#this entirely fulled by my frustration of not seeing Omega using her weapon

[collophora]

Happy may the fourth have a 4 minutes animatic about Crosshair and Omega bounding over sniping stuff.

[fanfic-cave]

Injured Pt 1.

Rating: SFW/PG-13

Word Count: 1.6k

Pairing: Subtle hint to Hunter x Fem Jedi!OC

Warnings: Shootout/skirmish, swearing, I might hurt your favorite TBB character dont kill me yet

Summary: You commissioned the bad batch to take you to Dantooine for your own personal mission in search of a Jedi temple. How will this ex-Jedi war veteran trying to hide from the Empire help the rogue clones when they inevitable get caught up in the fight? And who will get hurt?

Authors note: I had this fun idea of writing an action piece with TBB, and I've had some more fun ideas with a Jedi OC getting caught up in their shenanigans. My first draft was kinda long winded, so i'm making this a 2 parter. If this gets well received enough to make me feel more confident in my writing (like 20-30 likes or smthing) ill post part 2 :)

ALSO im a big KOTOR fan so there's the tiniest tiniest hint to that ("jedi temple" and "Bol") with being on Dantooine.

Okay now for real, enjoy!

edit: thanks for the notes! link to pt 2 here

Your speeder zoomed by quickly, passing some local Bol ranchers. Dantooine was full of them, and farms too. The rural planet was actually quite peaceful, that was, until the empire arrived. Now that they were governing over citizens, they began cracking down and enforcing strict trade and farming laws. You interacted with some of the locals, and despite the clone wars being over they didn’t seem to have much love for the new Empire.

The Bad Batch had come to make a supply run, trade for food and fuel on the very small landing station, and also to escort you to Dantooine per your request (you had paid them too). Instead of paying with credits for their supplies, they had to do some “manual labor”, helping the local farmers. Based on how quiet they had been on your comm link, you thought they had been quite busy. You had your own objective here though, one you had just completed. Now you needed to leave.

You got closer to the station, and saw a high count of imperial troopers. You swore under your breath, and suddenly you felt like the items in your pack weighed more, or would suddenly burst into flames. Kyber crystals don’t catch fire, you told yourself. I think.

You pressed your comms and began to speak “I’m en route to the ship, and we’ve got imperials at the station, I hope you’re ready to take off.”

Silence.

“Kriff!” You said aloud. You slowed the speeder to a stop. The strange group of rogue clones were known for finding trouble. You had really hoped they wouldn’t find any while traveling with you.

“Tech, Echo, Hunter? Does anybody copy?”

You heard explosions in the distance.

Kriffing idiots! You shook your head in frustration and put a hand around your vibroblade holstered at your hip. It didn’t take the force to know they were behind this.

“You’re about to have some more company” you heard Hunter over the comms, blaster fire in the background.

“What the hell did you do??”

“Get to the ship, we need to make a fast exit, with or without you.”

More profanities went through your head. You engaged the speeder, faster than you were going earlier. You could hear blaster fire. You had been making a beeline to the ship, prepared to avoid the troopers, but something tugged at your mind.

They’re in trouble. You were a very intuitive person, partially because of your training as a Jedi, and also because that was just in your nature. You thought for a moment, contemplating what action to take.

Trust your gut.

You swerved and headed straight for the fighting. You slipped your mask on, and pulled up your hood. You saw some troopers marching towards the fighting, blasters in hand. They hadn’t noticed you were heading straight for them.

Glad I came to save your asses. You thought. Well, you needed them to pilot, so you were saving your ass too. One trooper turned, and pointed at you. The others started to notice too.

You set the speeder to continue forward without needing your foot on the accelerator, and balanced your feet on the seat. It kept accelerating in speed, heading straight to the center of the 10 or so troopers. Just before their blasters fired, you leaped off the bike gracefully, launching yourself high in the air. The speeder crashed into one trooper, and spun into another 3.

You landed with no problem, and prepared for action. You dodged several blaster shots, and pulled out your vibroblade. You dashed toward a trooper to the left, and cleanly sliced at a weak point in the armor. He clutched his side, and fell to the ground. One came behind you, grabbing your elbow. You shoved your elbow into his face, and heard a crack. He staggered back, and you ducked to avoid another blaster shot, getting a quick slash into the trooper you had just elbowed with a flick of your wrist.

You jumped and did a backflip, effectively avoiding another wave of blaster fire. On your way down, you stabbed another trooper in the side, and grabbed him, using him as a human shield to block more oncoming shots. You sheathed the sword, grabbed his hand holding the blaster, and shot towards an oncoming trooper. He fell down, and you fired at the remaining two who charged, and they were quickly out of the fight. You released the trooper you used as a meat shield. The entire group was now down and injured, not able to fight.

You dropped the blaster and started to run towards the main fight, but then you halted as a thought occurred to you. You crouched down to a fallen command trooper and took his comm links. This might come in handy. You continued forward, shoving the unit in your pack. You resumed your dash towards the source of the previous explosions. You first saw Crosshair, providing cover fire while taking cover himself behind a transport.

“The cavalry’s here” you said on your com link. Next you saw Tech, using two blaster pistols. He was close to Wrecker, who was throwing barrels at a group of troopers. You think they were filled with grain. Hunter and Echo were circling the troopers, trying to get a good flank while Wrecker was effectively distracting them. Hunter spotted you and spoke through comms “What are you doing? Get to the ship!”

You ignored him, and pulled out the blade again. You managed to ambush some troopers and sliced through them easily, taking down 3 in less than a minute. “You should thank me, I just took care of the reinforcements heading this way.”

You saw a knife hit the chest of a storm trooper you were just about to stab through the shoulder. Hunter emerged from behind you and retrieved his knife from the now fallen trooper. Show off, you thought.

“Why didn’t you go to the ship?” Hunter demanded.

“I had a feeling you guys could use the help.” You replied.

He looked at you for a moment after you said this, and with his helmet on you couldn’t get a read on what he was thinking. You thought he might be shocked at what you said. You noticed a trooper approaching you two, lining up a shot on Hunter. You quickly grabbed a stray blaster from a fallen trooper and shot him down. Hunter was quick too; within a second of your shot, he shot another trooper not too far away. He looked back to you, and gave a quick nod in thanks.

“What did you guys do to attract the Empire?” You asked suspiciously.

“Well to put it simply, we severely disabled a facility belonging to the Empire as a form of payment. They appear to be quite agitated with us.” Tech replied through comms.

You ducked to avoid another blaster shot, Echo returned the shot and the trooper fell. “Gee, you think so?” You spoke sarcastically.

“We need to retreat and get back to the ship.” Echo spoke, taking cover a few feet away.

“Where’s Omega?” You interjected. You looked around for her, still not seeing her. “Back on the ship, the mission was too dangerous for her to come.” Hunter replied.

You sighed as blaster shots continued to go off in the background. “What's the plan?” You heard Crosshair speak through comms. He sounded annoyed, but he almost always sounded annoyed to you, amongst other things.

Hunter thought for a moment, and then he addressed the group. “Alright, Crosshair, you’ll provide cover fire while we retreat. We’ll need some more noise too-”

“I’ve got something that can help with that.” You interrupted. “Give me some cover.” You raised up the blaster you had grabbed, then ran over to Tech, firing shots as you went. Hunter and Echo emerged from their cover to fire at the troopers nearby you. Once you arrived you ducked down behind cover and threw the stolen comm link to Tech.

He caught it with both hands. “An imperial com unit?” Tech looked at it curiously, then shifted his eyes to you. “I thought you might be able to use it. Think you can cause some mayhem with it?” You asked curiously. Tech inspected it for a quick moment. “Oh yes, this should work.”

“Alright. Wrecker, Sera, keep the troopers off Tech. Echo and I will try to keep them on us. When Tech gives the signal, we move.” Everyone got their weapons ready, Echo nodded. “No problem!” Wrecker said enthusiastically and gave a thumbs. You also nodded as confirmation that you were ready.

Echo started firing at troopers, Hunter pulled out his knife and began alternating between slashing through troopers and shooting with his blaster. Wrecker was closer to you and actually picked up a trooper and threw him. You provided some cover fire and stayed close to Tech. He was fiddling with the unit.

“How much longer?” You asked after a minute passed. “Almost…” Tech said. You felt a sudden sense of urgency, and lifted your head up, searching around. “Somethings not right-”

Hunter leapt out of cover and ran over to Wrecker, who was laughing and enthusiastically throwing some heavy boxes at the troopers. “Wrecker, get down!”

You heard shots fire, and they were different. Wherever it made contact, there was a small explosion. This was some heavy fire power. The blasts made a sweeping arc. It fired towards Crosshair, who had to roll out of the way. You and Tech ducked as a shot came your way. You were knocked back a few feet from the closeness of the explosion. You lifted your head up and saw Echo was okay, and then you looked for Wrecker and Hunter.

Wrecker managed to avoid getting hit, he was to the right lying on the ground behind cover. Hunter wasn’t as lucky though. It looked like he took some blaster fire, and fell to the ground on his back. He was holding his side, and you saw blood on his hands.

[itsclydebitches]

I’m the tin foil hat anon and I wanted to thank you for the response on my bb submission, you make great points. Although I was frustrated that some of them raised even more questions I didn’t think of myself… UGH… lol the S2 wait is gonna be painful

On the point of crosshair thinking his chip was removed a looong time ago(meaning before bracca or even as early as ep1) it wouldn’t make sense bc of his response to Hunter’s “you tried to kill us, we didn’t have a choice”. He says “and I did?”. So he seems to be aware he couldn’t control himself in all their previous encounters. Does it mean he knows his actions were due to chip then?

And you say crosshair avoiding the “when” question can be due to him not caring if the horrible actions he committed are chip or himself and it’s meant to show that he truly is despicable and evil. It could be the case because he shows absolutely no remorse or regret over slaughtering civilians, never apologizes to his brothers for not only trying to kill them but almost successfully incinerating(!!!) them. On top of that (apparently) without a chip he casually murders his own squad without a blink of an eye right in front of them.

On the other hand, he shows care for Omega’s safety in that episode and wants a better place in the universe for his brothers(even if it’s obviously a mistake). He sounds hurt and betrayed by them yet he still wants what he thinks is best for them. He seemed genuine and sincere in that moment. Even after they refused to join he protected them against the droids. He had multiple opportunities to shoot Hunter or others in the back but never did(and looked like didn’t even consider it). BUT after all of that he decides to raise his gun and try to shoot hunter who already has his gun drawn?! And in front of the whole squad holding him at gun point!!! WTF was he thinking?! WHY? I know they rejected his offer but still. Did his reveal completely change his plans? I just don’t understand. I know he is meant to be “complex and nuanced character with layers” but what a mood swing lmao

As much as I loved and enjoyed the bad batch overall I’m beginning to think that all these inconsistencies aren’t meant to be a crafty set up for next season. What they most likely are is just writers being vague on purpose so they don’t write themselves into a corner.

And as to why the batch and Omega didn’t even try to rescue their brother could just be so that Hunter and Crosshair would have this drama and disagreement at the end. Despite brad rau claiming their argument was over ideological differences. And Jen Corbett saying in that same cursed interview that the batch always love and support each other no matter what because they’re family. Well, I guess not crosshair, he doesn’t count anymore lol

And I agree with you I’d rather see the batch acknowledging they could have done more to try and rescue him than go into the chip details. However, I have a suspicion the real reason or explanation on why they never went back for him isn’t going to be brought up ever. Even *in universe* it simply does not make sense. Just makes me sad seeing how many people also try to come up with explanations. That should have been the writers job to provide something besides Hunter’s “you tried to kill us” bc that’s a weak argument and a total bs since he was SHOCKED to learn crosshair doesn’t have a chip.

Btw sorry for the long posts lol I just found your takes very intriguing

The season two wait is something awful and I only just started it lol. No worries about long asks though! My blog has become quite meta heavy over the years, so this is normal for my inbox. Besides, it’s a bit of a pot and kettle situation. It's not like my answers are particularly concise :D

Okay first, I have the unpopular (?) opinion that Crosshair was never planning to shoot Hunter, partly for the reasons you lay out here. You’re right, it doesn’t make sense, and rather than just accepting that he had that kind of “mood swing" (which would be pretty bad writing based on everything else we've seen) I think it does make sense that this was never his intention at all. Rather, it’s just a setup to make the audience think he’s about to shoot Hunter—that’s the obvious goal of that moment: the shock, drama, confusion, and then relief—but that doesn’t mean that in-universe that was ever Crosshair’s goal, even for just a split second. Omega leaves the pod. Echo, crucially, says that he can’t see her, setting up that Crosshair with his enhanced sight is probably the only one who could. He grabs his rifle off screen and as he does, Hunter leans over the side of the pod as he prepares to jump in, precisely where Crosshair needs to aim to hit Omega. Hunter is in his way. He’s directly in the line of fire, not because Crosshair is aiming for him, but just because that's where Omega is and they're both aiming for her: Crosshair with his rifle, Hunter ready to dive. The little shift Crosshair makes reads to me as him ensuring he doesn’t hit Hunter, despite him being right where he needs to aim, not him full on changing targets.

Even if we choose to read it as him deliberately aiming at Hunter—because yeah, the scene is meant to be ambiguous—I don’t think he, like, meant it meant it. Crosshair, as we’ve seen throughout TBB and TCW, can be pretty antagonistic. He likes to do things to get a rise out of people, like staring at regs until they snap at him, or pushing Rex’s buttons until he swings. If he was choosing to aim at Hunter in that moment, rather than Hunter just being in the way, I think it’s only bravado. Remember the “Don’t make the same mistake twice. Don’t make me your enemy” line? Crosshair has a need to remind others of his skill and power—whether it’s playfully like in TCW, or more seriously in TBB—and that’s likely what this is here. “Hey, Hunter. Look. I got my weapon back. I’ve got you cornered. I’m about to save our sister when you can’t. Remember that I’m good and you need me.” Those feelings of abandonment are tied up in that need to be needed, so when Crosshair is seething at being left behind, brutally showing them how he can get a drop on their leader and doing the thing they can't (save Omega) is a great way to remind them of what they threw away/re-boost his own self-esteem. But none of that means shooting Hunter was ever a real possibility. Because nowhere else do we see Crosshair willingly trying to harm his team. He does while under the chip’s influence, but then he never hurts Hunter when he’s captured. He kills his new team before they can hurt the batch. He helps them fight off the droids. There’s a tussle, but it’s not choreographed like either he or Hunter truly intends harm. Crosshair demonstrates no aggression during the entire escape, willingly gives up his weapon after saving Omega, and just stands there as they leave. If this guy actually wanted to hurt them, he would. Which is more likely, that Crosshair had a split second of real murder intent across two episodes of doing everything possible to help his team, or that this was just a mean bluff?

But personally, I don’t even think it was a bluff. I think the coincidence of Crosshair needing to aim there and Hunter already being there is just meant to imply an attack for the audience, not imply that Crosshair, in-universe, ever intended to hurt him, even for just a second. If he had, he wouldn’t look so surprised and sad when he realizes the others are pointing their weapons at him. If he was out to shoot Hunter, even if only for a moment, seeing his brothers come to his defense would be expected; a given. But if he only ever intended to save Omega, then seeing their weapons trained on him would produce the emotions we saw: shock that they’d turn on him and then severe disappointment. From Crosshair’s perspective, he didn’t do anything wrong and never intended to do wrong either. Hence, looking away in disbelief that his need to aim through Hunter was taken as a serious threat. He's realizing that they honestly believe that he would hurt them. Not the chipped version of him, but just him, all on his own.

As for the rest of his characterization, I think your point that “You tried to kill us” is a weak argument is pretty important. Meaning, Crosshair knows he didn’t attack his team and nearly kill them, the Empire controlling him like a puppet did. He (arguably) doesn’t owe them an apology for something that he was as much a victim for. However, we usually expect one anyway—like Wrecker still apologizing to Omega—because that's how people who have hurt loved ones react, whether the hurt was intentional or not, but that guilt is currently overshadowed by his fury that they left him behind. For him I think it’s a bit of a circular problem. Yes, he nearly killed them… but he wouldn’t have nearly killed them if they’d come back and rescued him. With the obvious disclaimer that the Empire is the real evil here, Crosshair as a threat is a bit of a problem of the batch's own making. If they’d done the right thing and gotten him out, there wouldn’t have been these scary moments like the engine incident. If they’d at least tried, then Crosshair likely would have been more guilt-ridden because he hurt his brothers who were trying to help him. As it stands, he tried to hurt the people who claim they're his brothers, but who left him behind. That's why he presents this second chance as magnanimous: from Crosshair's perspective, they haven't done anything to earn his care, but they're getting it anyway. An apology though? That's pushing things too far. If when Wrecker turned the group had locked him somewhere in the ship and gone off planet, leaving him there under the justification “Well, he tried to kill us!" would Wrecker still return with apologies for his actions... or would he be primarily pissed at being left like that, withholding apologies because they did him harm intentionally, whereas he did harm under another's control? I mean, maybe he'd be forgiving (the huge difference between his and Crosshair’s personalities is another factor), but also maybe not. Having Crosshair apologize for the near-death experiences requires 1. For him to feel responsibility for something that was forced on him and 2. For him to not be absolutely furious at the batch for abandoning him. They've gotta work through that before Crosshair can acknowledge that guilt.

Killing his second team on the other hand… idk if the batch cares, honestly. It was the killing of civilians that they balked at, not other fighters like themselves. Even the Jedis’ execution, something they clearly didn’t like, wasn’t enough to turn them from the Empire, presumably because the Jedi are capable of defending themselves. They fell in battle. It’s only when the Empire asks them to kill kids and untrained civilians that they go, “Absolutely not. This organization is evil.” Murder of other fighters was, you know, not great, but not worth defecting over either. Crosshair’s second team is made up of fighters who have been trying to kill them, so they’re definitely fair game. If we removed Crosshair’s plan from the situation and the batch was just fighting their way off Kamino after a capture, would they have also killed the team without a blink of an eye? Probably. It's self-defense. The second they raised their blasters it became a battle and, unless you’re specifically out to stun someone for some reason, battles end bloody. The shock is which side Crosshair was on, not that one side was willing to murder the other. It’s definitely messed up from our perspective that Crosshair laid a trap to murder his team to prove a point… but from the batch’s perspective? Crosshair killed a bunch of imperial fighters who were threatening them during a battle. That’s just an average Tuesday for them, nothing much to get upset over.

And omg don’t get me started on Crosshair wanting to find Omega a family! Like yeah, it’s obviously a #mistake and his faith in the Empire is Super Messed Up but... the underlying motivation is so good. It’s another situation where there’s no easy answer. Which is more important: Omega’s emotional health where she grows up with clones like her, the people who are now 100% her family, or her physical health, where she stays some place where she’s not always getting shot at, kidnapped, at risk of going hungry, etc.? It’s easy as the audience to go, “Of course she belongs with her dads!!” but if you choose to read the story through any realistic lens, Crosshair absolutely has a point about this being terrible environment for a kid, the exact point the batch themselves were making until Omega begged to stay. I love my feral, compassionate child but let me tell you, I YELLED when she yeeted herself out of that pod. This is a traumatized, formerly isolated kid with absolutely zero self-preservation, combined with, at times, a lack of basic common sense that’s inevitable in children (like not realizing she can’t pull a very heavy droid up through the water). As emotionally gutting as the thought is and, in this particular case, a Very Bad Idea, I really can’t fault anyone for raising the possibility that she go somewhere else, somewhere she’s likely to survive into her teens 😅

[solalunar-eclipse]

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 10

Chapter title: Short Fuses

Word count: about 3400 words

Author’s Note: Hopefully this chapter is up to the usual standards, especially considering I completed it in about a week. I really want to try and stay on schedule as much as I can especially considering that I have about six other ideas all begging to be written the second this fic is finished.

Warning for descriptions of violence, just in case.

First  | Previous  | Next

...

The loud slam of a car door made the two Mobians still inside it jump.

Shadow and Rouge stared out the window, horrified, as Omega drew himself up to his full height of four feet and eleven inches and stared down the troops. When he’d seen his friends so scared, so certain that this was the end, something inside him had snapped.

He wasn’t ordinarily the type to process much in the way of emotion. His circuits hadn’t been built for it in the first place, but so much rewiring and extra work had been done by now that he’d almost become more than his processors and coding. And...meeting two people who understood him in a way he’d never thought possible had done a lot for his personality as well. By now, Omega had grown to care for these two organics more than he had ever thought possible since the day they had first met.

And now he was furious.

“I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.” he thundered, his voice blasting out of his speakers at top volume. “YOU HAVE CHASED US ALL OVER THIS CHAOSDAMNED COUNTRY. YOU HAVE TRAUMATIZED BOTH OF MY FRIENDS. AND YOU HAVE RUINED OUR LIVES.

“I WILL GIVE YOU ONE CHANCE TO GET OUT OF HERE. ONE. CHANCE. THEN I START FIRING. AND I WILL NOT STOP.”

He immediately began to power on all of the weapons that he could possibly use at once. Everything from machine guns to missiles to lasers started to warm up and make clicking noises as his ammunition slid into place. Omega made sure to load a few extra explosive charges into his weaponry- his targeting systems had been significantly improved after some time in Tails’s workshop, but they still weren’t perfect. Especially not with this level of opponents. 

He found that he didn’t really care.

(His only real worry was that the firing noises would stress out Shadow.)

The G.U.N. soldiers refused to back down, and oh how Omega wished that he could properly express the blend of frustration, rage, and just the tiniest bit of satisfaction that burned and sparked through his wires. As it was, he simply had to settle for speaking.

“YOU’RE NOT GOING?” he asked.

One of the apparent leaders pulled out a megaphone, and the robot’s head spun ninety degrees directly to the right to face him. “I DIDN’T SAY YOU COULD TALK.”

A single shot ripped the megaphone from the man’s hand.

“NOW LEAVE US ALONE.”

The actual fighting forces were almost entirely made up of G.U.N. drones, so Omega began tearing into those with ease. Explosions of flame appeared across the field as his shots scattered all around the first wave.

The E-series robot was at least a little pleased that it seemed like he wouldn’t have to physically fight any humans today, though. He’d spent enough time around Rouge and Shadow to know that they’d both be horrified if he did- and he wasn’t going to upset them. Not now.

As it was, he was holding his ground impressively, considering that G.U.N.’s mechanical soldiers were top-of-the-line creations, built specifically with fighting software according to the organization’s highest standards. They were loaded with the latest weapons, and made with light material so that they could move quickly across the battlefield.

But they had never before faced down a nearly three thousand pound robot built by a mad genius with a destructive streak a mile wide….so they were basically being mowed into the ground.

Before long, though, their orders suddenly appeared to change, and a squad started heading directly for the car which still held his two closest friends.

A laser blast incinerated the first few with the full power of Omega’s protective fury behind it, but having two targets to manage- himself and the car- was a lot for anyone to handle. If he turned his attention to the drones swarming the vehicle, then they would get too close to him and start trying to tear him apart. But if he focused for too long on those tearing at his chassis, they could easily break into the car.

Once, when he was busy dealing with an irritating detachment of flying robots, one of the ground fighters broke through a window and started reaching for Shadow and Rouge. The hybrid managed to stab it through the face with a Chaos Spear, but almost immediately went limp against the seat afterwards, clearly struggling to maintain consciousness.

With a scream of static, Omega sent the next few assailants who dared attack his friends flying, but there were just too many for him to handle alone.

As the robots began to climb atop the car, Omega stopped paying attention to the ones trying to tear him apart and focused his aim on the others, but one managed to grab his arm and sent the shots flying wildly around their brethren, skittering across the top of the vehicle.

Omega felt his ammunition starting to run low and wished he had a chance to grab some extras, but even the slightest pause could mean failure now. The drones were clawing at his body, at the car, and they just kept on coming.

He couldn’t last much longer...

And that was when a truck to his right exploded in a giant ball of fire.

The robot was startled for a moment- he hadn’t been aiming for the trucks at all! A moment later, though, a roaring noise sounded directly overhead, and Omega looked up to see what was perhaps the best sight to grace his optics in months.

A red biplane wheeled around overhead before taking another shot directly at the drones surrounding him, leaving him perfectly free to blast the rest off of the car. The E-series robot was also certain he heard a faint “Heck yeah!” from above, and indeed, when his vision focused properly, he spotted a small blue shape standing atop the wings of the plane.

Omega could see Rouge smiling- actually smiling- from inside the car, as she shook Shadow back into awareness. The moment Omega saw her say the name ‘Sonic’, Shadow jolted upright and scrambled to the window despite his shaking limbs, staring up at the Tornado in shock.

He said something to Rouge then, who responded with a light smack on his shoulder, looking more relieved than anything else.

After a few more moments, the tide had begun to turn, and Omega soon heard someone patching directly into his auditory processors. A familiar high-pitched voice asked, “Omega! Do you read me?”

“Affirmative.” he replied, blasting another few drones into oblivion. “It is good to see you, Tails.”

“You too.” the fox replied happily, clearly pleased to have arrived in time.

“Okay,” Tails continued, his voice becoming more serious, “can you get Shadow and Rouge to fly up to the plane? I can’t land, but I need to get them out of here if they can’t fight.”

“I will inform them at once.” 

Omega stalked over to the car, physically shoving several more drones off it and allowing them to land with a loud clatter on more of their kind. Rouge wound down the window, still looking optimistic.

“Alright, what’s the plan now?” she asked him, a sparkle in her eyes.

He blew up a couple of flying bots to his left in big blasts of fire before responding. “Unfortunately, you will have to fly Shadow directly upwards to the plane. This is the best way to get out.”

Rouge groaned. “Chaos...I don’t have to lift you too, right?”

“No.” Omega said. “I will stay here and keep them busy until your return.”

“Won’t you be alright?” she asked him worriedly, placing a hand on his arm.

“We’re not leaving you.”, Shadow insisted. His eyes were narrowed, but the determined effect was undermined by the way his body slumped against the seat, as though it were the only thing keeping him upright.

Suddenly, another voice spoke up. “Come on, you think I can’t watch this big guy’s back?”

Sonic walked up next to Omega and leaned forward on the car’s window. At first, he wore his trademark smile (tinged with a little extra relief), but it quickly turned to shock after he did a double take. “Uh...that is you guys, right? Cause last I checked, Rouge isn’t edgy and you don’t dress like a nerd.” he said, pointing at Shadow.

“I don’t look like a nerd.” Shadow mumbled irritably, glowering at him.

“You actually kinda do, hon.” Rouge said, her smile growing wider. 

The hybrid’s eyes widened. “But you picked this outfit out...Rouge!”

Omega played an audio file of a person clearing their throat while causing another explosion. “While I am certain this conversation is pleasant for all involved, please consider continuing it when we are not surrounded by mechanical troops trying to tear our limbs off.”

All three Mobians looked sheepish. “Alright then, let’s go.” Rouge said, refocusing and flexing her wings in preparation for takeoff.

“We will cover you. Do not worry.” Omega assured them both.

Shadow still frowned at him, before clasping his small gloved hand around the robot’s large metal finger. “Don’t go doing anything too crazy, alright?”

Rouge grinned again, though a little less brightly, before stepping out of the vehicle for the first time that day. “He’ll be okay. Us, on the other hand...you know what, let’s just do it.”

Then she grabbed onto Shadow’s hand and immediately blasted fifteen feet directly upwards in the air. Tails soared as low as he could possibly dare to go in the meantime, even tilting the plane to the side slightly so that Shadow could climb into the seat. 

Some flying G.U.N. robots began to close in on Rouge as her wings beat frantically, struggling to gain more height. Omega couldn’t fire now- there was too much risk of him hitting her- but then he realized that Sonic was already handling it. The hero bounced off of the car, then a robot, before launching himself up high into the air and spindashing all of the drones, bouncing from one to the next like a wild blue pinball.

Meanwhile, the E-series robot busied himself with spraying explosives and laser fire across the entire field, finally feeling free to properly tear into the opposing forces. At one point, he actually lifted the car above his head, set it on fire, and threw it with all of his strength directly at an advancing wave of drones, taking out an entire platoon.

(The car rental company would just have to deal with it.)

Omega heard a small chuckle to his right, and looked over to see the blue hero himself standing there and smirking up at him. “You’re pretty ticked off, huh?” he asked.

“YES.” Omega replied, putting as much loathing and distaste behind that one word as he possibly could whilst throwing a drone several yards into the nearest tree. 

Sonic’s grin tightened in response, and something shifted deep within his eyes, transforming them into a blazing green flame. His entire expression practically screamed ‘you messed with the wrong people this time, idiots’.

“Hey, pal?” he asked, his words deceptively light and loose. “I heard you can blast curled-up ‘hogs like me outta those arm cannons of yours. Mind if I give it a whirl?” The blue-and-gold robot could practically feel the growl that lay hidden beneath his voice...and decided that he definitely approved. 

In response, Omega’s hand simply retracted into his arm, leaving a perfectly Mobian-sized barrel behind. Sonic immediately curled up on the ground, and the robot scooped him into the cannon with ease, before aiming it at the mechanical soldiers marching towards them yet again. “Ready?” he asked.

“Always.” the hero hissed from within his quills, curling up tighter.

One second later, he was fired out of Omega’s arm at high speed, before ricocheting off about a dozen robots hard enough to shear most of them in half. Sonic uncurled after that, bouncing to his feet with an expression barely qualifying as a smile as drones fell beneath his feet and fists.

Not long after that, Omega heard the whir of a G.U.N. troop carrier above them and saw an entire new wave of reinforcements dropping in- the organization clearly wasn’t willing to risk their human soldiers on two such dangerous foes. While the blue blur was certainly helpful, he knew that they couldn’t hold off endless amounts of these machines, and would unfortunately tire or run out of ammo eventually.

Which was why he was incredibly grateful to see Tails’s biplane soaring into the fray just moments later, prepared to sweep them both to safety. (While he enjoyed giving G.U.N. its long-withheld punishment, he also wanted to survive long enough to see his friends healthy and happy again, of course.)

“Omega! I need you to get on top of that truck!” Tails ordered through his audial processors. “I can try and pick you and Sonic up from there!”

The robot acted immediately, barreling through the lines of drones with incredible strength. To his left, he saw Sonic doing the same- jumping over the bots’ heads and up onto the trailer. The hero fought to hold off some physical soldiers with punches and kicks carefully calculated to bruise, but not kill.

Omega clawed his way up to the top of the truck, leaving deep gouges in the side as he heaved himself over the edge. They both scanned the sky, watching as Tails waited for the right opening…

Suddenly, the Tornado dove sharply downwards, carving through lines of machinery as it soared towards them. Its wings nearly skimmed the trees as it closed in on them. Sonic tensed, preparing to leap, as Tails yelled, “Jump on...now!”

Omega’s reflexes were not exactly what one might call good, unfortunately, having been built with strength in mind over speed. Thankfully, Sonic grabbed hold of his arm, and that combined with his rocket boosters was enough to sling him face-first over the seat as Tails pulled upwards.

Turning his head to the side as he struggled into the plane, the E-series robot caught a glimpse of Sonic braced on the main wing of the Tornado as they put more and more distance between themselves and the ambush site with every second. However, he also quickly spied several flying drones headed their way.

Clearly, Tails had too. “Omega! Can you take care of those for me? And strap in, ‘cause I’m about to try and shake these people for good!”

He began to empty his cartridges as quickly as possible at those infernal machines, nothing more than hollow shells of metal twisted to serve an evil master. Omega had never been more grateful that he was made with free will. Most of the drones fell quickly, but were easily replaced by more of their brethren. 

The blue and gold robot was disgusted at the very thought of being expendable. 

“Hang on tight!” the fox yelled. 

A jolt shook the entire Tornado as its turbo engines fired, causing the plane to blast forward at such speeds that the ground blurred beneath them. G.U.N. just didn’t have the technology available to catch up with them, especially not while they were this high up.

Soon enough, Angel Island came into view, but it almost looked like it was...moving away from them?

Sonic saw Omega’s ‘frown’ and explained quickly. “Angel Island doesn’t move too fast, and the Tornado gets some crazy mileage with these new engines! We figured Knux oughta get a head start on those creeps.”

At least Knuckles wasn’t avoiding the action out of cowardice, then. If he had been, Omega would have punched his Master Emerald straight off the island, ‘duties’ be damned.

As they came in for a landing, the robot practically felt his chassis grow heavier the more he looked around. Shadow was slumped against a tree near the edge of the clearing, while Rouge was leaning on the steps of the altar, exhausted. Knuckles was sitting cross-legged atop the Master Emerald, his eyes closed as he focused on directing the island where he needed it to go.

“Shadow!” Sonic shouted, jumping off the plane. His face was twisted with concern as he rushed over to his friend. “Dude, why aren’t ya up with the Emerald? Chaos knows you need that energy!”

The hybrid groaned faintly, turning his head to face them. “Knuckles...is busy with it. Don’t want to...interrupt now- we need to get away.”

Omega glowered at him. “Enough of this nonsense. If you insist upon behaving in such a manner, then I will have to make you take care of yourself. Again.” The robot scooped Shadow up in his arms and began to physically carry him to the altar, despite the latter’s protests and squirming. 

Sonic and Rouge giggled practically in tandem, and Shadow glared at them both. “Shut it.”

“What, hon?” Rouge smirked. “This is the second time Omega’s picked you up in like a week, can’t I enjoy it?”

The robot ignored them both and placed Shadow on the altar carefully, the hybrid’s body too weak to do anything more than just lie there. Quickly, though, the Chaos energy began to seep into him, restoring some true life to his eyes.

He didn’t have much more than twenty minutes to rest, unfortunately, before G.U.N.’s best planes began to catch up with the island’s sluggish movement. The four battle-ready inhabitants of Angel Island readied themselves the moment they heard the first aircraft roar in the distance.

Rouge spoke up first, though. “Shadow, honey, I absolutely hate asking this of you, and if there was any other way to get out of here that I could think of then I would take it. But I can tell that there’s at least three Chaos Emeralds on this island, and with how good you’ve gotten at teleporting...if Sonic and Knuckles helped, could you zap us out of here?”

Shadow dragged himself to his feet with the help of the Master Emerald, sighing. “Yes. I’ll need Knuckles to channel as much energy into us as he possibly can, and at least one of the Emeralds. Sonic can use another.”

Sonic and Knuckles both looked startled. “No way, man!” the hero exclaimed. “You could really hurt yourself that way!”

“So help me then.” Shadow replied flatly, looking at him over his glasses. 

The blue hedgehog sighed reluctantly and stood on the other side of the Master Emerald from him, holding out his hand. “You got your Emerald, lil’ bro?”

Tails placed it in his hand as Knuckles handed Shadow one of the two he’d been holding onto. Then, the echidna placed both of his hands on the great gemstone, breathed in, and sent as much power as he could flowing into both of the hedgehogs.

Their eyes locked, and Shadow inclined his head almost imperceptibly. 

“Chaos….Control!!”

The entire island vanished.

It reappeared moments later, above the ocean. Sonic would have plenty of time to be concerned about all the water, but for now, he was more preoccupied with Shadow. He hovered nearby as the hybrid’s eyes unfocused slowly and he swayed from side to side.

The hero caught him a moment later as he crumpled, unconscious. Feeling for a heartbeat, he sighed with relief the moment he found a steady pulse in Shadow’s wrist. 

“He simply needs rest.” Omega said, watching as Sonic laid him back down at the altar (before lying down right next to him, having exhausted his own Chaos stores as well). “As do you,” he added, spinning his head to the right to stare at Rouge.

The robot continued to stare at her, unflinching despite her glower, until she lay down on the grass with an irritated sigh. “I’m supposed to be the one taking care of this team, you know.”

Omega folded his arms. “And you may do so soon. After you get some rest.”

Rouge closed her eyes and seemed to relax soon enough. Omega stood exactly in between his two friends, watching over them with a careful eye.

After a minute or two, he heard Knuckles whisper to his friends, “How do you guys think she figured out that we had those emeralds?”

Without opening her eyes or moving at all, Rouge replied, “I’m just that talented, babe.”

The resulting startled shriek from her boyfriend made birds a hundred feet away flee their trees in fear.

[venus-says]

Kamen Rider Amazons Season 1

They're Here...And They're Hungry.

When I decided it was time to get back with the blog I knew that eventually at some point I would have to get back to the previous Kamen Rider series that I haven't watched, but I didn't want to come back to a full season of 50 episodes or so right away, I wanted something that would be a bit easier to do more or less just so that I could have time to prepare more posts ahead since to catch up with the time wasted I would have to start to release posts for Precure and Rider back-to-back and doing that without preparing would be a nightmare. And that's how I decided to watch Amazons now instead of doing it in a distant future after I had watched Amazon, as I had originally planned.

And talking about Amazons is a funny thing because back in last year before I decided I would jump head first in the Rider franchise I watched a lot of those "Where to start watching *insert huge franchise here*" videos and all of them always mentioned how Amazons was a different season because it was aimed at a much older audience and that it was dark, and serious, and very violent, and there was this aura that was created around this show and the Amazon from the 70s, and it was something I was really curious about, I'd say Amazon and Amazons were probably the things I was looking forward to watching the most.

And well... what I got from this show wasn't exactly that? Like, I was expecting something way more gruesome, but what I got was just another regular Kamen Rider season that has some CGI blood on it, it wasn't anything special, you know? The impression it gave me was that they gathered a bunch of boys and asked them what they considered to be "adult-like" and they took all the suggestions mixed them in this show and then they added a blue/gray filter on it to give it a ~serious~ vibe. They didn't even were that violent to be honest, outside of very few specific scenes we don't see anything that is too far from what Kamen Rider already does, and whenever it goes beyond it end up looking more gross rather than violent because they use a black/green-ish slimy blood for the monsters, who are the ones who suffer from this extra violence the most, and even then their blood usually is covering the screen making it hard for us to see whatever it is that is going on the screen. In other words, it was doing the cool for the cool.

Does that make it a bad show? Eh... not really? I mean, I understand it if someone doesn't like it because there's indeed not a lot to the show, but I enjoyed it. It wasn't anything that I loved, but it also didn't get me bored or utterly annoyed at the show. It was underwhelming, yes, which I believe is the reason of why this review will end up making this post be shorter than it should be considering I'm covering an entire season at once, but it more or less kept me entertained for a few hours so it wasn't an awful experience.

I think the biggest disappointment of this show is that it's always trying to raise interesting concepts, but they never commit with any of them and this kinda makes the show feels like it's hollow, like there's no proper theme at its core. And being honest, the biggest problem here isn't even that it feels like this show is about nothing, but the fact that they try to do an ethical discussion about life, and what lives are worth saving or not, but it was never an actual discussion, at least it never gave me that impression, what I was seeing was character A making X argument, and character B making Y argument, but they never have an actual conversation so characters A and B don't change at all and they just keep hanging to those arguments until the end. The whole rivalry between Omega and Alpha feels like this to me, it's supposed to show two different sides and they more or less end up at the same point where they started. Now that I think about it, it sounds a lot like Gaim... which is making me question my feelings for that season now... well that's not important now.

Like I always do I intended to dedicate a separate section to go through the characters, but as I was going through each one of them I realized they're not very interesting and I wouldn't have much to say about them so I'll just go briefly on what I think saved this show for me that was the side characters.

Okay, not all of them are good, but we had a few gems in this cast. I especially like Nanaha and how her relationship with Jin plays out in the show, of course, there's still a bit of that old Rider writing for women where she's more or less just an accessory for Jin, but they managed to make her personality still shine despite that which makes me fully believe she truly loves Jin and she does all that she does of her own choice (or at least I like to believe that). I also really like the pest control team, yeah they kinda end up merging into a single entity at some point, but I like having them there, especially for Mamoru who's a very interesting character, and one of the few ones of this show that actually goes through an arc (that go me quite emotional because I like the little dude and seeing him losing himself to the amazon cells was REALLY HARD), but that was sadly not used to its full potential (yes, I'm salty they called episode 13 "M" but instead of focusing on Mamoru they decided to focus in the pointless fight between Haruka and Jin).

Now the last thing I have comments to make about is the suits and the designs. Not gonna lie, it feels weird to have this section here because as I mentioned the show has this awful color filter on to make it look like something more dark and serious so I don't know if what we're seeing in terms of colors looks exactly with what they wanted during the conception and production phase, but overall I like the designs for both Riders and Amazons. I have a frustration with Omega's suit because they tried to make it something more modern and sleek but when they did that they lost all the charm of the original Kamen Rider Amazon that was left to be implemented more in Alpha and Sigma's suits, and I would be more okay with his design if they hadn't shown us his more primal form, that actually looks like Amazon, and that look more interesting than it's final design. Of our 3 riders, my favorite in terms of looks is Alpha, both because it has the iconic piranha imagery and also because it's color is such a vibrant red that even with the awful filter over it makes it stand out a lot and I love this. I feel like, in the end, poor Sigma got the short end of the stick here since his design is pretty much just a recolor from Alpha, but considering his plotline was pretty much useless it makes sense they wouldn't put that much effort on it. I feel like I don't talk much about the accessories in these but I really like Omega's weapons that come out from the handles on its belt, I think it's a pretty clever idea and it's cool as heck seeing him pull a spear and a whip out of that belt, it's sad it's not used all that much... I think it's used only once in the fight on the roof of that apartment and it never shows up again, which is just a tragedy.

You know, now that I mentioned it, I really like the different ideas they came up with for Amazons that were hunting their prey. I love that bus plot, the apartment building that is an ant colony was very fun, and the restaurant that cooks humans in a "civilized" way was also pretty good, it reminded me of the iZombie TV show where in one of the seasons the villain starts to run like a catering service in a similar fashion.

And I believe that's all I have to say about the first season of Amazons, it feels like I've left a lot of things out but most of those things didn't feel worthy of commenting on, it would more or less just me listing up all the events and I believe that's not what you all are here for. In any case, these were my thoughts on Amazons season 1, I'll watch season 2 and it should be my next review on the Kamen Rider seasons, but for now, let me know what do you think of this season. Do you love it? Do you hate it? Write it down in the comments. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading, and until the next time. See-ya~

[thethespacecoyote]

I’m still invested in dumb omegaverse mpreg fluff ;-; so here have some more with Jack being posessive over a ridiculous unicorn plush that ends up poached by Rhys for his nest

Nobody could ever know about Cupcake Princess.

Only a few people could ever know that Jack was capable of that mushy thing called affection. Even then, it was affection aimed towards only a couple choice things—most of those things revolving around Rhys.

Rhys himself, Rhys’ favorite clothes, the pup growing in Rhys’ belly—to name a few.

But there were things he treasured that even Rhys didn’t know about, stashed around the penthouse in places even the nosy omega hadn’t found yet. And one of those things was Cupcake Princess.

He’d seen her in the window of one of the gift shops in the Hub back when Helios was still under construction, before he’d even dreamed of becoming CEO. He’d found it a bit strange at the time that a weapons company had any gift shops at all, much less ones that sold bright, sparkly stuffed unicorns, but the fur had looked soft enough to tempt Jack to go inside. And from the moment he’d plucked her off the little wooden shelf and given her a testing squeeze, he’d been in love.

Cupcake Princess hadn’t left his side since.

She was looking pretty well-loved at this point, the stuffing in her chest mushed down to her belly and up to her head, leaving her all mishmash, like a smashed potato. Her fur was dull and slightly matted on the head, where Jack had chewed the plush many nights in his sleep. He’d even left tiny little holes from his fangs just below her ear, which was starting to become loose of its stitching. Her mane was threadbare, sparkle just barely lingering in the purple fluff. She was a bit messed up from years of aggressive snuggling, but to him that only made her more valuable.

Jack kept her stowed under the bed in a box now that he lived with someone, surrounded by decoy bins full of vintage pornography and dusty antique guns and other trinkets that might satisfy the curiosity of a snooping omega. Now that Rhys was hampered by his growing belly and aching feet there was less of a concern that he might scrounge in every nook and cranny, but Jack still didn’t want to take any chances with Rhys finding that particularly embarrassing relic of his past.

However, he still took her out whenever Rhys got cabin fever and decided he needed to go down to the office or hang out with one of his nerd friends. Jack let him, grateful for the moment alone to get Cupcake Princess out of her hiding place and hold her to his chest and stroke her fur as he reflected on the imminent reality of becoming a dad.

When Jack looked into those big dumb eyes, dewey with shimmering violet, he felt like everything was gonna be okay and he hated the fact that this stupid plush could actually make him feel things that usually only Rhys made him feel, because it was just a lump of stuffing wrapped up in soft pink fur and dunked in sparkles and Jack loved to hug it to his chest and sniff its strawberry vanilla scent until he fell asleep.

He’d always wake up, however, when Rhys buzzed the front door security, and he’d always managed to toss Cupcake Princess back into her box and kick it under the bed before Rhys came calling into the bedroom.

He kept his secret safe—until one afternoon when he returned from the office, to find that Rhys had constructed another nest.

Jack had been finding them all about the penthouse lately. Rhys had clearly grown bored of watching television or playing his video game system, and he couldn’t nap in the bed any longer without kicking about the sheets and turning the entire thing into a messy lump that seemed to make sense to Rhys in some way Jack couldn’t quite wrap his head around.

He’d managed to coerce Rhys into nest-making off of the bed, but that’d resulted in new nesting popping up in places Jack didn’t expect. He’d nearly stepped on his pregnant mate one morning when he sleepily stumbled into his closet to find a fresh pair of pants, only for the floor below him to suddenly become alive in a warm, growling mass of omega that scared him so bad Jack’d nearly fallen on his ass.

Lately, Rhys had finally gotten it in his head to not use common routes of foot traffic as places to build his nest, so when Jack found that he’d pulled all the chairs in the living room together to make a huge bed for himself, he wasn’t completely surprised. Rhys had already re-arranged the furniture several times over the course of his pregnancy, out of boredom or maybe a fuzzy sense of fengshui, so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

What was a big deal, however, was the little bit of purple fur peeking out from below Rhys’ chin.

Jack recognized it immediately, his stomach dropping as he sniffed harshly at the air, picking up on the faded strawberry-vanilla scent underneath the overpowering odor of his mate. His heart thudded in his chest, an ashamed flush spreading across his cheek like a rash as he watched Rhys brazenly snuggle Cupcake Princess before his very eyes.

For the moment, Jack put the thought of exactly how and why Rhys had found his beloved plush out of his mind. First things first—he needed to get it out of his mate’s grip and back into the box under the bed.

That proved a little harder than he thought it would be. He carefully leaned over Rhys’ snoozing body, brushing aside the stolen bed comforter and exposing more of where Cupcake Princess was trapped.

Rhys was latched on pretty tight. Those little omega fangs of his were latched nearly right where Jack had himself nibbled on her, and he had his arms wrapped tight around her body. It was…it was a cute enough sight, to see his pregnant mate so affectionately cuddling something he’d loved over the years, but he was far too ashamed to just leave her there. Maybe if he got her away and hidden now, he could just pretend that it had all been a dream that Rhys had been having when he woke up. Yeah. Just a dream. Stuffed purple unicorn where?

“C’mon…” He whispered as he tried to shift Rhys’ arms from where they were wrapped about the plush, but Rhys just shifted, mumbling as he hugged the animal tighter. Jack blew frustration softly through his lips, eyes scanning over Rhys’ form to try to find a way to make this work. The omega curled even tighter, as if to spite him.

Jack gazed about the room, trying to see if anything around him could offer a solution. He needed something soft, that smelled like him, something just as huggable as Cupcake Princess was…

His eyes fell upon a pillow that had, apparently, been deemed unworthy of the nest and cast upon the floor. He plucked it up, hefting it around in his hands as he glanced down at Rhys, a grin spreading over his face.

That was it! Just give Rhysie the ol’ switcheroo. He grinned as he stripped his sweater off, hoping the thick scent would placate Rhys enough that he could grab his plush.

He wrapped the sweater tightly about the pillow, before tucking it underneath his arm and leaning back over Rhys. The omega shifted, letting out a soft noise muffled against Cupcake Princess’s head. Ugh. Was that drool? He wrinkled his nose at a damp spot near her ear. Definitely drool.

He tugged lightly on Cupcake Princess’s hoof, trying to pull her out of Rhys’ arms at the same time as he pushed the pillow down into his embrace. Jack’s heart thumped in his chest, feeling like he was a treasure hunter inside of a vault, dealing with some hair-trigger alien technology. His breath caught in his throat as he managed to get Cupcake Princess halfway out of Rhys’ grasp. Victory was in sight.

And then Rhys had to suddenly shift and flop onto his back, completely throwing off Jack’s precision and tossing the sweater wrapped pillow off into a remote corner of the nest.

“Crap!” Jack swore, too loudly, because the next moment Rhys was rubbing his eyes and yawning and looking up at him with a dewy squint.

“Mmm, Jack, what’re you doin’?” Rhys mumbled, clasping Cupcake Princess to his chest as his other hand moved down to rub his belly. Jack froze like a skag in a bandit’s scope, cursing inwardly. Rhys blinked rapidly at him, trying to figure out what exactly his mate had been doing hovering above him.

“I’m…uh….I was just…I was just…” Jack’s eyes moved from Rhys, to Cupcake Princess, and back to Rhys again. He could feel his blush connecting across his nose, body practically shaking with embarrassment. Rhys wrinkled his nose, looking down at Cupcake Princess before returning to Jack.

“Were…were you trying to take this?”

“No.” Jack answered too quickly. “Definitely, positively, abso-frikkin’-lutely not!”

“Oh my god, so it is yours.” Rhys smiled devilishly, bringing Cupcake Princess up to his nose and inhaling deeply. “I wasn’t sure, but it smelled like you. Adult you. Don’t tell me you—“

“You’re the only cuddling it right now, pumpkin, so it’s not—I don’t—it’s not like it’s weird!” Jack defended, cheeks practically growing purple with blush. Rhys just kept giggling at him as he sat up slowly, hand cradling his belly as the other kept Cupcake Princess glued tightly to his chest. Her head flopped limply forward as Rhys sniffed deeply into her mane, a happy little smile creeping across his face.

“It’s not weird at all, Jack. It’s just kind of funny that the most feared man in the galaxy has a favorite stuffed toy that he kept hidden under the bed.”

“H—How did you even find it, anyway, you can barely get your pants on without crying, how did you even get on your knees to look underneath—“

“I have my ways. When I get into my nest-building mood I’m willing to do anything to find something that smells nice…and your little unicorn friend smelled really nice.” Jack folded his arms petulantly over his chest, lower lip set out in an angry pout. Usually, when he was this annoyed, he’d pull out Cupcake Princess and give her a quick snuggle, but his mate just had to be pregnant and nosy, didn’t he? Stealing his favorite, secret plush and hugging her right in front of him. So rude.

Rhys pulled his nose out of the unicorn’s plush, rubbing its fabric delicately as he rested his chin atop her head.

“Lucky for you though, I can think of someone who smells a little better.”

“I’m only gonna cuddle your thieving ass if you let me hold her,” Jack admittedly grumpily, determined to keep his sour expression on his face until Rhys gave in. The omega wasn’t the only one who could deal in a little emotional manipulation.

Fortunately, Rhys seemed to take a little pity on him, as he finally parted with Cupcake Princess, holding the unicorn out to Jack. The alpha quickly grabbed it, hugging it gleefully to his chest as he hopped over the back of the couch nest and slid in next to Rhys.

“See? She’s a lot happier being back with her king.” Jack brushed his nose affectionately against the unicorn’s head, surprising pleased to find Rhys’ scent rubbed into her fur. Maybe he’d let the omega cuddle her sometimes, as long as he vowed not to breath a word about this to anyone.

“As am I…” Rhys purred softly as he cuddled in close to Jack, keeping Cupcake Princess tenderly cradled between their chests as he slowly fell back asleep, eventually luring Jack to follow in kind, his nose full of the scent of strawberry-vanilla.

[anneapocalypse]

Beta!Tex is not characterized by angry outbursts.

No, really. She’s not.

But Anne! you say. She’s mean! She’s aggressive! That’s part of her character!

Oh yeah? I say nonchalantly, raising my coffee cup to my lips.

Yes, you say with confidence. I’m sure of it because... Church... said so...

I raise an eyebrow at you over my cup.

You frown.

Okay, let me back up.

This seems to be a fairly common read on Tex (which will, henceforth in this post, be used to mean Beta!Tex, specifically): that she is not just tough or even aggressive but prone to outbursts of anger and violence. This reading of her informs fic, meta, and even discourse on her relationships with other characters--but that’s another post.

I think the idea that Tex is prone to outbursts of temper is unsupported by canon, and today I’m here to talk about why.

By “outburst,” for our purposes I’m talking about a certain loss of control. Not just being angry, but losing her temper. Think South smashing in the door panel because she’s upset about the mission, or kicking over a bench in the locker room because she’s angry about losing her AI. Think Carolina hurling crates across the canyon in frustration because her prisoner won’t crack. Actions which, it should be noted, are pretty characteristic for both Carolina and South. (ETA: Not to say that Carolina and South’s outbursts are quite the same--more on how Carolina manifests anger and how she differs from other characters here!)

Anyway, point me to where in canon Tex exhibits that kind of unrestrained outburst?

Yeah. Exactly.

Going back to season 1, when Tex first shows up. She still has Omega, whom Church characterizes as “really aggressive.” He also calls Tex a “rotten bitch.” But what I find so interesting in looking back at season 1 Tex is how very controlled she is. She certainly makes threats, throws out insults, but she generally maintains a very even keel when doing so, even when captured. The most she raises her voice is to insult the Reds for breaking her voice filter--and even that barely qualifies as an outburst. On the whole, season 1 Tex is very in control of herself pretty much all the time.

But what about after Omega’s gone? Well, Tex definitely seems to become more animated in later seasons, which is probably attributable to both being free of Omega, and getting comfortable with the Reds and Blues. She has moments of frustration, but even those are controlled--when she can’t lift the bomb, for example, she’s sheepish at worst. (Compare this to how Carolina reacts when she’s unable to do something.) When she’s forced to play along with Church’s “Tex is a bitch” game to keep Andy calm, she’s pretty understandably aggrieved, but even then--even then she keeps a lid on it, instead of, say, dropkicking Andy into the nearest large body of water.

Blood Gulch Tex, in general, is pretty chill actually. Sure, she doesn’t need a weapon to kill you. But she probably won’t kill you, unless she’s got a really good reason (or a paycheck). And for all the shit that comes her way, from Omega to Wyoming, she mostly seems to roll with the punches, even when it means making some tough decisions.

The irony of Church calling Tex a “rotten bitch,” of course, is that she really isn’t.

Okay, then, what about Tex in Freelancer? Well, I don’t think anybody could argue that Tex isn’t in full control of herself during the three-on-one match, or the Sarcophagus mission. We don’t get to hear Tex talk much in season 9, but when we do she’s either glib (”I don’t think talking’s your problem,” “Better luck next time, Carolina”) or all business (“Fall back, Agent Carolina”).

Longshore is probably the closest we come to seeing Tex really lose her cool, and it’s for good reason. The tension between her and Carolina comes to a head on this disaster of a mission, resulting in them failing both objectives. Tex is is no doubt much more aware at this point of her isolation from the rest of the team, and she’s no longer able to interpret Carolina’s animosity toward her as playful. It’s a bad time, and she’s understandably upset. I’d argue that this is the most we see Beta!Tex lose her temper in the entire series, and that’s a big goddamn deal.

Like shit man, even when Tex finds out that her whole life is a lie, her outward response is clenching her fist. The woman is controlled.

And really, should we be surprised by any of this? Tex was strong enough to keep Omega under control in her head. Considering that most people in this universe, in general, cannot fight an AI who has chosen to control them, this too is a big goddamn deal. If Tex was able to keep a lid on Omega, very likely the strongest of the fragments after her, then yeah, she could probably control herself, too.

Tex does not emote under stress in the way Carolina does, in the way South does, hell, even in the way Church does. It’s not that she’s not angry; she is, I’m not downplaying that at all. She has a lot of very justifiable anger and we definitely do see that anger come out at points. 

But she doesn’t lose her cool when she gets angry, and that’s a critical point of her characterization, one that sets her in stark contrast to several other characters in RvB but one which I feel is often overlooked.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Team Dark: A Holiday Special

Chapter One: Omega

Two | Three

Word count: about 5800 words

WARNING: this chapter contains entomophagy (eating insects)

Author's Note: I'm finally back! Sorry to make you all wait so long, but I really wanted to get this project out by December, so...here it is. I hope you all enjoy! (Also, apologies in advance for any bad formatting: Tumblr is being very uncooperative right now.)

...

It was, officially, a ‘lazy day’.

Team Dark was spending time at home, resting after the holiday frenzy of yesterday. Rouge had suddenly realized that they hadn’t decorated yet and that they all still needed to come up with present ideas for Team Sonic, so she and Shadow had spent the entire time in a sort of constant state of panic. Omega tried his best to help them, intermixed with a lot of gloating about his perfect memory and how he’d remembered to get a gift already.

He’d gotten punched halfway across the room for that one.

Now, a certain striped hedgehog was relaxing in his room, reading a book quietly. Until (of course) the peaceful silence was shattered by a loud blaring noise that sent him racing out the door and halfway down the stairs to their common area. Rouge was standing in the middle of the room, and shouted out to him, “Shadow! Come down here, I’m calling a group meeting!” Shadow winced and massaged one of his ears, his quills relaxing from their startled position as he walked over and sat down on the couch. He glowered at Rouge, who stood in front of him with the ‘team meeting airhorn’ still in hand. Despite his stare, she was still poised to blast again if Omega didn’t show up soon. Thankfully for Shadow’s hearing, Omega appeared quickly, albeit with much complaining about being dragged away from his targeting system calibrations. “Alright, Rouge, what’s all this about?” the hedgehog sighed, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees. She smiled cautiously at the two of them. “Before I say anything, I want you guys to know that this offer is optional. If it’s too much for you, you don’t have to say yes.” Omega spun one of his hands around, making a slight whirring noise. “Please continue.” Rouge sat down on one end of the aforementioned couch, sinking into the cushions with a sigh. “Okay. Let’s see. I haven’t...ever talked to you guys about my family before, have I?” “I do not recall you initiating any such conversation.” Omega answered, at the same time as Shadow replied, “No….?” “Well. Considering everything...I kind of figured it’s about time I told you all my story.” She smiled again, but it was a little bittersweet. Shadow inched closer, caution sparking in his eyes. “Where to start...I mean, I have a mom, two sisters, a stepsister, a stepbrother, and a stepmom. And a dad too, I guess?” “You guess?” Omega asked skeptically, before being shot a fierce ‘no questions‘ look by Shadow. “It’s alright, hon.” Rouge said, putting a hand on the hedgehog’s shoulder. “I guess I should really start at the beginning.” “My dad was a cat and my mom is a bat- obviously, hah. My two officially related sisters are twins, three years younger than me. Right before they were born, though...my dad left. He took all the cash with him when he did. And, well. Left Mom with a barely-paid-for apartment and without a job. “We, uh. Heard later that he ran off with some lady from his job. Mom...didn’t take it too well.” Shadow’s eyes widened and Omega smacked a fist into one hand. “Rouge. Is your father, hypothetically, good at withstanding high-powered attacks from a hypothetical extremely destructive robot?” She snickered. “No, he’s not. But please don’t actually fight him, alright?” His hands crackling with chaos energy, Shadow hissed, “Rouge...I think I like his plan.” He bared his fangs as he spoke, looking furious. Rouge smiled gratefully at the both of them. “Thanks, guys, but he’s really not even worth your time. Let me keep going, okay?” Omega sat back, irritated at the lack of pulverizing Rouge’s father going on, and Shadow, reluctantly, allowed his chaos energy to dissipate. “Yeah, so he left, and that was a whole thing. Mom worked hard for us, but it just...wasn’t enough to make ends meet. I started my career of...relieving people of their fancy objects-” here she winked- “at the age of eleven to help out. Dropped out of school after eighth grade to start full-time thievery once I turned fourteen, and, yeah. I had to leave home, otherwise Mom and the twins would’ve been in real trouble. “I got busted after two whole years by the one and only Guardian Units of Nations- not a bad streak, if I do say so myself. Then, I started working for G.U.N. to pay my dues to society, and...you all know the rest after that. I still kept sending checks back to the family, though.” Shadow and Omega were both looking at her with unreadable expressions at this point. “I’ve stopped doing that now, actually, since Mom’s been with her girlfriend for like a year now. She’s dating this super sweet cardinal who gives her basically everything my dad never did- her name’s Camellia and she has two little kids from her last marriage. She’s been so good for Mom, honestly.

“I know it’s usually supposed to be this whole thing where the stepdaughter hates the stepmom, but that’s not for me. When I got the news, I was just like ‘Oh, so that’s why I’m pan’ - yeah, really- and now I’m cool with it. Plus, I’ve got two new little sibs, so it’s all fine.

“So...yeah. That’s my family.”

Shadow sat there in deep thought for a minute. “Your family sounds nice...I’m just sorry you had to go through all of that.” he said, when he finally spoke up.

“Yeah, they’re great- and it’s okay. I mean, if it wasn’t for all that, I never would’ve found you guys!” she said, looking much brighter now. “Now that you know about them, you wanna see some pictures?”

“Certainly.” Omega said, curious to see these people that Rouge cared for so deeply.

“Okay, so...these are my twin sisters, Midori and Neela.” she said, showing a social media post of two identical coffee-colored cats posing for a selfie. Even their fur markings were exactly the same, as well as the shade of their golden eyes. Despite the fact that they were felines, something about them looked an awful lot like Rouge. The shape of their faces, perhaps?

“And here’s Camellia and Mom.” A picture came up of a beaming, moderately curvy white bat and an equally overjoyed cardinal with their arms around each other in front of a beautiful sunset.

“This is Jade, my stepsister, she’s ten-” Rouge showed an image of a young goldfinch playing soccer, kicking the ball fiercely. “-and that’s Spark, my stepbrother.” A small cardinal with a grin as broad as his mother’s was swinging on a swing at a playground, his eyes bright with the excitement of childhood.

Shadow smiled, looking as though he were a mixture of genuine happiness and a little ever-present pain. “They all look wonderful, Rouge. I’m...honored...that you felt like you could show us this.”

“That wasn’t so bad, honestly- I’ve been wanting to figure out how to do that for a while.” the bat said. “This is going to be the hard part.”

Two pairs of eyes watched her expectantly.

She exhaled. “Every year...my family has this big, three-day Wintersweek party. And when I say big, I mean seven out of my mom’s nine siblings and their spouses and kids. Like, more than twenty guests big.”

Omega interrupted her there. “If your mother has nine siblings, why did none of them bother to help her when she needed them?”

Rouge looked at the floor, a little sad. “Four of them were in debt themselves, two live in crazy places around the world and didn’t really know, and...the other three tried to help. Mom refused to take more than she could pay back. They still helped do other stuff like watch us while Mom was working, though.”

“Understood. You may continue.” Omega replied, shifting into a slightly less confrontational pose.

“So. I always go to this party, except for those two years when I was on the run. This is going to be my third year back. And…

“I really, really, reallyreally want to introduce my family to my two best friends. You know, the ones who live with me and always have my back and mean the world to me.” she said, looking straight at Shadow and Omega. The former blushed a faint green at the praise, while the latter scoffed.

“Of course you wish to do so. Our excellence is unparalleled.”

Rouge smiled hopefully at them. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you guys, but...will you come to the party this year?”

Omega processed this for a minute. “How amenable is your family towards weapons of incredible destructive power being present in their home?”

“Well, see, about that….” Rouge muttered. “...you might have to empty your weapons cartridges before we go.”

“I am unsure if this is an acceptable outcome. I will respect your wishes to an extent, but I refuse to be without weaponry at my disposal.”

The bat thought for a moment. “...you can bring the flamethrower, but only if you put a PIN lock on it.”

“...”

“...”

Rouge stared him down. “There’s going to be kids there. Kids.”

“Accepted.” Omega said finally. His tone switched to a more triumphant note as he added, “I shall come and impress all of your relatives with my power.”

Shadow had reservations, too. “Won’t it be weird, having people who aren’t really your family there?”

“Shadow…” she said gently. “...you two are as close to me as my ‘real family’, and I want you to be there.”

Omega noted that Shadow was behaving in a manner that suggested he was ‘flustered’. He folded his arms tightly, lowered his head, and his mouth was pressed tightly into a line- an attempt to hide a smile. “...but won’t I take up too much space? An extra bed is more difficult to manage than an outlet.”

Rouge sighed sharply, becoming frustrated with his hesitance. “Mom has air mattresses up to her ears specifically for this, and she lives in Camellia’s house now, which has like ten bedrooms anyway. And you’re totally not going to be ‘a bother’ or anything, so don’t even say that. Mom basically screamed when she found out I was bringing people, and I mean that in a good way. She didn’t stop asking me questions for half an hour.”

“I…” Shadow said tentatively, close to giving in.

“If they’re ever too much for you, though, just feel free to hide in one of the back rooms. There’s plenty of places where you won’t be disturbed.”

The hedgehog sighed, but he didn’t look upset. “I suppose I can try, for you.”

“Yes!” Rouge shouted, kicking her legs before getting up and bouncing up and down. “Heck yeah! This is gonna be great!”

…

Over the next week, they discussed the party numerous times, and Rouge spent a lot of time sitting in the middle of mountains of wrapping paper, packaging presents for her family. Omega and Shadow had tried to help her, but she’d insisted that they not worry about it. “It’s my family,” she had said, waving them away. “You being there is already more than enough. I’d never ask anything else of you.”

Shadow had still made cupcakes, though. Omega helped with the icing.

On the first day of the event, they set off early, making the several hours’ drive from Central City up to Rouge’s family’s house (north of Empire City) so that they’d arrive just before lunch. Thinking of Shadow, Rouge didn’t want him in particular to get caught up in the early (and supposedly quite intense) greetings that her family usually participated in. Omega resolved to turn his force output down just a little- he didn’t want to accidentally break someone’s hand instead of merely shaking it in introduction.

Of course, this all meant they had to endure a four-hour car ride together, involving lots of fights over what music was playing, several different long-distance driving games, and multiple threats to toss one another out the window while moving at 80 mph or more.

So, generally uneventful for them.

...

When they arrived at the family’s house, the E-series robot decreased his optic zoom to 85% just to take the entire place in. It was truly an enormous building, built from what appeared to be stone but on closer inspection was...actually stone. Unexpected, yet impressive.

Omega was mildly uncertain about the heating capabilities of such a house, but at least it was structurally sound. He would have to decide on its defensibility later.

“Wow.” Shadow muttered, his eyes wide. “I know you said it had ten bedrooms, but...wow.”

“I said I wasn’t messing around with you!” Rouge laughed brightly. “This place is crazy big.”

As soon as they opened the door and the bat stepped inside, the team was greeted by a loud shout of “Rouge!” from various delighted family members.

Her immediate family rushed over first, giving her lots of hugs (while her parents relieved Omega of the numerous presents she’d had him carry). Her stepbrother jumped up and down, asking, “Did you bring a present for me? Do I get one? Do I?”

Rouge smiled at him, picking the little cardinal up and giving him a hug. “Of course you do. There’s one right over there!” she said, pointing towards the giant pile of presents.

Rouge’s mother came rushing back over at that, greeting her daughter with a tight embrace. “Oh!” she exclaimed, noticing Omega and Shadow standing by the door. “Are these your friends, Rouge? Come on, introduce us!”

The younger bat grinned. “Alright, so this is my partner-in-crime and our resident edgy goth, Shadow,” she said, gesturing towards the hedgehog. He responded with a glower at Rouge for the latter remark and a polite “Nice to meet you.” to the family.

“And this is my personal palanquin (just kidding, just kidding) and awesome destroyer of enemies, Omega.”

“Greetings, Rouge’s relatives.” Omega said, turning his volume down to a level that Rouge had termed ‘inside voice’. First impressions and all that.

After making their way through many, many more greetings- which Omega recorded to play back for name storage later- the team were finally seated at one of the large couches in the living room. Rouge, being Rouge, began to chat cheerfully with a couple of her family members, describing her latest escapades with the other two team members as well as her general social life.

Shadow and Omega didn’t speak much at first, but the latter in particular soon began to interrupt her stories to point out multiple inaccuracies (mostly Rouge underplaying how utterly awesome he was). He found that he quite enjoyed talking about their various adventures, in fact.

However, the three quickly discovered that some of Rouge’s relatives had...misunderstood her stories.

One of the many aunts- whose name Omega had not yet stored- spoke up. “Rouge, I know you said you were bringing friends, but you don’t have to be shy with us, sweetie. Shadow here seems like a very thoughtful boyfriend.”

Chaos ensued. Rouge choked on her water and Omega had to pound her on the back to help her breathe again. Meanwhile, Shadow seemed to have reflexively assumed a defensive, curled-up position, yet Omega could still make out a faint glow of green from within the black and red ball.

“No!” the bat shouted, once she’d regained her breath. “No, no, we’re only friends, really!”

Her aunt seemed unconvinced, as did several other guests.

Shadow slowly uncurled, prepared to back Rouge up- though he seemed to have temporarily forgotten how to speak in his shock. His mouth moved silently, and he seemed to be having trouble stringing together a coherent sentence.

“I am not romantically involved with Rouge in any way.” he began slowly. “I assure you, she means the world to me, but in a platonic manner. I am grateful to have a friend like her, but that is all we are to each other.”

Several other relatives decided to weigh in on this.

“He seems like a very polite friend!”

“Rouge, even if you’re not together, you had better hang on to this one.”

“He certainly likes you, and that’s what’s important.”

“It’s alright if you aren’t dating, honey!” Rouge’s mom added. “Healthy platonic relationships are very important.”

The younger bat shook her head, covering her eyes with her hand. “Guys, please.” she groaned, before looking over at Shadow.

The hybrid appeared to be surreptitiously trying to get in touch with his hedgehog heritage and burrow underneath the cushions by this point. Rouge grinned at him and wrapped an arm around his waist, pulling him back out into the open. “Come on, don’t make him embarrassed! It’s only day one, guys!” 

Shadow cringed at that. Omega, meanwhile, was most definitely not recording any of this and storing it safely in his blackmail folder. Not at all.

…

A little later on, after everyone had eaten lunch, Omega (being the strongest on the team, despite Shadow’s protests otherwise) hauled their suitcases upstairs with little trouble. Rouge had been too busy talking to come with him, and Shadow looked as though he’d buried himself in a pile of cushions and probably wouldn’t be moved without extreme force, so he’d gone up alone.

Looking around the small room, he...found it quite tolerable, honestly. Sunlight streamed in through two medium-sized windows, and there were several empty floating shelves on the walls for their things, as well as a linen closet. There were only two beds in the room, since Omega just required a…

Ah, there it was. A charging port.

The robot was actually more pleased than he expected with the amount of mock evergreen, poinsettias, and other such ornaments in the room, though. He wasn’t much one for artistic expression himself (preferring to express his thoughts via some choice language and a few well-aimed rockets), but his friends were more...appreciative of such things and would likely enjoy the decoration.

Bored with examining the room already, he put down the suitcases and began to explore the house, trying to figure out what the floor plan looked like. He walked through all of the different rooms, enjoying himself while examining all of the possible defensive vantage points and the most optimal attack areas. 

Sure, fighting was his job, but who said he couldn’t enjoy contingency planning? Mapping out attacks on his place of residence and figuring out how to best repel invaders was one of his favorite pastimes (right up there with visiting the mall with his friends).

However, once he had planned out about five different strategies, he realized that an hour had gone by and that it was probably a good idea to go check up on said friends.

After he carefully made his way back downstairs- trying to walk in a way that didn’t shake the house was difficult- he saw Rouge still chatting with some of her cousins and looking very happy. Shadow was barely even visible, curled up in a dark corner and alternating between reading and listening to the conversation. Everyone honestly seemed to be enjoying themselves.

However, there was one jarring thing about this warm, familial scene that Omega noticed. 

The little children.

They were everywhere. Climbing their parents like a jungle gym, interrupting conversations left and right, running around underfoot, and generally causing mayhem in their wake. While Omega highly appreciated their impressive ability to cause confusion and chaos, he suspected that most of the other people here did not. Multiple guests looked ready to break something, and the robot was fully aware that Rouge’s family did not share his opinions on wanton destruction.

So, he decided to do something about this.

“SMALL CHILDREN,” he shouted, gaining the attention of the entire household. “I CHALLENGE YOU TO A SNOWBALL FIGHT.” That was an acceptable (and fun) form of violence, if he remembered correctly. Rouge certainly looked interested.

The children began to bounce around in various states of excitement, their energy somehow increasing exponentially at this prospect. “Whose team will you be on, mister?” Rouge’s stepbrother asked bravely. 

“MY OWN. NONE OF YOU CAN DEFEAT ME.” Omega declared.

“Yeah, right!” an older child shouted. “Come on, guys, let’s go!”

The entire group rushed outside and began to build a snow fort for the upcoming attack. Most of the children were clearly struggling to organize, as half seemed to comprehend the need for a well-structured creation and half were just piling up snow like maniacs.

Meanwhile, Omega began to carefully form large building blocks out of the snow, building a formidable fortress (snow could be imposing, alright??). Once he was satisfied with his semicircle construction, he noticed that he still had a few minutes to wait before the children finished theirs. He spent this time making snowballs, as well as a few other...adjustments. When the children shouted out “Ready!”, he was more than prepared.

Since they were, again, Rouge’s relatives, he was very, very generous and gave them the first chance to fire. The children launched snowball after snowball, but he ducked behind his fort and only one found its mark. Once they were all out of ammunition and scrambling for more, he felt a smug sense of satisfaction.

It was time.

He loaded his arms full of snowballs…

And proceeded to launch them out of his machine gun ports at the children.

The kids scattered in all directions, shrieking with a mixture of fear and excitement. Omega, during their attack, had thought to make even more projectiles, turning what was supposed to be organized warfare into a one-sided rampage of destruction.

By now, Rouge had appeared on the deck and was currently howling with laughter, tears streaming down her face as she watched Omega launch his onslaught of snow. Shadow was standing at the doorway along with several others, a giant wicked grin spread across his face.

The E-series robot truly wished he could make that second expression right now. He turned to Rouge, watching her cackle…

...and immediately proceeded to fire a massive amount of snow at her as well. Her laughter transformed into a gasp of mock betrayal as she scooped up some of the offending substance, packing it into a weapon of her own. “Oh. It. Is. On.”, she hissed, shaking the snow off her wings.

Taking to the skies, she began a counterattack, distracting Omega with varied sizes of snowballs and forcing him to try and fire directly upwards. The children, realizing that they had a powerful ally in Rouge, began to make new projectiles themselves and threw them at him from all sides, until Omega finally found that he was struggling to handle the attack.

As he began to turn the tide again, he realized suddenly that this was entirely due to Rouge’s absence…

...and of course that was when a shadow fell over him.

Followed by a giant pile of snow.

He flailed in the icy trap as he struggled to regain his bearings. Once he had managed to clamber halfway out of the snow, he saw Rouge hovering above him. Her wings struggled to hold her in the air as she laughed again, and he noticed sulkily that she was holding a sheet.

“Cheater.” he muttered, indignant at having been trapped in such an unflattering manner.

“Cheating?! From the guy who launched snowballs like missiles? Really?” she shouted down to him good-naturedly, shaking her head. “Talk about hypocritical, Omega.”

The E-series robot still insisted on having the last laugh, though- he had to get out somehow, so he powered on all of his fans at full blast to clear away the snow. And if everyone was standing too close to avoid the resulting icy shower, well then that was their problem.

After that, though, everyone had to go inside and dry themselves off. Organics couldn’t handle being wet and cold very well, and Omega didn’t like the idea of his circuitry being shorted out. He felt a great sense of satisfaction at having established his status as the cool one on the very first day, though.

He spent a little more time with the young ones after that, playing several rounds of a popular card game called One with them and stacking up all of the plus-fours. The robot showed no mercy even in games.

Several children, evidently impressed by his prowess (or perhaps just in awe of the fact that he was a giant robot) begged him for promises that he would play more tomorrow, to which he quickly agreed. Not long after, to everyone’s disappointment, the kids’ parents came and practically dragged them to the dinner table, having shouted their names four or five times by this point.

As he walked into the dining room, Omega surveyed the area, focusing for a moment on the glow that the many candles gave off on the table. Fire was always a nice touch.

Looking further, he noticed that the wooden table alone was a formidable piece of furniture, filling the largest room in the house and forcing some chairs to squeeze up against the wall just to make space. And that wasn’t even mentioning the feast laid out on top of it. Omega ignored that for now in favor of sitting down on one side of Rouge after he saw her at the table. Looking over to her other side, he noticed Shadow surveying the food spread out on the table with what most would consider a completely blank look.

Omega, however, had experience with analyzing Shadow’s facial expressions, and noted the slight tension in his face as well as the fact that he was fidgeting with his silverware. Both he and Rouge had a good idea as to why, too- Shadow didn’t need any of this.

The hybrid had been created with incredible physical resilience, able to withstand the most arduous of conditions. This included a significant lack of food. He actually ate only about three times a week, and even then he only consumed small meals. While it was about time for him to eat today, the fact that there would be even more food over the next couple of days seemed to have produced a conundrum for him.

If he ate now, he wouldn’t need to later, which could be quite awkward, particularly when everybody else would. Omega thought through the options and decided that there were three main paths he could take: eat now and not later, not eat now but do so later, or possibly attempt to eat a little on all three days.

Rouge seemed to have realized this as well. Leaning over to Shadow, she whispered, “Whatever you want to do is fine, hon. It’s okay if you eat a lot over these few days- everyone else here will too. If you don’t want to, though, that’s cool- just make sure you have something at some point, alright?”

The robot watched as Shadow relaxed slightly at her understanding words. The change was almost imperceptible, but he now sat back in his chair instead of forward, and he’d stopped adjusting his place setting.

Once everyone was seated and they’d given a quick toast, the family began to dig in. Shadow sat back and waited for everyone else to take some food first- a wise choice. Rouge, on the other hand, entered the rather impressive food frenzy with a voracity that her team members knew all too well- she often complained that one of her few vices (aside from gems and other sparkly objects) was food.

Omega took this time to survey what he could see of the dishes, interested in finding out for himself what a proper Wintersweek meal looked like. He saw two dishes that appeared to be some sort of poultry, as well as bowls of finger food that looked like they were filled with crickets and beetles. Various platters of cooked vegetables in every color of the rainbow covered the table, some with sliced fruit available as well. Loaves of bread in multiple shapes and sizes were scattered throughout the presentation, accented by artfully placed centerpieces.

Quite honestly, it looked impressive.

Rouge had a little bit of everything on her plate, and was currently digging into a buttery baked potato like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Omega silently put his napkin next to her plate, the (sarcastic) message clear: You need this more than I do.

Shadow, meanwhile, had taken a little fruit, one piece of meat, and two slices of bread, but seemed very hesitant to eat much more than that. He looked to be quite invested in a conversation that several of the adults were having about their own teenage experiences, often leaning in slightly when a funny story came up.

Omega mostly kept an eye on his friends, while also half listening to the children talk about the latest video game that had become popular. It seemed to contain lots of fighting combined with some impressive storytelling, and the robot made a note of the game title for his own use later.

However, as he checked on Rouge again, making sure she hadn’t choked on her food, he noticed that she had left her plate to the side in favor of talking to her family about...wait.

Omega knew this story.

This was a story where he was walking through the halls of an abandoned underground hideout for a highly sophisticated ring of criminals (an assignment for their entire team). In which said diabolical criminals had installed multiple traps designed to keep people out. And these traps. Included magnets. That specifically messed up artificial intelligence.

Omega’s memory had been severely impaired by the event, but Shadow and Rouge told him later that they had discovered him stumbling around the main hub of the base, rambling out loud about things as ridiculous as current weather patterns and- he shuddered internally- kittens. He was eternally grateful for this memory loss, though, as the two had apparently, instead of taking this seriously, dissolved into helpless laughter on the spot.

Of course, they had taken him to Tails to get fixed up. But not until after Rouge had filmed another five minutes or so of him acting absolutely loopy while their laughter, punctuated with the occasional gasp for breath, filled the background.

And she was just getting to the part where they found him now-!

The E-series robot shot out of his chair and clamped a hand over Rouge’s mouth, turning his volume low and hissing “Don’t you dare.” in her ear.

Unfortunately, this only added to everyone else’s interest, as Rouge began to cackle loudly at Omega’s evident embarrassment and her memory of the event. “Tell us! Tell us!” Camellia (Rouge’s stepmother) cried out, clapping her hands and looking for all the world like a child who had just been handed a chocolate bar. 

“Help me, Shadow!” Rouge shouted through the steel grip on her face, slurring her words with laughter. The hybrid, happy to take a break from the crowded room and equally happy to shame Omega, pried the robot off of Rouge and somehow managed to drag him out of the room as everyone now leaned in to hear her finish the story.

“So we were really worried, right? Since we hadn’t heard anything? And then we-”

Shadow shut the door on her voice and smirked at Omega, but there was a tinge of real happiness in his expression. “It’s alright, Omega. She doesn’t actually want you to feel bad, you know.”

“That’s what you say.” he scoffed. “Rouge isn’t in there telling them about the time you didn’t eat for a month on a mission and then binge-”

“Alright, alright!” Shadow groaned. “I get it, but let’s let her have fun, alright? This is her family, after all.”

“Fine.” Omega grumbled. “But I will get you back for this.”

“Sure you will.” Shadow raised an eyebrow at him.

This led to a fierce staring match/arm-wrestling battle and subsequent argument over who won, immediately followed by Omega pulling out his phone and the two watching a recently popular obstacle course show. Of course, they both agreed that they could do far better than any of the contestants.

Eventually, though, as the evening wore on, the two joined back up with Rouge to head to their room. Shadow took a hot shower while Rouge changed into her favorite pajamas- they were soft and white with little pink hearts all over (her favorite colors). 

She yawned loudly just as the hybrid walked in, already wrapped in a blanket and pulling on some plain black nightwear. He didn’t really need it, but his fifty-year stint in what was essentially a superpowered freezer had left him with a distinct dislike for the cold.

Omega had already plugged into the outlet and begun to charge, but yet…”Why don’t I get a blanket?”

“What the heck d’ you want one for?” Rouge muttered, already exhausted. 

“Well, you both have them.” he muttered sulkily, glowering at them from his corner of the room.

The bat opened up the closet in the room, looking up at the top shelf. “Shadow, c’mere. I can’t reach this thing by myself.” 

He walked over quickly, not appearing to be tired at all. Omega, as always, knew better, and saw the fatigue from the long day that he tried to hide behind his “Ultimate Lifeform” title.

Rouge jumped onto his shoulders in a practiced movement, snatching a pale purple fluffy blanket from the shelf and flinging it half-heartedly at Omega. “There’s your blanket.” she declared, before jumping straight from Shadow to her bed.

She settled into her usual sleeping position, with her feet hooked over the headboard and her face and pillow about halfway down the bed. It wasn’t a typical behavior for most, but she was a bat, after all. “‘Night, guys.” she murmured, already half asleep.

Shadow carefully lifted his blankets and slid under them, trying to keep them as neat as possible. The hedgehog shifted into a half-curled position, displaying his quills to the world and protecting his vulnerable legs and chest. “Sleep well, Rouge. Goodnight, Omega.” he said softly, still trying to stay awake.

“Good night.” the robot replied.

Omega kept an eye on his teammates, the room lit only by a patch of moonlight from the window. He listened to Rouge’s slight snoring, and watched as Shadow’s eyes slowly closed and his breathing evened out.

The robot was always cautious about shifting into his own form of ‘sleep’, but reminded himself that this was not enemy territory. This was Rouge’s family’s house, and they were all safe.

Still, he watched his friends sleep peacefully for a while longer. Then, he selected low power mode from his menu of choices and allowed his eyes to go dark.