that completely shrouded and seemingly took the chaos emerald with it. Rouge would have been charred had she not gotten out of the way. Shadow instinctively stood in front of the group in a protective, battle stance as the others got into their own fighting stances - for once the flames and lava cleared, a true monster was revealed. With his eyes widened, Barry knew immediately what it was:

Iblis…

Iblis was certainly quite the beast. Barry was sure this was not his only form, though he did not want to wait around to see any others.

Iblis in the form he appeared to the six was similar to the weak worm-like demons that he spawned around the volcano, though extended to truly massive proportions, his head alone being virtually the size of a moderately sized building while his body was akin to the trailer one would attach to a eighteen wheeled truck - perhaps two lined up beside each other even. The entirety of the beast's body appeared to be made out of concentrated lava, from the massive snake-like body to the massive, armored head. The only exceptions appeared to be it's sharp teeth and the armor protruding from the body - the latter of which appeared to be made of black, volcanic rock. The armor around the hard was complete by the presence of three large, sharpened horns. One located between Iblis' prominent, dark green, triangular pupil eyes. The others were on either side of the beast's jaw.

Looking at the beast for the first time triggered yet another splitting migraine and flash of purple vision for Barry. He gritted his teeth and groaned in pain for another few moments as the beast's horrific roar bellowed throughout the volcano. He recovered once more, but still the creature did not go away.

To him, there was something strangely familiar about this beast once he looked at its eyes. It's green, yet soulless eyes. There was as much familiar as there was new, yet at the same time his brain was incapable of piecing it together.

Nor did it have the time to do so, as defeating Iblis was now top priority for the lot of them.

Before any of the six could even speak at all, Iblis let out it's booming roar and from it's smouth a massive stream of fire was unleashed upon the group. All of them gasped, some of them shouted, though all of them immediately jumped, glided or flew out of the way of the fire's radius.

"Heh!" Sonic snarked, "This must be the origin for those monsters from before! Guess 'mama's' come out to play!"

"Sonic, take this seriously!" Shadow exclaimed to the blue hedgehog, though Sonic was ever the cocky creature:

"Relax Shadow, I think we've got this one easy!"

With that having been said, Sonic rushed in the direction that the six had just recently come from - just barely grazing the large continuous stream of fire as he did so. With a slight grumble, Shadow did the same along the opposite side of the flame, until the two were racing along the mountainous walls of the dark chamber's exteriors. Practically in sync with each other as Shadow realized what Sonic's plan of attack was, they waited until they had just the right amount of height before launching themselves directly at the creature.

Iblis attempted to raise it's head to aim at them, but their sheer momentum more than outpaced it - their fists soon landed onto it's eyes, and their feet kicked said eyes as they bounced off of the creature once it's closed its eyes and writhed in pain from the blows, even being knocked back a bit from it's position due to the strength of both combined blows.

Luckily, Sonic and Shadow landed on two small pillars of rock that spared them from falling directly into the sea of lava beneath them. However, the snake-like demon lord was not finished with them quite yet. As it recovered from the first strike made to it, it attempted to swing the lower half of its body at all of them - first Sonic, then the four on the large platform, and then shadow. All managed to dodge it. Once it had completely flipped its body around, it submerged itself into the lava beneath itself - seemingly having retreated from the battle.

"Is that all?" Sonic questioned, before chuckling a bit, "Wow, what a coward!"

Shadow however, was not so easily convinced: his eyes were locked in battle-ready suspicion, looking around the massive caldera for any sign of the monster.

When Sonic was inevitably proven wrong, he was not surprised at all.

Crawling from the lava around the platform were hordes of Iblis' various relatively weak minions. The lizard demons crawled onto the platform itself, while the more worm-like beasts surrounded it best that they could and fired balls of flame at the grounded four while the lizard beasts attempted to lunge at them. Seemingly endless were their numbers, even if all of them were excessively weak to strikes upon their bodies.

Sonic gasped as he watch this occur, not wanting his friends to be hurt:

"Guys! Hold on!"

However, his panic was soon replaced by further shock as a massive stream of lava shot up at him - forcing him to gasp and jump out of the way immediately. He ultimately had to use aerial momentum to just barely latch onto the rock that Shadow was held up on. Shadow did have to slide himself down to the lower end of the rock in order to catch Sonic's hand though, lest the blue hedgehog fall directly into the lava.

Sonic gratefully looked back up to Shadow, using his free hand to give the black hedgehog a thumbs up:

"Thanks, Shadow!"

"Don't mention it." Shadow wasted no time pulling himself and Sonic back up, though naturally the moment they were on more steady ground was also the moment that Iblis re-emerged from beneath the surface of the lava surrounding them.

Lunging it's entire body high into the air, the beast with one more growl charged directly at them from above.

However, both Hedgehogs stood their ground. Only once the creature was just about to make impact with the rock did Shadow break his brave stance and make his move against it:

"Chaos Spear!"

One well timed blast of a chaos spear struck the base of the creature's center horn, which alone caused enough of a blast to knock the beast off it's collision course with the rock, though as if that wasn't enough Sonic himself spun himself into his ball form and quickly rammed the creature in the spot of impact as hard as he possibly could. Not only did it get one final shriek from the creature before it was once again submerged, though it visibly caused enough damage to the horn to make it start becoming looser as though it was now beginning to come off.

It should also be stressed that by running up the length of the creature's body as it descended into the lava and then jumping back onto the rock formation with Shadow on it, Sonic was able to save himself from falling into the molten liquid rock.

With Iblis once again submerged, Sonic and Shadow turned back to the remaining four of the group to make sure that they were doing well as well. Luckily, they were.

They were gathered in the center of the platform, focused entirely on not letting the endless horde of lava beasts get too much time to strike. While single punches, kicks or tail swipes took each individual out easily it was still apparent that their bodies were deadly to touch for long periods of time and that with enough numbers even these beasts could cause serious damage.

Thankfully, Barry's ability to create miniature vortexes of fast-moving wind using the momentum generated by vibrating & twirling his arms around proved too much for the creatures to handle as well as an effective strategy against the worm-like minions providing support for the lizards - who were mercilessly being picked up and tossed at the former as though they were nothing, and thus causing both types of creatures to meet their demise.

Both Sonic and Shadow were happy to know that for the time being, their allies were holding their own against the weaker minions. However, they still had to deal with the progenitor.

Speaking of which, Iblis wasted little time in yet again breaching the surface - though this time he paused right in front of the two small hedgehogs. Just as the two prepared for another round of their battle against him, Iblis tilted his head back to let out a deep roar before lifting it back in their direction to let out another stream of fire from its mouth.

However, as with the first time it attempted this, they avoided it by jumping into the air.

Instead of striking the monster's eyes this time, Sonic instead landed a ball-form strike to the scar at the base of the loosening horn, before also striking one of the eyes yet again for good measure. Sonic grabbed onto one of the jawline horns as the beast tilted it's head and roared in pain - thrashing it's head from side to side.

That was Shadow's opportunity to strike.

With a single, well placed punch to the scar created by his previous attack, the sheer force of the ultimate lifeform's strength was enough to get the horn to actually break off from the beast's head - complete with a loud, echoing cracking sound as it did so and promptly fell into the lava below. As Iblis yet again shrieked in absolute pain, it was revealed that a third eye had been hidden within the horn.

"Chaos Spear!" - Shadow wasted no time in unleashing a mid-air strike to the creature's now exposed third eye. Once the chaos spear struck the beast and caused it's third eye to erupt into an intense explosion across its face, Iblis virtually screamed in absolute agony. It thrashed itself around more violently than ever, eventually forcing Sonic to jump off of it before it yet again descended itself into the depths of the lava below.

Thankfully, Sonic and Shadow both maintained enough momentum be it from Sonic's speed or Shadow's rocket shoes in order to land on the platform with their four companions as well as a few remaining stragglers of Iblis' minions.

The remaining worm-like creatures were taken out quickly by Sonic bouncing off of their heads like he was a pinball ball, maintaining enough force to destroy all of them before landing back on the platform. Shadow took out the remaining lizard beasts by stomping on one's head and using that same foot to sideswipe one that was preparing to breathe it's fire onto him from behind. Knuckles gave a third straggling lizard beast an uppercut before it could sneak up on Barry.

With the last of the minions dispersed into nothing and Iblis submerged in the lava, the six heroes were all reunited in the form of their battle stances.

They all knew that it wasn't quite over yet. Though the chamber returned to silence for a few moments more, there was a sense amongst all of them that Iblis was not finished 'playing' just yet.

Their hunches were quickly proven correct.

Iblis emerged from the lava one more time, determined to finally finish off it's six enemies once and for all - in the form of making a final charge directly towards the platform that all of them were gathered on, displacing waves of lava in his wake as he roared angrily at his incoming prey.

However, it had underestimated the arsenal of the three speedsters that it was fighting.

Shadow, Sonic and Barry did not waste any time as it approached from the far end of the caldera. Following Sonic's strategy from the beginning of the battle, the three of them rushed at their top speeds up the rock walls behind them until they were at just the right height before launching themselves directly at the creature as it approached the platform like a freight train. Just as it opened it's jaws to roar did they make their impact.

Barry struck the left eye with a maximum momentum punch, and Shadow struck the right eye with a maximum momentum kick powered by his own personal strength. Sonic, in ball form, struck the center eye with maximum ball-state momentum.

A shockwave emitted from the impacts as the three speedsters successfully navigated themselves back to the platform with their four allies - watching as Iblis screamed in agony one last time as he was sent back to the wall on the other side of the caldera by the sheer might of their combined strikes. Not only that, but the collision that the beast made with the wall was strong enough to create a hole in the wall of rocks - the sound of crumbling rock and splashing lava echoing throughout the massive chamber as the creature tumbled out of it along with a newly created lava flow and also with one final cry, this time one of defeat.

With Iblis now forced into a different chamber of the volcano, it seemingly lost interest in the group and fled to deeper depths of the lava and magma in order to lick its wounds.

As silence returned to the group of six, the heroes turned to each other; all of them had but one issue on their mind:

"Does that thing still have the chaos emerald?!" Tails exclaimed, being the first to bring up the issue. To the happiness of all, Shadow quickly revealed that he had the cyan-turquoise emerald in his hands, having grabbed it from the creature during the final phases of the battle.

Everyone nearly sighed with relief after seeing it.

"What was that thing?!" Tails exclaimed after that had been settled, the second thing on his mind.

"I'm assuming that thing was Iblis" Barry remarked, remembering exactly what he had been told about this future, "The being that ends up destroying the world, and making all of this happen."

"Oh yeah?" Knuckles snarked, "Well for a destroyer of the world, he wasn't so tough!"

"More than likely, that was some kind of larval or transitional stage." Shadow was swift to explain, "It's almost certain that we did not fight that beast in its most powerful state, and I for one would rather get back to the present time before we actually do."

There was a nod of agreement from the others in response to his words. Absolutely none of the group wanted to stick around for that.

"So" Barry spoke once more, "How are we going to get back to the present, again? Are we just going to like, use the chaos emeralds or something?"

"Well, yeah" Sonic nodded, "Unless you got any better ideas?"

Barry thought about it, though he was hard-pressed to come up with any other idea on how to get back to the present. He knew he could theoretically create a fourth flashpoint, though knew that would change everything - if there was a method that would get them back to the present without causing yet another massive rift throughout the universe, he would certainly prefer it to another flashpoint. However, as he still needed an explanation on what the chaos emeralds were, he worded his response accordingly:

"Well, no," he admitted, "I don't have a single idea on how else to get back to the present. But, how exactly would the chaos emeralds help with that?"

"Simple" Tails exclaimed, "The seven chaos emeralds are each, essentially, generators of unlimited chaos energy - with each individual emerald giving off a different type of chaos energy. I can create fake emeralds with the same wavelength and overall properties, though my fake emeralds can only have a limited supply of energy while the real ones can both store and generate energy near endlessly! The chaos emeralds are a source of truly unlimited power, hence why it's always most important that they are kept out of the wrong hands! The only thing more powerful than them is the Master Emerald."

"Which" Knuckles interjected, "I am usually guarding, but since I had to come in and help you guys again I phoned in the Chaotix to substitute."

As he stood by and listened to every word that the young fox said, all he could picture in his mind was the idea of these emeralds existing on earth in his previous timeline. The things that people like Luthor and the innumerous other villains would do to get their hands on those emeralds was about as unlimited as the power they would give to them. He almost shivered at the thought of what Darkseid would be willing to do to get his hands on them, or what he would do if he did acquire them.

His thoughts were interrupted by Tails continuing to speak:

"For the most part though, the emeralds are only most useful if one acquires all seven of them. So I'm not entirely sure myself if two will be enough to take us back to the present, but I know that with one chaos emerald, chaos control does have the ability to temporarily freeze time in the immediate area around the emerald!"

Shadow nodded at that point, speaking out an explanation of his own:

"That's correct" he said, "In addition, the sensation I felt when I was sent to this time period felt very similar to my own chaos control, only transporting me through time instead of freezing it."

It was then that Barry remembered that certain something which was told to him earlier; regarding what chaos energy had similar properties too:

"I think trying with the two we have right now is at least worth a shot" Barry said with a nod, not bothering to explain why it was that he suddenly felt this way, "We might as well try it while we're here."

Sonic and Shadow turned to each other, and as Shadow pulled out his green chaos emerald he tossed the cyan one over to Sonic - who perfectly caught it in his hand. With one more exchange of nods between the two, they approached each other with the emeralds in-hand. Holding their emeralds close to each other as they held out their hands into the air, the two said in near unison:

"Chaos Control!"

And like that, the emeralds flashed a surge of bright light before within an instant a mysterious portal was opened through the sheer power of their combined energies, starting as a small white light that travelled upwards into the air before turning into the larger portal itself. The emeralds themselves seemed to disappear, being sucked into the rift that they themselves created - presumably to be found on the other side. Barry was stunned as it appeared like a ripple in both space and time had just occurred before his eyes within a matter of seconds, a swirling vortex of blue and white that had just materialized out of thin air. Or, out of the power of 'chaos energy'.

I definitely need to do more research on these things…

Before any of the others could even speak, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles rushed into the portal and disappeared into it - travelling to whatever was on the receiving end of it. Rouge took flight and was prepared to enter it, turning back only to see what Shadow and Barry were going to do.

Barry and Shadow both were about to follow Rouge as she flew into the portal and disappeared to wherever it led, though both were stopped by the sound of something behind them.

The sound of crackling fire.

Turning around, the two saw a small stack of fire burning beside a cloud of pitch black darkness. Peering their eyes, they were able to see movement within the darkness - Mephiles. Emerging from the darkness in a manner impossible to decipher whether or not he was coming from the darkness or the ground, he was fixated entirely on the fire in front of him as it burned and crackled with each passing second.

Only when he looked directly at the two did the fire intensify, suddenly growing larger and wider within a single instant as though the flame itself was inherently enraged with their presence.

Allowing Rouge to vanish into the portal and for the portal to vanish after her, Shadow and Barry silently opted to instead chase after their common enemy. While Shadow gracefully skated and Barry quickly ran, Mephiles seemed to not move his legs what-so-ever as he moved across the ground.

Nor did he or either of them say a single word.

He was quickly leading them somewhere, and even more clearly challenging them, though neither of them had any idea as to where they were being led other than the fact it was yet another chamber of the volcano.

Soon enough, Mephiles seemingly vanished from their sights just as they reached whatever section of the volcano that he had been leading them towards - yet another circular platform surrounded by lava within the area of the massive caldera itself. Above them was only pitch, black darkness though around them the flowing lava provided enough lighting for moderately decent visibility. A small wall of volcanic rock provided small lava falls which fed into the greater stream surrounding the platform they were on.

However, there was the matter of where Mephiles had gone.

The answer was that he was in this section with them, though was standing above them - looking down on them from a single spire of rock, directly above a mysterious purple orb that rested in the 'claws' of this spire.

He made sure to point out how 'comedic' he found their choices of actions:

"So, decided to void your return tickets, did you?"

"Mephiles!" Barry exclaimed as he glared at the demon standing above him, "You lied to me! You're the one who ruined this world, aren't you?!"

Mephiles softly and coldly chuckled in response, finding the human quite amusing so it seemed. This only response was a dry:

"The answer's yes, and no...perhaps it's better to show you two."

With a snap of his finger, something appeared before the two - something which shocked both of them, but Shadow far more than Barry. It appeared to be Shadow himself, trapped in a rhombus-like stasis pod, bright pink lights surrounding him as he appeared to be permanently stuck in some form of deep sleep with his arms and legs both restrained on the inside - as though he were nothing more than a prisoner. Looking at this sight brought back deep memories Shadow had from his past, not a single one of them present. The sight also made his eyes widen, almost as though he was having a hard time believing what he was seeing to be real.

Mephiles was quick to confirm:

"Yes" he said to the stunned Shadow, "That's you."

The demonic being was quick to continue his explanation while the two's eyes were locked on the apparition he was presenting to them:

"After the world was devastated by Iblis' flames, what do you think happened? A search for the guilty. Who did this you may ask? Society wasn't just jealous of your power, they feared it. They used this incident as an excuse, to hunt you down."

Shadow couldn't help but bow his head and turn away from the sight of himself as a prisoner of the very people he was created to protect. The very people who employed him. It was always in the background of his mind that something like this would happen, though actually seeing and being told that it was in store for him in the future, it was all too real even for him to take.

"Shadow…" Barry softly spoke as he saw the Hedgehog's response. He felt sympathy for his newfound ally, though of course his presence was not forgotten by Mephiles:

"And do you honestly think this would not befall yourself, Barry?" the entity said to the human, "Now that your powers have been restored, do you not think that eventually society shall turn it's back on you as well? The story is all the same. Today's heroes can just as easily become tomorrow's villains. Who's to say that this event would not have happened in the previous timeline you were in, following such devastation of your world? If it can happen to someone like Shadow, surely it can happen to someone such as yourself. "

Soon, Barry was reduced to a similar response as Shadow. Reduced to at the very least silence. The fact that memories of the previous timeline were yet again triggered in his brain did not help him either.

Seeing as how both Shadow and Barry were successfully silenced, Mephiles took the opportunity to continue speaking to the two of them:

"Come with me" he said, holding out a single hand, "Let the three of us punish this world and it's foolish society. It's only fair to give back what was intended for you! You have every right to want justice!"

Thankfully for all of existence, Shadow was not so easily manipulated. Lifting his head back up and turning to Mephiles he spoke defiantly:

"That's absurd!" he exclaimed as he glared at the evil being, "Whatever it is you want to do, you can do it alone."

Barry, with Shadow saying everything he wanted to say, nodded in response while glaring at Mephiles himself. Mephiles, for his part, seemed to be processing his next words. Whether he expected Shadow and Barry to reject his offer or not was difficult to decipher, though response presented the latter:

"You forgive this folly then?" he asked while gesturing a hand towards the apparition of the imprisoned Shadow of the future. Shadow only had one, defiant thing to say in response to that:

"I determine my own destiny."

Mephiles was silent in response to what was said to him. At first, it was as though he had completely been surprised by what was said to him. Within moments however, the look in his soulless eyes gave off the sense that he had accepted Shadow and Barry's responses - though he was far from being willing to simply let them leave. Most certainly not alive. Extending his arms out to either side of his body, soon he, Barry, Shadow and seemingly all that surrounded them were enveloped in a black flash - as though all of the light that there was in the world had suddenly gone out, though just as quickly that flash of black turned into a flash of blinding white as the light had returned before anyone could possibly comprehend it's prior absence. Once the bright light faded, Shadow and Barry could both now see what Mephiles truly was; for he had finally revealed what was undoubtedly his 'true' form to them.

While he still resembled Shadow's form, he was now far more demonic in appearance. Any resemblance to a pale flesh color was replaced with a pale, almost rock-like blue appearance. In fact, his entire body now appeared as though it was made of some mixture of both leather and rock, with his stripes appearing to be bright, almost blue yet also almost white crystals. The sclera of his eyes turned a deep, piercing red though the reptilian green pupils remained. His hands and feet no longer resembled Shadow's, only vaguely in shape. There were no rings or gloves, only a black hand with crystalline claws for tips. His feet had no shoes either, instead only some twisted mass of crystalline features that vaguely resembled some type of foot and had the same function as them. As if these details were not enough, the demon's face was now even more unnatural, as he neither had a mouth nor a nose any longer. For that matter, even his 'ears' now seemed to be curled in a manner somewhat reminiscent of demonic horns. All of this while an aura of darkness, a flame of black, purple and blue, was surrounding him - further bringing him into an appearance that seemed far more unnatural, even more so than the appearance he had been using up to this point.

Despite all of this, neither Shadow nor Barry dare showed Mephiles any fear. They readied their battle stances, knowing full well that they were in for a fight.

That said, Mephiles' attitude came off as though he hardly viewed this as an honest battle at all.

"Such foolishness" he commented as he gazed down upon the two from his perch, "Very well, let's see how long the two of you can entertain me."

Mephiles made sure that he made the first strike in the battle, and leaped from his perch in an aerial charge directly towards Barry and Shadow with speed nearly comparable to their own. Assuming that he was intending to strike them, the two swiftly jumped out of the way - only to watch as Mephiles vanished into the ground with yet another black cloud of darkness, accompanied by the entity's demonic laughter.

It didn't take long for them to realize what he was actually intending to do.

Within moments, a pulsing surge of darkness came over Shadow, Barry and the entire area around them. While it made a shiver run down the two's spine, it did not give them any real pain. What it did accomplish however was turning the flames and flowing lava around them from their natural red color to a more unnatural blue color - by extension changing the lighting around the area as well, to a point where things appeared to be darker yet at the same time neither Shadow nor Barry suffered from impaired visibility. Though this gave off the appearance that the area was now cooler, in reality this blue lava was actually notably more heated than the prior red, with both Shadow and Barry feeling it all too well.

Just as Shadow and Barry began to ponder where the demon himself had gone to, he materialized. Under Shadow's feet, as though he was part of the ground beneath him. Not only that, but it was as though he was Shadow's very own shadow himself - moving with any stance or movement that Shadow made, mimicking him flawlessly.

The moment Shadow looked down and saw that, his eyes widened in shock before turning into an angry glare. All he could hiss out of his mouth was:

"Your tricks won't work on me, I know who I am!"

Mephiles only laughed maniacally in response as he mimicked every movement Shadow made in flawless synchronicity. Though Shadow kicked and punched at the ground, even fired chaos spears and other projectiles or beams of chaos energy all he accomplished was creating craters in the ground. Mephiles remained his shadow. Barry could only watch, not knowing what to do.

Of course, Mephiles did not forget about him.

Distracting both Shadow and Barry, suddenly the blue lava surrounding them erupted into a tall wall of intense blue flame with an echoing roar throughout the area. From this fire materialized dark silhouettes - each humanoid in shape though of varying heights and proportions. As these silhouettes exited the wall of flame and became figures standing on the circular platform with Shadow and Barry, the latter's eyes widened as another shiver ran down his entire spine.

"No..."

He was virtually reduced to tears, though they were unrecognizable due to how much his body was sweating with the heat surrounding him.

"No" he repeated, "This...this can't be…"

Surrounding him and Shadow, was the Justice League as well as the Teen Titans. Barry recognized every single one of them. Superman, Hal Jordan, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Shazam, Hawkman, Cyborg, Mera, Aquaman, John Constantine, Zatanna, Nightwing, Starfire, Robin, Raven, Beast Boy, Blue Beetle, Wonder Girl, Superboy, Kid Flash I, Kid Flash II, Speedy, Bumblebee, Batwoman, Batgirl, and even Lex Luthor.

Every single one of them was just as Barry remembered, including Damian being the older and more handsome teenager that Barry last saw him as - though these were not the same figures that he remembered. All of them appeared to be without color, reduced to nothing but shades of black and grey - a look that made even Batman and Raven seem unnatural due to the complete absence of their natural skin colors as well as any color that their suits had. Of course, Hal and Beast Boy certainly looked the most unnatural, with their green being exchanged for a lifeless grey, and Beast Boy's suit now being a dark black.

That's not to mention the fact that none of them had their pupils, only pure red scleras that present not souls, but only lifeless and evil and obedience to the demonic being that summoned them to the playing field. Gone were Superboy's beautiful crystal eyes, Batman and Robin's white mask 'holes' and even the two Wallys' own innocent appearances as Barry's own nephews.

Barry quivered as he saw them, his guard being forcibly let down by the sight thrusted upon his eyes. All of his friends. Members of his family. They looked just as he remembered them previously looking, yet now were gazing upon him with soulless, emotionless looks to their faces - reduced to being nothing but pawns of a demonic entity. He didn't even know if these were really them, or just apparitions.

Only Shadow, who did not recognize these people at all, remained in a battle stance as these figures surrounded him and the Flash. He could see the Flash was emotionally distraught, though knew full well that it was important for his ally to remain focused:

"Flash!" he shouted, "These aren't the people you remember them to be! You need to focus yourself, let go of your past!"

Barry shook his head of the tears joining with his sweat, and responded with a nod. Though it pained him to no end, he knew that Shadow was right. He had to battle his mind, even though the more he looked at these 'nega' apparitions of his friends, family and allies the more his mind flashed with visions of them in their colored, lively states.

Mephiles only laughed in response once more, saying to the two of them in an almost mocking tone of voice:

"Try to forget all you want" he mocked, "There's nothing you can do to change the fact that you are why they are no longer part of this world."

"No!" Barry yelled, now more angry and distraught than ever before, "I didn't kill them! Darkseid did! The Paradooms did! I didn't kill them!"

"Ha" Mephiles almost chuckled, "Perhaps that is true when speaking of the literal sense, but let's see if they feel that way, shall we?"

With those words having been exchanged, the true battle began. The soulless copies of the Justice League, Titans and Luthor approached Shadow and Barry with full intent of causing harm to them, though the two living heroes were not going to go down easily. Superman, Superboy, Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl immediately charged at Shadow - with Superboy being one to strike Shadow first with a bunch. Though he was able to push Shadow to the edge of the platform with but one punch, Shadow did manage to use his reflexes and block the punch from striking his face, allowing him to keep his feet planted on the ground. Still, that didn't stop the much larger Superman from getting a direct blow from the side which did successfully knock Shadow to the ground as well as generate a good sized crater.

That said however, Superman was kept from flying upwards and landing on Shadow when Shadow used two beams of chaos energy from his hands to successfully disrupt Superman's planned attack. He later had to deal with Wonderwoman as well as Wonder Girl though, with Superboy flying overhead like some form of support.

With Superboy using his heat vision while Wonder Girl and Wonderwoman lunged at Shadow to kick and punch at the smaller target, it was a testament to Shadow's strength that he was able to hold his own at all against them. Whenever a hit was landed upon him, it was far stronger than any opponent he'd ever faced before, though only the ultimate lifeform would be able to withstand this kind of battle. Any normal mortal would have had their bones long destroyed by this point.

Shadow's own retaliation strikes were just as hard, as he was no longer holding anything back. Many times each of them would take turns sending the other barreling to the other end of the platform, only to charge at each other once more for a few more strikes. Even when Superman rejoined the battle, using his heat vision in tandem with Superboy's to send an airborne Shadow back to the ground, it only seemed to moderately harm Shadow rather than render him unable to fight further. However, scratches and signs of battle were increasingly present on all of their bodies, showing that the ultimate life was in fact fighting his matches.

Even so, he was going to press on until the bitter end.

While Shadow did his best to hold his own against the most powerful members of the minions, Barry was left with the rest. He had to use all of his speed to dodge the charge that Shazam made at him, and was equally lucky to evade a dropkick attempted by Batman. He had to swiftly jump to avoid his neck being cut open by Robin's own use of a sword afterwards - though unfortunately for him he was then swiftly brought down by both of his nephews slamming into him from either side with their own super speed.

"I didn't kill you! It's not my fault!" Barry exclaimed as he recovered, in just enough time to avoid the white noise blast of cyborg's arm cannon, managing to race ahead of it's blast until he gave up on trying, allowing the Kid Flashes to resume focus on Barry for a while as they quickly used their speed to race their uncle allowed the perimeter of the platform - the three all going in a circle while the younger two attempted to repeatedly ram into their uncle, with Barry having to speed up or slow down to successfully dodge either of them.

He did not want to hurt either of them. To his brain, this was perhaps the highest form of torture that any being could force upon him.

"Kids" he said to them, "I don't want to hurt you! Just, snap out of it, if it's really you! If it's really you, I know you're in there somewhere!"

"That's too bad!" Wally II remarked, his voice echoing as though multiple versions of him were speaking at once through his own mouth.

"Because we do want to hurt you!" Wally I added in, both him and his cousin now grinning almost ear to ear in the most sadistic of fashions, before they grabbed each other's hands and charged at their uncle. Barry managed to jump over them and was then behind them, but he did not seem to realize what their strategy was, as Wally I carried Wally II into a small impromptu tornado and soon enough threw him at Barry, with Wally II kicking his uncle in the face and to the ground before the former had even realized what was going on.

As he slowly recovered to his feet, Barry could only force himself to ask but one question:

"W-w-why?"

"Because" Raven said as she approached him from behind, holding hands with Robin who approached Barry along with her, "You did this to us" she coldly said as she used one of her black beam attacks aimed for Barry's head. Barry managed to dodge it, though was yet again knocked to the ground when Wally I rammed into him with his own speedster speed.

"Ugh" Barry once more groaned as he got up from the blow, but he continued to plead to those attacking him in a hope that their true selves were still underneath their soulless appearances, "I, I didn't do anything to you! It was Darkseid! It was his Paradooms! I didn't do anything!"

"If you hadn't travelled through time in the first place" Damian explained as he embraced Raven's hands with both of his own, the two gazing into each other's now reddened, soulless eyes, "Me and Raven would be together in happiness."

"Rather", Raven added just as coldly, "Than in misery."

Barry was speechless upon hearing the two's words, and was further rendered speechless as the two almost disturbingly kissed in front of him. Normally, such a sight would be beautiful - true love expressing itself. However here it was unnatural and not helped by the fact their tongues were elongated, forked and snake-like as they entangled and danced with one another even after the lips had already separated - causing saliva to drool from both of the two as they remained inhumanly embracing each other.

Barry attempted to use their distraction to his own advantage, though before he could speed away he was surrounded by a purple-black aura that lifted him above the ground and effectively stopped him in his tracks - Raven using her powers to stop him without breaking her 'kiss' with Robin.

Before Barry could even think about finding a way to escape Raven's grasp, the black aura dispersed - but only because he had been tackled by a grey colored Tiger: Beast Boy. Once the two were on the ground, the soulless version of the boy turned into a massive anaconda snake and wrapped himself around Barry with full intent of suffocating him to his demise, while others such as Batman, Blue Beetle, Hawkman, Lex Luthor, John Constantine and Zatanna gathered as if to ensure that if he escaped the snake's grip that they would ensure said escape would be futile.

As the choking, barely able to struggle Barry looked into Beast Boy's eyes, he still only saw that pure red, soulless, lifeless sclera. No pupils or irises. Not even those of the reptile he had turned into. Only pure red, glowing eyes. Just as with all of the others. He wanted to believe the boy he once knew was still in there, but another part of him feared the absolute worst.

It wouldn't be long before his rib cage would begin to shatter. It didn't help that as he was facing his potential end at the hands of what was once a titan, all he could hear in his ears were repeated words from the others, their voices sounding like a symphony of judgement, blame and scorn as they spoke at him:

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

Those words, repeating from the mouths of his former friends. In their voices, though each one sounded as though an army of them was speaking at once, thus creating a true orchestra of echoing words once the lot of them spoke these condemnations at once.

It was enough to make his mind begin to break, in addition to the rest of his body from the mounting pressure of a long, thick cylinder of muscle slowly crushing him.

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

Repeating on and on...

"It's your fault!"

"You did this to us!"

It was enough to get to him. As he gritted his teeth, as he closed his eyes tightly. It got to him. It did not take much longer at all before finally he snapped. The migraines kicked in. The purple vision yet again began to flash rapidly in his eyes, until the stress of all that was going on around him was too much for him to take anymore.

With one loud, enraged scream, a surge of purple electricity coursed over his body, making Beast Boy scream in pain as he felt the full force of it's electric shock. With his coils weakening, Barry was able to vibrate his body out of Beast Boy's grasp as the titan slithered away from him to allow the others to have their turn. However, even they took a few steps back from Barry - at least until he found the nagging headache too much to handle. Just looking at his former allies was enough to send it into overdrive, forcing him to his knees while he held his head in agony.

His so-called allies showed him no mercy, however. Not even 'Batman' - who in fact made the first strike. Batman first used some of the smoke bombs from inside of his utility belt, surrounding Barry with vision-impairing smoke while Batman himself leaped into the air and descended upon the Flash with his cape extended almost as though it was a side of wings. Barry successfully kicked to the ground and pinned by the man's feet - though of course he had enough sense to quickly vibrate before Batman could take out one of his sharp Batarangs and use it to slit Barry's neck wide open. Had he not vibrated out of Bruce's grasp, that would indeed have been his fate. Batman did jump out of Barry's way before he could be kicked from behind, though at the very least Barry had saved his own life.

For the time being, anyway.

Having a standoff with Batman wasn't precisely the best career choice for him. Nor did he ever want to have one. Yet here the two, standing before each other in their battle stances - even if it was an evil, soulless version of the man he came to view as a friend and an ally.

However, in focusing so much on Batman he neglected the various other fighters on the playing field. It was only mere seconds before Batman was standing idly by when Barry was suddenly grabbed from behind, flipped onto the ground, and seemingly dragged by invisible force into the same rock spire that Mephiles himself had been standing on prior to the battle. It was not an invisible force of course, Barry could see just barely that it was a strong grip of Martian Manhunter that had grabbed onto him. He was intangible and so appeared transparent, though his shape could just barely be seen by Barry's eyes. Still, his grip was strong - and his powerful mind worked fast, fast enough that he began relentlessly bashing Barry's head brutally against the rock, even managing to draw blood from the back of the blonde's head, at least four times before lifting him by the neck and beginning to suffocate him as he struggled to break free from the martian's grasp. The usually green though now grayscale martian did phase himself out of his intangibility, though it was perhaps only so that Barry would have a face to properly look at during his end.

J'onn was soon joined by Hawkman, who also without saying any words pulled out his nth mace and with as much strength as he could muster smashed Barry's right knee with it - making Barry let out a piercing whine as he could feel his bone actually crack wide open from the strike, let alone the mace's electric stunning effect and the spikes stabbing into his skin - yet again drawing blood from the speedster.

With how hard the hand of what once was his friend held down on his throat, the speedster couldn't even speak. All he could muster up the strength to do was gaze into his former ally's silent, soulless eyes.

There was not even a semblance of the martian man he recognized - and the same could be said for Hawkman, Katar. He began to doubt that there was any chance that the people he remembered and missed were actually still present in any sense of the word.

Though he wanted to keep up the fight, the fact that it seemed as though all of who were once his friends wanted him dead - blaming him for their horrible fates even, proved enough to break him. Slowly he allowed his eyes to close, silently accepting his fate.

At the very least, he thought as blackness took over his vision, this will all be over soon.

And, fortunately for the Flash, it was.

With the sound of a single blast followed by a familiar screech of alien pain, Barry opened his eyes to find that he was released from J'onn's grasp, and now the Martian Manhunter seemed to be screaming and writhing in pain - the arm that had been strangling Barry having just been severed at the elbow, with the Martian himself primarily screaming from the fact that the part of that arm still connected him appeared to be now on fire.

Both Flash and Hawkman looked to see Shadow glaring in their direction. He had scratches, cuts and bruises all over him as well as blood on some parts of fur let alone the fact he was panting as though he was heavily exhausted, but the smoke from his hand revealed he had done a chaos spear in order to save Barry. Knowing this, Barry and Shadow exchanged nods to one another mere seconds before Barry had to evade a swing of Hawkman's nth hammer.

Shadow motioned to join in Barry's fight, but was distracted when he caught the sight of Superboy charging at him from the air. Having the time to anticipate this, he grabbed the 'Nega' Superboy just before impact and with a twirl tossed him directly at Wonder Girl before she could use her lasso on the hedgehog - the two nega titans collided with each other, with a strong enough impact to send both of them back into the blue fire wall that spawned them.

"It doesn't matter how many of them you defeat, you know" Mephiles mocked from his position as Shadow's literal shadow, "I'm still your shadow, you can't even touch me."

"Whatever it is you're trying to do, it's not working on me!" Shadow barked back at Mephiles, though he had hardly any time to confront the demon directly - as within a matter of seconds he was met with Superman.

Having been able to see Superman charging at him, he was able to block the man's fists from punching him by grabbing hold of them. However, the sheer power of Superman was enough to push Shadow back complete with a shockwave from the impact of their hands meeting - though he hissed and grunted, Shadow planted his feet hard onto the ground and with enough straining was able to actually hold his ground against the kryptonian.

Just as their hands were liked in trying to shove the other, so were their eyes - locked permanently in a glare directed at one another. Both of them standing their ground. Both of them seemingly testing their muscles to the limit.

Barry would have been astonished at Shadow's ability to hold his own against the full grown kryptonian if he didn't have a battle of his own to focus on.

As he waited for his healing factor to kick in regarding his injured knee, he had to worry about the Hawkman still being fixated on him. With this speed impaired by his wounded knee, he could just barely dodge Hawkman's several attempts at swinging the nth mace at him, having an easier time ducking his head and body than jumping or moving from side to side to evade each swing.

Eventually, Hawkman did attempt to stomp his foot down on Barry, taking advantage of the man still having a weakened knee by stomping down on that same leg's foot. With a pained groan, Barry fell to the ground. Having to look back on what looked like his former ally as Hawkman lifted his mace into the air, Barry could only mutter out but one phrase in an almost grieving tone of voice:

"Forgive me…"

With one well timed creation of a wind vertex, Barry was able to blast Hawkman into the air just moments before the mace made contact with his head - giving Barry a few moments to recover his breath.

Hawkman managed to break his forced ascent by extending his wings, before immediately diving down from the air directly at Barry - still brandishing his mace. Barry closed his eyes and prepared for impact - not with his friend, but rather with a charged up momentum-propelled punch to Hawkman's face just prior to impact. Combined with the force Hawkman was flying, it was enough to send the thanagarian flying into the wall of blue fire from once he spawned - his nega form seemingly defeated.

Barry took no pleasure in having to do this. In fact, as he saw Hawkman disappear into the ghostly blue flames a vision of the man's brutal demise from the previous timeline flashed before his eyes - as vivid as though he was witnessing it in life. It was only for half of a second, but was enough to make Barry grimace in pain as he struggled to stand him. His knee would heal, but it needed to heal faster than it was - as the remaining combatants had no intentions of showing the slightly limping speedster any mercy.

He was first approached by his nephews, who were yet again rushing him virtually in tandem with one another. Just as quickly as he finally stood up on both of his feet, Wally II jabbed him right in the wounded knee, forcing him back to the ground with a loud hiss. Before he could even comprehend that, he was struck in the face and nearly fully onto the ground by a punch in the face from Wally I.

Having to do this was going to hurt the most. He couldn't even spare the time to take in a deep breath.

Never in a million years did I picture myself doing this…

But you leave me no choice…

Once he saw that both Wallys were running in opposite directions to one another, Barry swiftly formulated a plan. He could feel that his knee was healing just enough so that he could properly run again, and with a determined face waited until the last possible second to rush - causing both of his nephews to punch each other in the face rather than collide with him. The momentum of their punches both sent the two back a good distance, and gave Barry enough time to get his proper speed going well before the two got back up to their feet and rushed to fight with him once more.

He first slowed down so that he could dodge a direct ramming attack from Wally I, though this left him vulnerable to a rear strike from Wally II. Seeing this coming though, Barry easily turned the tables on his darker skinned nephew by turning himself to the ground and grabbing the boys first before he could properly land the strike. Before Wally II even had the chance to vibrate his way out of his uncle's grip, the older male flipped him over onto the ground with as much strength as his upper body could muster.

It brought tears to Barry's eyes, but he wanted and needed this to end.

To his surprise though, he did not see Wally II when he opened his eyes. Only the black ground of the rock he stood on, surrounded by the roaring wall of blue flames. There was no sign of Wally II either in the form of a speedster blur or even a body - as though the boy had suddenly vanished the moment he made contact with the ground.

There was unfortunately little time for Barry to properly comprehend this, for within moments his other nephew punched him directly in the gut and yet again nearly to the ground before speeding off in an effort to make another hit-and-run strike.

Before the original Kid Flash could land his next strike though, Barry's quick thinking mind successfully deduced what direction he was charging from, and Barry charged in that same direction at his own top speed. Colliding with Wally I within a matter of moments, with all of his superior physical strength and maximum momentum, Wally grabbed his nephew by his upper arms, headbutted him and then proceeded to throw him towards the lone rock spire on the platform - Wally I letting out but a whimper of agony as his body made enough of impact on the rock to not only get him to cough up blood but also make a notable dent in the rock itself.

What stopped Barry in his tracks however was the fact that his body did not vanish as his cousins did. Instead, it appeared as though color had actually returned to it. His costume returned to its yellow-and-red coloring. His hair returned to it's light brown coloration. His eyes were closed, though likely regained their blue irises and black pupils.

Tears streamed Barry's face as he saw this - his nephew, returned to a normal, living state. Only to be coughing up blood and whimpering in pain before falling to the ground with scarcely any movement at all.

Barry feared the worst. The absolute worst.

No...no...no no no no no no...

He instinctively wanted to rush over to Wally to ensure he was okay, but was denied that act of compassion when he was suddenly trapped inside of a black sphere of pure energy - courtesy of the colorless, soulless Hal Jordan. With his emotionless face and soulless red eyes, he denied Barry the ability to investigate Wally's sudden 'rebirth' any further and instead swung him around in a circle multiple times before releasing him into the air as though he were a slingshot - only for John Steward to use his ring to form a massive baseball bat which promptly smacked Barry back down to the impromptu arena, an impact crater forming on the ground when Barry landed.

Barry got up, though was attacked by Hal from behind - kicked brutally in the back, causing him to slide into the knees of Shazam, only to be got by a bubble generated by John Stewart, and from there only transferred to to be smacked around by a giant hand crafted by Hal Jordan, with the speedster making groans, hisses and shouts of agony with each hit landed upon him until he was again tossed towards Shazam, who this time restrained him grappling both of his arms.

Seeing Cyborg approach him with intent of taking advantage of Barry's restrained status, Barry knew he had to break from Shazam's grasp quickly.

Barry vibrated his way out of Shazam's grasp the best that he could, at just the right time so that Cyborg blasted Shazam into the wall of blue flame instead of the speedster himself. Of course, Barry had to yet again keep his pace ahead of Cyborg's blasts afterwards, only this time he performed a turn directly towards the half-robotic man. Though he swayed from side to side in order to evade Cyborg's attempts to attack him, he ultimately did make a direct hit to Cyborg's chest with enough force to send Cyborg flying back into the blue wall of flame from which he came - seemingly defeating him for the time being.

Just Barry recovered his breath from his run-ins with the nega of versions of those previous three, he was met with several figures approaching him in order to challenge him to the most unfair of battles.

Lex Luthor, John Constantine, Zatanna, Mera and Aquaman now stood before him with Hal Jordan and John Steward circling the group overhead. With Shadow still preoccupied with both Superman and Wonder Woman - Barry seeing the three still violently tossing each other around - only Barry was there to deal with these individuals.

"John" Barry said to John, remembering that he was the one who told him to create the flashpoint in the first place, "John, I know you're in there! You were the one who told me to 'clear the board'! This was your idea! You should know that more than anyone! If you're in there, you should be able to fight this demonic asshole! What kind of occult investigator are you if you let a four foot tall hedgehog enslave you like this?! The real John Constantine would have broken free of his control by now!"

The sound of Mephiles' laughter echoed through the 'arena' in response to that, and even the minions smirked and smiled as though they found amusement in what Barry had yelled out.

"Choosing the pen rather than the sword?" Mephiles yet again mocked despite not being truly present on the field though speaking as if he were, "I must admit, I am impressed by your attempt at diplomacy. However, fighting fire with words is rather, shall I say, ineffective."

With any words being said, John Constantine did as his master suggested and conjured up balls of fire which he swiftly launched in Barry's direction. Barry could only gasp as he used his feet to swiftly avoid the balls of flame, though his evasion of Constantine's magic made him distracted enough to be struck by several small rocks from the ground that were telekinetically thrown at him by Zatanna.

It was within seconds afterwards that he was yet again struck by the lanterns, both of them spawning enlarged fists from their rings, punching Barry from the back to send him through the air towards the wall of room - only to be grabbed by a black tentacle, which proceeded to wrap around his body briefly before slamming him to the ground.

Barry didn't even have the time to recover before he had the black boot of a certain Batman crushing down on his neck, the darkly dressed caped crusader yet again looming over him with only the light of the flames around them illuminating him. Damian, Raven, Batgirl and Batwoman were there soon enough, with the others following suit.

"Bruce" Barry pleaded with what little ability to speak that he had, "Please...are….are you in there?"

He received no response, other than the dark knight's boot crushing down further on his throat - slowly cutting off the speedster's air supply and making it harder for him to speak. It was just like his battle with Shadow, only without the opponent holding back.

Barry had many things he wanted to say, but he couldn't. Instead he could only think.

Bruce...please…

I know, deep down, you're not just his slave.

You were able to free yourself from Darkseid, you can free yourself from this asshole!

Can't you?

Are….are you even there?

Batman did not speak. He only did. Once it was evident that Barry had effectively been worn out of energy for the time being, Batman lifted his foot off of the man's throat, picked him up by the neck of his uniform, and shoved him back to the ground so that he was properly facing the others. Or, more accurate, he for whom the others had parted.

Mephiles.

Mephiles had re-emerged from the ground at the front of two separate rows of his apparition minions. Shadow was still occupied with Superman and Wonder Woman, leaving the exhausted Barry without any allies as Mephiles looked upon him with his emotionless demonic face. Looking up at his newfound nemesis, Barry glared angrily. There were many choice words he had for the entity standing before him, but the only ones he could muster the power to speak out were:

"What...what are you?"

"What I am does not matter to you" Mephiles shook his head in a condescending manner, "Not only would you not be able to truly comprehend it, but you will not be around long enough for it to be relevant to your feeble mortal mind. Be grateful that I am giving you the mercy of oblivion, the least that I can do."

Barry bowed his head in defeat at that point, accepting his defeat. He was outnumbered, outmatched, and exhausted. It was a miracle he had even lasted as long as he did.

As Barry looked up only to see how Mephiles intended to kill him - he saw a horrifyingly familiar sight. Two bright, red lights were forming on Mephiles' eyes. Piercing red lights, matching with his pure red scleras. It was the same type of light that emitted from Darkseid's eyes:

He...he can use Omega Beams?...

He closed his eyes the second he realized what was about to befall him, bracing himself for the intense burning that was surely awaiting him.

He was not the only one seeing this however. Having seen Mephiles emerge from the ground, Shadow was just freeing himself from the grip of Wonder Woman's lasso through his sheer will alone, and once he saw what Mephiles was about to do to Barry he prepared to charge at the demon, though was briefly stopped by Superman attempting to grapple him from behind. Curling into his ball form and effectively uppercutting the nega kryptonian was enough to free himself from his grasp however, and the ultimate lifeform broke from his fight in an effort to interrupt the execution of the Flash.

All of this happened in a matter of mere seconds.

When Mephiles fired his piercing red omega beams directly at Barry, Shadow successfully intercepted them - jumping in front of Barry just before they could have made contact with the flash. Barry watched as Shadow took the full force of the Omega Beams, but instead of being incinerated like a lantern or singed like a boy wonder the ultimate lifeform only grunted - feeling some form of pain, though not a single part of him seemed burned at all.

Mephiles himself for once seemed shocked as he saw it with his own eyes. Shadow had managed to not only withstand the omega effect energy, but was absorbing it. No mortal being outside of Apokolips or evidently Mephiles himself could do such a thing, yet in a most defiant manner Shadow now had a deep red aura surrounding himself - the power of omega energy enhancing him.

Barry, even the nega minions for that matter, were all speechless. Shadow himself however was fixated solely on Mephiles, glaring at the demonic being with the full force of his rage.

Only one thought crossed Barry's mind as his mind processed all of this:

He wasn't kidding when he said he was the ultimate lifeform...

The first one to make a move was Batman. Several batarangs were thrown at Shadow from behind to prevent him from making a move on Mephiles - however the omega aura surrounding Shadow caused them all to explode before their sharp wings could even graze Shadow's skin. From the black smoke came Shadow, speeding through the air in his own black ball-like state, barreling through Batman's very own chest and out his back with enough speed so that the dark knight couldn't even properly respond.

Barry was mortified as he saw this, unable to comprehend the sight. There was no blood. No gore whatsoever. It looked as though a hole had been burned clear through the world's greatest detective, and on the inside was only pure darkness. Batman soon vanished afterwards, a cloud of darkness remaining of him for only a few seconds. As though he wasn't even a true living being at all.

Still, Barry was able to use this distraction to rush to his fallen nephew's side.

Shadow had no time to waste on sights however, as he immediately fixated himself on the opponents surrounding him - with all of Mephiles' minions wanting a piece of him. Hal Jordan and John Stewart attempted to trap him inside of a bubble shield, though with one concentrated pulse of energy it was shattered as though it were an incredibly weak glass. The hedgehog then sent himself into the air with his rocket shoes and grabbed hold of Hal Jordan's hand by the wrist - the omega energy coursing around him having an incinerating effect on the lantern which ultimately caused the hand to be burned clean off. As it was the hand with the ring on it, this caused Hal Jordan to be reduced to a powerless state and fall to the ground - vanishing just as Batman did upon hitting the ground.

John Stewart followed not long after. The large fists he desperately generated from his ring were repeatedly destroyed effortlessly as Shadow charged at him - eventually burning directly through the lantern's body, causing him to vanish in mid-air not long after his entire torso had been destroyed.

Shadow then returned to the ground, making short work of Batwoman with a kick directly to her chest and Batgirl by grabbing her by her shoulders and viciously headbutting her with a full force impact. Lex Luthor was handled by a solid punch directly through his heart, while Aquaman, Mera, Blue Beetle and Cyborg were finished off by four chaos spears being unleashed at once by Shadow merely extending his arm out. With the spears also being endowed with omega effect energy, their forms were easily destroyed with a single set of four small explosions, vaporizing their darkness.

Bumblebee changed to her insect size to charge at Shadow from the air, while Speedy supported her by firing a stream of explosives at the black hedgehog. However, a single shield forged from omega chaos energy made every single arrow prove meaningless. A well timed charge from Shadow's spin dash easily turned Bumblebee into a dissipating puff of darkness - and decapitated Speedy, with him meeting the same fate once he fell completely to the ground.

The next challenger for the ultimate lifeform was Damian, who charged at him with his sword. Only for said sword to be caught by a clap of Shadow's hands - the omega energy turning it to useless stub of melted metal within seconds. Damian managed to evade Shadow's first attempt to strike him, managing to jump over Shadow and get behind him. However, before he could even pull out another piece of equipment the boy was slapped across the face by the back of Shadow's hand - his face disintegrating to darkness as he fell, before his body followed afterwards.

"DAMIAN!" The 'nega' Raven screamed with as much horror and emotion as her colored counterpart, before charging at Shadow with pure absolute rage at what she had just witnessed. With Shadow's omega aura making him resistant to telekinesis, she restored to her other abilities. Conjuring massive boulders, tentacles and even sharp shards of darkness to throw at Shadow - though the hedgehog tore through every last one as though he was super heated enough cutting through a mere stick of butter.

Raven herself eventually lunged at him soon after, though the rage she felt towards him blinded her. Though she had a black mass of tentacles and great power accompanying her, Shadow's unleashed power tore through everything she tried - and even herself as well. With Shadow slicing through her in her ball form as she tried to envelop him in her own darkness, she was soon reduced to nothing but the latter before even that dissipated into absolute nothingness.

John Constantine and Zatanna stepped up to the task next - with their magic shields successfully deflecting Shadow's spin dashes, allowing Constantine to fire a series of fireballs at Shadow once he was briefly sent back. Zatanna attempted to use her telekinesis magic though she could only find rocks to throw at Shadow - to little effect. Unfortunately for the two magical minions, they were soon destroyed when Shadow unleashed two chaos spears at them - shattering the shields they put up and destroying their bodies entirely.

With all of those individuals vanquished, all that remained to surround Shadow as he stood on the volcanic ground were Superman, Wonder Woman, Shazam, Nightwing and Starfire. Though they were glaring and snarling angrily at Shadow, it was difficult to truly discern if they were mourning those whom Shadow had just defeated or not.

They wouldn't have enough time to do so anyway.

The moment that all of them charged Shadow at once, Shadow jumped himself into the air and curled himself up as energy pulsated and electrified around him. Just before impact could be made he let out one mighty battle cry as he extended his body back out:

"Chaos…..BLAST!"

With those two words, a massive blast of pure omega chaos energy was unleashed from the hedgehog's body - completely incinerating the five beings charging at him within a matter of seconds as it's radius soon encompassed the entire stone platform - even managing to disperse the wall of blue flame surrounding the platform.

Barry watched as this bright red light emitted from Shadow's body and the burning explosion came in his direction. Grabbing Wally's body he rushed to the other side of the rock spire and shielded Wally as tightly as he could. Though his body was spared certain incineration thanks to the energy primarily eating away at the rock, Barry still screamed and hissed due to the searing heat all around him. Parts of his clothes and even skin that just barely grazed the energy were still singed as though he had touched an extremely hot stove.

Thankfully, it was all over within seconds. Once Barry, carrying Wally in his arms, emerged from behind the rock all he could see was Shadow standing on the ground with stacks of smoke surrounding him. The chaos blast had released all of the omega energy from Shadow, meaning he was back to his usual form - though still panted heavily after exerting so much power.

Still amazed and horrified, Barry addressed what had just happened:

"Did...did you?"

"It wasn't them" Shadow swiftly reminded Barry, "Whatever those things were, they weren't the people you remember them to be."

Barry looked down at Wally whom he held in his arms, the only one who returned to his living from out of the group. He didn't know what that meant, if the others were really themselves or not, but all he knew was that at the very least he had one of his nephews back. Or at least he hoped so, as Wally still had his eyes closed. Shadow, seeing the boy in Barry's arms:

"Is he?"

"My nephew" Barry explained without looking away from the boy, "And he's alive...only barely.." looking back up at Shadow hee said to his ally, "We need to get out of here."

Shadow nodded in agreement to those words, though it was at that moment which they were greeted with the return of Mephiles' diabolical echoing laugh. As Shadow readied his battle stance and looked around the ghostly blue volcanic field for where the demon was, Barry made sure to place the vulnerable Wally down by the rock spire out of the way before doing the same.

"Where are you?!" Shadow exclaimed angrily to the laughing entity, "Show yourself!"

Mephiles coldly chuckled:

"Since you so cordially insist…"

Emerging from behind Shadow as though he had been there the entire time, Mephiles folded his arms and swiftly extended them back out - releasing in the process a powerful concussive blast that sent both Barry and Shadow into the air - Shadow's spine smashing into the rock spire and proceeding to slide down to the ground, while Barry slid painfully on the ground until being stopped by one of the various impact craters created from the previous battle.

As the two recovered from the blast, Mephiles promptly addressed them in as menacing a tone that he could muster:

"You two have not the faintest idea of the sheer power you are up against."

Before Mephiles could approach the two any further however, all three had their attention taken by a sudden stream of machine gun bullets that fired at the ground in a line between them. Turning to the direction of these bullets, Shadow was astonished at where the bullets had come from:

E-123 Omega, the bulky, 'muscular' robot of red, golden yellow and black that he had no choice but to abandon back in crisis city, as much as it pained him internally to abandon one of the only two beings he considers a true friend. Now he was standing before him, at last fully activated and without any dust on his glossy metallic body at all. One of his clawed hands had shifted into the form of a machine gun, which had of course been the weapon used to gain Mephiles, Shadow and Barry's attention.

As he turned the gun back into one of his clawed hands, his robotic voice explained his presence:

"Now is designated time" he said to Shadow, "I shall assist."

While Shadow came closer than ever to smiling, Mephiles was more amused than anything else as he coldly remarked:

"You are nothing but a nuisance, robot."

Mephiles' first attempted attack against Omega was to generate a large, piercing bright beam of pure, concentrated energy from the palm of one of his hands - though Omega was able to jump out of the way and retaliated by turning one of his hands into an RPG launcher, firing a missile directly at the demonic being.

The missile did not get to make impact however, as Mephiles had managed to grab it telekinetically, surrounding it in a black aura akin to Raven's own powers, and then promptly sent it back on course to Omega himself. However, Omega destroyed it with a second missile anyway.

This moment may have been small, but did distract Mephiles just enough so that Shadow was able to strike him in the back of the head with a sweeping mid-air kick. It managed to knock Mephiles to the ground, though only because Shadow was not holding back any of his physical strength against the demonic being. Landing in between Mephiles and Omega, Shadow readied his battle stance - not daring to break eye contact with the demon as he waited to see what he was going to unleash next.

Though his face was virtually emotionless, it could easily be inferred that Mephiles was not precisely amused with this battle any longer. Or, perhaps in his own sadistic way he actually still was. Without any expressive facial features, his emotions were hard to decipher.

"You are quite the persistent annoyance, Shadow" Mephiles remarked, "But no matter, sooner or later, you will fall!"

Mephiles did not hesitate. Extending out his arms he began to command the lava surrounding the platform release nigh endless streams of piercing hot blue flames into the air, before the demon showed complete control over them; with the sheer power of his mind these streams curved towards Shadow and Omega as though they were flaming tentacles of some creature, proceeding to come at the two as though they were burning whips.

As it was futile to fire weapons at fire, Shadow and Omega settled for dodging and evading the literal whips of flame, though while it was easy to dodge the initial strikes - eventually massive blasts of blue fire came at them from behind while other streams of it rained down on them from above - forcing Shadow to do various acrobatic moves in order to avoid being burned. Flips both front and back, somersaults, he even narrowly avoided a stream that nearly struck him in his groin area. Omega was durable enough to stand a single blast - though even he knew the metal compromising his body had a limit at some point and so made a point to avoid the flames as well. He attempted to fire his missiles and even machine gun fire at Mephiles, though the demon often just used a single wave of blue flame to either melt the bullets or destroy the missiles before they could strike him.

Watching the battle unfold from the sidelines, Barry was lucky to seemingly be getting no attention from the demon. He decided it was best to use that fact to his advantage, and naturally rushed at Mephiles with the full force of his speed.

It didn't last long, unfortunately.

It was as though his speed had just stopped. As though he was frozen in place, moments he could land a punch to Mephiles' demonic face. As though he was parlyzed. Looking down he could see that underneath him was a puddle of pure darkness extending out from Mephiles - with the darkness latching onto the speedster's feet as though it was engulfing him from the bottom-up, some of it looking as though black tentacles were wrapping around his muscular legs and thighs while moving slowly upwards to do the same with the rest of him.

The worst parts were both that he couldn't vibrate himself out of their grasp, and that whatever this was it made it feel as though whatever they touched was numb - not hot or cold, only numb as though the limbs were asleep yet forced to be standing upright.

Barry could only struggle with his upper body as the lower half was slowly taken over by the darkness. Try as he did, he seemingly was fully unable to break free.

Without breaking from his fight against Shadow and Omega, Mephiles turned to Barry solely to mock him for his evidently failed attempt:

"Foolish mortal" the entity chuckled, "Did you honestly think that was going to work?"

Barry did not give Mephiles the dignity of a response. He only gritted his teeth, scowling, practically snarling even, at the demon who has put him through far more mental and emotional torment than Darkseid himself ever could have accomplished.

"No matter" the being continued on, "Soon it will be as though you had never even existed. It's no use resisting, you can't fight eternal darkness forever."

With the darkness increasingly engulfing his body, now passing over his upper half, Barry only had one thing to tell the demonic entity:

"Go fuck yourself."

Mephiles only laughed in response to that petty insult.

No longer willing to give himself up to the evil being, Barry continued to do all he could to struggle and fight the darkness consuming him - even though it's continued engulfing of his body told him that it was in fact futile. Even as Mephiles' mocking laughter was about all his ears actually heard.

At least until two other voices entered the fray:

"Initiating Zeta Energy Cannons!"

"Chaos Spear!"

In an instant, a single chaos spear managed to cut off the darkness engulfing Barry from Mephiles' shadow, weakening it enough for Barry to finally break free of it as it dissipated from his body. Before Mephiles could even conjure up a counter-attack however, a duet of two massive, bright purple beams of weaponized energy fired onto him with enough force to actually send him back to the edge of the platform.

Once the beams stopped firing, Shadow and Omega rejoined Barry's side - having freed themselves from the onslaught of blue flames.

"Thanks, guys" Barry said to the two during this brief moment he had, "He almost had me there, for a moment."

"Sensors indicate the target has not yet been neutralized, now is not time for idle chatter." - Omega was swiftly proven rather correct.

Within an instant the ground shook in a line extending out from Mephiles as though a small earthquake was suddenly occurring before their eyes, making the three jump out of the way as tendrils made of darkness emerged from the cracks in the rock to violently attempt in grappling the three - though well timed chaos spears and missiles managed to keep the darkness at bay.

A large mass of darkness attempted to ensnarl Omega before long, though with a swipe of his arms with his flamethrowers initiated the robot was able to disperse the darkness before it could get a proper hold of him - he also continued supporting Shadow and Barry by using his missiles to disperse any of the black tentacles before they could grapple either of them.

As to be expected, that wasn't the only hazard that Mephiles conjured for the trio as before long he spawned before him a series of telekinetically levitating spiked rocks with each encased in an aura of darkness, sending it at the three within a matter of moments to emulate Omega's own missiles.

With Omega handling the stream of darkness, Barry and Shadow had to divert their attention to these rock missiles - Barry was fast enough to evade them, though Mephiles conjured a thick wall of piercing blue flame and would send violent streams of it towards the speedster if he dared to try anything with his speed. Shadow was strong enough to home in on each in his ball form and shatter them to pieces, though the stream of them seemed to be endless.

Eventually however, Barry's quick thinking mind came up with an idea: with Shadow taking the majority of the rock towers, he decided to use the wind vortexes created from his arm to blow away the blue fire protecting Mephiles. Just as Mephiles taken aback by this and hissed angrily at Barry upon being exposed, Barry shouted to his ally:

"Shadow! Opening! Now!"

Seeing as Mephiles was getting ready to unleash a stream of darkness on Barry, Shadow yet again no time to waste. He diverted his attention to diving from a mid-air position directly to Mephiles - who naturally realized what was going on and abandoned his attack on Barry to charge at Shadow, the two colliding in mid-air within a matter of seconds.

Mephiles quickly slashed at Shadow's chest with his claws, drawing blood as well as making Shadow actually hiss in pain, though his other hand was caught by Shadow's own before he could do the same to the ultimate lifeform's face. Holding said hand by the wrist, Shadow did not give Mephiles any time to retaliate before punching the demon in his own chest at maximum strength - enough to send Mephiles barreling back to the ground below them.

The fact that punching Mephiles felt nearly like slamming his fist into a steel wall was not lost on Shadow.

With the stream of darkness dissipating, all three allies were able to surround Mephiles as he stood up to face them. Ever difficult to read, Mephiles grunted as he got up to face his adversaries - though it was hard to know if he felt defeated by them or not. Nevertheless, he did generate from one of his hands a large orb of dark energy - swirling vortex of black, blue and purple. At first the three assumed it was a final attack, though without saying a single word Mephiles leaped himself into it and vanished, just as the area all around them began to shake.

With the ground cracking and crumbling apart at the seams, the light of the blued magma shining from underneath as it bubbled up to the surface, Omega's words were readily apparent well before he spoke them:

"I am indicating an eruption of this volcano is imminent, we must leave this area at once!"

Shadow nodded, and looking towards the portal Mephiles had generated he could see that as massive stacks of steam lava erupted from the floor that it was still there, yet diminishing in size quickly.

"INTO THE PORTAL, NOW!" he yelled, himself Omega charging for it immediately. Barry was about to, but swiftly remembered Wally.

Just as Shadow and Omega jumped into the portal to follow Mephiles and escape the impending eruption, Barry swiftly rushed to Wally's still unconscious body. Scooping his nephew up into his arms, he just as swiftly rushed into the portal mere moments before it vanished completely - just narrowly avoiding being caught in the volcano's eruption, hearing the first few seconds of the final roar as the white flash of travelling through the portal took over his eyes.

When the bright lights of portal travel left him, Barry could see that he, Shadow, Omega and Wally had been transported back to Soleanna's New City district, evidently the present time from which they left. They landed on a tiled plaza, with a large clock tower behind them and the various brick-and-mortar buildings that blended in with one another surrounding them. The solace in all of this was that the sky was yet again blue as they reflected the beauty of the ocean, and the clouds were white, joining the sun in the sky as it yet again shined down upon the world - though Barry did have to adjust to seeing sunlight again after spending so much time in darkness.

Speaking of which, there was no sign of Mephiles. Shadow looked around for the demon, but shook his head in frustration once it was apparent the dark entity was nowhere to be found. Omega summarized their situation as such:

"It appears that we have been transported back to the present, though Mephiles managed to transport himself to a different location. I will assist in pursuing him."

Shadow nodded in response to that, though Omega was not the only one desiring to join the quest:

"So will I." Barry proudly declared, wanting more than anything else to track down Mephiles and see him defeated. Though Shadow did not seem to disagree with the sentiment, he was swift to point out one glaring thing:

"First, you need to get your nephew proper medical treatment."

Looking down at the unconscious boy in his arms, Barry closed his eyes and yet again shed a small tear from his eyes. Seeing Wally like that, fighting for his life, and the guilt that he was potentially who caused it, was almost too much for him. Turning to Shadow and Omega, Barry said:

"Where's the nearest hospital?"

The voice Rouge descending into the conversation was ultimately what responded to that statement:

"Unfortunately, the Duke Arturo Memorial Hospital is already filled to maximum capacity" she stated as she landed with the rest of the group, "However, G.U.N. has finally been able to institute both a blockade and a no-fly-zone, thanks to a recent change in Soleanna's leadership. We can take him to a med-bay on one of the ships, hopefully that will be enough."

As Rouge talked to her communicator device to get G.U.N. clearance to one of the vessels now surrounding the border of Soleanna's waters, Barry looked down onto his nephew and spoke softly to him in the vain hope that the boy could hear what he was being told:

"It's alright Wally, we're gonna get you help. You're gonna be back up and running in no time, just trust me, alright bud? We're gonna get you back up faster than I can even run! Promise!"

Of course, Barry knew that Wally was not the only one who needed some form of medical help. Though, he wasn't sure if there was anything that could be done to fix all of his problems at this point.

Not after what he had just been through.

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bacejelerenvorthos · 4 years ago

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The Lore of Kaldheim: Istfell

“Istfell is the mist-shrouded realm at the base of the World Tree, a vast plain ringed by a fastmoving river and a towering stone wall. The plain is dotted with bottomless wells and white-stone cairns whose origin and significance are lost to the ages. Looming overhead is the unfathomably huge bulk of the World Tree, whose dangling roots plunge into the realm. Occasional aurora light from the Cosmos breaks through the ever-present gloom and dances across the sky, but its brilliance is muted by the unending fog, which grows thicker and thicker toward the center of Istfell. The spirits of animals, monsters, and most people come to Istfell when they die and spend eternity in aimless imitation of mortal life.

The plains of Istfell are encircled by the bone-chilling waters of the Vangir River. Beyond the river is a towering wall, over a hundred feet high, built eons ago to keep Cosmos monsters from attacking the roots of the young World Tree. The only entrance into Istfell is a massive bridge across the river that leads directly to the magnificent Gates of Istfell.

Spirits

People who die in particularly brave or glorious fashion are marked by the Valkyries and taken to Starnheim. Istfell is for everyone else. The spirits of Istfell include those of people who died of natural causes or accidents, or who showed cowardice in combat. The spirit of every animal or monster that ever lived also runs free in Istfell, and it's not uncommon to see a giant spirit wolf or dragon emerging from the mist.

The spirits who inhabit Istfell resemble whoever or whatever they were in life, but they are wispy, transparent, and grayish or bluish in color, lacking the warm colors of living blood. The longer they linger as spirits, the more they blend into the perpetual mist and foggy background of the realm. When the spirits move together in groups, they form great misty clouds that drift across the landscape, virtually indistinguishable from the constant fog.

Many spirits retain the memories of their lives, but they have lost all passion and, with it, the motivation to fight or form relationships. Rather, they simply move aimlessly in groups, drifting like the fog across the fields and along the rivers. With the aid of powerful magic, it is possible to rouse them to anger or convince them to fight. Many spirits vaguely accept that Egon, the god of death, is the ruler of that land, but even he must use his own god-magic to get them to perform tasks or fight for him.

The Gods’ Hall

The only other structure in Istfell is the magnificent Gods' Hall, which is a new addition to the realm. How it got there is a saga unto itself.

The Hall of the Skoti had stood for generations in the Gods' Realm. One day, Toralf and Halvar were sparring when Valki appeared, struggling under the weight of a godstone harness that had been fashioned by the dwarves. When Toralf asked his brother what troubled him, Valki threw down the harness in frustration. He told Toralf and Halvar that he had captured the spirit horse Windfell, a feat that many had attempted in the past but no one had accomplished. His brothers began to praise him loudly, but he waved dismissively, because the feat was incomplete. Valki had managed to bring Windfell to the Gods' Realm, but to tame him, he must put the rune-enchanted harness around the horse's neck. And that, Valki whined, was impossible.

At the word "impossible," Toralf stood taller. Nothing was impossible for the strongest son of the Skoti. Halvar whispered a warning in Toralf's ear that this could be a trick (Valki was known for his tricks), but Toralf never listened to Halvar, even though Halvar was always the most sensible person in any room. Toralf effortlessly picked up the harness, and the three gods left the Hall. In the courtyard, they stood in awe of Windfell, the wild spirit horse who tossed his head at the indignity of being trapped behind walls of any kind. As Toralf approached the horse with the harness, Windfell stamped his feet, pranced around the god, and sped toward the gate. The horse leapt over the gate and, faster than the storms of Karfell, raced away from the Hall of the Skoti.

For three days, Toralf pursued Windfell as the wild horse ran back to the realm of the spirits, finally catching up with him just inside the Gates of Istfell. With great effort, Toralf hefted the harness onto the horse. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light and a resounding thunder that could be heard in all the realms. Toralf was blasted backwards into the Gates of Istfell with such force that a pillar cracked. When Toralf opened his eyes, Valki's trick was revealed. The harness was tethered to the Gods' Hall, and Toralf's mighty strength had triggered the runic magic, which pulled the Hall all the way from the Gods' Realm to the bottom of the World Tree, where it became lodged in the roots. The rest of the gods emerged from the Hall, scratching their heads as they surveyed the endless ranks of spirits staring up at them. Valki was nowhere to be found.

— The Saga of Valki's Deceit

The gods keep saying they should move it back to the Gods' Realm, but some sort of magic seeping out from the World Tree has so far hindered their halfhearted efforts, and no one has decided to make it a priority.”

#mtg #vorthos #magic the gathering #magic story #magic art #fantasy art #fantasy #flavor #lore #magic lore #kaldheim #mtgkaldheim #mtgkhm

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avehi-the-adamant · 4 years ago

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Are We Dead Yet? Pt. I - Piercing the Veil

[[ Co-written with @sylaess & @kidcatgemini ]]

~*~

The summons came for all of them.

Every single Knight of Acherus could hear that call, knew that call. It wasn’t one you fucked around with.

They stood in ranks, watching the portal open. Waiting. Somehow, they were going to help. The icy winds atop Icecrown snatched at cloaks and fur-trimmed armor alike. Stole the wispy breath of the living and tossed it to the glacier beyond. A very solemn time.

A very anxious time.

They filed through. Rank by rank.

It took forever, in Sylaess’s humble opinion. All for a bloody portal. To the deadlands. Shadowlands. Syl hated portals. They always fucked her up. She cut a glance to see if she could spot Avehi one more time. Had tried to get into formation with her, but who knew if they were still near each other? There had been so much shuffling about.

The rank before her moved up. Started popping through, one by one. So the rumors were true, then. Bolvar had had his ass handed to him by Sylvannas. And then she messed everything up. Again. Sylaess was careful to keep herself still, steady, and cool. At least outwardly. It was tiresome. But she did an excellent job of that mask.

Sigh.

Syl stepped forward unthinkingly. Just muscle memory in the line, headed into the portal. The less she thought of the insanity she was about to partake in, the easier it got.

That was a bold-faced lie, but she was grasping every thin thread to keep herself from launching off the side of Icecrown instead of into the afterlife. Both options sucked, to be fair.

Took a breath, hands on her swords hilts like they were a lifeline. Stepped through the blue-black mass of magic that would lead her to the exact place she’d been avoiding all these damned years. Literally.

Tried not to scream.

The Maw was unchanged from when Avehi was here last-- but it was still an entirely new experience. Before, merely a fragment of her consciousness could wander freely through the desolate wastes beyond the veil. Now, she was here wholly, fully… with no guarantee of any way out again. Her body never felt more cumbersome, reminiscent of when she was first risen. That bitter, ashen taste. The way the air felt so thin and yet stifling at the same time. The amber skyline was piercing, a burning contrast to the somber grey dust beneath her hooves. Immediately, the wailings of the damned assaulted her ears, in a symphony of suffering. This was no place for a mortal.

Thankfully, she wasn’t one.

Foolishly, however, she’d brought two along with her. She looked back to her companions; imposters, both adorned in Ebon Blade recruit armor. Argonas’ barely fit over his muscular physique. An oversight on her part-- she should’ve procured a Tauren-sized set for him, just in case. Raetos’, however, fit just fine. Though his brighter skin tone betrayed his Light-suffused body beneath the dark Ebon plating. Both of them would’ve been easy enough to pick out… if anyone were looking hard enough. Too focused on Bolvar, Avehi presumed. She wasn’t sure about the Highlord. Helm or no helm, it was hard for her to reconcile how she felt about the presence that had set up shop in the back of her mind since the fall of Arthas Menethil. Familiarity, yes. But overwhelming distrust trumped it. Like an estranged brother.

She put it from her mind, for now, attention back on Argonas and Raetos.

“Muster your senses.” she instructed. “We must move-- quickly!”

Argonas did just that; he was much more prepared for the terror this place instilled in the depths of the soul than Raetos was. Having died somewhat recently, he was already accustomed to this place, and the heavy draw that permeated the air. He expected it. Prepared for it. Shrugged it off, and moved to follow Avehi into the wastes. Somewhere here, they’d find Sinafay. And he’d make good on his promise to free her from this terrible place! That alone was all the drive he needed to suffer through.

Raetos wasn’t as fortunate. Despite all the time he’d spent on the Fel-suffused planet of Argus, it did nothing to protect him from the wave of absolute dread and hopelessness that permeated his senses.

“--Light,” he muttered under his breath, kneeling down and throwing his helmet off to bring his hands to his head.

Thankfully, his Lightforged body offered him some protection. He couldn’t imagine how much more horrible this place would be without it’s soothing properties. It took him a moment, as he waited for his senses to acclimate. When he looked up, Avehi and the others were already far ahead. He removed some of the extra pieces of plate armor Avehi had told him to wear. The atmosphere was already too heavy, and the weight of the gear was unbearable. At this point, it didn’t matter if the Ebon Blade realized they’d brought a mortal through.

Not like they could force him to go back...

Gritting his teeth, he got back on his hooves and followed after his companions. He was one step closer to finding Fable.

Sylaess’ skin felt prickly. Like someone had chopped the sides of her neck with the blade of their hand and jolted all her nerves at once. A cold sweat made her armor lining cling uncomfortably.

She wanted to vomit.

Two steps onto the other side, and she held it all back. Held her breath, too. Did a half-turn to check for an ambush and--

Came loose from herself. Drifted away from her own body.

Ah, shit. The thought was haphazard at best. A remote acceptance. The world went away.

Sylaess stiffened up like she’d been struck on the head and went over like an ominous pillar of saronite. No hand came out to break that fall. Crashed to the ground unceremoniously with a dull thud. Absolutely unresponsive for a solid moment, other than a faint tremor in her hands. Unnatural.

“I waited, nonetheless.”

He took another bite, and chewed that one too for a while. Thoughtfully. The only times Argonas was really so quiet was when he was eating or sleeping. His mouth stopped running long enough for his thoughts to get a turn. Most of his thoughts were on Sylaess, and his gaze followed them. He swallowed.

“Was it worth it?” he asked, motioning roughly over his own face where Sylaess’ exacerbated scarring was. “It looks as if you took a few hits. Did you learn anything of the truths you are seeking?”

She blinked at her hands, considering the question for a hanging moment. “...I don’t know if I feel qualified to name worth about this, but I learned enough that I...” Want to take a scalding damn bath, my friend, badly. “...want to leave. I have enough control, I feel.” No, you don’t.--

The taste of rust and dirt in her mouth. Black, watery rushing in her ears. A flicker of lights. Pushed away from the fragmented memory. Didn’t recognize much of it, anyway. Didn’t make too much sense.

And awake again.

She gave a hell of a start. Limbs felt loose, uncoordinated. Standing up felt a little clumsy. Shit, how many times was that? Sylaess tensed, willing herself to look like iron again. Hoped beyond whatever frail hope she had that most of her companions looked past that little... episode. Destarion had made sound mention of her new ailment. She had an idea of what happened, but never a full understanding. Her skull felt like it throbbed, and yet was airy all at once. It was incredibly hard to refocus.

The fragment of memory, or fictitious image was fleeing her mind already. Little snippets. Some were true, but she couldn’t tell what was real. It was harrowing to try and winnow it all out.

Truthfully, she felt like her bones were made of windchimes. Hollow.

Avehi eyed the elf, a mixture of worry and annoyance upon her countenance. The poor thing shook and wobbled like a newborn talbuk finding its legs in this treacherous place. The Draenei couldn’t fault her too terribly for it, though-- everything about this place was an affront to the senses. She was, in truth, surprised Argonas seemed to take it in such stride. But then… he’d been here before, rather recently. She examined the trio, and grunted. This was it. This was the team. With no plan to get back out, and no telling what to expect inside… they proceeded.

“Stay close.” came her only instruction; her only warning.

The Vindicators trudged forward, driven by their respective purposes. Avehi had finally made it to the other side, and took strides now in correcting this problem that had haunted her for so long. Argonas’ purpose was far more specific. Yet both moved, in a show of their shared training, keeping a close-yet-loose and wary formation. Hammers drawn and ready for the horrors the Maw would surely throw their way.

Raetos stayed further behind, both to watch their backs, and also to keep an eye on Sylaess. She was the only one in the group he didn’t know at all. She was such a tall and skinny thing, so lanky and sickly looking. And from the looks of it, she’d taken the entrance into the Maw harder than he had. He wondered how long she'd been dead, but then Avehi had made it clear that it wasn’t a question to ask a Death Knight. A sensitive subject.

Now wasn’t the time to make friends and start conversations anyway. Quite the departure from his regular self. Instead, his golden gaze scanned the rocky cliffs. Oddly enough, it wasn’t too far off from the rocky and desolate landscape that Argus had been… except Fel was replaced by… well… death and mist of some kind. So he had no issues blending and moving quietly about the area. Thankfully so, because the mist made it hard to see at a distance, and there were constant eerie screams in the background that made things difficult for his ears to pick up other sounds --not to mention the sounds of battle! It would make hunting the enemy harder for him.

He wondered if Avehi knew where she was going. She seemed to anyway… So he followed. For now.

The worst of it faded slowly. Not that the ominous air of the Maw itself was helpful in any sort of recovery.

To be fair, she’d been here before. A few times. They had to find Sinafay as fast as they could. Every second in this place was a threat to the very fabric of a soul.

She should not be here. So many should not be here. That would have to be solved later. It was a much grander scale issue.

Sylaess shook her head slightly, chasing off the thoughts before they took hold. Glanced over the rest of the party and resolved to ignore her indiscretion. Such as it would be. A brief flicker of concern for Argonas, but she let it slide. Had to. No room for that here. She wasn’t particularly concerned with Raetos, disguise or no.

There was a feeling that the Jailer would be able to sense them regardless of any shade or misdirection and that bothered her. Bothered her a lot. She slid a hand into her cloak, a hidden pouch there. Reassurance. The tiny vials were wrapped securely in cloth and leather layers, protecting them from a lot of damage. They seemed intact. “Avehi, do we have a specific direction, or should we try to command a soul to give us an idea?”

Her voice was quiet and gravelly, but clear enough. Such an odd thing to hear out of her own face. She sighed softly through her nose. At least she’d spent the last few weeks with the ritualists in Acherus, learning what she could of the other side of being a death knight. Less battle, more magic fuckery.

"Once we have our bearings, that's a good idea." Avehi replied without breaking stride. "Let's get up this ridge, and see what we can see."

"--Command a soul?" Argonas repeated, clearly uncomfortable with the notion. "Have they not suffered enough without such compulsions?"

"Probably. You can ask your wife the specifics after we compel a wayward soul to lead us to her." came Avehi's curt response.

It silenced Argonas well enough.

“Geez… I mean, it doesn't hurt to ask nicely at first,” Raetos couldn’t help but throw his opinion in, “If they’re being a pain in the ass, then by all means, but Argo’s right. No need to hassle an already suffering spirit if it’s not putting up a fight.”

He held his rifle ready, keeping his senses sharp despite his mouth working.

“Like… from the looks of things, there are some obviously bad things picking on helpless looking spirits,” he mentioned, taking a peek over the ledge where he spotted the commotion, “We intervene, the nice spirit tells us what they know out of gratitude, and then we can compel the baddies for extra information. Win win. Oooh! Leave that hound-thinger down there alive, though. I want that.”

“Was it worth it?”

The memory echo gave her half a pause, but it slid away like oil on water. She sighed softly, the tightness in her jaw not settling.

Maybe it was the half-echoed whispers from the souls damned to this place. She could hear them. Assumed Avehi could, too. “More than half of these souls are ... remnants. Shattered pieces. The Maw is where they are sent to be slowly obliterated. Now that all souls are sent here, it's ... the worst fate you could wish on anyone. No hope for rebirth here, just swift annihilation if you’re lucky.” Sylaess said. Gave pause, side-eyeing Raetos. “They’re constructs, but ones that feast on souls. Fine sport, I’m sure.” She had meant to be calming, reassuring even. But her words raked like gravel, gashing out the hideous truth of this place. The end was colored by sarcasm. No mercies indeed. There was regret, but she couldn’t pluck the words from the air. Nor did she feel she could’ve found better to say. The elf tugged her cloak over her shoulder, black hollow eyes scanning the area in a slow sweep. Old habits were never far. At least, she assumed it was a habit.

She eyed the hound. Then it came together. “But we could harness it to travel faster. At least, one of us.”

This place was grating on Avehi’s nerves. The sounds most of all. Words no mortal could hear, but registered as whispers to the Death Knights, one foot in and one foot out of their graves. Half-truths and intrusive thoughts given soundless voices, all speaking directly to her mind.

“You belong here, too.”

“None escape…”

“The Jailer sees all!”

It was distracting. Overwhelming. And Argonas’ and Raetos’ sanctimonious protesting only irked her further.

“Feel free to see how far asking nicely gets you.” Avehi chuffed, growing in irritation. “But if you want your respective loved ones saved from this infamously-inescapable place? Cast aside your Light-bleached sensibilities and be prepared to do whatever it takes. Let the undead handle the undead, if you can’t stomach it.”

The ridge crest overlooked everything… and nothing. There wasn’t much to see of this desolation. A ‘river’ of aetherial miasma cut through the land some distance ahead. And following it to their left revealed ramparts of some manner of fortification. Beyond that, ever-looming in the sky, was an infinitely tall tower. Unsettlingly menacing, it dominated the skyline, casting its shadow over the already dismal landscape.

“--There.” Argonas spoke up, motioning to the fortifications. “I… I saw Sinafay near there, when I died. I remember the wall.”

“You’re certain?” Avehi asked, turning to him.

He nodded once, eyes affixed to the distant keep. It was recent enough, still fresh in his mind. Avehi grunted, but nodded in response.

“Then we make our way there. Any soul we manage to find on the way, we question.”

She waved her hand dismissively at the construct and his ‘dog’ down below.

“Leave those sentries be, if we can. The creature will serve us no purpose, anyway.” she directed. “Splitting up here is the worst thing we could possibly do.”

And yet, that was exactly what Raetos decided to do. As the others turned away and continued their journey, the Lightforged kept his eye on the hound and its rider. He always worked better alone anyway. And it would be easier to sneak around without the heavy plate wearers. Brows knit into a frown as he looked over to his friends once more, only to see them already a good distance away; pushed forward by Argonas recognizing a rock formation.

Fable wouldn’t be with Sinafay. It was a gut feeling the Draenei had. Their times of death had happened so far apart and differently. The chances of finding them together in this hell hole was slim to none. His three companions obviously cared more about finding Argonas’ mate than his. Avehi had promised to bring Raetos into the Maw. That done, it was time for him to walk his own path. His partner needed him, and he wasn’t going to waste any time following the wrong trail.

Silently, he stepped away from the group and hid into the cliff. And just like that, he was gone, silently moving down the cliff to stalk the hound and rider, hunting rifle in hand.

“Perdition...” It was more of a mumble to herself, thinking over the location. She frowned, watching Raetos go--but who was she to stop him? If you want to disappear into hell, literally, by yourself, then that’s on you. She honestly wished him well.

The wash of voices became loud in her ears for a moment. She grit her teeth.

“If we’re headed that way, we should get going. “ A pause, and she stared at Avehi. Tried to gauge how much she knew of this place, gave up. “He’s watching.” Softly. “There’s not much I can do about it.” Stepped up to be vaguely beside the other Knight a moment. “The best thing is that he’s busy with the sudden swarm of Acherians. He can’t focus.”

The Draenei’s tail flickered in irritation, as Sylaess put so well into words what she was feeling. The master of this domain exuded a too-familiar omniscience in this place. The power behind the Helm of Dominion worn by the Lich King could be felt here. Its origins, perhaps? It felt far too similar to be coincidence.

“There’s nothing any of us can do about it.” she affirmed, bluntly. “May his focus be elsewhere as we get done what we’re here to do. Everyone stay cl--”

She narrowed her eyes in search; the brightest of their group was nowhere to be found! For his otherwise inept and naive countenance, Raetos was particularly adept at forging his own path and vanishing when he felt it was time. His impatience and disobedience would be his doom here, Avehi thought, as she shook her head.

“We need an escape. A rally point. Somewhere to fall back to and regroup as necessary.” she grunted, eyes flickering to Sylaess. “Can you secure one? Argonas and I will go ahead into the keep, and see if we can’t find Sinafay.”

Sylaess nodded. “I’ll hold to one spot as well as I can, but I feel I might need to move. May this be a quick endeavor.”

(( Mentions: @avehi-the-adamant / @argonas / @raetos / @sylaess / @sinafay1 / @darkestfable ))

#character stories #Shadowlands #The Maw #Avehi #Sylaess #Argonas #Raetos #Sinafay #Fable

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grim-faux · 4 years ago

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05_A Looming Constant

First

Too close!

That had been too close!

It should have all ended badly, him torn out. A sad shadow. Stole! Just like her! Bad mistake! Bad mistake.

How did it keep finding him?! True, trying to drag her out of the television was dumb. The man in the hat was too crafty to have let her get away; the trap was cunning. Almost though! He could’ve sworn he would have gotten her out of there. Two more seconds, three tops.

The man in the hat would find him again. He mistook the man for slow and cumbersome, but he just knew. Knew where he was going, where he’d stumble up. Knew too much. Fearsome, strange trickster. At the same time, he didn’t understand why he… well, that didn’t matter! He got away! And from now on, he had to stay away. The Thin Man plotted something, and it involved him.

So he ran like he’d never run before, accepting that around the next corner that terrible man would be there, looming, ready. This recess was borrowed time, and he dreaded… he dreaded….

Somewhere in the crawlway, the packed silt disintegrated and he dropped. He tumbled in the murk, a wadded mess of coat and shape, hands clasped to his paper bag to save it from destruction. The tight walls rebounded his form until at last he was skidding across a more stable surface, something that felt like wood. He didn’t waste a moment to get back upright and continue, pawing at the empty black. Light shimmered in the distance, peering around tall and wide pillars. He could hear the rain, as well.

The narrow crevice opened in the center of a wall. Not too high to deter dropping down, though the boards creaked when he landed, eliciting a shudder from the intruder. He shuffled around the side of the room, eyes already fixed on the open window parallel to his stance. A collapsed bed afforded an easy ascent to the shattered frame, the sopping curtains slapped his shoulders as he skidded onto the sill.

Before ducking out, he turned back and gave the vacant room a short study. The door was open, but he wasn’t interested on further exploration on account the tower being the other direction. Outside was better than inside. This was good travel. It might be possible, he could still lose the Thin Man.

A plank of wood connected the metal balcony, to another balcony adjacent to the window. It was wide enough for him to brave a sprint without losing balance, but regardless his numb toes lost traction and he went skidding down the tilted flat of wood. He coughed at the water sloshing against his paper mask, and lost visibility for a moment when his legs swept off the side. His arms managed to hang tight, though he couldn’t dig his fingernails into the slimy surface.

Lightening struck the sky high above, casting overexposure through everything, and bleaching out his own vision despite his mask. That sinister, rolling snarl followed. Mono clawed at the beam, swinging his legs up until he knotted his heel over the furthest edge. With a few deep breaths he hauled himself up, got up to his feet, and resumed running. This time, more careful about his steps and slowed down.

When he reached the next balcony, there was no opening in the window that was immediately visible. The window frame was likewise too high for him to reach. To the side a tattered cord did hang, among a braid of monstrous tangles slinking downward. He dropped to the slick rope and anchored his grip. Before descending, he adjusted his bag and fixed his gaze into the sky.

The tower, a monolith looming in the midst of this husk of civilization. He knew she was there, just as he knew this was all his fault. His fault. Again. Not careful enough. Stupid. Trying to work through things that were traps. He should’ve known better. Should’ve done better. He would fix this.

He thumped the front of his head to the cord. The rain was thunderous against the paper surface, but it barred out the awful sensations. Blotted out the eerie prickling. Stupid idea. Bad.

Going down was never hard. It was getting down without breaking something, which was the trick. He does a good job of it, keeping his grip tight and digging past the fast-moving water flooding into everything. He was soaked to the bone, and the chilled air seemed to live in his skin.

The third window he came to was open a crack, at the bottom. He planted himself on the ledge and turned his sight down, evaluating what was below. It looked like an alley, cluttered with stuff and the people. With the rain crowding his senses, he couldn’t hear if they were alive or broken; he couldn’t tell if they were distracted by the televisions. The wire didn’t extend much further, and he was trembling remorsefully against the gale.

He didn’t give it a second thought as he squeezed through the gap. It was very tight, but manageable. The room within was dark, but mostly dry – aside from the ribbons of water trinkling from the ceiling. The whole place creaked, as if it was a ship lost at sea amid a battering storm.

He only knew some stories about ships and sea. A door made a fine raft, but sea fairing it was not.

First listen. Aside from the hammering rain and the creaking, nothing stood out. His whole wardrobe was waterlogged, and the soft globs of water oozed into the carpet beneath his feet. He left the drowned halo and made his way across the room. Everything dark. Dark was good. He didn’t particularly like the dark, but it gave him the chance to hide from dangers first. Hear them as well, because he was moving slowly, and primed to freeze at a moment notice. Or run. Running was good too. But first, listen.

He paid careful attention to the headache working in his head. If the man in the hat came close, he’d sense that first. But nothing alarmed him thus far, but he did have a creeping sensation on his neck.

By the time he reached the corridor, his eyes had adjusted enough that he could make out the outline of the walls and floor. There were still lumps of clothing or debris on the floor, snagging at his feet and his numb toes. Though if an exit appeared, he’d likely see it. No holes, no crevices as of yet. This place seemed stable. For once, that was not good.

Light flickered from an open passage to the side, and he knew what would be waiting for him. In his defense, he was being optimistic.

Those people. The Viewers. A whole cluster, huddled around the flashing box. But they were facing away, their silhouettes barred him from the device. If he managed to get to it, where would it take him? Was it worth it to try? Could be… trap.

He huddled beneath a chair, taking a small spell to catch his breath. Listen. Think. What would happen if he didn’t reach her in time? Don’t think about that. Whatever is waiting at the tower, deal with it when you’re there. Focus here. TV? Or no?

At his back something shuffled, and he froze. It took every ounce of his meager strength to hold his feet rooted, not budge an inch, or take a breath. Just like when he woke up earlier… stay still. Don’t panic. This is difficult, given he was barely caught up on his second wind. He couldn’t risk turning or checking, did something see him? A Viewer, or the man in the hat? The Thin Man, with his terrible capacity for locating him in the most random of places? Was it him?

He inched his eyes up, inspecting the gargling figures across the room. Mesmerized by the television. Maybe it too was already lost in the suffuse haze.

Then movement, and he clenched his fingers into the soft wood. Just hold perfectly still. Nothing’s wrong. Everything is fine.

The lumbering steps scuffled away, dragging across the room. He nearly exhaled all the stale air he’d held when he saw yes, thank you, that was a viewing people. It flung itself at the others intending to get at the screen, and knocked three over in its mindless haste. One plopped against the floorboards, and even though he couldn’t see which way the ‘head’ was facing, he knew of all that could go right in the world today, this monster had to be looking right at him.

GARGHH!?

He hated being right.

The whole crew gathered themselves up or wretched around, gurgling and snarling – as if he had anything to do with the interruption. Two scurried on their hands and feet, another three lumbered… they were fast. He’d forgotten, in all the drama with the tall thin man, these people were feisty, fast, and possibly more relentless.

He pivoted and dove into the gloom. After staring so long at the screen, he’d lost whatever adjustment gathered from navigating the dark. As such, he ran straight into the wall before ricocheting away and barreled down the corridor.

Find door. If no door, hide. Escape first, hide second. There were only so many places to curl up in one room, but he staked it all on the one that recently joined, came from someplace other than a hole in the ceiling.

The Viewers were thundering down the corridor, shrieking their bizarre shrill – something of static and mechanical gears, and another part painfully childish. They were having trouble cutting the distance, due to a habit of hauling each other down and crawling over the next if they became too sluggish. The rough behavior rattled the building, the floor creaked and bent.

There was door! A looming blackhole in the corridor, ominous but welcoming all a once!

The sight of it gave a few extra sprints to his legs. He wouldn’t have time to take a second guess, right or left. One thing that comforted him was the fact the whole neighborhood seemed to be behind him, which meant it was unlikely a few stranglers would be in the—

His foot went down, and down. A snap burst loud and clear, and his body tensed, prepared for agony and perhaps death. The buzzing worked its way through his spine and bones, but for the life of him he couldn’t determine where it came from. Then realization dawned, as one of the shadowy figures lunged at him. A horrendous crackling filled the air; a chilling, accusing sound. With a screech, the Viewer dove out of view – the hand swiped at the back of his ankles but missed entirely.

The floor!

He swung around and scooted back, nearly blinded by all the thrashing and distressed wailing as the Viewers scrambled among the jagged beams folding up. The floor tilted sideways, plaster and dust rained down across his mask. Something crashed at his side and skidded toward the chasm, and without thinking he propelled himself onto it – before one of the Viewers could stretch out and swat him.

It was the door, torn off its hinges and banking sideways. He tried to snag the shiny handle when it flashed, but something apart of the wall or whatever, smashed into the side of the panel and he was flung off. His shoulder skimmed the toothy side of the floor as he plummeted into the dark, the yowling cries beneath offered a frightening reading of how deep this went. Swabs of light came, from windows dotted throughout the ruptured building interior. His breathing became tighter, more panicked as everything sped up. Before he knew it, he was going to be a boney smear.

Something flapped in the breeze, and without a thought he lashed out snaring what felt like a slime filled shirt. He dug his fingers and toes in, curling up and trying to constrict his whole body around the safety line. He swung wildly, twisting and whirling, barely missing the shattered underside of the banister, from where the shirt hung. Before the movement slowed a bit, he began clawing his way up the foul fibers. A sickening, wet-tearing sound alerted him swiftness was paramount. Unfortunately, he barely reached the shoulder and the rail that held his life raft. His fingers scrapped the polished wood, but he was once again falling without arrest.

He was still holding the shirt piece as the scenery flashed by. Not that it did him any good, aside for giving him something to hold onto. He tried to crumple it up under himself to cushion the impact, and it must’ve helped somewhat because he didn’t lose consciousness when he collided with one of the broken Viewers.

Still alive. It didn’t feel very good, though.

Fortunately, the Viewer was very dead and broken, and no retaliation came when he crawled off the shattered backside and flopped onto the floor. Solid ground. He raised his head to check, there was enough light from… somewhere. The other Viewers that managed to survive with minimal impairments, were up and wallowing around. He should probably move.

One of the vacant faced peopled heaved its dislocated head his way and gave its most agitated screech.

He took a long, deep gasp on the dust filled air, and coughed harshly. Definitely needed to move.

But when he sprang to his feet, they failed him. Not that they were in pain, more like they didn’t want to move him anymore. He crouched low and hugged his knees, taking another hard lungful of more chalky air. It was so hard to breathe; harder to stand and hold his weight. Cringing at the harsh shrill, he dared look back and just see where it was.

The Viewer swam across the broken bodies, gurgling. If it had eyes, they might’ve been flashing sparks.

He pitched forward with a wet fit of gagging and made the weirdest noise ever. But his feet seemed to have received the delayed message, because he was stumbling forward, dodging around chunks of ruble and cracked panels of wall. He scrambled over a series of planks and crashed to the other side. The Viewer wouldn’t let up.

A long slat of light in the wall snagged his undivided focus, and he scurried under a crumbling desk to reach it. For a moment, or forever maybe, the Viewer fumbled around searching. While it is on that mission, he squeezed through the tight opening and shuffled all the way out.

He never thought the rain would be so good against his dusty clothing. He was barely starting to dry off in there, but he was so choked on dust. He needed to be outside in the air and water for, for a bit.

Then a sound he decided he did not like, erupted further along the building side. The Viewer flung itself out of a window and landed on the sidewalk in a shower of glittering teeth. It barely landed, when it began twitching.

He sat down, wrapping his coat tail around his knees and laid his head down. Not unfair. This was so unfair. He didn’t care how wet he was now, or how much of the dirt soaked out of his clothing. Everything was so despairing and empty. He just wanted it all to be over. He wanted to have her back, see that she was safe and in one piece. He wanted more than anything, to see her safe. But he didn’t know if he had it in him anymore, if he had that kind of strength still.

He shut his eyes and just listened to the rain hammering against the walls and cement around him. The puddles sloshing, the smell of oil and….

His eyes popped open and a clap of lightening near blinded him. It was a bad dream, replaying itself over and over. His skin bristled, and that whittling pain worked its way through the back of his skull and into his chest. Letting his head roll over, he checked the road, and the mist swirling.

There he was, at last. The tall thin man, unhurried but always where he needed to be when it was most unhelpful. The rain sizzled across his shoulders and the hat he adorned, though Mono couldn’t really see the person’s face. He imagined he was not pleased to be out in the rain.

Okay.

Mono took a deep breath, easing air across his battered ribs. Something popped in his shoulder as he slowly rose, hand stretched to the side of the fissure he crawled through. He needed to steady himself, but the more time he wasted, the nearer the tall gentleman came. He didn’t want to…. He couldn’t….

Without warning he took off, ducked into a full sprint. Cover-cover-cover-cover-cover-cover! It’s what he needed right now, somewhere to warm his muscles and assess the damage.

He tried to give the Viewer a wide berth, but the maniacal thing lurched to life and snatched for him. In a reckless leap, he dove over the wrists and kept going with barley a stagger. It was trying to get up behind him, and that was going to be a problem.

Ahead was the open wound of an alley. Was it the one he looked down on from above? They all looked the same, and usually collected the clutter and canisters that could give him hideouts. He scrambled over a shopping cart and tumbled, clawing to his feet and skipping around the corner. In his wake, the Viewer was still moving at its own pace, though mangled it was.

What would have normally brought despair, did rekindle optimism. An ugly chasm splint the alley in two down the middle, and much of the terrain was too treacherous in his condition. The reason this sinister gash pleased him though, was due to some sort of… bridge or ruptured fence, along one side. It was flush to the remains of a devastated building, the tall skyscraper bent and as if swaying in the harsh wind.

If he lost his footing or the slates failed, he would plummet. But the risk was worth it, given his options. He skipped across the chunks of asphalt and made it to the edge. The fence felt study enough, for his weight anyway. Without a thought he latched on and began scooting along the horizontal rail path. He looked over as the Viewer came hurtling across the ruined road, squealing.

Then it plunged. Nothing was bellow but darkness and mist. He never heard it connect with anything, not even the sides.

He nearly lost his grip. That was satisfying to watch, even if he didn’t get to see where it wound up. But he had to hurry, he was okay moving but holding still too long ached his muscles. With more care and paying close attention to the wooden slates, he scooched dutifully along. The other side of the chasm wasn’t that far, but he wasn’t accustomed to moving sideways or dangling so long.

When he reached the end of the level ladder, the end bent and arched downward. He stared at the dark emptiness beneath his feet, and then looked at the eroded ledge further away. And he looked around some more, wondering if there was an easier way to do this; meanwhile, his shoulders burned and his ribs throbbed.

This might end badly, but it was going to be worse if he stalled longer. Bracing his feet into the fence, he leapt and fell.

And fell.

His fingers bore into the clay earth, and his slide was arrested. Okay. Okay. That wasn’t bad-bad.

Looking up, he inspected the jagged edge of the road. His breath was shaking, each puff shuddering against the paper mask. One hand up, then the next. He dug his toes into the grainy soil and inched up. Little by little. His fingernails fastened into the icy pebbles, and by his fingertips alone, hauled himself up and rolled over the edge. Everything in him whirred or hummed or vibrated; his shoulders trembled, he could scarcely get a good breath in.

For good measure, he scooted away – palms and knees skittering across the road. Solid ground. He’d never thought he’d be so happy to be on a desolate old road, of all things. He sat on his haunches and tilted his head back, as another impressive slice of light splint the sky. When the radiance faded out, so did his soul. He let his head tilt back further, and further, until his neck was stretched tight. He took a shaky breath and swallowed, but not a thought crossed his mind.

There was the constant in this treacherous world. A tall man in a hat, a very Thin Man. Approaching, as if he had all the time in the world.

And as Mono flipped his gaze back to the chasm, and what was meant to be his deliverance from his tormentors, it reverted back into what it had been, and never had ceased being. A death trap. A spring loaded snare. An awaiting grave.

He sank deep into the safety of his coat and brought his hands to his eyes, blotting out the sight of rain, the reflections in the puddles everywhere, the harsh crash of lightening. His breathing picked up as the bitter prattle of needles drilled his nerves, warning him, begging him. MOVE. He could not, he was done. This was good enough, he needed… he didn’t know what he needed. He didn’t want to need anything, anymore.

Everything in him seized up when the rain stopped falling.

#little nightmares #little nightmares fanfic #little nightmares fanfiction #mono #the thin man #fanfic #fanfiction #he runs #the man in the hat

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sneakerdoodle · 4 years ago

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I was going to release this as a long video essay but devices and software had conspired against me and eventually drained my patience, so here it is in the written form. My magnum opus. My 15 pages long analysis of the three Infinity Train seasons currently out.

1. Introduction

So for starters, I watched Infinity Train way too late, only a few weeks before the release of Book 3. And it immediately gave me MANY many thoughts, head full... Needless to say, when the first 5 episodes of Book 3 were released I was HYPED. So hyped that, being on a vacation out in the countryside, with better connection only availble upon climbing a nearby hill, I made some. sacrifices. To get there after dark, when everyone else was sound asleep.

[id: two screenshots of separate discord messages by someone with a handle “fern”, one reading “ also i decided to not risk bothering people/dogs by opening the gate, so i jumped the swamp instead, except i didn’t actually cover it, my foot got stuck, i barely saved my shoe, and i need to do that again to get back bc i am locked out”, another reading “well” with a photo of a person’s legs covered in black dirst from feet to knees. end id]

And by the rules of friendly bullying, I am now destined to have that night haunt me forever. Naturally.

[id:discord chat search results for the word ”swamp” (38 results found), cropped so that a part of one message is readable, saying “... KNOW it was the SWAMP that embraced ME, not the other way around”, another (by someone with a handle “Fleur” saying “you already DID embrace a swamp”. end id]

[id: a message from the same person saying “he asks ‘how was your swamp’”. end id]

[id: a message from the same person saying “big words coming from mx. soggy feet” with an angry red overlay. end id]

And, well. The first two Books had left me with a sense of assuredness, the underlying motif of them appearing empowering and infinitely comforting, and I was excited to get another supporting pillar in season 3. Another story to turn to in time of need to remind me that I have the power to make my life a better one, that it is never too late to make something of where I am. And, well, it's not that Book 3 didn't continue the topic of personal choice and growth, but the story it told added... let's say, more weight to the idea of personal development.

That is perhaps only natural: narratives need to grow, to develop, to take the themes explored in them further, deeper with every coil of the spiral. And a more, grave, exploration of them will only bring them closer to life. But in the aftermath of Book 3 I had to deal with a certain sense of powerlessness, not being able to fit it into a neat system, put it on a shelf in a shiny frame of witty analysis and call it a day. But, quite ironically, I believe that this exact feeling of unending change and death of comfort is the exact thing the show wants us to get comfortable with. And that's what I want to talk about here. Infinity Train's core narrative of an individual versus the wrold, individual versus change. The very concept of personhood, the relationship between the person and their environment and the way to approach it that is shown as perhaps the most productive.

I’ll start with my Many Thoughts on the first two books to explain what I thought was the underlying message of both of them.

2. Book 1: The Perennial Child and the Unproducitve Protagonist Complex

Book 1 establishes the core elements of the narrative wonderfully, the writing is smooth, effortless, beautiful and takes you on a wonderul, deeply impactful and bittersweet emotional ride. We have Tulip, The Perennial Child herself, who has to renegotiate her relationship with the world, with life, change, and other people's power to bring said change. Tulip is also to learn true connection and make peace with its price.

The narrower narrative of a story centered around a divorce is a perfect gateway into a broader one, so let's explore the specifics of the foremer first. Tulip's mindset is the mindset of a child from a dysfunctional family. The notion of blame is very strong in her perception of the world. On one hand, she sufferes from a misplaced sense of responsibility for the way things are, as she admits in her conversation with One One. That is the most natural for someone who grew up in an unstable environment, with parents whose relationship was not harmonic and healthy. A child caught in the middle of adults' anger and argumments internalizes that anger and those arguments as something having to do with them. And that's what we see Tulip go through, with her having to listen to her parents fight because of her needs.

[id: a screenshot from Infinity Train Book 1 showing younger Tulip, a read-headed girl, sitting between her two parents upset as her father is telling something to her mother angrily. end id]

Tulip also has to step in as a caregiver to a suffering adult, tucking her dad in at night; the dialogue emphasizes that their usual roles are being reversed in that situation. Growing up in the middle of constant conflicts, having to provide care and comfort and stability to someone who was supposed to take care of her, had naturally resulted in a deeply ingrained painful perception that Tulip is the one responsible for her environment, is the one to blame when it is “broken”, and is the one who should step up and fix it, make it right.

Then, on the other hand, there is the notion of blame Tulip puts on others, specifically her parents. Here, we see the same mindset but reversed: Tulip feels caught in the middle of their divorce and demands that they make it right, make it work, for her sake. She needs her family, she needs stability, she needs her parents to work out their schedules, she needs to get to the game design camp. And she is prone to seeing her parents as people who are cruelly destroying her life and her family for no apparent reason.

I am not calling her entitled, of course; ideally, stability is exactly what parents need to provide their children with. That is their mission. And when they fail, it is more than natural for children to feel hurt and betrayed. In a way, they are. Tulip's agony over her parents' divorce is never mocked nor undermined in the show, either; it is shown with the deepest compassion. So this is not so much about calling her feeligns invalid, but about looking for ways to redefine the situation in a way that would help Tulip heal. The way out of her agony seems to be to abandon the mindset that puts her at the center of her family life – and at the center of the world, in general. Things are not that simple; people have reasons for behaving the way that they do outside of how it affects her; and avoiding and rejecting that truth hurts her, first and foremost. Feeling like the center of the universe isn't so much selfish or arrogant or toxic; it's just painful, and Tulip needs to step out of it, for her own sake.

[id: screenshot from Infinity Train Book 1 showing the two adults from before, Tulip’s parents, with exaggerated demonic features, surrounded by flames. end id]

An important thing to discuss is that the notion of “blame” can only exist if there is indeed something wrong with the world. Let's go back to Tulip's defining conversation with One One, in which she gets to say some incredibly important words: “It's not your fault the car is this way.There isn't a fault, it just is.”. “No fault” can mean “no one to blame” as much as “there is actually nothing wrong with the world”. The words “It just is” carry this simple and raw reality check that forces us to accept the way things are, with no emotional withdrawal or avoidance of it.

The world simply is the way it is, and even if the way it is hurts us, it doesn't mean that what hurts us is wrong.

I would like to suggest that the Unfinished Car itself, the residents of which continue adapting to their unconventional reality and genuinely thriving in it through acceptance and flexibility, are here to emphasize that. We may not like the way things are, but that doesn't mean we should go looking for someone to blame and force to “fix” them, be out ourselves and others. We shouldn't ferociously attack what hurts us with wrenches, kicking and screaming and tyring to get it to Work Already. Sometimes the only thing we can do is to accept the reality of it, let go, and see what we ourselves can do to feel happy and content in the present circumstances.

Making peace with the way the world is, renouncing responsibility for it outside of her personal decisions, is exactly what Tulip gets to learn on the train. Being half-abducted by it during a time when Amelia has taken over and no one is there to give a nice welcoming message with specific instructions, Tulip is deeply distraught by the mysteries surrounding her, and infinitely frustrated by her seeming inability to 'logic' her way through the challenges. She boards the train as a girl whose main need is to create a semblance of control over her environment, through understanding it.

[id: two shots of Tulip’s sketchbook where she is tryng to figure out train’s puzzles. end id]

She is at the center of the universe, she is responsible for the way things are, and it is up to her to figure them out.

That is a lone, individualistic journey of a single person who only wants to deal with their own life, their own problems, and Tulip does not welcome any companions at the beginnig of it. It makes sense for her to seek solitude: she feels overwhelmingly responsible for her own little personal world, just how unbearable would it be to let it merge with other people's lives, for her to suddenly be at fault when those she cares about are hurt? Not to mention that new people are new unknowns, new factors that can make her life harder, more confusing and painful. For a person stuck in her desperate desire for control, it makes a lot of sense to prefer to deal with her problems on her own and expect others to do the same.

Meeting One One, who is the first to care, and Atticus, who is there to dispense his pearls of wisdom about the resources we find in each other, the value of friendship and its ultimate worth in the face of responsibility and risk of loss that comes with it, is what helps Tulip find comfort and humility in her relationship with others. She is simply one of the many people influencing each other's lives; she is not at the center, not at fault for the pain that comes to others, even if they were hurt through their association with her; it was their chocie to lend her a hand or a paw, and they had the right to make that choice.

Similar humility of being just one of the many is found in Tulip's relationship with the world at large, too, shown through her relationship with the train. First, she is frustrated and impatient, trying to figure out the most rational logical way to proceed in her attempts to control what happens to her next. Then, as she finds joy and connection, things become easier, she finds a rhythm that works for her, as seen at the start of “The Ball Pit Car”. And then soon after that, in swoops Amelia, ready to wreck havoc and quench Tulip's progress by trying to kill one of her friends and turning the other into a monster, and pinning it all on her.

Losing Atticus is far too big of a blow, and so Tulip gives up her lessons and falls into fatalism, feeling like she has no control over her fate, like she will never be allowed to make it off the train.

But the core component of Tulip's character is her ability to “bounce back”. She loses her progress quite tangibly, with the number going up – and yet reverses that development rapidly, when she gives it all another try and subsequently learns the truth about Amelia. Finding out that the current self-appointed conductor who has been terrorizing cars and threatening Tulip and her friends is just a person, Tulip asks a very important quesiton: “What's stopping me from doing what she did?”. She stops interpreting her surroundings as alien, hostile and created to act against her, in weird incomprehensible ways that seem to be mocking her attempts to find a shred of logic to them. Instead, she takes full control of her own actions and starts using her environment to her own benefits, much like Amelia did. But Tulip takes it a step further and approaches it in a healthier fashion. Where Amelia is desperately trying to make the world do her bidding, Tulip states a simple objecitve: help her friend, - and looks at her options.

Tulip steps into her power when she realizes her choices and actions matter and have full weight. That restores her faith into being able to help Atticus. She cannot control her surroundings fully, she cannot control how other people behave, and trying to make herself responsible for it is unfair to herself and others and hurts everyone. She can, however, make her own choices and use her own skills to strive to perserve what is important to her.

Once again, that mindset is directily opposed to Amelia's. In Book 1, Amelia is stuck in the constant attempts to recreate her life, to change the world around her, to bend her environment to her will instead of growing internally, accepting the change and adapting to it, taking responsibility for her own feelings and not for what surrounds her. The key motivation in the prison she has created for herself is grief. Unwilling to let go of the world she once shared with someone she loved, not wanting to accept the passing of something that was incredibly important to her, Amelia stagnates, rejects the thought of progress, of healing, of moving on. To start to get over such a loss is to create distance between yourself and what you are mourning. When you move on, you leave it futher and furher behind with each step. And so Amelia decides to stay exactly where she is: in the depth of soul-shattering suffering. Symbolically, she never even leaves the pod she was delivered to the train in, stays at the very beginning of her recovery journey, turns her pain into her armor until forcefully broken out of it by Tulip.

The two characters are perfect for each other as counterforces; even more so, the very environment that Amelia has created, the one that frustrates Tulip with all the unanswered questions and mysteries, is the exact one that would motivate this girl to grow. This is something to keep in mind when approaching Infinity Train's narrative: Amelia is a perfect antognist to Tulip, and it is through encountering her that Tulip grows. Amelia's mistakes result in Tulip's progress.

A key moment in the two characters' confrontation is Amelia's offer to give Tulip a car of her own, where her and her family can be pitcture-perfect and happy in the exact way Tulip wants them to be. By that point in the narrative Tulip has already had to face the truth of her family situation, the reality of it, it not being anyone's fault nor her parents' whim, sad things simply just happening for reasons outside of anyone's control. And with Amelia's offer, she has to come painfully close to the truth that she has just started making peace with once again. She has to really internalize the fact that her real parents were not happy together, and wouldn't be happy in this simulated reality; and if they were, they would not truly be the people she knows.

Tulip acknowledges the painful and beautiful truth of life: if you want to be surrounded by real people you can love, people that can love you, you need to give them the freedom to live their lives, freedom to hurt you, to walk away, to change the life you share, to have their own personal feelings that might be different from the ones you wish they had. They need to have freedom to make choices. It is scary, and it hurts, but that is the only way to have something real. While Amelia is obsessed with molding her environment in the image of her perfect life, and failing miserably, Tulip realizes that to reunite with her parents she needs to accept that, as long as they are in her life, things can change between them; and that is okay. That is the only way love can exist. With the risk of loss and pain, not any less worth it for that.

At the end of her journey, Tulip has learned the nature and price of connection, and her place in the complicated, irrational, incomprehensible world. She gets to accept that things don't need a reason for happening, that there is not always someone to blame and demand reparations from. She gets to accept that she is just one person - but that realization gives her so much personal power. As just one person, she is free from the weight of the world she used to carry on her shoulders; as just one person, she has the full scope of her personal skills and power to protect herself and those she loves, to change with the world and adapt to it, once she starts treating it as a friend and engaging with it on its own terms. At the end of her arc, she truly gets to say that she is ready for everything: she learns a whole new way to approach life that makes handling change much less painful.

She is a protagonist that gives up the protagonist complex, telling her she is the central point of the larger narrative. And through that, she finds peace and flexibility.

What is fascinating is that the narrative itself then supports that idea by removing Tulip from the center of the show. In the next book we follow the arc of Lake, my beautiful perfect child. And with it being centered around the idea of Lake's personhood and them transcending the role of a denizen, that decision could not have been any more metatextually perfect.

3. Book 2: Cracked Reflection and the Relationship between Personhood and Connection

In the first season, Lake is a side character that appears for just one episode, contributes to the protagonist's journey and is then gone. But as the story shifts and focuses on them, we see their struggle as they try to break out of the role of a 'supporting character' and prove their completion and worth outside of their contribution to someone else's story. Their intial place in the narrative and their initial position within their own story echo each other beautifully, and this is the exact kind of writing excellency that has me absolutely hooked. Thank you Infinity Train.

Quite interestingly, the idea of personhood is explored in relation to the theme of connection. Lake shares their journey with Jesse, and the two character arcs mirror each other, dealing with the relationship between personal freedom and external bonds.

Lake and Jesse operate under the same false pretense that to connect to people means to be what they want you to be, that in order to have friends you have to sacrifice who you are, what you want. They approach this false predicament from the opposite ends: Lake by avoiding any connection altogether and Jesse by readily caving in to peer pressure, adult pressure, just... general imposion of everyone else's expectations, because he suffers from the compulsive need to be liked and accepted. Lake refuses to fit in and is left to deal with their horrifying situation alone, Jesse hurts himself and those he loves in order to fit in.

It's very interesting how the narrative connects reflectiveness to connection. 'Empathy Goes', the song about friendship that Jesse sings, starts with lines “When I look at you, I see me” – words that take on a quite literal uncomfortable meaning for Lake.

[id: a screenshot from Infinity Train Book 2 of a small girl looking at her reflection in a reflective child (Lake)’s head, Lake unamused. end id]

Then the thematic core of season 2 – Lake's conversation with the dying Sieve, in which the latter torments them – introduces the thought that, by befriending Jesse and helping him grow, Lake became what he needed them to be; became his reflection.

That is, of course, not true. The idea that Lake had simply fulfilled the role of a denizen is disproven by the fact that they are the protagonist of Book 2 that goes through the same journey as Tulip, meeting the exact people and creatures and foes that influence and challenge them in the most important ways. At the end of the day, their victory was not changing their external circumstances but their internal approach to them.

As this awesome person has pointed out, that to get off the train, Lake had to embrace their reflectiveness. However heartbreaking was their enraged plea to have their personhood recognized, they never really did change One One's mind. In his perception, they remained a denizen, “so good at helping”.

The truth is, however, is that yes, Lake has helped Jesse - by being themselves unapologetically, by not fitting in, by showing him that that is an option, and in that life, you can still be loved and cared about – because Jesse without doubt cares about Lake very deeply.

But Jesse has helped Lake, too, has changed them – by giving them connection and recognition, by showing them they can be accepted and loved without the need to change who they are, without the need to tailor themselves to another person and 'mirror' them. At the end, the two get one escape for two people – because their journey was a shared one, because their paths cannot be separated, because they have influenced each other equally.

And much like Amelia was the perfect person to challenge Tulip, One One with his inability to think outside of the algorythm and acknowledge Lake's personhood, was perfect for challenging them and putting them into a situation where they had no other choice but to accept, acknowledge and appreciate the connections they have made, and the fact that those connections define them - partially.

Reflectiveness represents bonds, letting other people into your life, letting them influence you, teach you something, ask something from you – and, fascinatingly, that seems to be a part of what defines us, gives us personhood. Are we just what we do for other people? No, obviously not. Are we simply what separates us from others, what makes us unique, who we are completely on our own, with no regard to what unites us with other people, what they bring into our lives and what we bring into theirs? The answer Infinity Train provides appears to be no, once again.

Lake names themselves – finds a true, real name that they identify with, when they embrace their reflective nature and see themselves in a body of water that, yes, lets the world in, reflects it, while also undoubtedly having a life and depth of its own. Personhood, real, full human experience seems to be the subtle dance of individualism and connection, both what defines us as separate from others and what tethers us to them.

I mentioned how Lake's journey being similar to Tulip's is a part of what validates their personhood. That's one of those fascinating things in Infinity Train's writing: how the intial split of the cast into the passenger and supporting denizen characters appears almost like commentary on the protagonist complex, with Tulip actually having to internalize the idea that the world and her life are not centered solely around her, are not all about her happiness and growth, that some things happen just because they do, not because they have something to do with her.

Then, opening with a lead that needs to outgrow the protagonist complex, the show moves on to that character's narrative foil and shows them grow into the central point of the narrative, fighting to have the world recognize them as the main character of their separate, independent story. And to us viewers there is no doubt that Lake is a person of their own and has full rights to personal protagonism – they are the one we are watching, whose struggle is the focus of the Book, they are who we sympathise with in the story.

This wonderful meta decision really drills in the idea that every single character we only ever catch a glimpse of is the main hero of their own journey, and has a full life and full personhood outside of the role they play in the story we watch unravel. At the same time, as per the rules of narrating, we only see the people and events that serve the current protagonist's growth. Through that, and through being an antalogy that unravels by latching onto a secondary character time after time, book after book, exploring their own journeys and inner worlds, Infinity Train creates a breathtaking polycentric model of reality, in which every single person is the main character on their own path, with people around them contributing something of value to that path – and the main character contributing something to theirs, becoming in turn a secondary supporting character in someone else's story.

Tulip and Atticus are a wonderful example of that: embarking (hehe) on the same journey for different reasons, helping each other, accepting the responsibility that comes with being each other's friends and companions, welcoming the pain that comes with connection and at the end aiding each other in their quests. And Jesse and Lake are much the same.

The idea of companionship being the escape is only directly introduced in Book 2, but it had already sprouted in Book 1. The themes of connection, renegotiating one's relationship with the seemingly hostile world, and coming to terms with everyone's place in it as one of the many, but having endless personal power over our own narrative, are constantly and continuously present in the show, with the differnet smaller plots and character arcs beautifully overlapping.

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Analyzing all of this in the past, I felt incredibly secure and confident in the seeming underlying lesson. That there is no reason to fight the world at large, the things that are outside of your or someone else's control. And that doesn't mean “not standing up to those who are hurting others”, as shown in Tulip's confrontation with Amelia, Jesse's confrontation with the Apex. It means that some things, like where you have come from, what the relationships of people around you are, and who you have lost, cannot be changed, and our subconscious attempts to fight them only hurt us in the end.

The idea of our boundless ability to find resources in ourselves and people around us, learn from people that surround us, accept their help and offer them ours, find love once we accept the change love brings; the idea that we always have the ability to thrive in our current circumstances, once we accept that we ourselves are getting in our own way, out of the unwillingness to let go of something we hold dear; the idea that we can always, always bounce back, that it is never too late for any of us, and that true companionship will always be there to give us escape...

The idea of the world as our friend, with its own will and wishes, something that is not to be controlled and bruteforce- reasoned through, but something to engage with...

These all gave me strength, held me up, and gave me a new paradigm that allowed me to look at the reality from a place of comfort and assuredness. The paradigm of the complicated web of life where everything is in its place, where our shortcomings create valuable lessons for someone else, where our choices, even if they hurt us and others, create lessons, as established by Sieve, have their place in the big picture, like what we see with Amelia's mitakes and Tulip's progress.

Then, the idea that in that big picture, you are exactly where you need to be, always, because you always have the only thing you need to grow and recover and thrive – you have yourself and the people around you. How infinitely comforting this is, how solid.

And then Book 3 has arrived. And holy shit y’all.

4. Book 3: Cult of the Conductor and Trust vs Control

And once again, this season has not necessarily disproven all of the aforementioned stuff, just... put a lot more emphasis on the reality of pain people have to endure. In this book we had to witness simultaneously a recovery – within Grace's arc, - a descend – within Simon's, - and an actual, raw trauma, that Hazel had to suffer through on screen. We had to watch Simon murder Hazel's caregiver and repeatedly make her feel unsafe, and Grace withdraw herself and leave Hazel alone because of her ungoing identity crisis. We have to come uncomfortably close to the reality of the pain that shapes people, and with how horribly we all can hurt each other. That pain is no longer obscured by the passage of time, it's not something in the character's past. And that is... very rattling.

But, once again, the constant running themes and motifs remain. Once again, the show tackles the idea of change, of connection and the relationship between the individual and the world.

Regarding the latter, what we see with the Apex is the protagonist complex projected on a group. The Apex myth simultaneously places them at the top of the world – hence the name – and makes them the poor victims of the evil False Conductor that of course seeks to destroy them and targets them specifically. Grace and Simon developed the idea of themselves and their group as the sole people for whom the train exists, as well as the chosen deliberate targets of the entity that had taken over their environment, instead of accepting that maybe the world does not revolve around them!

Upon meeting Amelia they learn that they are not chosen, that they are not on the train because the outside world did not recognize their value, that there was never someone at the top who had their best needs in mind, and that the entity that calls the shots now does not actually know anything about them besides the fact that they exist.

The theme of connection makes a comeback hand in hand with the motif of empathy, with the book opening with Jesse's song 'Empathy Goes'. And that's what's being explored in Grace's and Simon's respective arcs with relation to denizens: their ability to show compassion and recognize someone else's personhood.

The narrative is multi-layered here. On one hand, what is being explored is a group mentality, a cult mentality that paints the outside world as simultaneously inferior and hostile, and we can see Grace and Simon accidentally inventing some pretty mean propaganda techniques. Whew, those kids. But then on the other, the idea of denizens as projections, 'nulls', incapable of actual feeling, only pretending to be real people... this brings to mind such complicated and staggering concepts as philosophical zombies or the idea of the world as something that is simply a projection of your, you currently reading thinking person, brain, where nothing is real except for your own consciousness. And since it is simply impossible to possess others and make sure they are indeed living breathing feeling creatures and not just NPCs in one wild, wild dream, empathy becomes a fascinating choice. What we're left with is 1) believing that other people do in fact feel what they say they do, 2) treating them with respect just in case or because being mean feels bad, or, 3) you know, deciding that we're on top of the world, and are the Apex predator, and everything exists for us, and we can do whatever we want with people around us.

It's interesting to see this mindset as a group mentality, but it makes sense, too; with the Apex we get to watch what happens when a group only recognizes the personhood of those that are a part of it. The thing is, there is no actual empathy within that group, either; we see that once Grace stops fitting into it as smoothly. To the Apex, she becomes a 'void', a nothing, something hollow, devoid of status and power and therefore rights and feelings that need to be respected. Simon's approach is “whatever I do not like is not real”, so by proxy, the new version of Grace is nothing, and should be erased.

This lack of empathy can be tracked deeper and deeper down to Simon as the extremely tyrannical leader, his refusal to recognize the personhood of anyone who does not agree with him. It is natural for us all to act as if what we believe is correct; otherwise, why would we believe it? But Simon takes it to the extremes, refusing to even for a second consider an alternative point of view, and ends up locked in a mindset in which he is the only person entitled to the ability to see the truth, and everyone else somehow is inferior and incomplete. That's the protagonist complex, that's the experience of a person who considers themselves at the center of the world. Why would he out of all people be the keeper of truth? He simply does not ask himself that, because he does not stop to think about the existence of others, or their experiences.

However, it wouldn't be correct to say that Simon is completely devoid of empathy. It's just that his version of it is extremely self-centered and unable to discern between his personal situation and someone else's reality. As my awesome friend @buttercup-bug has pointed out, the relationship between Grace and Hazel and Simon and Hazel is built on extending that limited, conditional empathy. As they have noted, the golden and silver masks at the start of the season that are performing the song 'Empathy Goes' represent the two of them, the golden one directly intersecting with the one Grace wears, and in general gold and silver matching their color schemes.

The position of the masks matches their position on the stage, as well: they are the two leading figures in the big messed-up play that is the Apex, removed from reality, avoiding it, living in their own little world. They perform that reality in different ways, Grace leading with smiles and emotions/emotional manipulation, Simon being more uptight and serious.

[id: two shots from Infinity Train Book 3, showinng first a scene with halves of two theatrical masks, a sorrowful and a laughing one, surrounded by undefined actor creatures; then Simon and Grace, two young people, Simon white and blonde, Grace black, with shortr dredlocs, wearing a golden masks, holding hands with each other and two other kids in a curtain call manner, with fire raging behind them. end id]

Now, returning to the empathy motif: as it was pointed out to me, the two extend their empathy to Hazel in their own ways, representing their relationship with the inner child. Grace relates to Hazel as a lonely young girl seeking connection with other children, and engages with her in a fun, upbeat way, making it so they enjoy each other's company and spend time together like friends do. That helps her get closer to Hazel, get genuinely attached and through that let Hazel influence her worldview a bit, and be there for Hazel through harder, less fun things as well, till.. a certain point.

Simon, on the other hand, sees himself in Hazel as someone stranded on the train and under the care of a denizen, and automatically perceives Tuba as a threat. And he expresses his empathy in a direct, serious, violent way, by doing what he thinks needs doing: by getting rid of Tuba without making time for smiles and fun times.

Grace is the leader, she engages with people emotionally, making them feel needed and special and through that keeping the group together. Simon is the general who leads the army in what he perceives as the Apex's attempt to protect themselves. His approach does not leave much space for bodning. And it makes sense for him as someone much more focused on safety to have his understanding of denizens as dangerous run deeper, be more at the forefront, in his focus. He’s the one calculating the “danger levels” of encountered denizens. And of course the incident with The Cat makes it much more personal. I think it's fair to assume that both Grace and Simon must've had some unfortunate run-ins with the inhabitants of the train, with Grace being initially so set in her belief that denizens are dangerous because they are unpredictable, and you never know what they will do next. Though the only time we actually see her endangered is by the steward that Amelia had reprogrammed. Either way, the two had started off feeling endangered by the unpredictable and unreliable creatures surrounding them, and probably, in their attempts to find a reason to trust each other and feel safer around each other in a dangerous and confusing world, decided that passengers must be inherently good, denizens must be inherently bad.

There is, however, no actual trust in that, none at all between them.

I'd say that “trust”' is the core motif of season 3. Infinity Train tends to adopt an aphorism that keeps reappearing throughout a season, pronounced by different characters or in different contexts, highlighting the thematic movement and change and the development of the theme within the plot. In Book 1, it was the collocation “bounce back”, as the core of Tulip's character. In Book 2, we had “You can't spell 'escape' without 'companionship'”. In Book 3, our boy Roy introduced the phrase “Teamwork starts with two people trusting each other”. Simon's horrifying rendition of it emphasized the idea that not everyone counts as a person, so not everyone is deserving of trust. You can only rely on those who fit your narrow criteria of one.

However, even when Grace and Simon were on the same side of the barricades they've built with their own hands, they could never actually trust each other. Their bond and their care for each other were extremely conditional, hinging on the ultra specific image of a passenger, and influenced by the power hierarchy they had created.

We see that Grace is reluctant to trust Simon or the Apex with the changes happening to her, with her number going down, because she didn't want them to think “less of her”. Her personal issues, her fear of loneliness and abandonment and the idea that she needs to be something specific, someone who is always strong and right for people to stick around her, have certainly played into that. Grace is so used to comforting herself through saying the world is mean to her because she is special; she wears her “special” status as a mask, she has the highest number, she is “so good at the train”, and that's what keeps others around her in this reality, keeps them needing her. But it's not actually about her as a person. But it is also just the system the two have established. Numbers are power; one's number going down is their failure.

The amount of trust only diminishes as the plot progresses, with Grace's perspective shifting but her not being able to trust Simon with those thoughts and feelings – quite understandably, since he remained adamant about his beliefs till the very end. Grace could never truly trust Simon outside of the invented value system they've been existing within for many years. And that is reflective of her constant inner struggle, not being able to trust anyone with her self, without any myth explaining why she is awesome and irreplacable. Hazel was the first person who spent time around Grace while also falling out of the equation, not being influenced by the Apex propaganda, and that is why their bond was so life-changing to Grace – aside from the aforementioned grounds for empathy.

Now, was Simon ever able to truly trust Grace? I think he desperately needed to, and facing the fact that Grace has in some ways betrayed that trust by keepings things from him was one of the things that played into him going off the rails. (...That pun was not intended. )

As it was pointed out many times by many viewers, Simon seems to know quite a lot about funerals, which means that he probably had to attend one as a kid. Then, his relationship with The Cat seems to be a metaphor for neglectful parenting due to an addiction. The Cat is a collector, her treasures seeming to be extremely important to her. The voice in which Simon says the words “She is collecting again” hints on a long, ongoing problem. Then in the memory of his meeting with Grace, we see that The Cat had actually probably endangered him on one of her car crawls. Overall, Simon's childhood seems to had been an extremely unstable one, with nothing and no one he could truly rely on, with parental figures either dying or neglecting him. It is similar to Tulip's struggle, but most likely running even deeper.

We see Simon continuously leaning on Grace, which at times causes her frustration: she snaps and asks bitterly if she always has to tell him what to do. When Grace starts behaving weirdly, starts changing, acting in a way that Simon can't understand and is not used to, he probably feels endangered, like his life is growing incomprehensible and unstable once again, like things are slipping through his fingers and out of his control.

But at the end of the day, not one of them was truly relying on the other. Grace never trusted Simon to just stick around because he liked her, she needed the upper hand, the leading position, the idea of being “very good at the train”, and the system in which they should stick together as the passengers threatened by the dangerous environment and “the false conductor”. Simon never truly trusted Grace as we should trust those we love: with the freedom for them to grow and change and still remain someone we can feel safe and happy around. Instead of taking that leap of faith and relying on her to do right by him, he was in fact leaning on the system they've created, clinging to it desperately to the very end. People may change, but the system will stay the same, as long as he doesn't reconsider his worldview, and he had decided to never abandon it, whatever happens.

The lack of trust is warranted by their treatment of each other. How could Simon rely on Grace if she had never shown him her true self? How could Grace trust Simon with her genuine self if he needed her to be something very specific and unchanging? Their bond, while being something that helped them through the lonely existence in a weird, dangerous place, was in fact incredibly, tragically toxic. That is not something that people acknowledge easily. These two held onto their semblance of friendship for dear life, but that only worsened their respective problems, made them less and less capable of actual genuine friendships.

Both of their characters are very complex and convincing, and before I speak directly of some less pleasant parts of them I want to establish that I love Grace and am so very proud of her, and glad to see that a Black woman character did not remain an antagonist and got explored deeply and compassionately. And that while I was absolutely enraged by Simon's actions throughout the season, I can also appreciate the depth and complexity of the show's writing in his arc, and the tragedy of it, and I do feel for him quite deeply.

It is also worth mentioning that, even tho they are on the older end of 'kids', they are both kids still, with their formative years spent in unfortunate, unhelpful environments, and the age of growth and self-discovery happening in an actual cult, even tho it is one they had locked themselves into.

So now, to what can be perceieved as the darker parts of their characters. A unifying element of both Grace's and Simon's characters are their desire for control. Both scared of what life would be without it, they bend over backwards to make people behave in the way they need them to.

Grace does that through emotional manipulation, she directs her entire demeanor into making people see her as the most knowledgable and powerful, someone they need. She makes them want to be a part of the gang, telling them that it makes them special and brave, as well as making them belive that the outside world means them harm, which is... a classic cult tactic. She hides the truth from them when the truth threatens her position and bonds with them. In the culmination of her personal growth, she admits the reason behind it: she did everything in her power to not be left alone. She tried to control the way other people see the world, and through that control how they see her, thinking that that will make them want to stick around. But her manipulation was what kept her from creating genuine connections, so after she first fell out of her own equation and then pushed Hazel away in the last desperate attempt to fit back into it, there was no one left around her. She made people need her cult, not her person. She never let them know the real her that would make them want to stay. The truth is that people change constantly, and we can't eternally push ourselves to live up to a specific expectation, so any attempt to keep people around with anything else than our genuine self are simply doomed.

Simon does not have the same talent for manipulation that Grace does, despite his attempts to use her own techniques on her when trapping her in her memories.

[id: screenshot from Book 3 showing Grace looking at Simon, who’s sitting next to her with a grave expression on his face. end id]

Lacking subtlty, he seeks to control the world around him through brute force. We see him repeatedly grabbing Grace in an unsettling, scary, invasive and violent manner. He is unable to influence her mentality like she influences the mentality of other people. He can't act subtly, through emotion and manipulation. And his desperation to control the world and force it to work in ways that suit him get externalized through physical aggression.

That does not excuse him, nor does his desperation warrant sympathy, but the idea of his shows of power being actually signs of powerlessness seems... captivating, reassuring somehow. People who lash out at us do so because they don't actually get to control how we feel, and never can. They can influence and wound us deeply, but they can never actually fully control us, they don’t get to rewrite us.

...Buuut back to the character analysis. Much like Grace who at the start was holding the position of “whatever doesn’t pleases or entertains me gets wheeled” (perhaps a reflection of her “never needed them anyway” attitude seen in how she feels about her failed attempts at friendship), Simon also denies everything that doesn't suit him, not just the value of it but the reality of it, too. Despite all reason, he refuses to believe that he had been living a lie for the last uhh number of years. If something isn't working the way he wants it to, if someone is behaving in a way he doesn't like, he deems them broken and wrong. As Grace points out, her memories are only a true and reliable source to him as long as he likes them, and once he doesn't, they must be lies.

Simon is the very embodiment of stagnation, complete lack of flexibility – out of his compulsive need to control the world, to have it remain the same and stable, after the turbulences of his childhood. He is very, very much like Tulip – but he is not given a chance to 'bounce back'. Amelia, another example of deep stagnation and refusal to accept the changes in the world, is allowed that decades after boarding the train. She might never leave it, but she can still make an effort, she can still grow, bit by bit. Simon never makes it to the point where he is ready to accept the reality and start making peace with it.

I assume that for the biggest part of the show he is simply constantly triggered. He spends time with Grace, like they used to, before the Apex – but they met and started travelling together right after The Cat had abandoned him. Then they encounter a child who has no one but a supposedly unreliable denizen taking care of her – another thing to remind Simon of his own neglect. Then they straight up bump into The Cat, and Simon learns that her addicition is still active, that nothing has changed, that what happened to him wasn't enough for his parental figure to reconsider her ways. Then things start changing, Grace starts behaving differently, abandones the 'passenger-denizen' binary and makes him feel more alone and directionless than he probably has been in years.

But after he traps her in her tape and returns to the Apex, there is at least a couple of month for him to get out of the spiral and reconsier. All Of That. and yet he doesn't. At this point his actions are not solely motivated by the very unstable state he was in – which is not to say that he wouldn't need to take responsibility for them either way. But a certain amount of time and distance from it all could have been used for reflection, and yet Simon stays firmly in his position of clinging to the system and revelling in the ultimate control he had found by becoming a leader. He creates a myth of Grace as someone who is worthless because she is unfit to be a leader. He paints himself as more reliable and powerful through the firmness of his beliefs. With him, you can always know what the rules are going to be, how to be the best. Perhaps, in his twisted horrifying perception, he was giving the Apex kids the stability he'd never had.

Going back to the question of why Simon was not given the opportunity to bounce back... Obviously, a core element of his character is his refusal to change in any form, and that’s on him. But with making peace with change being a big theme in the show from season 1, with Amelia doing the same for decades and eventually getting to a place where she had finally accepted it... This is a heavy and fascinating narrative decision.

It's good to consider that Amelia never actually succeeded at controlling the world in the way that she needed. Among all the characters, her grief was the most hopeless, most desperate: she tried to reverse time, she tried to bring someone back to life. Unlike her, Simon achieved some at least perceived control that he had been striving for. The danger of his character is that he executed his power over actual physical people, and he felt like he could actually decide what their life was going to be, what his life was going to be. He never got to lose it all, like Grace did. He never got to face just how hollow his illusion of control was. So in some ways within his arc him not getting redemption makes sense.

But what does it mean for the show at large, for the underlying message? It feels inconsistent with the Infinity Train's narrative to just make Simon out to be a cautionary tale of what happens to those who deny change, or a foil to Grace who did ended up accepting it; we've already established that in the show's polycentric system, every character is more than just a part of someone else's journey, has full existence and autonomy outside of that.

Once again quoting my wonderful smart friend @buttercup-bug, I want to refer to the end of season 3 in which Grace tells the ex-Apex kids that it is not fair for her to decide for them what their place on the train is, who they are, what life is to them; and in the same way, the unconcluded story of this book can be open to interpretations, with every one of us getting to choose what to take out of the simple reality of it. Simon's story simply happened. We can take whatever lesson we need from it.

But before we part our ways and each one decides what to think of the bone-chilling end of his arc, I want to point a couple more things out.

5. The Train as a Metaphor for Life

Something that has really fascinated me about the show's narrative ever since my marathon of the first two seasons is the concept of the train. One One seems so very sure the train inspires growth, and yet, as we have learned in season 3, he, the Conductor himself, does not actually know much about the passengers' life aboard it except their numbers. There is no established system, there is no assigning of the denizens, there is no rulebook for them, they are not aware of the specific problems of the passengers they meet. Passengers can actually die on the train, which is wild if the goal of it is to make them grow and flourish. We are so used to thinking that to heal, one needs a perfectly supportive, comfortable and safe environment, and yet the train is challenging, dangerous, unpredictable.

I think the idea here, with characters time after time having to come to terms with life being confusing, ever-changing, often painful and entirely outside of our control, is that the train is not necessarily there to soothe the wounds but to raise the stakes, challenging people in such a way that their choices and their actions and approach to the reality have much more serious consequences. Tulip learns to accept help and help others in situations that actually threaten her and her loved ones, while what she would risk in the past when shutting herself off was just upsetting some friends and family and, you know, being fundamentally alone. Jesse went from letting others bully his brother to balancing on the edge of selling Lake out, which would end their entire existence. Grace went from being a child who creates fights and eggs others on to do something stupid to being an actual teenage cult leader. The train raises the stakes exponentially, and that makes everyone on board reconsider the real price of their actions.

Aside from that and giving specific directions for growth through numbers, though, it doesn't really... do anything. It functions the way life functions: things just happen, people just behave in ways that make sense for them, and everyone has full autonomy. At the same time, we see characters encounter the exact companions that make them grow, the exact enemies that challenge them in the most important ways. To once again quote Fleur @buttercup-bug a.k.a. the established sponsor of all of the behind-the-scenes Infinity Train discussions, the train is both ambigious and very meta, and “acts both as a narrative arc machine in a storytelling sense and as a lesson provider in a life sense, which bridges the gap between story and reality in a really personal way”.

That is a wonderful way to put something that captivated me upon my first watch. The train is a metaphor for life. It is contrasted against the metaphor for death or non-existence: the lifeless wasteland through which it is constantly moving, the wasteland populated by soul-sucking parasites also symbolical of nothing other than death. The train is life that is always moving, never the same, outside of our control, bigger than us, not obeying our wishes no matter how hard we try, challenging, populated by other people that have their free will, which often hurts us. And yet, the train is a provider of companions, which are to be our escape. And they are not crafted or tailored to us, nor are we crafted for them - and yet as our paths intersect, we impact each other, and we learn from each other in incredibly meaningful ways.

When thinking about this, I've landed on two possibilities. Either the Engine or the Train – something separate from One One – is a great and omnipotent mind capabe of foreseeing how things would unravel to everyone's utmost benefit, placing the correct people at the correct places, weaving an incredibly complex web of connections in which we always meet the companions we are supposed to meet ot exchange lessons with... or it doesn't need to be at all. And I think I like the latter much more.

The train doesn't need to be that, because, as I've already proposed earlier, ourselves and the people around us, whoever they are, are all we ever need. Wherever you are right now, wherever the Universe has put you, you are supposed to be there, not because it has some grand plan and knows something that you don't, but because no matter your circumstances, you already have what you need for growth. You have yourself and you have other people and their stories, and the connection they can offer you. (Hazel, who is perhaps the most mature character we meet – which is tragic considering how many dysfunctional adults she has to be around – seeks to connect with everyone around her who is not outwardly dangerous, no matter how little in common they seem to have. And eventually something is found, some strand of connection, creating empathy.) People around you always have something to offer. You yourself always have something to offer.

I would hold onto that idea, as well as the idea of “bouncing back”, of it never being too late to get better. And I felt a bit off-balance when Simon was not given a chance to do that. But in a way, shifitng the story from fated encounters that kickstart someone's progress, like the one between Tulip and Amelia, Lake and Jesse, gives even more weight to this concept, by putting our personal decision to change into focus.

It's not all about meeting this one specific person who will show you the error of your ways; even more so, sometimes people who have a lot in common and mirror each other hold each other back instead of helping each other grow. Sometimes one of them changing only pushes the other further down when they refuse to accept that. And at the end, it is all up to us.

Getting a little bit existential here, but we are fundamentally the only ones who define our lone separate experience, and we are always on our own and solely repsonsible for ourselves. Connection is always there to support us, to teach us something, and playing a role in someone's life is what makes us real and vice versa, and at the same time we are all masters of our own destiny. We do not bear responsibility for other people's actions, and they do not bear responsibility for ours. Some environments are more suited for our growth, some less, but at the end of the day the choice to take whatever opportunities we have is up to us.

Which means that we don't have to sit around waiting for the Logical Point in our character arcs to achieve a breakthrough. The world is always there for us to engage with, to hear what it has to say. The question is, are we ready to accept it? To see it for what it is? With time it will grow louder, ignoring the truth we're avoiding will become harder, but the choice to listen is always ours. We can do it sooner rather than later. Or we can do it... never, refuse the reality, refuse change and the nature of life. Because we are the ones responsible. We can't blame the world for not delivering the needed lessons sooner in life, because even if it did, nothing would stop us from ignoring them. We can't feel entitled to endless lessons and endless comfort from people around us. We should take care of ourselves.

Which means that, wherever we are, at any point of our lives, we can always grow if we listen, if we open ourselves up to the truth. And the truth is that life is incredibly, undescribably complicated. It stretches across so many different individual experiences, and it does not prioritize a single one of them. We are a part of such a vast web of events and connections, and it is foolish to consider that the world is the way it is just to spite you or hurt you, or that it should change, stop and start spinning in the opposite direction just to ease your pain.

Things happen that no one is to blame for. There is no fault in the way the world is. Nothing is broken. Life goes on, endlessly, life changes, people change, people leave, people hurt us. That is okay. We can always change ourselves, we can be flexible and open and alive, we can extend our hand to the world and work together with it in true companionship.

Life is the way it is, wild and uncontrollable, and you cannot escape it, you cannot escape change, as long as you are alive. But you can make peace with that. Through acceptance, love and connection.

Gohms, creatures dwelling in the desert that symbolizes non-existence, parasites that symbolize death, are what awaits those who choose to get off the train. Those who try to escape the endless movement and challenges of life. You cannot truly stagnate, you cannot stop moving, you cannot stop things form changing, as long as you exist. As Simon attempts to control the world, still it, for the very last time, that is what happens to him. He stops existing. By refusing change, he refuses life itself. And loses it. And maybe it's not about him never getting to arrive at a point that would tip him over and change him. Maybe it's about his choice to not take all the opportunities that were presented to him before. Maybe he could've done something very different, whether that would have changed his fate or not, with whatever time he had left.

#infinity train #infinity train book three #infinity train book two #infinity train book one #meta #tulip olsen #lake infinity train #grace monroe #simon laurent #trauma mention tw #childhood neglect tw #addiction tw #analysis tag #OOF #ive been waiting to get this out of my head for so LONG

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