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cyanocoraxx · 3 years

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Damage (Chapter 10)

FFN / AO3 Wordcount: 8,586 words Characters: Metal Sonic, Mecha Sonic, Silver Sonic & Sonic Content warnings: Gun descriptions and use, dissociation

A F-6T Spider Troop Big Foot crashed down to the ground with a metallic clang that seemed to ricochet off the walls. The two hedgehogs responsible landed side-by-side and exchanged grins. Their chaotic energy was almost equal once they got going.

"That was awesome!" Sonic exclaimed, pumping a fist in the air on the last word. "It's been ages since someone's almost been able to keep up with me!"

"Hell yeah it was." Silver agreed before jumping up to his feet and looking around. "Who else wants some? You can pick if you wanna get your butt kicked by a metal or fleshy hedgehog if you have a preference!"

Sonic sped over to another door and pushed the button beside it to activate it. Silver ran over to enter, and Sonic pushed him through forcefully.

"Time to take in the trash."

Silver feigned an offended gasp and shot a look over his shoulder after stumbling to a stop. "Hey! That hurts my cold, unfeeling, robotic heart."

Sonic smirked at him and rubbed a finger under his nose. "You actually have one of those? Egghead sure is creative. And, kinda morbid too."

The robot revved his engine and grinned dangerously. "You're so gonna get it when this partnership is over. Kicking your ass is gonna be so satisfying."

"As if you could keep up with my top speed, bolt-brain." Sonic retorted, following after him whilst stretching his arms out casually.

"Unless you can reach speeds greater than Mach 5 I think I've got that one on lock." Silver said proudly, whilst shooting down another G.U.N mech with his wrist laser. "Sorry to break it to ya, oh great and heroic blue blur. Maybe we should re-name you to somethin' like, uh... blue smudge. On account of a smudge not being as cool-sounding as blur... and the implication that something moved a bit and then just kinda stopped."

"Can we save the ridicule until after we've rescued your bro?" Sonic sarcastically replied, putting his hands on his hips as he watched his robot duplicate take care of things. "I have, like... an image to upkeep here. I can't have anyone here hearing that you're faster."

"Sure! But once the rescue is done, the ridicule will be ten times worse."

"Duly noted!"

Once again the two worked together to clear the base of the many robots residing within. Eventually, the two reached the research floor, where they assumed Neo and Mecha would be. It would be best to part ways here.

Both hedgehogs stared at the door, avoiding the interaction for as long as they could. Silver was the first to break the silence, letting out a sigh.

"I know we're enemies and all, but... thanks."

Sonic was taken aback by the robot's sincerity. He almost didn't know what to do with it, after all the banter they had been sharing up until now. He scratched the back of his head and smiled awkwardly. "Uh, yeah... no problem. Hedgehog's gotta do what a hedgehog's gotta do."

Neither of them really knew how to say goodbye. They were enemies, after all. Saying genuine goodbyes wasn't natural.

Sonic turned and started to walk back the way he came. "Later, dude..." He trailed off and stopped, looking thoughtful. "Hey, actually." He turned back to face Silver. "You never told me your name. What type of robot-me are you? Shiny Sonic? Sharper Sonic?"

Silver straightened and lifted his head, a confident smile returning to its rightful place on his muzzle plate. He turned to look at Sonic and held up two fingers. "Close! It's Silver Sonic. The second. Just to be precise about it."

"Woah, how original!" Sonic replied sarcastically with a deadpan look.

"I'm exactly what it says on the tin, hedgehog. Nothin' wrong with that." Silver defended his name whilst gesturing to his metallic paint job. "What you see is what you get!" He offered Sonic a grin upon using one of his own quotes.

Sonic chuckled and started walking away. "Later, kiddo. 'Till we meet again for your aggressive recycling!"

"See ya around, loathsome copy. I'll kick your ass to Stardust Speedway and back!"

Silver didn't know what to do with the strange, empty space between them as it grew. He slowly drew his hand back down and sighed, turning back to the door and going through to the other side.

------

The lightless corridor was like a place out of time. The darkness felt heavy, even oppressive, with nothing but a couple of fire exit signs lighting the way.

Neo's optics adjusted to the change in light levels after a moment. With the brighter glow coming from them, the metallic walls were lit with a deep red glow as he landed and continued to look for his brother on foot. His brother's signal was weakening, and that sent dread through his tanks. Either he was getting further away, or...

That was when a familiar silhouette slipped into view ahead of him.

Neo and Mecha made eye contact from some distance apart.

Mecha took a step forward. Neo's optics frantically swept over his brother - something was wrong with his body language. He was too stiff, too robotic, ironically enough. Upon realizing this, Neo took a step back, holding eye contact with his brother. He could tell that Mecha was in self-defense mode. This wasn't good.

Mecha stared him down with a strange fixation. His CPU was red hot with conflicting errors and the aggression of the virus eating away at him. Errors about his critical temperature repeatedly popped up in his vision and no matter how many times he closed them, they piled back up again. His focus on the errors caused him to keep staring blankly at Neo, as if he wasn't really there.

Neo stiffened. That wasn't like Mecha at all. Slowly and carefully, he walked towards his brother and held out one hand to him, his silver claws glinting in the red glow he was creating.

The movement snatched Mecha's attention back to reality. He flinched away and took several unsteady steps back, desperately avoiding the inevitable.

"Mecha?"

Upon hearing his name, Mecha snapped. His motor control was ripped away from him n an instant. Mecha suddenly ran and lunged for Neo, who he swung at once he was in range. Neo caught his fist in one hand with a beep of surprise. Something was very, very wrong.

"Mecha, listen to me." Neo started, holding Mecha's closed fist in his hand as gently as he could manage. "You are not well. We need to go home."

"I need to kill you."

Neo flinched at his words. Mecha overpowered him in an instant and pinned him against the wall by his shoulders, towering over him aggressively. His visor, normally emitting a gentle but powerful red glow, was bright yellow, almost white. It made him look almost sickly. Neo looked up at him, noting all of the scratches, marks, and dents in his normally flawless armour. It hurt him to see his stoic older sibling like this.

"Mecha... We should go home now."

"Fight me. Fight me. I want to hurt you." As Mecha's demands grew more aggressive, his grip on Neo's shoulder plates grew stronger and more desperate. "I need to hurt you. I need to hurt you right now."

Neo was silent for a moment. He knew he could give a spiel about how "this isn't you", or "just fight it", but Mecha was smart - he would already know that. He wasn't going to insult his brother's intelligence by suggesting the obvious. He opted for something different, trying to distract him. Perhaps getting him to try memory recall would allow him to bypass some command long enough to break free.

"Do you remember what time it was when we talked on the ship deck?"

"I will destroy you." Mecha pushed him harder against the wall, now nose-to-nose with him. As much as he kept saying he wanted, no, needed to hurt his brother, something was obviously holding him back. He was more than capable of putting a hole in the smaller robot if he really wanted to. "I will destroy you. Hit me first."

"It was 6AM. The sun was rising. You approached from behind me and did what you do best... scanning me without my consent." Neo continued, keeping his voice synthesizer quiet to be as unthreatening as possible. "We talked for a while. You probably know exactly how long we spoke for."

Mecha listened intently, desperately focusing on Neo's voice as his grip on the smaller robot's shoulders grew stronger.

"I told you that you almost sounded human. It was almost humorous at the time because you asked me if you should delete that moment from your memory."

"It hurts. I want it to stop."

Neo flinched at Mecha's words. He couldn't disguise the pang of hurt he felt for his brother. How dare anyone make him utter those words. How dare anybody think they had the right to make him say anything like that.

The smaller blue robot slowly rested his cool forehead against Mecha's overheating one. "I know. I am so sorry." He lifted a hand and gently prized Mecha's hands from his shoulder plates. "Let us go home now."

But the longer Mecha stood, the worse he felt. He wanted to listen to Neo. He wanted to go home. But the vertigo was destroying any sensibility he had. Swaying in place, Mecha's engine only got louder and more erratic, stopping and starting at random. His vision cut out into static, then back to normal. He desperately tried to access his visual processing program but it was blocked off from his control. He went in and out of static and black several times.

"You can leave. Come with me."

Neo's words fell on deaf ears.

Mecha found himself lost in heavy darkness now. There was no floor beneath his feet, no ceiling above his head. He was lost in an overbearing nothingness. Something to his left, distant but somehow directly beside him too, pushed him to keep attacking everything around him. It was a trick, and he knew it; he had been here before, after all. He listened, and he found himself falling deeper yet, impossibly, irrevocably deeper into nothing. The sounds around him struck him from every angle, attacking him.

He stared blankly at Neo as all of these strange feelings assaulted him.

Neo looked very concerned. He reached out to put a hand on Mecha's shoulder. "Mecha?"

Mecha suddenly grabbed Neo's arm - the one that Sonic tore off before. "No home. I belong to... To... Not you. Not you. Not you."

"You have a home. With me and your little brother." Neo gently reminded him, still keeping his eyes on Mecha. A part of him screamed to pull away, memories of the hedgehog dismantling him before rising to the surface and making his own head swim. But he couldn't lose focus. Instead, he shifted his awareness to how the pressure on his arm felt to keep him mentally grounded.

Even in their spoken code, the auditory input was too much, making Mecha dizzy and confused. It was nauseating. The virus kept replicating and attaching itself to his auditory and vestibular systems, destroying them slowly. He made a low growling noise at his brother.

"Loud. You are loud. Stop talking. Start killing you. I will kill you."

Mecha's hand shook around Neo's arm. His CPU commanded him to crush it, to destroy everything. Slowly, his hand closed harder around Neo's plating. The metal started to give way. But that was when his vision returned. Mecha saw the pain in Neo's expression and recoiled. The virus kept attacking his primary voice synthesizer but it hadn't reached the code program yet. He mentally honed in on it and managed to finally say something he wanted to say.

"I do not want to harm you." Mecha finally said in code this time. "Do not let me injure you. I am begging you."

His actions opposed his words as Neo's armour cracked audibly in his hand. Neo went to jerk his arm away, but Mecha held on firmly. Then, he threw him sidelong into the other wall. Neo put one hand out to catch himself before he hit it, but Mecha was quick to swing for him. Neo caught his fist again and pushed back, meeting his brother's frightened look with his own despairing one as they pushed back against each other. Mecha suddenly gained more strength and overpowered his smaller brother again, this time pinning him and charging an energy blast in one hand. He raised his shaking hand to Neo's face and revved his engine as if growling.

Neo narrowed his optics as the glow of the energy partly blinded him. Carefully, he reached up and took the back of Mecha's hand, knowing that the program to actually fire the shot was still booting if he hadn't done it already. He closed his hand around Mecha's and lowered it, keeping eye contact with him as he did.

Something in Mecha changed. He revved his engine aggressively and took one step back.

Mecha used his other fist to punch Neo square in the face, which Neo caught just as he went to pull back for another hit. Mecha paused for a second, seeming to let Neo push him back, but his sudden burst of strength from before came back. He wrenched his hands free. Neo went to move away, but Mecha was faster this time.

Mecha grabbed his brother by the arm and threw him straight through the metal wall behind them with a loud crash.

He watched silently as the dust and debris cleared. In the other room, Neo was pulling himself up to a stand, using a desk as leverage. Mecha stepped over the remains of the wall and approached, completely fixed on his target. He stopped for a second, grabbing motor control for one precious moment, but it was short-lived.

"Please. Move." Mecha practically begged him, unable to stop the attack program from booting. Just as he lifted his hand and shot the energy blast at Neo, Neo ducked out of the way, causing the computer on the desk to go up in smoke instead. To Neo's surprise, Mecha grabbed what was left of the machine and threw it with all his might at Neo, who hadn't expected it. With Neo taken off guard, Mecha came at him and punched him in the face again. This time the glass of his optics cracked on one side with Mecha's strength, blinding him on one side.

Now that he had the upper hand, Mecha kicked him in the knee as hard as he could and Neo lost his balance - but Neo deliberately brought Mecha down with him by grabbing his shoulder. Mecha's disorientation was too much now, and he didn't resist.

The two lay next to each other for a while, the only sound being Mecha's desperately screeching engine as he fought with everything he had.

"I hit you."

"You did."

"You told me that you would not let me hurt you."

"It does not hurt."

"You are lying. Stop."

"I wouldn't lie to you."

"Why must everyone lie to me. Stop attempting to make me "feel" better with your words. I cannot feel."

"My damages can be repaired. It is not a concern."

"I cannot feel like you. Stop it. Stop. I do not wish to hear it."

"But you were scared just now. I do not want you to be-"

That was when Mecha let out a scream.

Mecha covered his face with both hands and just screamed with all he had, until his voice synthesizer started to grate with static. Startled, Neo scrambled to his knees and was at his sibling's side, resting a reassuring hand on his cheek plate. His own hand was shaking in his ice-cold dread - he had never, ever, heard Mecha like this. It shouldn't have been possible. He was too quiet, too enduring, too unbreakable. He screamed until his synthesizer gave out. It re-booted seconds later, only for him to sob out his next words instead.

"IT HURTS. I HURT YOU. I HURT YOU."

Neo looked away for a moment to find his composure. What the hell had they done to his big brother to cause this... he almost didn't want to know. And, even now, Mecha was just thinking about other people and not himself. It made Neo sick to his tanks to think about how he had been reduced to this crying mess. This was the same robot who once stood by his side as he ruled his robotic empire. A strong, steadfast source of rationality.

But like he had done when he found Neo shut down, Mecha focused on that one word: hurt. It ran through his processor over and over. He caused hurt. He caused pain. He hurt his brother. He hurt him like Eggman did. Like Sonic did. That hurt. It hurt to know this. With no ability to process empathy, he didn't know what to do with any of it. Mecha was stuck in an endless loop of words. He repeatedly murmured them out loud, trying to pull away from Neo in his panic.

Neo hushed him gently and took his hands in his own, steadying their shaking as best as he could with his hands, so ironically made for killing and not... this. He gently leaned down and pressed his forehead to Mecha's, speaking as quietly as he could.

"I know. You are scared of hurting units that you care about. I was scared like that, too." Neo softly explained. "We can be scared together. You will not be alone."

Mecha lost his ability to speak, and all he could do was stare up at his younger brother in terror.

"Dad is waiting for us at home. Please, come home. We will be safe there."

Slowly, Mecha's trembling subsided. His trust in Neo was stronger than anything. Taking one hand from Neo's gentle grasp, he shakily reached up and traced the white arrows on his brother's face. He remembered painting those on by hand. The memory brought some comfort... and it also allowed him to bypass the infection to access his power options. Neo leaned into the touch, telling Mecha that it was okay.

"Once we are home we can watch the sunrise again. Perhaps with our little brother, this time. I am certain that he misses you."

Listening to Neo, Mecha gradually felt calmer. His entire frame relaxed the more Neo spoke to him. That warmer glow from before returned to his visor bit by bit.

"You can put your strength down. Let me take care of you."

Mecha's hand went slack in Neo's, and Neo let it. He finally found an opening to put himself back into sleep mode. Neo watched him intently as he drifted off, making sure that he didn't disturb him until he was settled.

"I love you, brother." Neo barely whispered, nuzzling his cheek against Mecha's face as gingerly as he could as he went.

With his brother finally resting, Neo leaned forward and let out a static sob, as if a weight had just been pulled away from him. That rage he had been suppressing surfaced with a vengeance. He smacked a fist into the wall beside him. It cracked with the force. Good. He hung his head as he pulled his fist away from the wall, optics glowing bright with despair and vexation. All of this was so overwhelming. It almost wasn't real. None of it was fair. Not on him, not on Silver, and not on Mecha.

They didn't deserve to suffer for what he had done as Metal Overlord. Now, he learned, the harsh lesson that his impulsive actions had consequences... many of which involved the few people he cared about. This was the ultimate punishment, and he would accept the responsibility this time, even if his mental instability was partly to blame for the whole situation. There were so many things that led up to his episode, but taking responsibility for it was a start in getting better.

It took him a full minute to regain his composure. Only when his own shaking subsided, the robot finally gathered himself up and lifted Mecha into his arms. He started to walk back the way he came, a strange sort of peace or numbness coming over him as he did. Perhaps it was a mix of dissociation and relief all at once. Whatever it was, he was glad for it in the moment. The sound of his footsteps and the crunch of broken metal and glass under his soles helped to keep him grounded.

Strangely, Neo noted that no more robots came for him. It was as if his path was already clear.

"You probably cannot hear me now, but I do not know that for certain. I have learned not to underestimate you." Neo started speaking again as he rounded a corner and jumped up onto a platform, where a turret should have fired at him but didn't. He landed on his feet with a clang and continued on his way.

"I just want to apologize. For all of this." He paused to step over a broken metal crate, its smaller pieces scattered across the floor. "I should have always listened to you. I should have always respected you as my advisor... As a friend... As a brother. I think..." Again, he paused to boost himself over a roadblock before continuing. "I would have been a better person."

A stray G.U.N turret turned to shoot at him, but he disabled it with an electric bolt easily, the machine going up in smoke moments later. He then ducked under a door that had gotten stuck and walked through another corridor. Red and green lights on both sides of the walls illuminated the two. Neo dryly noted the irony of the contrast... the younger and oldest brother, the emotional and logical, the once-overlord and his once second-in-command.

"You will never hurt again when this is over," Neo continued, disabling a laser barricade with the hit of a button, "that I swear."

Neo jumped up a stairwell and turned a corner...

Where he came face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.

"There you are."

Neo stopped in his tracks.

"It's over, Metal Sonic. You'll be exposed and eradicated for the evil that you are."

Neo met the G.U.N commander's hateful brown and green glare. His working optic burned a hot red in an unspoken warning to back off.

Taking a second to study the threat, he noted that it was just a regular old pistol... not anything that could really harm him or Mecha. So, the robot knew he had the upper hand here. It would be so easy to claw through this human's flesh. To tear him apart. To make him suffer for making his older brother cry. The thought of getting revenge was hot on his processor, and he couldn't deny that.

Desire was different when you were made to be hungry.

The innate need to win and to conquer was all-consuming. It was wonderfully corrosive.

But Mecha shifted slightly in his arms, and the movement snatched his wandering, violent thoughts back into reality. Logically, killing this person would not fix Mecha's system damages, nor would it get him home sooner. And he would have to put his brother down on the floor to do anything, which would put him at risk of being harmed. And that gun pointed at his head? It wasn't like it would kill him if the commander pulled the trigger. He was a robot, after all. He couldn't die. No matter what his data kept telling him... Despite the fact that Mecha had threatened to "kill" him.

It wasn't worth risking anything to get revenge. Not right now. There was too much at stake to lose his head, as much as he wanted to do it.

Neo bumped his head against the gun, acknowledging the military commander's threat, before simply turning and walking a few steps around him. He shot a look over his shoulder at the human as he went, who met his angry stare with a contemptuous snarl.

"You dare mock me, machine? Both of you will be brought to justice... Mark my words, you will suffer!"

Neo gave a single nod in reply. He looked away and fired up his jet engine to fly out of the base and it came to life with a metallic whirr.

BANG.

Startled, Neo turned to the side to shield his older brother from... whatever it was coming at him. When he finally looked back, though, a strangely welcome sight found him. His optic brightened, then softened in relief.

Silver Sonic.

The youngest robot smirked and inserted a magazine into the well of a pistol, banged it against his palm to make sure it was in tight, then pulled the top slide towards himself. Click. He pointed it at the commander and cocked his head to one side.

"Your move."

The commander grit his teeth at the robot but said nothing, staring at the pistol that had just been stolen from him. He wasn't about to beg this "foul machine" for mercy. He was much too proud and had a resolve of steel. But in the end, he was flesh, and they were something else entirely. This wasn't a fight he could win without his own machines.

Silver looked through the front sight. "You know... you can't win a gunfight with a robot. You organics forget to concentrate on your breathing when defending yourselves... holding your breath deprives your muscles of oxygen, so... you lose focus, get shaky... miss, maybe. But for me? I can hold this aaaaall day." He pointed it closer and rested a finger on the trigger. "Your move, friend. But just know that my attention span is short, and if I get bored, I might just pull this."

"All of you are doomed." The commander threatened him, shifting his glare between Silver and Neo a few times. His eyes came to rest on Mecha, and his lip curled in disgust. "Take your trash with you if you must. The military will annihilate you in the end anyway." With that promise, he turned away and walked down the stairwell, his black combat boots making his footsteps heavy.

Silver listened to him go, satisfied. "Man... I always wanted to do something as badass as that. Am I as cool as you guys now?"

A bonk on the head made him wince. He turned towards the source and rubbed the top of his head with one hand.

Neo readjusted his grip on Mecha and gave Silver a reprimanding look.

Silver put his hands up and took a step back away from his older brother. He stifled a laugh. "What? It's always "how did you get into the military base" and never how was the military base? It was fun. The base was fun."

Neo held his gaze and squinted an optic at him as if to say, "really? You're doing this?"

"What?! There's nothing like a healthy, organic dose of near-death experiences to spice up your day." Silver stated with a laid-back shrug. He spun the pistol around his trigger finger casually, until Neo's glare convinced him to stop it. "Alright, okay, sorry big bro."

Neo rolled his working optic at him and jumped into a hover, gesturing for Silver to follow suit with a nod of his head.

"Roger that. Let's get out of this dump."

-------

Neo held Mecha close to him as he walked out of the fortress entrance with Silver trailing behind him.

It was strangely quiet. As his optics adjusted to the glare of the rising sun, he noticed the forms of trashed robots scattered all across the ground. He paused, instantly on guard as his eyes swept over the scene before him. It was already strange to find nothing stopping him from leaving, but this, too? He had half expected every robot and soldier from G.U.N to be standing outside, simply waiting for him to leave.

It didn't make sense. Did Silver do all of this alone? He was capable, sure, but... there was something strange about the way the robots were destroyed. Something too distinctive. Almost like a spin dash was used. The shoe prints he detected on the ground weren't from a robot.

"Hey."

Neo looked ahead and saw someone familiar standing several feet away.

He couldn't believe it.

The robot's optic brightened in surprise. It then narrowed in suspicion and anger. He clutched his brother fiercely close. Then, slowly, he started to walk ahead, challenging the person silently.

He deliberately slowed to a stop beside Sonic.

"Why?"

Sonic smiled, not moving from his spot or making eye contact with him. "We're never gonna see eye-to-eye, Metal. We'll never be friends. I know that."

"Then, why."

The hedgehog's eyes rested on Mecha for a moment, before he caught Neo's optics on him. He held the robot's defensive gaze with his own softer green one.

"You know why." Sonic started to walk away, deliberately slow.

Neo turned to watch him, still glaring after him. "I do not."

Sonic paused again, looking over his shoulder at his arch-enemy with a kind smile. "I got a family, too." He waved one hand casually before starting on his way again. "Later, Metal. You owe me like, five re-matches at this point."

Neo didn't know what to say. He loathed this kindness coming from his organic template. It was wrong. It threw everything in his programming off. Sonic was supposed to attack him, not... this. What was this awful feeling in his chest cavity? Was this some kind of synthetic heartache? How stagy. All he knew was, it was uncomfortable and heavy.

"This changes nothing between us." Neo warned him in full honesty. "You are still my enemy and number one priority."

"Yeah, I know. I wouldn't have it any other way." Sonic threw him a challenging grin over his shoulder. "So don't go all soft on me, you hear? I'll be waiting."

Neo gave a single nod in reply. He turned away. Curse that hedgehog. Always playing the hero...

With that, Sonic disappeared into the distance as he always did.

Neo felt oddly empty and confused. He didn't know what to do with this strange feeling. So, he just started to walk. And he kept walking, looking straight ahead as he neared the top of a cliff that overlooked the sea. Silver ran over to catch up to him, chatting all about his time kicking robot and military butt for his brothers. He had so many questions and stories for both of them once they were better.

In the distance, Sonic sat atop a mountain peak and shielded his eyes from the sun. He could just about make out the three brothers on the cliff, silhouetted against the sunrise. He smiled to himself as the robots all re-united. He had done the right thing, even if it was for his sworn enemies, and he was content with that.

After spending a few more minutes observing, he stood up, brushed himself off, and decided something to himself with a hand on his hip.

"I should go see my lil' bro. I miss him."

The blue blur disappeared into the wind, homeward-bound to meet a certain two-tailed fox.

Neo looked over in his direction and caught the streak of blue in the distance.

Thanks to the hedgehog, both Mecha and Silver would be going home with him today. Neo finally swallowed his pride and allowed his thankfulness to surface, just this once.

He gave a single nod of respect.

"Thank you."

------

In the depths of Eggman's base, two younger brothers took Mecha's hands in theirs on either side of him.

Neo sat up on the table with him, while Silver stood beside him with his elbows resting on it.

Neo ran his thumb over Mecha's palm whilst watching his face intently for any sign of change. Even though nobody should hurt him now, Neo felt extremely protective.

"He's gonna be okay, right? You can fix this?" Silver asked warily.

"Of course I can. This will be a piece of cake." Eggman replied confidently. But, he hesitated, his hands above the keyboard as if wanting to type something, but unsure of what.

The doctor's words betrayed his promise mere seconds later. Although he was unconscious, Mecha went to sit up and swing at whoever was closest. Neo pushed him back down by his shoulders as gently but firmly as he could. Mecha's hand searched for Neo's again and gripped it hard. Neo held his hand with both of his and let out a long, hard ventilation. He looked down at his sibling sadly.

About half an hour passed with no improvement.

Eggman's fingers swept quickly across the keyboard the whole time, only stopping momentarily to push his glasses back up. Each time the rogue code tore through Mecha's systems, Eggman watched intently, looking for anything in the mess of code that might be decipherable. It seemed to change something about itself, targeting a different system every time. He had an IQ of 300 for Chaos' sake... deciphering a virus should be child's play. The more the codes showed up, taunting him, the closer he got to losing his temper. With a dispirited sigh, he leaned against the desk and held his head in his hands.

"If this doesn't stop soon, he's going to shut down. It's causing massive data loss." The doctor finally admitted, sounding defeated and angry.

Neo looked across to the screen. His optics narrowed as he focused on the seemingly endless rows of text and numbers that were attacking his brother. Something had to make sense. After all, he and his brothers were made up of code - it all had to mean something in translation. The longer he watched, the more patterns he noticed in the strings of code. Something stuck out to him that Eggman had missed.

Neo waved his hand urgently to grab Eggman's attention. As soon as Eggman looked at him he started signing, "back door trojan."

Eggman couldn't hide his frustration and he snapped back at him. "Yes, I know."

Neo squinted an optic at him and signed with more aggressive hand movements, "change code!"

"Come show me."

Neo released Mecha's hand and jumped down from the table to get a better look at the computer screen. Something flagged up to him right away and he urgently shot over to the keyboard and started typing away in a command window, optics fixed with determination.

"What is it?" Eggman asked him, finally sitting up again to watch.

Neo spotted something and honed in on it. What it was, neither Silver nor the doctor could exactly tell.

He finger-spelled, "metamorphic" and then signed for "code." It would be difficult to explain his findings in sign, and he hesitated, his frustration building quickly. He stood with his hands tensed in front of him, unsure of how to communicate any of this. "Talking too hard."

Silver noticed this and waved a hand at him. "Just type on a document, it'll be easier!"

Neo nodded and pulled up a blank notepad document. Almost one with the keyboard in front of him he effortlessly typed a message out, only stopping every few seconds because of his one-sided blindness masking part of the screen.

It is recoding itself with every propagated distribution using code transformation techniques some of which I have identified. These are register renaming, garbage code insertion, and code permutation. The longer the virus stays active the more complicated it becomes as it produces more variants.

Silver tilted his head with a frown. "How is it doing that? Any of that?"

Neo typed up a reply as quickly as he could.

Metamorphic viruses do not have a constant virus body or a decryptor. They use a single-code body that carries data as code and can create new generations that look different. This allows them to evade detection. Garbage code insertion is done to make the code appear different and to break the ability to signature scan for it.

"I'm not sure what any of that means..." Silver admitted, sounding embarrassed. Although he was a robot, understanding everything about his coding would be like an organic knowing everything about their own brain. "But it sounds like you know what you're talkin' about"

Neo nodded and pointed to a section of code on the screen, before signing, "new generation attach to new host file every time. Gets worse. Hard to break."

It was much too complex to be detected by wildcard or half-byte scans. This called for code disassembly. With this in mind, Neo leaned closer to the screen and watched it with a distinct fierceness. He hated these numbers and letters that were hurting his sibling. The frustrating part was that they wouldn't hate him or fight him back - they were simply there. There would be no payoff whatsoever for hating them...

He looked over to Mecha and Silver and felt sorrow bleed into his anger. Neither of his brothers deserved to be in this position. It wasn't fair. It was he who had committed those atrocities before, not them. Not only this, but a virus as in-depth as this could only be written by someone with lots of knowledge of how the technology worked... Most likely possible due to all the machines left behind from Neo's reign. He hissed to himself and looked away.

Without really thinking about it, Neo signed "shit!" by jamming his thumb on top of his fist.

To his surprise, a supportive hand came to rest on his shoulder plate. He looked up after a few moments and met Eggman's understanding look.

"Don't blame yourself. I see you." The doctor sighed and rubbed his forehead with a gloved hand. "This is partly my fault." He looked at Mecha on the table, brow furrowed with concern. "I should have updated his software sooner! This... should never happen to my brilliant creations. But rest assured, between the three of us we can fix this. We have an evil genius and two supercomputers for the job."

Neo held his gaze for some time before looking away again, reluctantly signing, "I trust you."

"Let's not waste time, guys..." Silver piped up from behind them, looking concerned as he rested a cold hand on Mecha's overheating head. "He's struggling pretty bad." As if on cue, Mecha tried to hit Silver, but Silver gently pushed back against his hand until he stopped. It seemed to work for a second, but something in Mecha clearly changed, and he pushed back harder than before. Silver used both of his hands to hold Mecha's in place, growing more sick with concern for him with every minute that passed.

Neo nodded and looked to the screen again. Without saying anything, he held out a hand to Eggman.

"Just be careful," Eggman warned him before handing him a USB cable. "Don't get yourself infected."

Without hesitation, Neo plugged the cable in and put all of his focus into reading the numbers before him. He would have to be quick to avoid being detected or targeted.

Skimming through his data quickly, Neo noticed the hundreds of memory dumps in his files, each one a copy of his memory at the time his systems crashed with fatal errors. Their large size would take up a lot of his storage space - undoubtedly, this made thinking, moving, and reasoning a lot harder for Mecha. It showed just how many times the virus had changed itself to attack his other systems.

Thinking on his feet, Neo wrote himself a basic disassembler program in his own CPU. Using this, he could convert the executable file into low-level assembly language. He would have to manually look for the virus' initial, simplest form before it expanded. Since it kept changing itself, it would be difficult to find the original with regular old antivirus technology. Even a genius like Eggman couldn't do this mentally.

Neo started looking for a string. It would likely appear inside another instruction, rather than outright showing itself as an instruction. Narrowing his optics, he searched for an executable file string, something common among viruses. He found the string in a stream of code, which he then disassembled, revealing another set of numbers.

None of them meant anything to Silver, who was watching intently, but he noted that Neo seemed to know exactly what they said.

The numbers were a mixture of those that were from the original string, now in a different order. Neo shifted his weight from one foot to another as he meticulously studied each part. He wrote another code into his disassembler program and broke down the codes into simpler parts, looking for any "interesting" instructions. How curious... one of the instructions came from a most unusual source.

That was when he found a small file. It wasn't even executable by Mecha's software! Neo's working optic lit up in realization.

"You found it?!" Silver exclaimed, leaning over to get a better look.

"That's it. That's the one!" Eggman looked over the robot's shoulder with a surprised expression. He put his hands on Neo's shoulders and smiled down at him. "Excellent work, my boy!"

Neo watched as a new instruction was written right in front of him. The pseudo-assembler responsible for writing the code compressed the previous generation code, removed garbage insertions, re-assembled it with new insertions, and finally randomly stuck different instructions into itself. It attached itself to another file. Notably, this file was part of his auditory processing program. The system itself was practically in pieces with corrupted data everywhere. That explained a lot about his brother's erratic behaviour.

Neo deleted the original file at once. As expected, it caused a fatal system error. He had anticipated this and didn't panic. This time the error made Mecha unable to access his boot partition, so he wouldn't be able to come back online without repairs. He started up his own de-bugging program and ran it into Mecha's systems. As the de-bugger worked its magic, Neo looked into Mecha's registry which would undoubtedly be in pieces from the infection. As expected, the virus had corrupted several registry keys. He sorted through the corrupted ones and replaced them with clean ones from his own repository. Mecha wouldn't be able to boot back up without a lot of these registry keys, so it was best to replace them.

What came up on the screen now made Silver flinch. Completely random numbers and colours replaced the previously uniform lines of code. To anyone who wasn't technologically inclined, it would probably be terrifying to see.

"Woah.. I-Is that meant to happen?" Silver asked, nervous. He held Mecha's hand closer to himself out of worry.

Neo nodded in reply. Mecha's CPU would continuously fetch instructions from memory to execute them. Each instruction would consist of a code that would tell it which operation to carry out, and parameters which might be data or register locations for the input and output. So, when certain memory banks were removed, the data pins coming in would not be driven by an electrical signal. Instead, electrical noise would make it appear as though the data pins were switching randomly between zero and one, hence the randomly generated numbers.

But as the de-bugging program and registry key replacements started rolling in, the screen cleared up again and returned back to the familiar lines of code.

This process would take a long time. So, for now, they could relax. Neo slowly slumped forward against the desk and rested his head on one arm, passively allowing his own systems to do the work. He reached out with his free arm and searched for Mecha's hand, taking it in his.

Silver let out a sigh and relaxed, too. "I can't believe you actually did it. That was badass!" He finally let a huge grin spread across his face and laughed. "The way you just, like... saw the right thingy and went for it was incredible. You're amazing!"

"Excellent work!" Eggman praised both of them, offering them both a pat on the head. "You truly are my most prized creations."

Neo grumbled something in code and slumped down further in reply.

Eggman and Silver exchanged concerned looks between themselves.

"Here, hold this-" Silver gave Mecha's now relaxed hand to Eggman, who took it with a questioning look. The robot zipped away and returned just seconds later with a fan, which he slid next to Neo, plugged in, and switched on with a concerned smile. "Don't overclock your CPU, bro."

Neo mumbled something and passively slid closer to the fan's cool airflow, still holding on to Mecha's hand. While it would do nothing to cool his internal components, he was grateful for the Silver's gesture, and the sensory input, too. He tapped his claws on the desk absent-mindedly, seeming to stare off into nothing.

Silver pulled up a chair and plopped next to his brother, looking at him with concern. "You're doing that thing again."

Neo met Silver's gaze. He couldn't sign anything with both of his hands occupied, so he just gave a vaguely questioning look as if to say 'what thing.'

Silver scooted closer and put an arm around Neo's shoulders. It seemed like touch helped Neo when he got like this, so it was worth a shot, right? To his surprise, Neo actually leaned into him and let him. Silver hesitated for a moment before securing his arm around him. "This whole thing must be hard on you, huh... it's no wonder you feel like that."

Neo held Mecha's hand tighter in his. Yes, the whole situation had been very difficult. But worth it. Coping with his own issues, meeting the hedgehog, letting the hedgehog go, seeing Mecha in pieces mentally, worrying about Silver being safe, and now transferring copies of his own registry keys to repair Mecha's corrupted ones... he took a moment to really reflect on how much had happened, which actually helped with the lingering dissociation that muddied his processor.

"Well, listen... it's gonna be okay. You gotta take care of yourself now, or your systems will choose the time to force you to do it." Silver told him with a small smile, his honesty shining through. "If you go crashing on us I'm not gonna know what to do."

Neo just stared at Silver, somehow conveying some kind of sarcastic dismissal without saying anything.

"I mean it. You're not above crashing, you know." Silver nudged Neo gently to get encourage him to listen. "Let me and the doc handle things for a while... maybe take a nap or something. If you uh, can."

Neo begrudgingly set his systems to low-power mode, but not sleep mode. The tension in his frame dissipated, and Silver held him firmly to make sure he didn't fall to one side. This was as good as Silver was going to get. With a sigh of relief, Silver looked across to the screen and watched as Neo's programs continued to work their magic.

Silver slowed his engine and cooling fans deliberately. He didn't want to disrupt his brother's comfort by moving too much. Once he found the right setting for this, the robot rested his chin on his free hand and watched the numbers move and change. He still didn't understand much of it, but it was fascinating. He really admired his older brother for making sense of it all.

Eggman carefully placed Mecha's hand down and stepped aside to stand behind Silver. Silver was too fixated on trying to understand the coding on the screen to notice at first, but as his optics unfocused from staring for so long, he caught the doctor's reflection on the screen. He startled briefly before looking up and over his shoulder, already forgetting to not move.

"Oh, sorry, I didn't know you were there..."

Eggman shook his head, telling him that it was okay. "I'm proud of you."

Silver recoiled a little in surprise. He felt Neo's weight shift on him though, and quickly settled back into his original position. "Thanks..." He rested his head on his hand again, but this time he shifted so that his hand partly covered his smile.

"They couldn't have done this without you," Eggman reminded him with a firm pat on the shoulder. "You're just as brilliant as they are."

Silver didn't say anything, but his smile grew uncontrollably behind his hand. Getting praise from his father figure felt strange, but he thought he liked it. Just a little bit.

Eggman turned to leave the room. He waved a quick farewell to Silver, who gave a nod in acknowledgment. Then, Eggman left and closed the door behind him. He was only gone for a second, though - he popped back in to switch off the light and looked over to Silver.

"Get some sleep, son." The doctor closed the door right after bidding him good night.

"Thanks, pops."

Silver took his hand away from his face and let his smile grow as much as it really wanted to. But when he did this, a strange sensation came over his facial plating, a weird heat in his optics... his bottom lip quivered, too. His voice synthesizer felt oddly tight, as if wanting him to make a sound, but he didn't know what.

He was so thankful that his brothers were alive and that his father was proud. This was all he had ever wanted.

Maybe this was as close to happy tears as a robot like him could get.

#metal sonic #mecha sonic #silver sonic #sonic the hedgehog #fanfiction #mine #for the bit where they actually get outside i listened to the life is strange main menu theme... it was nice writing to it #fitting too #so i guess if u want the full Experience tm go listen to that GVBHN #anyway this is edgy and idc i am cringe but i am free

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internalsealpanic · 4 years

Text

Radio Silence

Summary: You take Tim with you to a family reunion hoping to monopolize his time. You may have forgotten to tell him a few things. For example, the haunted radio.

masterlist

a/n: I’m sorry for the wait. I forgot that I am no longer used to describing atmosphere. This isn’t my best work but I hope you like it. This was based on my family’s tradition of sitting in the dark on Halloween listening to scary stories on the radio. This is mainly Tim Drake x Filipino!Reader because I realley wanted to try my hand at a bilingual character. You will see misspelling of words in the dialogue. That’s intentional on my part. There will be translations.

“Yes, Nay, he’s the one in the picture,”

“No! It’s the guy with-” You blow out an exasperated breath. You hear Tim snicker behind you and you dedicate half your brain cells to coming up with the best way to kick his ass. “Yung mukhang Koreano. Yeah. Yeah. Dat one.”

“Yes, he looks more like a white boy. Mistiso.” You explain curtly.

“Yes, he’s smart. I hab standards,” Tim raises a disbelieving brow at you. You stick your tongue out at him but nearly bite it off when your grandmother speaks again.

“What do you mean doubtful?!” Tim looks absolutely delighted. A cheshire smile curling on his lips as he leans back into your couch. You glare at him then at your phone then at the ceiling then past that to glare at whatever god was up there.

“THAT WAS ONE TIME! Justine was an-” You mutter trying to remember the word. “- an anomaly and you know it!”

“…..”

“Ok der were 2 anomalies!”

“3”

“Ok maybe Tim is the anomaly, but seriously, Nay, he’s fine,” You snarl, the jaggedness of your Gotham accent rearing its head. You wince but do not apologize. This will bite you in the ass later but you didn’t say it. You don’t like the taste of the word.

“No. I mean if you don’t want us to embarrass you at the church social then- Yes, I have been going to church,” You can see Tim rolling his eyes and mouthing liar with a twitch of his lip in the corner of your vision. “No, he’s not the showy type. Nay, I gotta go. The food’s burning,”

“Yes, Nay, I lab you bery mach,” You sigh into the phone letting your grandmother’s lather your tongue cutting into the briskness of your consonants. It held the same euphoria as taking off your shoes after a particularly long day.

“Unless you’re Dick, you can’t burn cereal,” Tim cut in carting you away from your reverie.

“Watch me, Drake,” You huff throwing a pillow at Tim almost making him drop his cereal bowl.

“So, can Gotham survive without Red Robin for a weekend?”

“Shouldn’t you have asked me this before telling your grandma that you’re taking me?”

“I’m just double-checking,”

“How considerate,”

“To be fair, your schedule is already volatile as is," You huff snuggling up to him on the couch. It was too cold in Tim’s apartment. You think a rich kid like him could afford to turn up the heat. Though, you aren’t exactly going to complain about an excuse to cuddle him.

Tim doesn’t make a move to push you away. Instead, he wraps his arm around you pulling you closer. This was the type of easy affection you two had become accustomed to. This was also the thing that will make your Schrade even more convincing. "True, but I asked Cass and the others to cover for me. Plus, your grandma sounds like she likes me,”

“Considering you don’t have a criminal record and aren’t currently being investigated, you immediately rocketed to the top of her list,” You answer absentmindedly stirring your cereal and taking a bite.

Tim whips his head to you and gives you a concerned look which you return with a smile full of cereal. He blanches at you, shaking his head and grabbing the remote to unpause the Star Trek episode you two were watching. You both prop your feet up and chew your cereal slowly, not feeling any reason to hurry.

How long has it been since you started? You’re pretty sure it was 1 AM when you started.

As if reading your mind, Tim looks at his phone, winces then turns back to the screen without another word. You quirk your brow at him but decide that there is some truth to the saying ignorance is bliss.

You were gonna hate yourselves come noon.

It’s noon, the sun has the audacity to show itself, and you hate yourself.

You definitely, unequivocally hate yourself.

You groan in the passenger seat, head pressed against the cool window. The faint warmth of the sun glancing off your skin makes the tinges of nausea circling the periphery of your senses come to life. Your stomach does a cartwheel and you think- you’re sure you’re going to throw up but you aren’t gonna do that.

No way in hell are you gonna do that. Not when you’ve finally conned your way into monopolizing Tim’s attention for the weekend.

Ok, yeah, sure it was the result of some miscommunication between you and your cousin who then passed on the miscommunication to the whole goddamn family but that’s just what you call a happy accident.

You blow out a breath, greedily taking in all the coolness of the glass pressed against your skin calling your mind back to your body. You weren’t really good with handling the not sleeping thing.

“You ok?” Tim asked his eyes flickering between you and the alarmingly empty road. There was worry in his eyes whether it was the fact that you looked like shit or the fact that the road you were on looked like the opening to a terrible 80s slasher flick. It was Halloween after all. It would be pretty perfect. Dread licks at your stomach at the thought.

You let the silence lapse. In the corner of your eye, you see Tim’s hand tighten on the steering wheel. You stare at the expanse of farmland stretching to the horizon debating whether to humor his question or to let him stew.

“I’m fine,” You picked the third option.

“You don’t look fine,” Tim deadpans, turning to you.

“Stop looking then-” Tim scowls at you his pouty lips pulling into an angle. You sneer. “-You don’t look too good yourself, Kirk,”

Tim makes an offended noise. You look at Tim, really look at him, for the first time in hours. Tim, as per usual, looked obnoxiously handsome even though he was running on at most 30 minutes of sleep and had eye bags running down his face. Somewhere lost in his contemplative expression was the blindingly obvious hint of self doubt. You’ve seen it tons of times.

You peel yourself away from the cool glass to look Tim in the eyes. Dread swims in the pools of teal looking straight back at you. Tim’s mouth edges between a pout and a frown. You soften, shifting in your seat angling until your body is facing his.

“Whatever it is you’re overthinking it,”

“You don’t even know what I’m thinking!”

“Ay,” You chuckle and shake your head. “Tim, it’s you. You overthink everything. I don’t need to be a mind reader to see that,”

Tim huffs. Maybe he was overthinking things.

“ ‘sides, I don’t see why you would be nervous 'bout meeting my family,”

Has it occurred to you I want to date you for real at some point? Tim thought a little frustrated.

You laugh when he frowns but instead of teasing him any further. You flick the radio on. Your hackles rise as it crackles to life. A smile flickers on your face when ‘All-star’ comes on. You cry out, a noise of shrill joy filling the air.

“Oh my god” Tim breathes, running his long fingers through his dark hair. “You absolute dork,”

“Kettle. Pot.” You grin.

Tim snorts as you loudly sing along with the radio. Unfortunately for him, your enthusiasm for the song was infectious. Somehow you both managed to miss every beat of the song.

You somehow felt like you were definitely forgetting something.

6 cans of monster and 5 things of 5-hour-energy drink later, you arrived. Tim’s nice-looking car pulls into the dusty gravel driveway of a rather large and old colonial looking house. Seeing the robust form of the large house looming in the distance injected your veins with a stifling source of dread.

You love your family to bits but sometimes their presence weighed so much. You can feel their words already pecking at you, drawing pit and pieces of your self into frayed fibers. All you can think about were the comments hushed behind palms and the dissecting gaze of dark eyes. Your mouth feels dry and you can already feel your feet pivoting back towards the car.

Tim reaches for your hand, lacing his slender fingers between yours. He smiles at you squeezing your hand. You can feel him rattling from his own anxiety but his effort steadies you. You grin at him and squeeze back.

Your teeth click the entire walk up to the large oak doors. Tim squeezes your hand again, his teal eyes sweeping over you with a concerned glint. You furrow your brow and somehow he understands and raises his hand to knock on the door.

The door bursts open. Music and laughter wash over you as hands hurry you into the front hall.

“Nay! Dito na sya! May dalang gwapo!” (Mom, y/n’s here and they brought someone handsome.)

About 20 heads turn to look at you. Tim feels some embarrassment from the attention but that doesn’t last too long as in the space of about 5 seconds, those 20 heads were swarming you both, pulling you into hugs, shaking your hands, and ruffling your hair in varying degrees of force and order.

“Beh, you’ve grown so big” Your aunt coos squishing your face.

“Nena, look at this guy,”

“Tita, he doesn’t have any tattoos,” Your little cousin marveled looking bug-eyed as she lifted Tim’s shirt. You swat her away but take a quick second to subtly admire Tim’s sculpted abs. Your aunt scolds him and your uncle drags you to the main room where more guests were sitting chattering or screaming at a foreign horror movie.

All the apprehension bundled into your stiff shoulders dissolves like seafoam against the overwhelming warmth of the festivities. The raucous laughter drags the roughness of Gotham away from your tongue. In place of your slow, careful syllables are quick clattering consonants and concise vowels. Your vowels were still elongated and angled to a sharp point unlike the nearly musical words of your cousins but as you said before ‘Gotham has its way of burying itself in your bones’. Tim just never thought about how saliently it showed itself in words. He wonders how his accent (folded, neat, and sterilized) sounds to you. He wonders how dull he sounds to you.

You have teased him about it. You’ve teased him endlessly about the way upper-class Manhattan just rolls off his tongue, how Alfred’s British affectations worm their way into his syllables. What you don’t tell him is how the smooth velvet of his words lull you into a hypnotic state that steals every bit of oxygen from your lungs. What you can’t make yourself tell him is that you would gladly spend your whole life listening to him read a fucking phone book.

The festivities were lively and informal. Jokes flying every which way. All alternating between your native tongue. You laugh into your drink, hiding the hesitant curve blunting your infectious smile. Tim nudges you to ask what’s wrong but you simply nudge him back and shake your head as if he had said something funny. Your relatives didn’t seem to notice your demeanor or if they did they left it alone.

Tim decides to leave it alone for now. Instead, he leaned into the flow of conversation. His years of speaking at galas working their magic on your aunts. They bombarded him with questions. Most of which sounded like screening questions at the embassy. You snarled at them more than once to knock it off but Tim shook it off. He knows they’re just worried about you the same way he worried for you. Well, not the same way but it was their way of showing they cared. He lets himself be immersed in the conversation. It’s more like he tuned into the sweet sound of your laughter but made sure to dedicate enough restraint to not look like a love-sick puppy.

“Tanga!” (MORON!)

“Baliw!” (Crazy!)

“E gago ka pala, di ba halata yun?” (No shit sherlock, isn’t it obvious?)

Tim is at best confused as he watches the volley of words between you and your cousin. Your voices rising above the blaring karaoke. Anthony (?) clamps a hand on his shoulder and laughs as he watches you and Martin (?) hurl insults at each other. In the corner of your eye, you watch his reactions checking if he understood a word. He isn’t fluent but he understood bits and pieces. He’s heard you mutter angrily about customers enough times to distinguish an insult.

“Dun worry about 'em. They won’t fight. They’re stupid but they’re not that stupid. ‘Sides, they’re too afraid of Nay for that,”

Tim gives Anthony a doubtful look. Anthony chuckles at him, clapping him on the back urging him to keep watching. He does if only to make sure you’ll be alright. When he does, he tunes into your words. Tim marvels at how musical you sound as you trade another round of rapid-fire jabs with Martin, how at ease you seem. Tim makes a mental note to get you to teach him. Though, he wasn’t entirely sure how he would justify it. Admittedly, part of it was just wanting to spend more time with you.

He can probably swing it.

A surge of protectiveness crowds his veins when Martin grabs at you but his hand is swatted by a cane. The air crackles with a sharp snap. The room plunges into silence. A small woman with silver hair stands tall and imperious at the other end of the cane. You and your cousins stiffen.

“Hi Nay,” You trail off with a distinct lack of grace. You swallow the lump forming your throat, robbed of any coherent thought by the stinging look in her eyes. You felt bare under her gaze. Layers and layers of skin peeling beneath the weight of her attention. Fury flickers like firelight across her dark eyes. Your skin suddenly felt like lint and you were sure you would catch fire.

A pause.

A bated breath held for what felt like an eternity.

“Iha(Iho), It’s been so long,” She says, softening. Her wrinkled face stretches into a kind smile that made you think of freshly cooked vegetables. Her cane folding to her side as she loops her arm over your shoulders. “It’s nays to see you,”

A choked sound comes out of you and you feel something shake loose. “Missed you too, Nay,” You breathed. Tim feels awkward, fidgeting in his place.

The soft smile on your grandmother fades a little. Her sharp eyes appraising Tim. The look wasn’t particularly venomous, but it left Tim feeling like he’d been cut open and analyzed. He wasn’t entirely sure of why you were all so scared of her before but now he fully understood.

She relinquishes her grip on you and urges you to go back to Tim. You frown a little, giving her a suspicious look which she returns innocently. You let out a little breath before walking back to Tim’s side. She gives him another long once over before silently strolling away. His stomach churned but eased at your touch. You still look uneasy but you don’t fuss over it. Not when Martin decides that he wasn’t quite done with bickering.

The festivities went on as normal. Maybe with a little less cussing going around. But Tim barely noticed when your laugh, free of any hesitance, echoed sonorously in his ear as he held you close.

Roz presses a drink into his hand. “Congrats, you’ve survived round one of Nay’s hazing,”

“Round one?” Tim hiccups into his drink. He coughed. The beer was strong. A strangely potent amount of alcohol that made his throat burn.

“Yeah, Roz, that was more like round 2.” You mutter sullenly, distinctly taking no sips of the drink Roz had also handed you. The paranoid Bat-part of his brain screams that he’s been poisoned. He’s struggling not to let it win over but your conversation wasn’t helping.

“Nay will eat him alive,”

“I mean. She’ll do it nicely,”

“Pfffft, right! Ok, Tony, name one time she’s been nice.”

“How about-”

“The thing with Y/n earlier doesn’t count,”

“Why not?”

“There was a hidden agenda,”

“Oh shit! The bitch is right- Ow! You are!”

You look at Tim apologetically and squeeze his hand. Somehow this does not calm his nerves, but he tries his best to ease into his touch.

On the trip here, you warned him that it was going to be exhausting. He assumed, incorrectly, that you were exaggerating. After all, he’s survived snobby rich people and his family. Your family seemed nice. He can survive a nice family dinner.

But what you neglected to tell him was that it would be sheer chaos. He definitely wasn’t prepared for the sensory overload. The house was almost unbearably loud compared to the manor. Every corner was filled with people chattering, playing games, eating, and doing anything to entertain themselves. Sure, Tim was used to chaos but he was more accustomed to short bursts. He wasn’t quite as prepared for the seemingly endless stream of conversations and liquor.

You had definitely not prepared his poor unassuming introverted ass well enough. Not even halfway through the night, Tim was ready to crash. The 20 minutes of sleep he got beforehand had not helped.

You, the angel that you are, guide him away from the party. You drag yourselves down the wide yawning corridor to the grand staircase.

Lit only by the thin veil of moonlight, the house showed its age. Walking up the stairs and walking through its hallways was like falling through time. The halls were lined with paintings, all landscapes and still-lifes. He’s thankful for that small mercy. His head swimming in liquor, he is reminded of the portraits at Wayne Manor and how their eyes burned at you as you passed.

The lack of portraits doesn’t make the house any less creepy mind you. Religious fixtures line the halls, crucifixes affixed to every arch-like mistletoes. There were doll-like statues of hollow-eyed saints at every corner table. It might have been the dancing moonlight but Tim swore he saw one of them move. Tim suddenly wishes he hadn’t ingested so much liquor.

Before long, you make your way to a bedroom. How the hell you knew which one to put him in was anyone’s guess. You lead him into the room. Touch gentle and careful as you coaxed him in. Soft jazzy music echoing hauntingly. The dancing moonlight and the solid shadows of the room highlighting your gorgeous features, drawing his attention to your plush lips. You lean over him to make sure he was indeed still part of the living. Liquid courage surging in his face, he presses his lips to yours. It’s cautious. He gently runs his hand through your hair, pulling you towards him with a push. The press of his lips is restrained, more of a question than a demand. Slightly chapped lips press against your sweet and searching.

Tim remembers the warm press of your lips, the way the pads of fingers trail against the soft fabric of his shirt, your warm breath fanning against his cool skin, then nothing.

Knock

KNOCK

Tim grouses into his pillow. Tim was having an absolutely wonderful dream. He could still feel your warm lips against his. Tim squeezes his eyes trying to go back to sleep.

Knock

KNOCK

‘1 AM’ the antique analog clock at the nightstand reads.

“I’m up!” He lies burying himself further into the thick sheets.

His brothers really needed to stop breaking into his apartment at 1-

KNOCK

Tim nearly falls out of bed when he remembers where he is. He jams a shirt over his head and some sweatpants before stumbling to the door.

“Hey Tim, you coming?” Anthony asks through the crack of the door.

Tim opens the door a little wider. “Where?”

“Outside,” Roz shrugs vaguely.

“Whe-”

You step out of your room, extremely hesitant. Your knuckles were turning white from apprehension. You look at Tim, surprise plain in your eyes. You flinch heat rising to your cheeks. Tim remembers the texture of your soft lips. He wishes that wasn’t a dream. You glare at your cousins who give you a confused look.

“Roz, he-”

“Awwww, ‘insan, you’re actually coming?” Martin mocks clapping you on the shoulder drawing, what Tim considers, an adorable squeak from you. His heart almost leaps from his chest when your warm body presses further into Tim’s side. You can’t hear it but Tim’s breath stutters in his chest. He loops his arm around you protectively. Martin gives both of you a sly conspiratorial look.

You scowl at Martin. Glaring with as much intensity and intimidation your burning cheeks would allow. Roz swats him over the head making him almost topple down the steps before Anthony even gets a chance to rebuke him. Instead, Anthony turns to you, brows furrowed. “You sure you want to come? Nay said-”

“La a!” Martin protested. Roz rolls her eyes and swats him again. “Dipshit’s right. Nay didn’t say jack,”

“Then why did you swat me?”

“E, I felt like it e,”

“Bish, whose side are you on?!” He snarls but before he can lunge at Roz, Anthony is already dragging him by the scruff of his neck.

“Shhhhhhhhhhh! Not so loud. The kids will hear us,”

“I for one will not help you wrangle tita’s crotch gremlins,”

“We’re going to be late and Nay is going to unleash hell upon us,”

Anxiously, you tug at Tim urging him to follow your cousins as they filed out through the back door.

“Where are we going?” Tim hisses.

All four of you share a look.

“We’ll explain,” You promise.

The journey was eerie. Punctuated by the fact that none of you explain jack. The walk was entirely silent, devoid of bickering or any sort of conversation. He can see the silence driving both Roz and Anthony mad. You honestly look like you’re going to keel over. The odd thing was that even the birds were silent. Not a single sound penetrated the thick canopy of juniper trees.

You wonder the woods guided only by the thin ribbons of silver light peaking through the thick clouds of leaves. Tim can feel your pulse as it thundered in your chest. No matter what was going on he would keep you safe.

You arrive in front of a rusted gate half a foot shorter than Tim. It was small, easily climbable with plenty of spiraling pieces to stick your foot into for purchase if needed. Your eyes cut to Roz who fished out a key he’d seen perched on one of the coat racks. Hesitantly, you held your hand out for the key. Roz, on the other hand, all but slammed it into your hand, grinning in a mix of absolute glee and relief. Your teeth click as you worked the lock. He wants to suggest just going over it but you seem quite adamant and he wasn’t about to push your nerves.

Finally, the lock gives in.

You all file in one at a time in a sort of practiced motion. Beyond the gates was a path with its stones polished from a shine from use. The scarce light coming from the canopy of trees rippling against them. It lit the rest of the way still keeping the surroundings in deep shadow.

The path ended in front of a small dilapidated stone structure that seemed too small to house anything.

“Age before beauty,” Martin jeers, bending down dramatically urging Roz to go in. She, in turn, shoves him in with a swift kick. The dark interior of the structure swallows him whole. Her dark eyes cut to you. You swallow but ultimately you shrug off Tim’s hold and relinquish your death grip on Tim’s arm. You let out a shaky breath as you step over the threshold. Just like Martin before you, the shadows leave no trace of you.

Tim reaches for the last bit of your swaying blanket. Roz taking the chance shoves Tim over the threshold, his vision goes pitch black.

“See you there, lover boy~”

The darkness is all-encompassing making his eyes completely useless as much as he tries to adjust them. Instead, he strains all of his other senses. He feels the press of moss-covered walls closing in on him. The staircase only seemed wide enough to let one person pass at a time. The stairs wind in shallow predictable patterns. The scent of moss and burning firewood grew heavy as he made his descent. Distantly, he could hear the soft padding of your shoes against the stone but he also heard the crackle of jazzy music. It was the kind he only heard from the old black and white movies Bruce and Alfred watched. It was oddly familiar but he couldn’t place it. The smooth baritone of the singer rattles in his head. A shiver of mild discomfort travels up his spine.

After what feels like an eternity, Tim emerges. His eyes slamming shut from the sudden brightness of his surroundings. He blinks, eyes adjusting to the light. His eyes take in his surroundings.

He was in a clearing. It was man-made, constructed using the same stones that lined the path you’d taken. The stone walls were covered in moss and ivy, but the stone that did peak out reflected the moonlight freely raining drown from the clear autumn sky. In the center of the space, sit 9 people including yourself. All cast in the warm glow of the crackling bonfire. It is a living thing, raging and casting shadows sharpening and obscuring features.

“I’m so glad you could join us, Timothy,” Your grandmother calls out as she fiddles with the nobs of the old radio perched in her lap. It crackles uncooperatively despite her efforts. He can’t pry his eyes away from it even as he takes his seat next to your shivering form.

Without much thought, Tim pulls you close. You tremble, teeth still clicking eyes wild and fixed on the radio. The radio is a curious thing. It’s an old model. It’s sleek but dotted with various nobs and switches. If he had to guess, it was something out of the 1960s. In the periphery of his senses, he hears Roz and Anthony step out of the staircase and take their places in the circle with Roz sitting right next to your grandmother.

Your grandmother stops fiddling with the radio then turns to Roz who is now comfortably seated. Your teeth chatter and your shoulder hitch as they silently converse. Roz inhales then exhales. Her dark eyes sweep over all of you making sure she had your attention. Based on the silence and the still forms, she did. She sits a little straighter, her shoulders rolling back.

She throws herself into a tale. It was a story she’d heard long ago about a man, a house, and a secret. Her calm voice carries over the soft roaring of the bonfire. It wasn’t the scariest tale Tim had heard but Roz told it well. Well enough to draw squeaks from several people including yourself.

Tim relaxes catching on to the turn of events. He lets you press into his side as you make your feeble attempt to get away from the story. Tim chuckles at the amount of theatrics you’ve all put into building up to this little gathering. However, all his smug skepticism vanishes when Roz finishes her story.

The static from the radio vanishes. Its various nobs move without assistance and its switches click into place. The same baritone voice carries from the radio. Tim doesn’t hear what it says as his mind reels. He turns to you and opens his mouth to ask but Anthony begins his tale before Tim can even formulate his question. Beside him, you fidget with his sleeve shaking hands clenching and unclenching on the fabric.

Tim remembers how much you hate ghost stories. You’d once gotten sick with a fever just from watching horror movies. At this point, you were on the verge of tears. Your breathing slowed abnormally as Martin finished his story. The radio predictably did not whirr to life after his story. Through your chattering teeth, you give your cousin a vicious smile which he volleys by sticking his tongue out petulantly.

It’s your turn.

You squeeze Tim’s hand twice before worming out of his grasp. You flutter your long lashes, lightcatching in them looking golden as the fire flickered urging you to delve into your story. You roll your shoulders and let your blanket and apprehension slide away in one smooth action.

You tell your story.

Your countenance still and grave as you tell a story of crossroads and terrible choices.

The radio huffs, seemingly amused by your effort.

“Well, y/n,” The radio coos. Your name drips like molasses from its speakers. It’s unsettling how crisp it sounds. Its voice absent of static as it addresses you. “You sure do know about bad choices. I believe so does that young thing- Pardon me. Young things swimming in the harbor. They’re just a tinsy bit cut up about it.” The radio teases almost sounding gleeful. You nod gravely, stomach reaching the floor.

Harbor?

You settle back down into your seat. Tim nudges you, cocking his head to the side to question you. Your fist clenches and unclenches in your lap before you look him in the eyes again.

“Case,” You mouth silently.

It clicks.

The harbor.

The bodies.

That’s what the radio meant.

Someone clears their throat urging Tim to tell a story. He stumbles through a half-remembered urban legend he heard from Steph awhile ago. His mind far too preoccupied with the new information to really devote to any theatrics.

His turn passes.

And the stories continue as he mulls over the information.

It’s your grandmother’s turn. Your hand grips Tim’s arms white-knuckled. You attempt to swallow down the fear but it catches in your throat constricting your airway. The flames dance casting her face in sinister shadows that bring out all the sharp angles in her features. Her smile curls cruel. Her bony fingers trace the seems and delicate patterns embossed on the old radio. Static erupts loud then dies down just as quickly. Her smokey voice fills the air. Heavy and commanding. The story spills from her lips smooth and velvety slick with gore and unspoken horrors. None of you dare to speak. Some don’t even breathe. Your hands scrabble for purchase on Tim’s shirt as you bury your face in his chest. You feel him wrap himself around you shielding you the best he can. Ear pressed to his chest, you can hear Tim’s pulse hammering. The terror soaking through to his bones. He remains steady. Unflinching even as the story reaches its climax.

The flames flash, fade, then flicker.

The radio crackles.

The smooth baritone of its voice distorting into something undeniably inhuman.

Shadows dance.

Their hands reaching out as the flames did. A hard yank from one of them nearly topples you out of Tim’s arms. He shifts you both away from their grasp. He glares fiercely at them making sure you’re safe.

Sorrowful moans fill the air but your grandmother is undeterred.

With a shrill cry from the radio, everything dies down.

The shadows retreat.

The fire simmers down now small and tame.

Everyone lets out a breath. Both of you could feel everyone unfurl. Tense muscles, locked jaws, tight chests all loosen with the end of the story.

For a long moment, the entire circle is still. Then your grandmother stands up. The rest follow her in a mostly quiet procession up the steps.

“Roddy was harsh this year,” Martin whines.

“Nope, you’re just terrible at it. I mean hell even y/n got an answer. It was creepy as all shit but they got an answer,”

“Uh- Is it a good time to ask what just happened?”

Your cousins turn to you.

“You really didn’t tell him anything, did you?”

“How do you propose I bring up the demonic radio?”

“Pffft,”

“Pirst, it isn’t demonic. Do you really think Nay would have kept it if it was?”

“She lets Martin hang around,”

“…….”

“Dis is a good point,”

“HEY”

Tim clears his throat.

“Raaayt, Ok so… once a year we tell the spooky radio stories so we can get answers or our future told,”

“Was the whole creepy walk necessary?”

“Nope,” You answer in chorus.

“It’s just our way of psyching up for it,”

“It’s your guy’s way. Tita at least let’s me hum songs,”

“Well excuse me for not wanting to listen to you sing,”

“Is there anything else you guys want to tell me?”

“Aside from y/n really not wanting to tell-”

You snarl at your cousins, red-faced and bearing your teeth. Martin and Roz cackle as they run. Anthony has the decency to at least look slightly apologetic as he runs.

“Y/n… What aren’t you telling me?”

“Tim, I- I’m- Damn it- I-” You put your hands on your face. You try to calm your breaths. “Look Tim, I-”You take another breath. “I’m sorry. I kissed you but you were drunk-”

“Wait that wasn’t a dream?” There’s a flicker in Tim’s chest.

You look at him mortified. You want the ground to swallow you whole. “Yeah, I- Tim, I know it’s- I’m sorry.”

He remains silent.

Your stomach feels like it’s going to burn up.

“I-”

“I want a redo,”

“A what?”

“A redo,”

a/n: I will rework the ending at some point but thank you for reading!

taglist: @batarella, @anothertimdrakestan, @lucy-roo, @multifandomgirl-us, @idkmanicantenglish,@birdy-bat-writes, @boosyboo9206, @americasmarauders (I wanna drag you into Terry hell), @l-horizon11

#Tim Drake #tim drake imagines #tim drake x reader #my writing #batboys #batboys x reader #spooktober #fake dating au

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houseisekai · 4 years

Text

FE3H:HI Shadowbringers - Part 1: Return to Abyss

House Isekai Shadowbringers AU Masterlist Here

----

Being awoken by a familiar voice, Kazuma’s group, The denizens of Nazarick, and the School-Living Club find themselves separated from everyone after the battle of Garreg Mach.

As they try to reunite, they find that they are caught in a grand scheme of unknown purpose...

---

(Familliar Voice) “Just how long do you all plan to sleep? I did not save you all to just watch you be snoring away in this void!”

(Aqua) "Ngh...W-What?"

(Familliar Voice) “The time to wake is now...The time to stand on your legs with your own strength is now!”

(Aqua) "That voice is...so...familiar..."

(Familliar Voice) “The world is being swept away in the tides of war, light threatening to consume us all! Fodlan needs you, House Isekai!”

(Aqua) "...So...thi-"

(Familiar voice) “For the love of-"

(Kazuma's voice) "GET THE HELL UP RIGHT NOW!"

(Aqua) "DWAUH?!"

Aqua jolted herself awake, sitting completely upright so fast she accidentally headbutted Kazuma.

(Aqua) "ACK!"

(Kazuma) "AGH, MOTHERFUCK-OW!"

(Aqua) "Ow...Why were you so close to my fa-"

Aqua noticed him wiping a single tear away, but she didn't know if that was from almost breaking his nose with her head.

(Aqua) "...How long was I out?"

(Kazuma) "Dunno. Just woke up myself and our bodies ended up here."

Kazuma helped Aqua up and he took a look at his surroundings.

Darkness and Megumin were near the door, checking for any damage they may have-

...Door?

(Kazuma) "...We fell down the canyon, didn't we?"

(Megumin) "Ack! Yeah, my bones certainly feel it!"

(Darkness) "Disappointing, I don't feel it-"

(Kazuma) "Shut your pie hole. Now, if we fell down the cliff during the battle, why are we in a room?"

(Everyone) "..."

The first thing everyone did was look directly up. They were in an enclosed room, that much was certain.

(Darkness) "Did we fall into a building?"

(Kazuma) "If thats the case, where's the debris? Why are alive if we crashed through? None of us look terribly injured other than a few bruises."

As everyone continued to speculate in their heads what was going on, Megumin tried to open the door and get a better idea of where they were.

(Megumin) ? "Uh, the door's stuck."

Megumin tried yanking the handle open only to rip it off the door.

(Megumin) "...Uh oh."

(Kazuma) "Ah damn it! Look what you did!"

(Darkness) "...That normally doesn't happen unless the doors are very old are in need of repair.”

Darkness took another look at the room and noted that it was relatively dark. It wasn't pitch black thanks to a torch Kazuma lit himself with a spell, but the room didn't look like some ancient ruin.

In fact it looked a lot like...

(Darkness) "Are we in Garreg Mach?"

(Kazuma) "Aqua, you can see in the dark right? What's the verdict?"

(Aqua) "...Its kinda hard to say. It definitely looks like it, but we need to go outside the room."

(Megumin) "But how? I just broke the handle."

Darkness pulled out her sword.

(Darkness) "Stand back, Megumin! HAAAAAA-"

CRASH!

Somehow, Darkness managed to completely miss the door with her sword and hit the wall instead.

The blow created a hole wide enough for everyone to get through, no problem.

(Kazuma) "Nice aim."

(Darkness) "S-SHUT UP!"

Aqua took a good look around but still struggled to make out where they were.

(Aqua) "...I think we need to keep going. Frankly this could be any random dungeon in this world."

(Kazuma) "Hm, alright. Darkness, you take lead."

She nodded, and the four of them went on their way, deeper into the building...

...

[A Dark Sign - Fire Emblem: Three Houses OST]

The Pleiades maids kept their weapons out as they silently advanced, Albedo with her axe still out leading the group.

Cocytus remained at their rear with all four weapons out while Aura and Mare continued to scan around them to find out where this was.

(Ainz) "Demiurge, do we have any idea yet?"

(Demiurge) "None yet, Lord Ainz. I'm afraid I do not recognize anything here."

The hallway they were going seemed to go on forever.

The only sounds he could hear was their footsteps.

They even tried to do a life scan spell but it didn't pick up anything.

(Ainz) "The only option then is to keep-"

(Shalltear) "Lord Ainz, there's a hole here!"

Everyoned turned to the right and saw a massive hole into a room.

The rooms they had passed by had all been intact, if a little old.

The door was still strangely intact, but it was clear the room had been abandoned for quite some time.

(Sebas) "It's hard to tell how recent that is..."

(Ainz) "Then let's keep going, we don't have any time to waste."

(Albedo) "By your command, Lord Ainz."

...

Footsteps began to loudly echo as Kurumi stepped out onto a massive arena-like area.

She used her torch to get a better look at the area around her but with no luck.

(Kurumi) "Guys, look at this!"

Yuuri, Yuki, Miki, and Megumi all came behind her, eyes widening.

(Yuki) "Its...really scary here."

(Kurumi) "Heh, no worries! If anything comes up, they're getting this nice little shovel to their heads!"

(Miki) "Kurumi-senpai, please take this a bit more seriously. We're the least equipped for a fight if it comes to one."

(Megumi) "As long as we stick together, we'll be okay."

(Yuuri) "..."

(Kurumi) "Yuuri? Whats up?"

(Yuuri) "...We're being followed."

...

thud...thud...thu-

Everyone moved to the side of the entrance as Kurumi readied her shovel.

Thud. Thud. Thud!

(Kurumi) "HYAAAAAH!"

CLANG!

THUD!

(Familliar Boy's Voice) "OW, SON OF A BITCH!"

Rounding the corner, Kurumi was about to swing again until she saw who it was.

(Kurumi) "Leclerc?!"

(Kurumi) "Thank god its you! I got so scared and-...Oh crap, I just clobbered you with a shovel!"

Kurumi helped him up, and the group walked over to them.

(Megumi) "Yuri, are you alright?"

(Yuri) "Yeah yeah, its fine Megunee. Heh, didn't think I'd see any of you guys down here."

(Miki) "So wait, that means we're back in Abyss!"

(Yuki) "Oh, everyone's out right? We need to group up with the others too!"

(Yuuri) "...When did your hair get so long?"

(Yuri) "Ya know, I was just about to ask you something similar. How do you guys look exactly the same 5 years later?"

(Everyone) "..."

(Kurumi) "...F-Five years?"

(Yuri) "You don't know? Thanks to you guys, you helped evacuate our people. But, according to reports, and my own scouts, you all fell into the canyon."

(Megumi) "That part is consistent at least. Well, we fell into the canyon but when we woke up, we found ourselves in here."

(Yuri) "So...you guys didn't blow anything up then?"

(Yuuri) "No, why?"

Yuri grabbed his sword and frowned.

(Yuri) "We got some intruders in here besides my group and the knights then...”

...

Several knights laid across the stones, blood splattered left and right.

The knight captain stepped forward and examined the bodies with his torch, looking up.

His men stood behind and in front of him, making sure if anything attacked, they’d be ready.

This was a tight hallway, and from the looks of it, these knights didn’t have time to react to whatever attacked them.

(Captain) “Alert all forces down here that we have intruders! I want every exit covered, every corner with three man squads!”

(Knight) “Yes sir!”

The team quickly scrambled back to the entrance of the hallway.

Once they were completely gone, Kazuma became visible once more, using his lurk ability to hide in the shadows far ahead of them.

(Kazuma) “Clear.”

Darkness, Megumin, and Aqua poked their heads from the corner and slowly walked to the bodies.

(Darkness) “These wounds don’t appear to be physical...”

Their armor had burn marks, suggesting whatever attacked them was magic based.

(Megumin) “Could be someone from House Isekai.”

(Kazuma) “Doubt it. If it was Class VII or any of the Persona users, they would’ve knocked them out. And if it was Nazarick, there wouldn’t have been anything to find except the blood.”

(Aqua) “Whatever it is, I hope we don’t find out...”

(Kazuma) “If we can follow those knights out, we may be able to find an exit out of here. At the very least we’ve figured out this is Abyss.”

(Darkness) “Then that means the Church won the battle while we were away if they’re down here.”

(Kazuma) “Damn. Well come on, we’re wasting ti-”

(Aqua) “Crap, in front of us!”

Everyone turned around and saw a torch light coming around the corner where the patrol of knights went out of.

The four could hear the heavy footsteps of armor marching towards them.

(Kazuma) “You gotta be-Shit, alright! Come on, we’re going back the way we came and we’re choosing a different way, MOVE YOUR ASSES!”

...

Ainz and his group eventually made his way to a flight of stairs upwards into the Monastery, arriving near the old student dorms.

It was nighttime when they emerged, the moonlight covering the entire monastery in a soft white glow.

Albedo looked around first, giving the all clear signal.

The Pleiades maids took positions around the walls to find any knights, but were unable to.

(Aura) “No life detected up here, Lord Ainz. Just us.”

(Mare) “W-Where are all the soldiers?”

(Ainz) “Good question...”

Sebas opened one of the student’s doors and looked around, noticing how dusty it was, with cobwebs formed all over it.

The Pleiades maids did the same, opening up the dorms room by room.

(Yuri Alpha) “Strange. We fell into the canyon when it was late afternoon. By all accounts, the rooms should be relatively unchanged and soldiers should be all over the Monastery.”

(Solution) “Yet everything looks like its been abandoned for years.”

(Pandora’s Actor) “Perhaps it’s been more than a few days than our awakening?”

(Cocytus) “I DOUBT THAT THIS AMOUNT OF AGING COULD HAPPEN IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.”

(Ainz) “...We will investigate the dorm rooms. Sebas, you and the Pleiades will check our surroundings and make sure no surprises await us.”

(Sebas) “My Lord.”

The Pleiades knelt down quickly, then jumped onto the rooftops and began their scouting.

(Shalltear) “...This quiet is troubling me.”

(Demiurge) “It’s as Mare asks, where are the soldiers? If the Church was victorious, we should have seen multiple sentries on the way. And the same goes for the Imperials.’

(Ainz) “Let us keep looking. If we see anyone, we take them prisoner and find out what we know. No killing.”

Everyone nodded and went on to investigating the dorms and the nearby greenhouse.

Narberal and Solution went to the graveyards as their sisters looked elsewhere.

They said nothing as they looked over the walls and into the nearby rooms, weapons drawn.

Still nothing.

Narberal took a quick glance at the graves then back at the classes-...

Something wasn’t right.

She turned back to the graves and noticed one had been dug up.

Narberal looked to Solution and hit the nearby stones loud enough for her sister to hear.

Solution saw Narberal motion her head downwards, and they went down to the entrance of the graves and went towards the dug up grave.

Solution nodded as to keep watch while Narberal knelt down to get a better look.

While embarassingly enough, she couldn’t actually read the language of Fodlan, she was able to decipher the name of who the dug up grave belonged to.

‘Sitri’.

Narberal furrowed her brow.

‘Sitri’. Sitri was that woman who was Byleth’s mother and Aelfric fused with during that incident with the Ashen Wolves earlier in the year.

She and Lord Ainz were one of the few who personally made sure that her body was put to rest, so why was the coffin gone?

Narberal put her fingers to her ear for a message.

(Narberal) “Lord Ainz. This is Narberal Gamma.”

(Ainz’s Voice) “Report.”

(Narberal) “No one has been spotted yet, but there is something...troubling, to say the least that I have discovered. It’s about Sitri, her grave has been dug up.

(Ainz’s Voice) “...How recent was it?”

Narberal poked at the dirt and noticed how soft it was.

(Narberal) “Very recent. As to where the person who dug it up went, I am unsure of.”

(Ainz’s Voice) “...Hmph. This is Lord Ainz, everyone regroup at the dorms, I think we finally have a lead.”

Ainz started making his way back to the entrance of Abyss.

(Cocytus) “WE ARE HEADED BACK IN?”

(Ainz) “Yes. Someone has very recently dug up the grave of Byleth’s mother.”

(Albedo) “What could anyone in this world possibly want with a corpse of a woman?”

(Ainz) “If it’s anything like last time, nothing good...”

...

Yuri opened the door to the Ashen Wolves’ old hangout spot and revealed Constance, Hapi, and Balthus in the room.

(Hapi) “Hey Yuri-bird...Well, aren’t you guys a sight for sore eyes?”

(Megumi) “Thank goodness, you’re all okay!”

(Constance) “Hah, but of course we are! A few grunt soldiers aren’t enough to stop a Nuve-”

(Balthus) “HAH! I knew it! There’s no way that you guys died during that battle!”

(Constance) “H-Hey, I was talking!-”

(Yuki) “You all look so different...!”

(Hapi) “And...you guys look exactly the same?”

(Constance) “Huh. Now that you mention it, they don’t look any different despite the years that have passed.”

(Miki) “What is going on here...?”

(Yuri) “When we get out of here, we can start speculating on that all we like. Right now, we’re not the only ones down here besides the Knights.”

(Balthus) “Think whoever it was caused that explosion?”

(Yuri) “Definitely.”

(Yuki) “Maybe it’s others from House Isekai?”

(Constance) “I sincerely doubt any of your friends are that stupid to give away their location like that!”

(Everyone) “...”

(Constance) “...Okay, maybe there’s just a few of them that would.”

(Megumi) “Actually if I can ask, what are you four doing back here in Abyss if the Church has occupied it?”

(Hapi) “At first, it was just to keep our promise we made to Byleth and your class, to meet up here five years later for the Millennium festival. We still got about 4 days before that actually happens but we figured it’d be better to come here early.”

(Constance) “And from what we have gathered, it hasn’t been a full occupation by the Church. I think these men were sent here to assess the damage from the battle and see how much forces were needed to take it back.”

(Balthus) “As we were sneaking through, we heard a loud explosion, which alerted the knights as well.”

(Kurumi) “How deep in Abyss was that explosion?”

(Yuri) “We were originally near it, actually. I heard some voices which sounded like yours, so I followed it, since it didn’t sound like the knights. Lo and behold, it was you all.”

(Balthus) “And since we have those extra days, we might as well investigate it and take care of any knights in our way! You still know how to swing that shovel, Kurumi?”

Kurumi smiled and swung the shovel up onto her shoulder.

(Kurumi) “You bet I do!”

(Constance) “Fantastic! We do not know what’s down there, so we’ll need all the help we can get!”

(Hapi) “As for the rest of you, we’ll find you a weapon on the way so you can at least defend yourselves. Now let’s go ahead and get moving, we’re sitting ducks right now.”

Everyone gathered their gear and went outside the room, traversing deeper into Abyss.

...

Kazuma leaned on the wall as he was running out of breath. He checked behind him, and Megumin and Aqua were in the same state.

Darkness was perfectly fine, not even breaking a sweat from all that chasing.

He looked around the room and noticed it was very spacious, almost like an arena of some sort.

(Megumin) “I...think I’ve been down here before actually.”

(Aqua) “Really? When?”

(Kazuma) “Not important right now! Did we lose them?”

(Captain’s voice) “SPREAD OUT! I WANT THEM CAPTURED ALIVE!”

(Kazuma) “...Shit.”

(Megumin) “O-Oh, I know! We can go down there!”

There was a stairway that had a soft orange glow radiating from a doorway at the end of it.

(Darkness) “Well, if it comes to fighting, we may as well fight where we can see them!”

(Kazuma) “We are NOT going into that deathtrap just so your libido can get satisfied!”

(Darkness) “W-Wha?! I’m being serious!”

(Knight) “I think I heard something!”

(Aqua) “Deathtrap it is! UP UP UP WE GO!”

Aqua ran first down the stairs, followed by Megumin. Kazuma groaned but followed in suit, Darkness going last.

Aqua threw the door open, stopping dead in her tracks with eyes going wide.

They all collided into each other and fell onto the floor.

(Kazuma) “Hey, why the hell did you-...” !!! “...S-Stop...?”

[Those Who Sow Darkness - Fire Emblem Three Houses OST]

The room they were in seemed like a chamber, but it was covered in blood with bodies dressed in black strewn all over the floors. Some were torn in half while some other bodies were missing heads.

Despite all that, that wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention.

It was an open coffin, with a body inside of it that was disturbingly clean.

And the body that was very much alive standing over it.

It was a figure dressed in black like the rest of the corpses in the room, and it slowly turned around to face the four.

(???) “What do we have here?”

A man’s voice came from the figure, but he was wearing a mask, making it impossible to tell who it was.

Everyone quickly got up and drew their weapons.

(???) “Ah. I had mistaken you as part of those zealous knights, but no, you are something far more interesting! You are one of the last part of Byleth’s little class!”

(Aqua) “Who are you, creep?!”

(???) “...Let’s just say, someone who knows what will happen if I were to harm any of you.”

(Kazuma) “Yeah, we’d put you into the dirt!”

(???) “I doubt by the likes of you idiots. No, it is your teacher who would see my head mounted on his wall. He’s become something of a reaper to our group as of late...”

(Aqua) “You think we need Byleth to kick your sorry ass? TURN UNDEAD!”

Aqua raised her hand at the figure, but nothing happened. Not even a glow of light emitted from her palm.

(???) “....Even if that spell WERE to work, I assure you, I am VERY much alive! Not unlike my poor colleagues here. And I told them to be careful as well...”

(Aqua) “M-My spells aren’t working?!”

(???) “I silenced the room, so to speak. No magic spells, not even mine, will work unless I say so. I anticipated you all to be the more threatening of your group here, but it seems I overreacted.”

(Kazuma) “Wait a- YOU’RE ONE OF THOSE DAMN MOLE PEOPLE WITH THE GOD AWFUL NAME!”

(Everyone) ?

(???) “’...Just so I never have to hear us referred to as ‘Mole-people’ ever again, you may call us Agarthans. We, are true sons and daughters of humanity, fighting against that bastard Seiros! And considering what has happened to you all, we need not be adversaries.”

(Darkness) “And side with the very people who murdered Byleth’s father and countless students, do you think us THAT stupid?!”

(???) “That was a poor display by my colleagues, and something I voiced against, if you choose to believe it.”

(Megumin) “Alright, sure, we believe you. Now what’s with that body?!”

(???) “Hmph. I thought it was obvious enough. Though unfortunately for you all, that is all the explanations you are getting from me, it seems we have overstayed our welcome.”

Knights burst into the room and completely covered the entrance.

(Captain) “Freeze! Don’t move a-...What in the goddess’s name?!”

(Knight) “Sir, those are Imperials!”

(Captain) “SEIZE THEM!”

(???) “I’d advise you four to get down.”

The four turned around and saw the blood rising into the air and going into the body in the coffin.

And a dark purple light emitting from the man’s hand.

(Kazuma) “OH SHIT!”

Kazuma grabbed the three and jumped to the side, a dark spell hitting the Captain first, and the explosion catching the knights.

The entire squad exploded into bits with their limbs slamming against the wall.

All the blood that shot out from their bodies was pulled into the coffin like mist.

The man walked away as the last of the blood began to dissipate and he turned to Kazuma.

(Kazuma) “What, you too lazy to pick that corpse up with you?”

(???) “She is a corpse no longer. Though, she may need a little more lifeforce, but I’m sure you’ll find a way. Consider it my gift to you...Oh, and before I forget, I recommend you steel yourself for battle. We accidentally triggered some form of defense while traversing the depths to get her.”

Before anyone could respond, he teleported away.

(Aqua) “Damn it, that little prick got away!”

(Darkness) “...What did he mean by ‘she’?”

The four got up and went to the coffin.

Megumin gasped audibly seeing who was inside.

(Megumin) “Sitri?!”

(Aqua) “What the- what were they doing with her?!”

(Sitri) “...N-Ngh...!”

(Everyone) ?!

(Kazuma) “What the fuck- Is that what all the blood was going into?!”

(Aqua) “I-I could try healing magic-”

(Megumin) “Hold up a second! I think dark magic was used for this to even happen, I think holy skills would hurt her!”

(Darkness) “C-Can we even trust the words of that man?!”

(Kazuma) “Shit, well we gotta do something to get some life into her and-...”

Kazuma grabbed Darkness’s neck and Sitri’s hand, using his skill life drain.

(Darkness) HOOUWAAAUAAAGGGGGGGGH?!

...

Sitri suddenly felt her body come back to life slowly, but surely. Her eyes opened slowly, but everything was too blurry to tell where she was.

Her sense of hearing was coming back as well, and she could hear several muffled voices.

Finally opening her eyes, Sitri was-

[We’re Hungry because We’re Alive - Konosuba OST]

(Kazuma) “HARUUKAACKFAAACK!-”

(Aqua) “Wow, that looks painful.”

(Megumin) “Doesn’t she get off on that?”

(Darkness) “I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU DID THAT TO ME AGAIN!”

(Kazuma) “EETWASHANEMERGENCHY!YOUHAVEMOSTHPOFAAACK!”

...Sitri was horribly confused.

(Megumin) “G-Guys, she’s awake!”

Darkness let go of Kazuma’s neck and he grabbed the side of the coffin almost tipping it over.

(Sitri) “W-Wha?!”

Darkness acted quickly and grabbed the other side of the coffin, though she accidentally grabbed it too hard, catapulting Sitri into the air.

(Sitri) “AAAAH!”

(Kazuma) “SHIT!”

Kazuma caught Sitri as she fell, which made him collapse into Aqua and Megumin as well.

(Aqua) “OW! DAMN IT KAZUMA!”

(Megumin) “Oof...”

(Darkness) “O-Oh! Ma’am, I am so sorry!”

(Sitri) “I...I...What?! Who are you people?!”

(Kazuma) “H-Hang on!”

Kazuma only helped Sitri up while the Megumin and Aqua had to get themselves up.

(Kazuma) “I’m Kazuma, that’s Megumin, Darkness, and Aqua.”

(Sitri) “...”

Sitri did not feel any less uncomfortable.

(Megumin) “Oh um...Miss Sitri, it’s nice to finally meet you!”

[To the Resting Place - Konosuba OST]

(Sitri) “You...know who I am?”

The three let Megumin in front, since she dealt with the incident regarding Sitri personally.

(Megumin) “Y-Yes. The four of us are students of Byleth, your son.”

Sitri looked shocked at first but smiled.

(Sitri) “Oh, Byleth became a teacher...”

Upon hearing that she started to laugh. Though, tears started to roll down her cheeks.

She wasn’t there to see her son grow up.

(Sitri) “How is he? A-As a teacher, I mean.”

(Megumin) “Hah well...He was a bit awkward at first, not knowing how to deal with the rest of the class. But overtime, he became such an inspiration to us all. I don’t think I’ve had any teacher as great as him.”

Sitri took a breath of relief.

(Sitri) “Then Jeralt raised him right...I knew he would. If I may ask, is his father doing alright?”

Sitri didn’t like the faces they suddenly made.

Aqua was about to say something, but Kazuma put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

Darkness looked down in silence while Megumin took off her hat and spoke in a more soft tone.

(Megumin) “I...I’m sorry to say Jeralt died, saving Byleth and several other students.”

Sitri stopped smiling.

(Sitri) “I...I see.”

(Darkness) “We personally took care of those responsible for his demise. We buried him alongside you, actually.”

Sitri nodded, and a sad smile was on her face.

(Sitri) “Thank you.”

...It took a second for Sitri to realize what she had said.

Buried Jeralt alongside her.

She’s alive.

She’s alive?

Why is she alive?

It was then she noticed what kind of state the room was in. The bodies and body parts lying everywhere.

(Sitri) “What...What happened here?!”

(Kazuma) “...That’s right. We HAVE to get out of here!”

(Aqua) “Wait a second, I hear footsteps!”

Everyone got into positions, Kazuma and Darkness at the front with Aqua and Megumin behind.

Megumin put her arm in front of Sitri.

(Megumin) “Don’t worry, we’ll protect you!”

The door swung open, and someone came charging in.

(Kurumi) “GET OUT OF OUR SCHOOL YOU PUNKS!-”

(Kazuma) “The fuc- WOAH WOAH WOAH!”

Kurumi stopped midway once she realized who they were and slipped, making her fall face first into the floor.

Her shovel went into the floor as well, making a loud clanging noise.

(Yuri) “Kurumi! You idiot, I said to...Wait...Kazuma?”

(Kazuma) “Yuri, Ebisuzawa?! HOLY SHIT, YOU GUYS ARE...Dude your hair, how did it-”

Kurumi peeled herself off the floor and grabbed her shovel.

(Kurumi) “SATOU! YOU GUYS ARE OKAY!”

She hugged Kazuma which made him go stiff.

(Kazuma) “H-Hey, let go of me!”

Kazuma’s group relaxed and put away their weapons.

(Darkness) “Finally, some friendly faces!”

The rest of the School-Living Club and Ashen Wolves went into the room.

(Megumi) “Oh, thank goodness, you’re safe!”

(Aqua) “Megunee! You will not BELIEVE what we just went through!”

(Hapi) “Hm. Finally some good news for a-...?!”

(Constance) “Hapi? What is the ma-...!?”

Yuri and Balthus noticed it too and were as silent as them.

(Yuuri) “...Who’s the woman in the back?”

(Miki) “Isn’t her hair color a bit like...?”

(Yuki) “Byleth-sensei’s!”

Megumi and Kurumi looked at Sitri as well, the room going dead silent.

(Yuri) “She’s...She’s alive.”

Sitri felt tense, not knowing what to say to the group staring at her.

(Sitri) “Um...”

Rumble...!

(Kazuma) “The hell?”

(Yuri) “Tch, now that one sounded close!”

(Kurumi) “Is the place coming apart or something?”

(Balthus) “Don’t think we should stick around to find out!”

(Yuri) “Move it people, we’re leaving Abyss!”

Everyone nodded, dashing out the room.

Megumin held onto Sitri’s hand as she dragged her along with the others.

They made their way into the center of the arena, going into the hallway the entered in.

(Yuri) “Hapi, how close was that explosion to us?!”

KAFOOOOOM!

The wall in front of them completely exploded, shooting stone everywhere.

[In the Name of Ainz Ooal Gown - OVERLORD OST]

(Megumi) “OH MY GOD!”

A giant golem was being smashed into pieces by a an armor clad figure with an axe almost as big as the figure was.

From the hole created, several maids jumped into the battle and started severing the golem’s limbs.

(Constance) “Wait a moment, battle maids? I know who they are! NARBERAL!”

Narberal and Albedo finished smashing the head into pieces killing the golem, but her face twitched upon hearing the voice.

(Narberal) “Oh, please not her-.”

(Constance) “HAVE I MISSED YOUR COMPANY DEAR NABE!”

The other maids began to laugh as Narberal refused to turn around.

(Kazuma) “A-Albedo, is that you?!”

(Albedo) “Ah, the other members of House Isekai. For once, I am glad to see you humans safe.”

The rest of Nazarick came through and noticed who she was talking to.

(Aura) “Hey, the School-Living Club!”

(Shalltear) “Surprising, Kazuma’s group is somehow alive.”

(Cocytus) “I AM GLAD TO SEE MY FELLOW STUDENTS SAFE, IT SEEMS THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES HERE IN ABYSS.”

(Ainz) “Everyone, focus! We’re not out just yet!”

(Demiurge) “Oh? I believe we just found our missing body.”

Sitri was scared by what she was seeing since most of these ‘classmates’ weren’t humans.

(Narberal) “Hmph. So they found Sitri. I suppose I should say good job.”

(Kazuma) “S-Shit that’s right! The defense mechanisms!”

(Yuri) “Defense mechanisms? What do you mean?!”

...

(Ainz) “So, now that we’ve successfully revived her, every monster that’s down here is about to come on top of our heads.”

(Kurumi) “Welp, that’s just great! Why did they only activate now though, she was brought out of her resting place before, right?!”

(Yuri) “No idea. I guess that’s something we’ll have to interrogate that black hooded bastard for! Miss Eisner, can you keep up with us on your own? We’re going to need every fighter we can get.”

(Sitri) “Y-Yes!”

(Kazuma) “It’s a long climb up. There’s a lot of us, but no doubt there’s going to be a big bad monster after our asses.”

(Ainz) “So, it’s just like a raid...Heheh...”

(Everyone) ?

(Ainz) “Perfect. EVERYONE! Our duty is to escape with everyone, no man left behind.”

(Yuri) “Uh...what is he doing?”

(Kazuma) “S-SHSHSHHH! He’s having a moment where he actually knows what to do, don’t let him get distracted!”

Pretending to not have heard that, Ainz continued.

(Ainz) “You will protect Sitri as if she were me, and I will tolerate no excuses if any harm is to come to her! Pleiades, you will guard the rear, taking care of any of the lower mobs that will inevitably aggro to us.”

(Sebas & Yuri Alpha) “Understood, my lord!”

(Ainz) “Albedo, you will be the vanguard, drawing anything to you. Shalltear, Mare, the Ashen Wolves and Kazuma’s group will be accompanying you. Remaining in the middle will be the School-Living Club, Sitri, Demiurge, Cocytus, Aura, and Pandora’s Actor. Pandora’s actor will be leading Alliance A, Sebas will lead Alliance B, and I will lead Alliance C.”

(Everyone) “Yes, Lord Ainz!”

(Yuri) “Wow, that’s the most organized I’ve seen him-”

(Shalltear) “Watch your tongue, human.”

The floor beneath them began to rumble.

(Ainz) “GET WITH YOUR PARTY, NOW!”

Everyone scrambled to their positions.

(Ainz) “Now...

Time to make our escape!”

[Clash - OVERLORD OST]

Albedo charged into the hallways first, Alliances A and B following closely behind.

(Ainz) “Yuri, you know the way out of here?”

(Yuri) “Yeah, we take a left once we get to the next intersection of hallways!”

They rounded the corner and found what Yuri was talking about.

Before they could progress any further, they were stopped by several knights.

(Knight) “FREEZE!”

Albedo raised her axe and cleaved the first knight in half, twirling it to the other side and decapitating another that tried to swing his sword.

A knight further back raised his bow and aimed it at Albedo.

(Kazuma) “STEAL!”

A glowing light came out of Kazuma’s hand, a small gust of wind blew past everyone.

The archer noticed something felt colder, but he still had his bow and arrow.

(Kazuma) “AW, FUCKING GROSS!”

He dropped the knight’s underwear and wiped his hand on his jeans.

The knight was distracted long enough for a spell to hit him in the stomach, sending him flying back.

(Shalltear) “Hah, I can see your priorities clearly, Satou!”

(Kazuma) “LIKE YOU’RE ONE TO TALK!”

(Yuri) “Now, to the left!”

Meanwhile at the back, CZ used her rifle to blast away any incoming automatons of Abyss charging at them.

Once one got close enough, Sebas’s fist came into contact with its head at almost blinding speeds, sending the body flying back and hitting several others after them.

Narberal casted lightning through her fingertips and shot it at the group that Sebas had knocked down, causing them to explode into debris.

Several more came barreling in, everyone doing their best to not let a single one through.

Lupusregina skewered one with her staff while Entoma had hundreds of insects shoot out of her sleeve and eat away at another, though two slipped past them.

Yuri grabbed one as it was rushing up the hallway and smashed its head into the wall, Solution catching the other one by deforming her arm into a whip-like slime arm.

It struggled to move as Kurumi knocked its head off with her shovel, with Cocytus stabbing the body with a single arm.

Before Kurumi could take a breath, she noticed even more coming towards them.

(Kurumi) “You gotta be kidding me!”

(Pandora’s Actor) “Father, it looks like they’re increasing the number of automatons! How is our escape looking?”

(Ainz) “1. Don’t call me that, and 2.-”

Ainz casted a fireball and lit a Knight on fire, everyone else caught into a fight.

(Ainz) “-Get up here and prepare for a fight!”

Yuri dodged out the way of a knight swinging his sword, and countered with his own attack, the slash catching the knight in the chest.

Before another knight could get Yuri from behind, Balthus kicked him down and stomped on his head.

Constance, Hapi, and Shalltear casted a spell together, creating a giant pillar of light that disentigrated a group of knights coming at them.

(Aqua) “Incoming right!”

Albedo swung her axe and slammed it to her right, chopping off the top half of a knight using the shadows to ambush them. She looked down the hall and saw a massive bridge in front of them.

(Darkness) “That’s right near the entrance to Abyss!”

Another knight came up from behind, and Darkness slashed her sword at his head.

(Knight) “...H-Huh?”

(Albedo) “YOU MISSED?!”

(Darkness) “DON’T MAKE FUN OF ME!”

Mare’s staff hit the leg of the knight, snapping it completely backwards, making him scream.

(Mare) “It’s probably too dark for you to hit accurately, right?”

(Darkness) “Y-Yes, that’s exactly it!”

(Kazuma) “SHUT UP AND KEEP MOVING.”

Kazuma cast an enemy detection skill and noticed a large one coming from below the bridge, at a rapid speed.

(Kazuma) “Ooooh, SHIT! EVERYONE, WE NEED TO GET OVER THAT BRIDGE NOW! SOMETHING BIG IS COMING!”

Alliance C stood at the exit of the bridge fighting off any automaton while the other two alliances caught up.

Alliance B went first, Yuri Alpha and Sebas killing any knight that was coming to them, with Alliance A coming into the middle.

Alliance C went onto the bridge once the last members passed by, all dashing to the middle of the room.

Right as Megumin was the last one to pass the bridge, a massive automaton emerged from the depths, smashing the bridge into pieces.

(Ainz) “Hah, it actually is like a raid, now we’ve reached the boss!”

(Yuri) “H-How are we supposed to fight that?!”

(Ainz) “TANKS, FRONT AND CENTER!”

Albedo and Darkness ran to the front, weapons at the ready.

(Ainz) “Now, YOU WILL SEE THE FULL MIGHT OF-”

(Kazuma) “Fuck that, MEGUMIN, LIMIT BREAK TIME!”

(Megumin) “...Does that mean-”

(Kazuma) “YES, KABOOM, HURRY YOUR ASS!”

(Yuuri) “Uh oh.”

(Sitri) “K-Kaboom? What does that-”

(Yuki) “IT MEANS GET DOWN!”

The room around them turned into a dark orange as Megumin aimed her staff at the automaton.

“EXPLOOOOOOOOOOOOOSION!”

A tiny ball of flame appeared below the automaton, then erupted into a blinding light, and shook the entire room so violently that any pillars near them completely melted into ash from the explosion.

It sent everyone flying back from the sheer force of the explosion being so close.

When everyone opened their eyes, it was completely gone.

(Sitri) “...o-ow...”

(Megumin) “YEAAAAH! I DID IT!”

WHAP!

Megumin slammed face first into the floor.

(Everyone) “...”

[Duty Complete (Victory theme) - Final Fantasy XIV OST]

DADADADA DA DA DA DADA DAAAAAAAAAAAA!

(Sitri) “Is she going to be okay?”

(Aqua) “She’s used to it. She’s actually learned how to break her fall better since she started.”

(Sitri) “So this happens regularly?!”

(Yuri) “With these idiots, yeah. With us? They’re about as foreign to us as we are to you...”

(Ainz) “Everyone, you did well. I could not be any more proud of you all.”

(Albedo) “Hah, your praise is too much, Lord Ainz!”

(Cocytus) “WE ONLY DID WHAT WE WERE EXPECTED TO.”

(Ainz) “Part of me wishes that raid could’ve gone a bit longer...A-ANYWAYS...”

Before Ainz could finish his sentence, everyone began to hear clapping.

[Those Who Sow Darkness - Fire Emblem Three Houses OST]

They all turned to where the sound was coming from, and saw a man in black with a mask clapping his hands together.

(???) "Bravo, bravo! The others were already afraid of what your class was capable of, but once they get word of this, they'll be pissing themselves, haha!"

Everyone drew their weapons at him and he sighed in response.

(???) "...You still don't trust me. Eh, fair enough. Not like I'm exactly comfortable with you offworlders either."

The man turned to Sitri.

(???) "And its good to see you out and about, Sitri! Byleth will be happy with that at least."

(Sitri) "What do you know about my son, who are you?!"

(???) "...You may call me Lahabrea. I only know what I've been told from Thales and reports...and the few conversations I've held with him.”

(Megumi) "If you even laid a finger-"

(Lahabrea) "Hah! And get between him and his little crusade? I'd rather live, thank you...Though right now with your class's appearance all over Fodlan these past few years, he's not as ruthless as he used to be."

(Ainz) "Years?"

(Lahabrea) "I'm not the right person for THAT conversation. You have mister Leclerc for discussing how many years have passed. For now, I leave you in good faith, with your gift. Your other friends will be showing up in the next few days, so I'll be taking my leave. I feel as if I'm not welcome here anyway."

He raised his to his face and an aura of energy surrounded him.

(Lahabrea) "Oh, and the only thing I ask of you is to give a message to Byleth when he comes. Lahabrea sends his regards."

With that, he teleported away.

(Kurumi) "The heck is that supposed to mean?"

(Yuri) "...Before we get too settled in, lets get out of here. Last I checked the surface of Garreg Mach was clear."

Yuri motioned everyone to follow, and they all finally left Abyss together.

The next morning, everyone met up in the mess hall, answering each other’s questions of what happened in the past, what has been happening, and what House Isekai is to Sitri.

Sitri is utterly fascinated by this fifth house, sounding almost like a fairy tale, heroes coming into another world to save it and its people.

(Sitri) "House Isekai sounds..."

(Ainz) "Impossible?"

(Megumi) "Insane?"

(Kazuma) "Stupid?"

(Sitri) "Unique, actually. My son must be proud to have you all as his students but...what happened to him?"

(Yuuri) "The last I remember, Rean had his giant robot thing teleport Byleth away when we fell..."

(Megumi) "I hope he's okay..."

(Ainz) "I sincerely doubt anything would actually be able to harm him."

(Aqua) "Somethings been bothering me about that actually. We fell down that cliff, so how are we still alive, much less be here five years later?"

(Kurumi) "...When we woke up, I heard a voice gently talking to me...then it uh...screamed at me to wake up like she was my mom."

(Albedo) "Odd. That's what happened to us as well, though...that voice sounded familiar."

(Constance) "So, that answers how you all awoke, but how many others are here too?"

(Yuri) "The way that Lahabrea guy was speaking made it sound like some others of House Isekai made it here before you guys."

(Kazuma) "He said to my group that we were among the last to arrive. So how long have the others been here before we woke up?"

(Sitri) “And...why did he resurrect me?”

Everyone remained silent, trying to think of some possible answer.

(Yuri) “...Well, now that we cleared things up for Sitri-”

Yuri put his cup down on the table and looked to House Isekai’s members.

(Yuri) “-It’s about time we tell you guys what’s happened with the war.”

(Kazuma) “So, who’s winning, the Empire or the Church?”

The Ashen wolves looked at each other.

(Balthus) “About that...-”

-----

Outside Garreg Mach

Dimitri stared up at the Monastery silently.

It had been five long years since he last laid his eyes on it.

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw someone walk towards him.

(Dimitri) "Edelgard..."

Edelgard stopped in front of him and the two remained silent.

Dimitri's solemn expression turned into a wide smile.

He raised his hand, and Edelgard grabbed his, both holding each others arms firmly.

(Dimitri) "Hah, it is good to see you again."

(Edelgard) "Likewise, old friend. It's been far too long."

The two turned to face Garreg Mach.

(Dimitri) “Best not to keep anyone waiting, right?”

(Edelgard) “After you.”

----

Year 1, Ruined building in Faerghus territory...

Byleth walked alone through the streets of this small town. He didn’t know what it was called.

All he knew was that it was destroyed in the last massive battle that took place here.

Imperial and Kingdom soldiers lay dead as he passed them by, not bothering to check if anyone’s breathing.

He stopped walking after a minute and reached for the Sword of the Creator.

Byleth activated the whip function of his sword before a voice spoke up.

(Man’s Voice) “I’m not here to attack you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Byleth slowly turned around and saw a man dressed in black, leaning against a wall.

It was nighttime and the area was almost pitch black, but Byleth could tell immediately what he was.

(Byleth) “Give me one reason I shouldn’t cut off your head right now, Agarthan.”

(???) “I can give you two, actually. One: Because I’m the first to actually talk to you instead of attacking, unlike the rest of the idiots who tried doing that. I doubt anyone who knew the reputation of the Ashen Demon would even come within a 100 mile radius of you.”

(Byleth) “And two?”

(???) “I can give you the power you seek to destroy the Church. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.”

(Byleth) “...Just who are you?”

The man stepped forward and the light revealed that he was wearing a mask that covered his face.

(???) “You may call me...Lahabrea.”

PART 1: END

[Escape - Darling in the FranXX OST]

The forecasted rain wets us

What should I say to you, as you tremble? My soaked blazer is cold and heavy

I feel as helpless as a chick who's left its cage. I felt that my dreams were on the other side of the heavy clouds

I digested only the sweet pain that spread in my chest

I wonder if it'd be better if I'd never met you

Hey, I can't even see the stars

Hey, my tears won't fall either

To Be Continued in:

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papenniesandbentoboxes · 4 years

Text

Face Reveal!

Yay! I have 100 lovely, wonderful, amazing followers! Thank you all for being so awesome!

As promised, I’m doing a face reveal!

That’s me.

I also promised a chaotic mini biography, so here goes. This is worse than Nigel Mookerjee’s memoirs. Also, his memoirs are iconic and beautiful and I could never compete with him.

(btw by mini i mean mini by nigel mookerjee standards so this is extensive and not mini by normal standards and very chaotic)

When I was born I was very very tiny. I had bright fiery carrot red hair with white around my crown. I was a genetic rarity since there was only one other redhead in my family in the past 100+ years. From the moment I could move my hands I did jazz hands and acted like a game show host instead of being a baby.

Going on to preschool, I remember spending all my time playing with the musical instruments and coloring outside the lines because I hated the strict teacher and then they locked me in the bathroom for five minutes of time out.

I started reading chapter books at 4. When I was 5, my mom borrowed a book called How to Teach Your Child to Read or something like that and I straight up just read that book. I started reading Nancy Drew books when I was 6 and Hardy Boys when I was 8.

When I was eight, I started professionally acting. I played Tiny Tim in the Act Theatre’s A Christmas Carol. I hated the guy who played Bob Cratchit because he was a jerk.

When my sister turned 6, we had a birthday party where my mom and I made her a DIY pinata out of paper mache and an oatmeal box thing. It took an hour to get it open. All the kids tried with the plastic bat and eventually the bat broke. After that, we got an ax handle and used that to hit the pinata. Didn’t work. We eventually had to get a chainsaw and use that. After we got the pinata open, everything was just plastic and candy dust.

I was in team level gymnastics by the age of ten, but I never competed because my mom and I weren’t gonna pay $100 for a leo, tshirt, and flipflops. I was in level 5 gymnastics when I quit.

I was homeschooled in the Pacific Northwest (where it is wet and grey 97% of the time) and moved to the high desert areas of Washington when I was 13. It is very hot and I hate heat. If anyone tells me this part of Washington isn’t a desert, I will show thou pictures of the natural vegetation with is DIRT, SAGEBRUSH, and FRICKIN TUMBLEWEEDS.

I’ve never gotten carsick in my life, but both my dogs do and they have both thrown up on my lap on three separate occasions.

In my freshman year winter break, I came back to school in January sunburned.

When I was 14, my sister and I joined a circus. A youth circus, but still, a circus. The other kids were like, “You’re first years, you’ll only be clowns in your first year.” So, being me, I rebelled and proved them wrong, getting into 6 acts my first year. Suck it, haters. My main acts that I did were spansets (it’s an obscure circus act), Roman ladders, tumbling, swinging ladders, and tight wire (low wire without the poles). I eventually became a ringmistress and got to wear a really neat red and gold tail coat and a top hat. I had to quit circus after a knee injury from falling off of low wire and then making it 10x worse after my tumbling act.

The fabric on my spansets feels like if cheese graters were a fabric. It has ripped off my skin and I hate it.

My favorite person at circus taught me how to do a back flip through Newton’s First Law of physics.

When I was 18, I won 3rd place in the mezzo soprano category at State for vocal stuff. After I collected my medal, my choir teacher and her husband (the vice principal at my highschool) took my mom and I to eat Mexican food. The waiter there flirted with me and because I lack all social skills, I said, “Yike, buddy, I really like this cheese.” My mother, my choir teacher, and her husband laughed hard about that.

I sing opera, gospel, jazz, musical theater, and country. Because I was bored, at the beginning of quarantine, I got dressed up in my Legolas costume and sang “Kerosine” by Miranda Lambert in my front yard with my giant karaoke machine speaker.

When I was in Les Mis, I played Fantine and at the end when I was standing on top of the barricade, the lights would go black and then we’d have to go off stage to get ready for bows. I fell off the barricade more than one time. I was also a barricade boy so I got to die twice in the same show. I wore giant sideburns and a black wig and I was A MANLY MAN.

I played Scuttle in The Little Mermaid and nearly got killed because I rammed my head into a speaker and then fell off the stage and into the side door. It was fun.

My first roller coaster was the Incredicoaster in Disneyland.

After my first crush and heartbreak, I got over that stupid ass guy by going rock climbing, repelling, and white water rafting. If you ever want to get over a guy, just do something that could potentially kill you without safety gear.

I got nicknamed Buffy by one of my college roommates because I have arms not unlike Thor’s. I like the nickname, hate the person who gave it to me. She was an asshole and made my depression worse.

I was diagnosed with autism when I was 19 (just this February) and it was like watching a TV show with a twist ending and then looking back at all the foreshadowing in all 19 seasons of this weird TV show.

I’m allergic to cashews and we found out the hard way.

I lack most social skills unless I am in a professional setting and then I turn into a weird charmer.

I can gargle “What A Wonderful World” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

I won my church’s Star Wars trivia night and won a nice basket of Star Wars stuff. I also won my library’s Star Wars trivia night. No one else knew what Boba Fett’s ship’s name was.

This is my sister and I at circus. I was a ringmistress that day and she was Lead Clown, Do-See-Do. I did her makeup.

So that’s me. This is the face behind all the memes.

Stay rad, dudes. Yeet.

#clue crew #it's meeeee #face reveal #clue crew face reveal #i frickin love memes #one time when i was in the musical Oliver! there was this one boy who kept annoying me so i took my prop bowl and broke it on his head #i also used to be able to do a perfect gollum impression before my voice kinda changed #it was depressing #i read les mis and i am not a fan of the parisian sewer systems #my dogs are weird #one is a catahoula and one is a rat-chi #they're both psycho #one more than the other #my sister knows every single lyric to toxic by britney spears #and when i told her about my joe headcanon she recited the entire song to me #i was like #i didn't know you knew that song #she was like #of course i know that song #i mean #idk anymore #one time at college it was karaoke night and i sang girlfriend by avril lavigne #the sk8er boi #then teenagers by mcr #then welcome to the black parade #everyone was surprised i knew emo music #bruh #i don't look emo but i am on the inside #my best friend is 10x more emo than me

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baddyzarc · 5 years

Text

1/6 Ruins: Legend of the Ancient Hero

x 2 3 4a 4b 5 6 7

So awhile back I wrote a small, incomplete piece over Vector and his guardian, Minotarous, and how it connects to his legend and mythyrian number. Since then, I've been wanting to do it for all of the Emperors since there's enough details and Easter eggs to do that and nows a good time. I'm gonna be taking text mainly from the original subs since the dub did things to them that I do not agree with.

Since its gonna cover 6 different ruins, I decided to split this up into multiple parts.

So let’s begin with the ruins of everyone's favorite blind, book-loving, memelord supreme barian, Dubhe

Being the first to kick off the arc, Durbe’s ruin is probably the easiest of the ruins to understand.

Aside from the theme of trusting in others, one of the other major themes of his ruins revolves around the self-sacrifice motif.

This is clearly seen at the very start of the arc. It started with the scene where Yuma jumped in front of a bear in order to protect Durbe, who is a stranger and a very likely candidate of the Barian Emperor that crashed into their ship. Yuma was willing to sacrifice himself to (or fistfight) a bear to protect a complete stranger.

The next example is a little more obscure, but I say it happens when Durbe pushed Ryouga out from under the falling rocks and trapped himself with the fish boy. This one is a bit tough to grasp what Durbe “sacrificed” by doing this, but I argue that Ryouga was immediately held distrust towards Durbe from the beginning. Durbe has no reason to save him, and it would’ve benefited him greatly if Ryouga is out of the picture. Instead, Durbe saves him, and in the process he sacrifices his safety for a person who really hates Barians.

This whole concept continues throughout the Durbe's ruins. “Numbers 44: White Winged Horse - Sky Pegasus“ has the ability to destroy a monster unless the owner pays 500 lifepoints, and due to additional effects, Yuma has to pay 1000 lifepoints (which is a quarter of his life) each time this happens. Yuma chooses to sacrifice his lifepoints to keep Durbe and Ryouga as well as his “Numbers 39: King of Wishes, Hope” alive. In the Legend, Mach sacrifices himself for Durbe, and Durbe sacrifices himself for Mach in the past. There’s also something to be said when Yuma places his trust in the Barian Emperor, Durbe, after recounting his disaster with my boy Vector too. Even near the end of the episode, Ryouga is willing to die in order for Yuma to win the duel. The whole mini-arc is lathered in this theme.

What I found interesting about the "self-sacrificing" theme is what Mach says at the beginning of the duel. He says that in order for Yuma to win (and in turn save Ryouga and Durbe), he has to surrender the duel, or "victory can only be achieved through surrender." In essence, Yuma has to sacrifice, or surrender, the Mythyrian Number if he wants to save everyone. This is usual villain banter, but in the context of this episode, it is almost knee-jerking and tragic.

Recall back to Durbe’s legend. The Legend of the Ancient Hero (recounted through the scriptures on the ruins, Durbe, and Mach) tells the story of a group of four brave knights with one of them being Durbe and his Pegasus, Mach. Together they protected a distant land. Durbe returned to his homeland for some time (presumably to aid Nasch in his quest). Corrupted with the aspiration for power, the remaining knights overthrew the king and took over the country. When Durbe returned, he tried to appeal to them by saying “their hearts [are] filled with justice.” Unfortunately, he failed to open their hearts, and the three knights attacked Durbe.

Despite the assault, Durbe refused to harm or kill the attackers because he saw them as his cherished companions. Instead of fighting back, he surrendered, and he was stricken down by their relentless attacks.

Mach intervened in these attacks in order to protect his master, and he became fatally injured as a result. Durbe refused to retreat or abandon his dying steed, so he stayed by Mach’s side so they could perish together.

The final line of the legend said that the knights saw how noble the two of them were in their self-sacrifice to each other. They committed their lives to prove the bond between friends, the knights included. To honor Durbe, the knights ceased their rebellion, and they laid Mach and Durbe to rest as heroes.

In the case of the legend, even with their tragic demise, victory was achieved through surrender.

Yuma does a similar thing. In order to win, he has to play Mach’s game. He has to accept sacrificing himself over and over again. Only by taking those hits, by surrendering his life, is he able to win the duel and save his friends.

Okay, so enough about the theme of the ruins, let’s talk about physical ruins.

Noteworthy imagery used in the ruins is the use of colors.

When the characters got separated, they ended up in two chambers. One is lit by blue flames and the other by red flames.

And the thing about Zexal is that blue and red have strong associations to Astral World and Barian World respectively. Not all of the time, but the usage of these colored hallways and flames disappear shortly afterwards. So if the writers didn’t want you to notice the difference, they would’ve omitted it entirely. These colors are included for some reason.

Now you're probably wondering why I bring this up. Ryouga, Durbe, and Rio are Barians, Astral is, well, an Astral, this separation doesn’t make sense. But consider where the characters wind up. The “blue light” leads to the legend of the hero while the “red light” leads to the Number.

With the "red light" path, their intention is to free “Number 44: White Winged Horse - Sky Pegasus”.

Okay, slight deviation since this is important, but the Mythyrian Numbers are a special set of Numbers that Astral used to seal Don Thousand’s powers away. With Numbers, they do not belong to the Astral as a whole. If that’s the case, the existence of “Number 100: Numeron Dragon” implies that Astral created God, which is a little problematic (or a plot hole, take your pick). This is also why the Barians have their own set of Numbers. Astral is called the Original Number, so I take this as he is conglomerate of a bunch of strong Numbers, and Astral’s whole identity and powers is tied to the Numbers. This is why his memory shatters in the form of Numbers, or how other beings can absorb Astral’s Numbers. The Astrals simply used the powers of the Numbers to create Astral and lock Don Thousand away. I’ll explain this more later when we get to Mizael’s ruins and the whole smitck with the Numeron Dragon because it gets complicated.

BUT if anyone took the Mythyrian Number, whether it was carried out by Astral World, or Barian World, or an Earthling, Don Thousand’s strength will be restored. No matter what, Don Thousand's strengthening is inevitable as long as the characters choose to act on the red path.

For during the path of the “blue light”, or the one that Durbe and Ryouga took, the show hints that the evil Barians maybe aren’t evil. They have another secret to them that we don’t know of. In fact, the legend concludes by mentioning that the heroic Durbe and Mach ascended into Heaven, or into Astral World. This did not happen, of course, since we know of Durbe’s true fate. With Ryouga, his presence with Durbe allows for a crucial scene to play out later in the episodes. This also steadily connects him to his Barian heritage.

I can’t say much for Rio, but I feel as though the writers were incredibly inept about handling her Barianhood in comparison to Ryouga. They had no idea what to do with her (aside from being a handy-dandy translator and expositioner) and her character suffers for it, but ill get to her later.

Like, I may have an slight explanation for why Rio stays with the “red light” group. It’s kinda weak, but here we go.

Out of all of the legends, only Nasch and Durbe were not seen to be touched by Don Thousand's direct actions:

All of the other Emperors had a scene where an Over-Hundred goes into their heart or are possessed by Don Thousand. It is highly implied that Durbe also had the Over-Hundred Number monster enter his heart, but this was not shown since the scene cut away before we find out. Far as I know, Durbe was influenced to become a Barian when Donny made the knights turn on him, and the betrayal of his friends was so heart-breaking that Durbe descended into Barian World. Nasch was… well, ill get to him later too, but Durbe and Nasch could be the only ones who aren’t embedded with the curse. At least, on-screen.

Whether it happened or not is up for your interpretation, but them staying on the “blue light”, in the path of true heroes, makes sense in this concept.

Weak, yeah, but if there’s anyone that can explain why Rio is on the “blue light” side, let me know, aside from plot convenience. It’s obvious that the writers wanted Ryouga and Durbe to be together in the death rooms for plot reasons though.

Moving on, more plays on colors could be seen with the drawings in the Ruins.

This handsome, colorful fellow is meant to be Durbe. This depiction of him is much different than the one that is shown in (hopefully accurate) flashback.

It isn’t known who is responsible for scriptures and drawing in all of the ruins.

But the person who did this has the right idea of dressing Durbe in this multicolored garb. The story is called the “Legend of the Ancient Hero” and heroes are often associated with the three primary colors: blue is seen his shirt, pants, and helmet; red is seen in his cape; and yellow is seen in his undergarment. Meanwhile, white is a color often associated with purity, peace, and sincerity. All of these colors represent Durbe his legend—as a pure hero.

Being as he is the first Ruins we visit, using all this imagery to scream to the audience that “the barians are actually fallen heroes! theyre not evil!” is quite a nice, fun touch.

As well, out of the Seven Emperors, Durbe is the one who tends to be the most pure and heroic. From his deck being based on “holy” objects and his... questionable leadership, Durbe isn’t like Vector. He isn’t cruel or evil; everything he does is “for sake of Barian World” and that’s about it.

He knows that if Barian World does not attack Astral World, they will die (and vice-versa with Astral World). His motivations are solely to protect his home and his people. Also, I like Durbe I really do, but he is pathetic as a villain. Literally the worst plans and a bad leader who does not know how to use any of his pieces, but I appreciate his noble goals. He’s funny, Durbe is really funny. He just doesn’t have the heart to be the bad guy; but as a character who acts heroic (his duel with Merag for example), he does it pretty well.

And to rub my grubby little barian-eatin hands all over Durbe’s heroness, I want to talk about his ace monsters—his Mythyrian, his Over-Hundred, and his Chaos Over-Hundred.

Durbe’s Mythyrian Number also serves as his beloved Guardian of the ruins, Mach. This holds true for most of the Emperors due to the Guardians connection to their Emperors during their past life.

Now, Durbe isn’t shown with the card like some of the other Emperors, but we likely can infer that he was in posession of the Mythyrian Number, thus being a target of Don Thousand.

The role of the Mythyrian Number for the Emperors isn’t crystal clear, but what is known is that their being used to seal Don Thousand away. During the original fight between Don Thousand and Astral, Astral won the battle but lost fifty of his Numbers. Among these were the Mythyrian Numbers, which had the power to suppress Don Thousand. I don’t know if it was random chance that the Numbers glided towards the Emperors or it was divine intervention, but what I do know is that anyone who got the Mythyrian original had a good, strong heart and were destined for Astral World.

My personal theory is that the Barians and Astrals are like Newton’s Third Law, “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. They complement each other and balance each other out.

In order to seal Don Thousand’s Chaos away, the Astrals had to counteract with equal forces of Cosmos. In their true life, the Emperors provided the necessary Cosmos to suppress Don Thousand. The Emperors were supposed to be Astrals anyways; the Astrals just harnessing their powers while they were humans to fight Don Thousand.

Since the Mythyrian Numbers are drenched with the power of Cosmos due to their relationship with the human Emperors, they are the antitheisis to the Over-Hundred Numbers whose powers come from Chaos.

Mythyrian Numbers being based more on Astral World could also be seen in how the Pegasus on the coat of arms is often associated with Heaven, or a messenger from God. And as Mach recounted the ending of Durbe’s legend, he does that color thing. That iconic blue, Astral-like glow.

With his Over-Hundred Numbers, I think the most interesting thing about it is that the full Japanese name is “Numbers 102: Holy Lightning - Glorious Halo”. These Number monsters represent the Barian Emperors in some way (despite some of them being weird like the giant handy one). The most direct statement to this is when Vector uses the Over-Hundreds to mock Nasch by summoning Durbe and Merag’s monsters (as in “I ate your sister and best friend and these are mine now”), and the entirety of Nasch’s tragic display during his final duel with Yuma.

So even in death, even as a Barian, even as one of the villains, Durbe is still sainted as holy and adorned with a halo. None of the other Over-Hundred are dressed in such a positive light (if at all).

When he turns “Glorious Halo” into a Chaos monster, technically putting extra barian sauce on a plate of fried barian, the name changes into “Number C102: Unholy Lightning - Noble Daemon”. Durbe still has the “Noble Demon” attached to him, even with extra evil on him.

Durbe’s nobility as a Barian makes since if you see that he isn't deeply infused with Don Thousand's curse in comparison to someone like Vector. Or his strong affiliation to keep Barian World safe from harm.

Plus, as a little extra snippet that I noticed in the episode, I wanna focus on this scene in the ruins.

This scene is great. It doesn't have much to do with Durbe, but it's an amazing foreshadow. I think by this point, the audience suspects that Ryouga is a Barian. He acts weird sometimes, his past is unknown, he can summon Chaos monsters, the Emperors are missing two and the Kamishiros slide in like a puzzle piece. BUT, I think the most damning evidence is this specific piece.

Before entering the ruins, Durbe broke his Baria crystal. He is unable to use his Barian powers nor does he have the ability to fix it. But the moment he saves Ryouga from falling to his death, Ryouga begins to glow that iconic red Barian color.

Not Durbe, but Ryouga. Ryouga’s energy flows into Durbe, which restores his crystal to full power and allows him to reveal his true form. Since Ryouga is the King of the Barians, Nasch, it makes complete sense that his body has remnants of his Barian life. (why this didnt activate before, idk, maybe shark wasnt in the mood)

Watching Ryouga heal a fellow Barian is conclusive evidence that Ryouga, as well as Rio probably, must be Barians, or at least connected to the Barians.

Even parts of the duel includes Nasch’s legend in it.

“Labyrinth of Decisions”, “Unfair Treaty”, and “Shield of Conspiracy” are cards used by Mach that fit into Durbe’s story. The labyrinth could be attributed to him leaving the country to aid Nasch in tracking Vector into the Labyrinth of Screams, and the unfair treaty/ or conspiracy is attributed to his own story, where the three knights betrayed the king.

In the end, the first of these ruins reveals two major plot points about the Emperors with one being much more obvious than the other. First is that there are more to the Emperors than being “plain evil” for the sake of it. Second, the events seen in the ruins hints that this shark-shaped shadow is Ryouga, and he is likely to be the final and missing Barian Emperor(s).

Of course this isn’t everything. I don’t know why his ruins are in South America (Ecuador, i think, go here if you want to know more about geography) when they say his homeland is somewhere else.

The Pegasus came from Greek mythology which spawns an interesting connection to the legend of Nasch and Vector. Pegasus was borne from the death of a gorgon (Medusa) and reared by Poseidon (who is attributed to being the god of the seas in most pop culture iterations). Gorgons and oceans is basically the story of Vector and Nasch, and as you know, Durbe and Mach participated in that legend too.

I’m just so fascination by Emperors and their everything, their monsters, their past lives, their ruins, their planet, their composition. Theyre entertaining to explore bc it feels like the writers put something in them for the audience to discover. They're simply fun, and I'll see you in the next ruins

#long post #zexal #barians #durbe #dumon #dyzarc diet #dyzarc writes #barian biology #my boy durbe and his horse #i have a video conference tommorow at noon and my internet cut off at 2am #i was like 'ah! my durbe essay cant save' instead of 'ah! how an i suposed to stream in the morning'#so my priorities are pretty much straight #not a fan of getting a critque over skype thats what

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scope-dogg · 4 years

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Made my first experiments in the field of making a flying-boat jet fighter in simpleplanes. I’ve been watching videos about the history of VTOL fixed wing aircraft and apparently the idea came during the Cold War, where there was a fear of airbases and their runways being bombed in a war and being rendered unusable, which would render all the planes that need runways to operate totally useless. So a bunch of countries set out to make fighter jets that took off vertically and hence didn’t need a runway. The French, Americans, Germans, British and Russians all made prototypes to various degrees to success, but only the Russians were ultimately truly successful with their Yak-38 Forger and most famously the British with the Harrier, which was the definitive VTOL fighter for many years, though the most impressive one in the current year by far is obviously the F35-B. However, I figured that there’s another potential solution to the runway problem, make a fighter than can take off from large bodies of water - you can’t render the water non-viable as a takeoff surface just by bombing it after all. There was a British company called Saunders-Roe that was big into flying boats in all capacities, from passenger travel to military, including a jet fighter prototype called the SRA/1 in the years at the end of and following WW2, but they eventually kinda went bust doing it because flying boats went out of fashion. The fighter jet didn’t work out because it couldn’t be finished before the end of the war and couldn’t match up with land-based designs by the time it was actually done. I want to see if I can make something that’s perhaps a littler more successful using the more modern building options in SP.

I decided to start small and see if I could make modifications to one of my existing fighters to make it take off from sea, and it was easier than I expected. I slapped some buoyant waterskis onto my Bodkin jet fighter, like so:

Taking off in this configuration takes a fine touch, you have to accelerate to more than 200 kph, then immediately jettison the skis while pitching upwards. If you do it just right, the back of your wingtips will just about skim the water but you’ll soar into the sky just like an albatross. Hit the switch too early though, and your jets get doused in the drink and you end up sinking like a stone. Hit it too late and you veer out of control and end up like this:

So I ended up with something that can take off from water one time (with an increased danger of fucking up and ending up as the world’s worst submarine,) but because it has to jettison its floats it can’t land on it and has to land on a runway or aircraft carrier. That’s not very practical and also begs the question of how it’s supposed to be attached to floats in the first place. You’d probably have to lower it onto them with a large crane off a large cargo vessel. I guess that’d be kind of cool if you were trying to pull off some kind of secretive James Bond supervillain plot but I want something that can be scrambled as quickly as a jet fighter from a runway, so the floats have to stay on. To prevent the veering issue, I added a bunch of fins to the skis using vertical and horizontal stabiliser wings.

This prevented the issue on the water, which in theory ruled out the need to jettison the skis in order to take off, but while you can just pitch back and take off with them attached, once you’ve done so all the added fins which made for better straight line hydrodynamics don’t translate to aerodynamics, and the plane becomes uncontrollable in seconds until you jettison the skis, or else you once again end up like this:

And that’s the best case scenario, worst case you smash nosefirst into land instead of water and die in a huge fireball.

So I went back to it removed most of the fins, especially the vertical ones. I finally found the balance of making it go straight in the water and in the air, and ended up with this:

It’s fully capable of taking off from water, flying around, and then landing on water once again, so technically I’ve already fulfilled what I set out to achieve. However, there are issues with this:

A: I had to remove all of the weapons and a pair of airbrakes to accommodate the skis. I could probably add incorporate a gun back into the nose of the plane, but I think I’d have problems with missiles hitting the skis and blowing me up if I tried to fire, unless you’re flying perfectly straight which you just aren’t doing in a dogfight. So if you end up engaged with an enemy you’d most likely have to eject the skis.

B: While the skis surprisingly don’t hurt my aerial pitch and roll rates as much as I expected (although I suspect this has more to do with no weapons on the plane and thus lower weight overall than its usual format) they do add a lot of drag and bite into your top speed. You have to eject them to exceed Mach 1.

C: While you can take off and land from water, if you want to touch down on land or a carrier safely you once again have to discard the skis first. Not a huge problem if you’re only touching down on water but I’d like my aircraft to have the option to do either interchangeably. I don’t think just adding landing gear to the bottom of the floats is viable for this configuration unless I add like 4 or 5 per float, which will just add a lot more weight than I want.

D: I’ve yet to figure out how to come to a full stop or turn left or right on the water’s surface. I think the former problem is probably solvable by adding airbrakes that’ll open under the waterline but I’m not sure about the latter, if it is indeed a problem that can be solved. It’s not a huge issue because you don’t need too much run-up space to take off, but if it’s something I can figure out, I’d like to do so.

E: Most importantly, it looks pretty dumb in flight. Obviously this is just a experimental botch job on an existing plane but I want the final product to be at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing.

Overall it’s an easier start than I hoped and I think I’ve learnt a good amount about what it’ll take to make the real deal, but there’ll likely be plenty of more challenges to figure out before I can seal the deal.

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prof-bramble · 5 years

Note

So professor bramble hypothetically speaking what would happen if someone were to I don’t know give a bunch of sugar cubes to a rowlet and let them loose on ones enemy by accident what would more then likely happen.......

I… I don’t like the phrasing here.

But as there’s no Rowlet in my Lab causing chaos and mayhem, I’m going to pretend I trust you. I hope that my Lab continues to stay Rowlet free.

Now. It should be noted that because Rowlet stores energy during the day, I’d assume that this accident might happen during the night. In which case, the Rowlet would have an excess of energy… Oh, about three minutes past eating the sugar cubes? They’re small and process food energy rather quickly, after all.

A thing to remember here is that while many people think sugar makes you hyper, it doesn’t, it simply gives you immediate energy, unlike protein, which takes longer to break down and thus gives you energy throughout the day. In some Pokemon, however, they break sugars down so quickly it can actually seem like its making them hyper! So while the process is different between a ‘sugar high’ and what you might think of when I say sugar high, it would be functionally the same. A quick, sudden burst of hyperactivity, followed by the normal energy usage the Pokemon might normally go through. Generally this could mean anything from using Moves at random to use up its excess energy, to spending the entire time very focused on grooming its feathers.

If we were to talk about things you should absolutely not feed a Rowlet, for fear of a longer amount of hyperactivity… There are actually some Bug flavored treats out there, and a good number of them are specifically targeted towards Trainers who need that extra bit of energy, or are going long distances with their Pokemon. Think energy bars!

There’s a certain brand I personally would avoid because of how hyped they can make Pokemon, unless you plan on doing something intensive, called Mach Bars. They were created to help Fighting Type Trainers have intensive workouts with their Pokemon buddies, and have a good mix of easy and hard to digest energy sources.

Again, I certainly do not recommend any of that, as you’d likely have a Rowlet flapping about and causing chaos for a good 5-6 hours before it tired itself out, and would be a nightmare to catch.

#pokemon #ask blog #prof. bramble #rowlet #pokemon blog #i do not endorse any chaos #and take absolutely no responsibility for anything that happens here #but also rowlet is unlikely to cause any major lasting damage to anything #so of all the pranks #this is probably one i could get behind #Anonymous

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crackimagines · 5 years

Text

The Knights of Nemesis (evil!Byleth AU)

Withering Flower - Chapter 4

AU Masterlist Here!

After retaking Garreg Mach Monastery, Byleth begins his crusade against the Church and Empire for the next 3 years.

All the factions start to take note of this rising power.

-----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “The New Order”

With the fall of Garreg Mach and the elimination of any evidence linking back to us, Byleth's rise to power was complete.

In recognition of our service and loyalty during those two years, the Elites of the Fell Star were placed under the direct command of Shamir, Alois, and Leonie.

Byleth then began ordering the Elites on a series of covert operations to begin getting resources and magical power towards a super weapon he had in mind.

Of course, he did not send us under-equipped.

Armed with deadly new weapons, blazing new mounts, and shining new armor, our presence let Fodlan know that the days of pointless wars were coming to an end.

We were establishing a new era: An era of peace.

-----

Imperial Capital, Enbarr

2 weeks before events of Chapter 3...

Several politicians and generals left the war room, leaving Hubert and Edelgard by themselves.

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard, you look troubled. Is something wrong?”

(Edelgard) “How long has it been since we heard from Aurendel?”

(Hubert) “About three weeks. What concerns you?”

(Edelgard) “He doesn’t check in often, but he has mentioned something that would give us an edge in the front against the Kingdom. We should have heard back from him by now.”

(Hubert) “True, he’s not known for being tardy. Should we send a scout to investigate what they are up to?”

Edelgard put her hand to her chin, narrowing her eyes.

(Edelgard) “...No. They would’ve at least sent a proxy.”

(Hubert) “There’s no way they could have been attacked. They are one of the most secretive forces on this planet.”

(Edelgard) “We have to assume the worst. At the very least, if they stop us, we know they will be up to no good.”

(Hubert) “Shall I ready the Black Eagles Strike Force?”

(Edelgard) “No need. I will be accompanying you all, so I shall be the one to tell them. Get our carriages ready.”

(Hubert) “At once, Lady Edelgard.”

1 week later...

Edelgard and the rest of the Strike Force finally reached the Hyrm Mountains, accompanied by a small battalion of soldiers.

(Hubert) “Set up a perimeter and stay on guard. Even though we’re in friendly territory, we should not let our guard down.”

Soldiers started to patrol the area as Hubert walked back to Edelgard.

(Ferdinand) “Is it me or...does something look off about the mountains?”

(Petra) “I am afraid I do not have understanding. What is different?”

Everyone looked to where Ferdinand began pointing at.

(Ferdinand) “I remember that peak being...taller.”

(Dorothea) “Uh. That’s not just you Ferdie, I...I saw the mountains plenty of time during my time in the opera travelling. That mountain definitely looks off.”

(Bernadetta) “Yeah now that you mention it, it looks kinda...crushed?”

Edelgard’s eyes went wide hearing what Bernadetta said. It didn’t just look like it.

It was completely crushed.

(Edelgard) “Everyone, up the mountains! That’s where the base is!”

(Linhardt) “Oh boy, this is going to be fun...”

(Caspar) “That’s the spirit, Linhardt!”

(Ferdinand) “Would you all start taking this more seriously? Don’t you realize what this means, our allies base got crushed by the mountains!”

(Everyone) !!!

(Petra) “How is that possible?!”

(Hubert) “We’ll have the answers when we get up there...”

Bodies were strewn everywhere across the rocks, blood had dried onto the grass, and the entrance and everything around it was completely laid to waste.

(Bernadetta) “W-W-What happened?!”

Everyone drew their weapons before Edelgard raised her hand on Ferdinand sword, slowly angling it down.

(Edelgard) “Whoever did this is already long gone...”

(Dorothea) “Such destruction...!”

(Caspar) “Who could’ve done this?”

(Linhardt) “Whoever it was, they had lots of magical power to level an entire mountain.”

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard this isn’t the work of some other magic. This is-”

(Edelgard) “Those Who Slither In The Dark...”

(Ferdinand) “Come again?”

(Hubert) “Briefly, they are a secret organization who wanted revenge on the Church of Seiros and sided with the Empire. They had technological advancements and magical capabilities that would make you soil yourself the moment you realized what they’re able to do-”

(Petra) “But the way you have phrased the sentence, it sounds as if they had done the destruction on themselves.”

(Edelgard) “It certainly looks that way.”

(Hubert) “It’s quite unbelievable they would destroy their own base after thousands of years of being here. Yet...”

(Bernadetta) “Do you think someone raided the place and...I don’t know...used their own magic against them?”

Hubert and Edelgard slowly turned to Bernadetta, leading everyone to do the same.

(Bernadetta) “W-What?”

(Edelgard) “We have the Church of Seiros, The Holy Kingdom, and the Alliance. None of them could infiltrate Imperial territory without no one noticing. And Claude is too busy trying to keep neutrality.”

(Hubert) “And Cornelia is about to have Dimitri executed so...Hold on a second my lady, have we heard from the professor as of late?”

(Dorothea) “Wait a second...You don’t think our old professor could-?”

(Linhardt) “An interesting take. He’s been gone for two years, everyone assumed he just left the continent but...”

Her heart pained everytime someone mentioned Byleth.

Edelgard could never forget the look of betrayal on his face when she revealed herself as the Flame Emperor.

Then again...this would explain how no one’s said anything. Byleth’s forces were extremely small, but at the same time they were a deadly force.

Though, it was too early to draw conclusions like that.

(Edelgard) “We’ll be sending warnings to all the Generals who are defending and are on the frontlines. We’ll be looking into this matter personally.”

Everyone started on the path back down the mountains, Hubert turning to Edelgard.

(Edelgard) “...Byleth...”

(Hubert) “Lady Edelgard?”

(Edelgard) “Apologies, Hubert. Let’s catch up with the others.”

Holy Kingdom of Faerghus Capital, Fhirdiad

3 weeks after the events of Chapter 3...

Rhea stood in the church alone, wondering what to do next. Dimitri was falsely accused of the murder of his uncle, Grand Duke Rufus, which he didn’t commit, and was sentenced to execution, so the defense of the Kingdom was left to her.

As much as she wanted to send the Knights of Seiros to strike down the heretics who were no doubt working for the Empire, she had no choice but to stand down unless she wanted to have the Kingdom attack her.

It was then she heard someone enter through the door, and from the sounds of it they were in a hurry.

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea!”

(Rhea) “Catherine. What news does Cyril bring from Garreg Mach? Are Imperial forces still present?”

Catherine didn’t look her in the eye.

(Catherine) “...There were no survivors.”

(Rhea) “May their souls find peace with the goddess...Those Imperial bastards will pay-”

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea...The thing is, it wasn’t Imperial Forces that did it.”

(Rhea) “...What?”

(Catherine) “We could only tell that they didn’t do it because, well...their bodies consisted of both Imperial and Church symbols...Everything else was mutilated. Their faces, their limbs...-S-Sorry I’m...I’ve seen a lot things in my day but...”

(Rhea) “And Cyril...?”

Catherine remained silent for a moment.

(Catherine) “Putting it gently, my lady...There was barely anything of Cyril to bury.”

Rhea clenched her fists.

Such a young soul lost, but to an enemy she could not even see.

(Rhea) “What evidence have you gathered that this is not the work of the Empire?”

(Catherine) “Nothing conclusive yet but, all we could tell that some form of black magic was used.”

(Rhea) “Those Who Slither...!”

(Catherine) “Lady Rhea?”

(Rhea) “I want you and your best troopers to investigate if any other faction has been working behind the scenes. I will try to lead the loyalists against Cornelia and the Empire in Prince Dimitri’s stead.”

(Rhea) “At once!”

Catherine turned around and left the church as Rhea stood alone, her determination growing more fierce than ever.

(Rhea) “They took away everyone I loved...Once I find Byleth, I will get you back mother, and we can take revenge against those who killed you and everyone else!”

Battlefield near the Imperial/Kingdom Border...

Same time...

(Annette) “Mercie, we have to go!”

Kingdom forces were retreating from the Imperials who were closing in on this sector. It was being led by the Death Knight, completely destroying the general stationed here.

(Mercedes) “We have to get the wounded out, and I won’t be leaving them!-”

(Annette) “Then I won’t be leaving you either!- Oh crap! They’re here!”

Mercedes and Annette went out of the tent and prepared their spells to attack.

Imperial soldiers were about to attack them until a deep voice stopped them.

“Halt.”

Annette put a hand in front of Mercedes as the Death Knight slowly approached them on his horse.

(Annette) “I-I WON’T LET YOU HURT MERCIE!”

(Death Knight) “Mercedes...?”

Mercedes gently held Annette’s hand before putting it behind her.

(Mercedes) “Emile...That’s you, isn’t it?”

The soldiers slowly looked at the Death Knight, who still hadn’t said anything.

(Mercedes) “It’s alright if you want to kill me, but please, don’t hurt her, Emile!”

(Annette) “Mercedes, what are you doing?!”

(Mercedes) “Please...!”

(Death Knight) “...I...”

(Annette) “Huh?! BEHIND YOU!”

Annette and Mercedes saw swords emerge out of the Imperial soldier’s backs, prompting the Death Knight to turn around. He drew his Scythe and swiped at the invisible enemies, trying to fend them off.

From the mist-like shadows, there were 5 of them.

(Mercedes) “EMILE!”

Mercedes shot off an ice spell at one of the attackers, blasting him back.

It was then their attention turned to the two of them.

Two of the attackers charged Annette and Mercedes, making them join the fight.

(Death Knight) “DUCK!”

Annette grabbed Mercedes and dove to the side as the Death Knight threw his scythe where they were standing.

The scythe’s blade landed into the attacker’s head, making him fall down.

The horse kicked back the ones near him as he went for his scythe.

Annette and Mercedes used a fire spell to set them ablaze, and revealed their location once their cloth was on fire.

As they were screaming, the Death Knight cut off both their heads in a single slice, all the invisibility spells wearing off and revealing themselves.

(Death Knight) “...These were not your forces, were they?”

(Mercedes) “N-No! And they weren’t Imperials either, right?”

The Death Knight looked at the bodies and thought to himself.

“These are not Those Who Slither either...This appears to be something else...”

The Death Knight slowly approached the two, lowering his hand.

Annette backed up a little while Mercedes stood her ground.

(Death Knight) “We are not the only ones wanting each other dead. Get on, and I will ensure you will die at a later date once I get you back to your forces. The Kingdom would not be so brash to attack 2 of their own, let alone myself.”

(Annette) “W-Why would we take that deal?!”

(Mercedes) “Annie, he’s trying to say if we want to live, come with him!”

She sighed and slowly got on, holding Mercedes’ waist.

(Mercedes) “Who were these people...?”

(Death Knight) “...I do not know.”

Capital City of the Leicester Alliance, Derdriu

Same time...

Claude sat in the war room, trying to decide on what to do with the houses who were siding with the Empire.

knock knock knock!

(Claude) “Come in.”

The door creaked open, Hilda’s head popping around the corner.

(Hilda) “Hey um...Claude?”

(Claude) “Hey there, HIlda! Got any news for me?”

She nodded and stood next to Claude.

The first thing he noticed is that she wasn’t smiling.

(Hilda) “...Did we ever find out what happened to the professor during the battle of Gareg Mach 2 years ago?”

Claude blinked for a moment and turned to HIlda.

(Claude) “I hear you right?”

(Hilda) “Didn’t stutter, did I?”

(Claude) “Hm...From what I saw he just up and left the place alongside his mercenary teams after getting the students to safety.”

(Hilda) “Who else was with him?”

(Claude) “Let’s see, from what I heard, Shamir went MIA, Alois was supposedly killed in battle and...We never found out what happened to Leonie.”

(Hilda) “Well there’s...been rumors around the inns lately that they may have found Leonie.”

(Claude) “Really?”

(Hilda) “That’s not it though. She was also being accompanied by a man with bright green hair, a scary mercenary woman, and a person who looked like he worked for the Church!”

(Claude) “...”

He didn’t know how to process this information.

Byleth, as far as he was concerned, left the continent after not wanting to deal with the scraps his dad left him once he made sure the kids were alright.

The fact he was back was not a good sign, and could render his plans obsolete.

And Leonie was with him too?

(Claude) “...Keep me updated, will ya?”

(Hilda) “Can do.”

The Fortress City, Arianrhod

Same time...

CRACK!

The body of an Imperial soldier fell over as Dedue silently took down a guard near the exit.

(Dedue) “The coast is clear for now.”

Dimitri nodded and followed Dedue as they made their way across the hallways.

As they got closer to the doorway, they saw several guards patrolling the area, though no one seemed aware of their presence.

(Dimitri) “Dedue, you are risking your life breaking me out of here, you know this right?”

(Dedue) “Yes. But you must lead the Kingdom against Edelgard. Rhea cannot do it by herself.”

Dimitri nodded. He winced in pain as he reached for his now missing eye.

He had lost it during his time in prison, and he still wasn’t used to his now tampered depth perception.

(Dedue) “Until we get spotted, we must be as silent as we can.”

(Dimitri) “Understood.”

(Dedue) “...Alright, let us go!”

He quietly opened the door and they both snuck out into a nearby alley, avoiding any detection from the guards.

As they got closer to the gates, it suddenly shut on them, with soldiers surrounding them at all sides on the main road.

(Dimitri) “Damn it!”

(Woman’s Voice) “Dear Prince, did you really think escaping was going to be that easy?”

They both turned around as soldiers stepped to the side for Cornelia.

(Cornelia) “Well, so much for the grand execution I had planned out for you! Looks like I’ll just have to do it now!”

(Dedue) “Your highness, when I count to three, I want you to run as fast as you can.”

(Dimitri) “What? I’m not leaving you he-”

(Dedue) “Your highness. Please.”

(Dimitri) “Tch...Damn it, Dedue!”

(Cornelia) “Everyone, take ai-”

Whatever Cornelia was about to say didn’t matter, as she was caught in a massive explosion that blew everyone back.

Dimitri and Dedue landed into an alley. As they tried to recover from the ringing in their ears, they looked up and saw soldiers cladded in black warp in from beams of light, killing any soldier they saw.

(Dimitri) “Dedue, are these our men?”

(Dedue) “No, this is someone else! And we’re not going to stick around long enough to find out!”

(Dimitri) “Agreed, let’s get out of here!”

As they got back out onto the main road, Dimtri looked back and stopped dead in his tracks.

(Dedue) “Your highness what a-”

When Dedue looked back as well, he didn’t need an answer.

He was staring at the exact same thing Dimitri was.

Cornelia was trying to crawl away when the Sword of the Creator stabbed her straight in the eye.

(Dimitri) “B-...Byleth...?”

Byleth slowly looked up and saw the two standing near the gates.

(Shamir’s Voice) “Don’t move.”

They both looked up to the roofs and saw Shamir and other snipers aiming their bows at him.

Alois and Leonie warped in and saw the two.

(Alois) “Y-Your highness!”

(Dimitri) “Alois?! I thought you died during the battle of the Monastery!”

(Dedue) “What are you all doing with the professor?”

(Alois) “W-Well...”

(Byleth) “Allow me to explain.”

Byleth walked towards them, sheathing the Sword of the Creator.

(Byleth) “Dimitri. This war is not yours to fight.”

(Dimitri) “What?! But I must kill Ede-”

(Byleth) “She was not responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur.”

Dedue and Dimitri eyes widened.

(Dedue) “She...what?”

(Byleth) “Leonie.”

She nodded and gave papers to Dimitri.

(Leonie) “Yes, Nemesis.”

(Dimitri) ”Nemesis...?”

(Leonie) “This is a detailed report of what happened and who caused everything. Those responsible have already been killed.”

Leonie gestured to Cornelia at the back.

(Byleth) “So, your fight is over. If you wish to join us, come to Garreg Mach and join the Knights of Nemesis. If not, then I pray for you two to live a life in peace.”

Byleth and the others started to walk off towards the carnage, but Alois stopped and turned around.

(Alois) “Please your highness...Don’t get involved in this.”

Alois caught up with the others and the battle continued.

(Percy) “Excuse me, Dimitri.”

They both turned around startled. They had no idea when this mage appeared behind them.

(Percy) “Nemesis has ordered me to prepare a carriage here for you, it contains a week of food and water, should you decide to travel a long distance.”

(Dedue) “...You...have our thanks.”

Percy nodded, and guarded the entrance.

(Percy) “You two are the only ones allowed to leave so, if you would.”

Dimitri looked back at Byleth before heading to the carriage.

(Dimitri) “The Knights of Nemesis...?”

As the Elites of the Fell Star swarmed the streets killing every soldier in sight, Leonie took a deep sigh.

(Leonie) “Do we have to kill every civilian? We just let Dimitri and Dedue go.”

(Shamir) “It’s not leaving a good taste in my mouth either, sir.”

(Byleth) “I don’t suppose you’d have them volunteer in our experiments?”

(Alois) “Still, there must be some use for them!”

Byleth remained silent as he watched his soldiers kill the guards with brutal efficiency.

(Byleth) “I suppose we could use the memory wipe spell we’ve been experimenting with.”

(Leonie) “Did that even work?”

(Shamir) “Supposedly. Using it on Fleche made her forget why she was missing her eye, but I think that might be due to psychological factors.”

Leonie shuddered. She never saw the interrogation and experiments that Randolph and Fleche suffered, but hearing about it was enough to send shivers down her spine.

(Byleth) “Though, there is a point to Dimitri leaving. We’re finally ready to have news of our faction spread. And what better way than to have the King of Faerghus tell the world? We’ll bring Rhea and Edelgard straight to us.”

Byleth started chuckling to himself, making everyone slowly look at him.

[Arrival of the Undead King - Overlord]

Byleth walked up to an elevated pile of rubble, catching the attention of his men.

(Byleth) “MEN! TODAY IS STEP ONE FOR THE KNIGHTS OF NEMESIS! WE HAVE ALLOWED ENOUGH TIME FOR US TO STRIKE OUT INTO THE WORLD, AND REVEAL OURSELVES!”

He drew out the Sword of the Creator high into the air, having the other men respond by pointing their weapons up.

(Byleth) “THIS IS THE DAY OUR ENEMIES SHALL KNOW FEAR! WE WILL SHOW NO MERCY, NO RESPITE TOWARDS THE EMPIRE AND THE CHURCH! WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF THE NEW DAY THAT IS DAWNING UPON FODLAN, AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THE LAST OF OUR ENEMIES ARE DROWNING IN THEIR OWN BLOOD!”

Leonie, Shamir, and Alois slowly looked at each other and said nothing.

(Byleth) “RAZE THE SILVER MAIDEN TO THE GROUND! LEAVE NO STONE STANDING!”

“OOORAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

----

Edelgard stood in front of the Black Eagles Strike Force and put her hands behind her.

“Black Eagles, listen well. Arianrhod, the city known for being an impregnable fortress has been completely obliterated. Even worse, our fears are confirmed. The professor is back, and was the one who destroyed our allies. This means that Byleth is now the most dangerous adversary we will face...”

----

Rhea punched the wall closest to her, the stones crackling and bits of debris from the ceiling dropping down.

“What kind of joke is this? ‘The Knights of Nemesis’?! So, that child wishes to destroy the Empire and the Church? I should have killed him from the start! Mother, NOTHING WILL KEEP YOU FROM ME, AND I WILL NOT ALLOW ZANADO TO BE REPEATED! BYLETH WILL DIE BY MY HANDS, AND I SHALL TEAR HIS VERY HEART FROM HIS CHEST!”

----

Dimitri read the papers he had in his hand over and over again as Dedue used the carriage to travel as quickly to Fhirdiad as possible.

“Mother...Father...”

----

Claude sighed loudly, sitting back down in his seat after Hilda had told him the news.

“So teach, you’re alive after all. Leonie, just who have you gotten yourself involved with...?”

----

The Elites of the Fell Star Journal - “Arrival”

If there’s one thing that everyone didn’t expect, it was us. We were such a wild card at first that we threw all the forces near Garreg Mach astray. People tried advancing closer, some retreated back as far as they could.

I’ll tell you right now, those who backed up were spared a gruesome fate.

Attack after attack, no one could even make it to the entrance before they were crushed.

We were the advent of change, and Byleth was the one who was forever going to change history.

For better, or for worse, we didn’t know. But, we did have our job.

And that was to make the Empire and Church pay.

----

[Escape - Darling in the Franxx]

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nicolewrites · 4 years

Text

We Stand, Fate-Tested - IV

I'm still stupid stressed over school and procrastinating so I'm not sure when I'll get part 5 out, but here's part 4 for the meantime.

Rating: T+ Genre: Mystery, Friendship, Romance Characters: [Byleth/My Unit, Dimitri B.], [Byleth/My Unit, Claude R.] Words: 5,458

There's something odd about the 8th of the Ethereal Moon. / Marriage is work too.

AO3 | FFN

IV - Of Memories I’ve Lost

Garreg Mach University - 8 Ethereal Moon, 732 AU

Byleth was glad when Red Wolf Moon was over. She had been drowning in her own work as well as the marking for the class she was TAing. Because Seteth was teaching three different classes on top of his own research, he had delegated the marking of the term papers for the class to Byleth.

It really shouldn’t have been such a big deal, but Byleth had struggled to get them done on time thanks to her progressing research and managing the applications and interviews for the expedition. The start date for the project was rapidly approaching and, as of the previous week, they had finally managed to choose the undergrads would be a part of the team and had been rapidly working with them to try to get their skills up to snuff before they were handling real artifacts.

Even so, the marking was finally done and the essays sat in three towering stacks on her desk, just begging for a breeze to sweep by and knock them all over. Byleth was currently planning the first of several workshops that would teach practical skills to the undergrads. She kept glancing at the door of her office, waiting for the first students to come by to pick up their essays and she nearly spelt Lysithea’s name wrong on a sheet before she managed to shake away her distraction.

She looked down at the sheet in front of her and the list of eight names that she and Seteth had painstakingly chosen. There were the natural fits in Lysithea and Linhardt from Byleth’s tutorial as well as Ingrid, who had had an exceptionally well-written application. From Seteth’s tutorial there were also Annette Dominic and Ignatz Victor. The last three students were Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Byleth had a sneaking suspicion that their applications had been all written together and that they had all been Claude’s idea.

Nonetheless, they had their team of eight: Lysithea, Linhardt, Ingrid, Annette, Ignatz, Claude, Dimitri, and Edelgard. Their applications had all been excellent and Byleth had been pleased with the level of enthusiasm exhibited by a group of undergraduate students, especially since technically none of them were actually Archaeology majors.

Someone knocked on the door and Byleth looked up, placing her pen down. Annette stood in the doorway, smiling shyly, as another girl stood just behind her. Byleth beckoned Annette in and the redhead came in, biting her lip and looking a bit skittish.

“Here for your essay?” Byleth asked.

Annette nodded. “I know your office hours haven’t technically started, but I wanted to beat the rush.”

Byleth waved her off. “No worries at all.” She flipped through the first few essays in her first stack until she found Annette’s essay and she pulled it out. She handed it over and Annette peeked at the grade before beaming and making her way out of the room.

After that, there was a steady stream of students that came by her office to pick up their term papers as well as to ask questions about the discussions planned for tutorial in the coming weeks. Byleth had handed back nearly all of the essays when her office hours officially ended and she started putting the rest of them away in the filing cabinet she kept for assignments and paperwork for the class.

“I hope we’re not too late, Teach,” a familiar voice called out just as she was closing the cabinet drawer.

Byleth looked over her shoulder and saw Claude standing in front of her desk, flanked by Lorenz and Hilda, the two friends who were in Byleth’s tutorial with him. She shook her head and pulled the drawer back open, fishing out the trio’s essays.

“I wanted to come right at the start at the hour, but these idiots said we should come at the end,” Lorenz said as Byleth retrieved the papers. It wasn’t surprising to her.

Hilda snorted a laugh. “We would have been late getting here if it wasn’t for me, so I’d watch your tone, Lorenz,” she snipped in reply.

Byleth handed Lorenz and Hilda their essays and was about to hand Claude’s back when he cleared his throat.

“I actually had a question about the essay, Teach,” he said before he’d even taken the paper out of her hand.

Byleth blinked in surprise and her grip lingered on Claude’s assignment for just long enough that it was awkward before he swept it out of her grip and sat in the chair on the other side of her desk.

“I’ll catch up with you guys back at the house,” Claude said to Hilda and Lorenz. His friends just shrugged and made their way out of the room, bickering about punctuality as they went.

Byleth watched them leave before she turned her gaze back to Claude and raised an eyebrow. “Did you really have a question about the essay?”

Claude grinned. “Just wanted to know what you thought of my topic.” He tapped the circled 88 on the front of the page and winked at her. “Apparently I picked a good one.”

Byleth shook her head. After three months she was getting to know Claude’s antics well enough. He was criminally light-hearted, but wicked smart. He liked to tease and poke fun, but he was serious about his work when it came down to it. Since the first time they’d spoken at Anna’s about Byleth’s research Claude had made it a habit to try and stop in on her office hours as often as possible so that they could talk about whatever research Byleth was currently doing.

It was a slightly weird relationship given that Byleth was the TA, but the semester was almost over and she somehow knew that just because she wasn’t seeing him in tutorial once a week, it didn’t mean he was going to stop coming around. And she didn’t really want him to stop. It was nice to talk about her passion to someone who was just as interested as she was.

“What do you want, Claude?” she prompted again.

He smirked. “Come on, Teach, tell me what’s new this week,” he urged.

Byleth rolled her eyes, but she turned her laptop towards him so that he could see what she was working on. “I’ve been doing stuff for Seteth all week so I haven’t really had any big breakthroughs since we last spoke.”

Claude scanned the screen of her computer curiously. “Do we have a start date yet?”

“Guardian Moon 17,” Byleth said. “You can pass that along to the others if you’d like. I’ll be sending out the email this weekend. We have our first training session next Wednesday night for everyone.”

“Wednesday?” Claude repeated, looking a bit perplexed.

“Problem?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Maybe. I have archery on Wednesdays, and so does Ignatz, but if this is later in the evening we should be fine.”

Byleth leaned forward a bit and gave Claude her own sly grin. “Maybe I’ll just bring everyone to watch so we can put the pressure on you.”

He shrugged. “If you want to see me shoot flawlessly, be my guest.”

Byleth rolled her eyes and turned her computer back to face her. She tapped out a few more notes on the page before glancing back at Claude. “Did you actually need something?” she asked curiously.

“I came here to give you something,” he admitted.

Byleth was surprised, but Claude reached into his bag and pulled out a folded brochure. He unfolded it so she could see the front and passed it to her. It was in a mix of Almyran and Fódlani, but Byleth recognized the logo on the front of it.

She ran a fingernail over the looping script and glanced at Claude, furrowing her brow. “The Royal Almyran Gallery? This is in Almyra, you know,” Byleth murmured. “They’re not exactly jumping at the idea of a Fódlani researcher entering their royal galleries.”

“You’re hitting all the same deadends as everyone else who has ever studied the Guardian of Order,” Claude pointed out. “There’s no way that you’re going to make progress unless you try to tackle something that other people haven’t attempted to dig into.”

“Like the underside of Garreg Mach in the old monastery ruins, not in a foreign national gallery,” Byleth said. She placed the brochure down and shook her head. “I can’t exactly just get up and go to Almyra right now anyways.”

“What about over the winter break?” Claude asked. “The galleries aren’t busy during the holidays. Almyrans usually spend the holidays completely absorbed in family and celebration.”

Byleth spun the paper underneath her fingers. She had to admit, the idea was intriguing. Almyra had done a much better job of preserving artifacts from the Unification Era since they hadn’t suffered the Scorch of Garreg Mach or the riots in Fhirdiad that had followed it. Even so, the National Board of History in Fódlan had seen the Almyran collection and deemed it unimportant to Fódlan’s own history. She wasn’t sure exactly what the Royal Gallery could offer her, but she also didn’t know what it might have that could be useful for her work, even if it was all just speculation.

“You will consider it, won’t you?” Claude asked. “I’ll be in Almyra over the winter break if you did want to check it out.”

Byleth finally relented, picking up the brochure and sliding it into one of the drawers on her desk. “I’ll consider it,” she agreed.

Claude grinned. “Excellent. Now, tell me about that crazy dream you had last night.”

Byleth’s eyebrows shot up. She had said nothing of her weird dream to Claude. She had very briefly discussed it with Seteth in private a few hours ago, but she had said nothing to her student about it. She hadn’t the faintest idea about how he knew she had even had a weird dream.

“I had to see Dr. Cichol about a history assignment and I just happened to overhear part of your conversation,” Claude confessed when she had been stunned into silence. “I only know that there was a dream and that apparently it was weird.”

Byleth frowned. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business. That was a private conversation, Claude.”

He shrugged, looking only mildly apologetic. “You don’t want to get my opinion on it at all?”

Byleth leaned away from him, pursing her lips. “And why would I want your opinion?”

Claude tilted his head and looked at her. “I don’t know. For the same reason you haven’t kicked my ass for asking you a million questions about your thesis and for being probably the worst student in your tutorial section?”

“The worst student?”

“Well, most people aren’t on a first-name basis outside of tutorial with a TA, are they?”

“That’s just because I can’t get rid of you,” she teased.

He smiled at her again and the glint in his green eyes made her chest hurt suddenly. The satisfied look on his face combined with the mischievous gleam was pulling at something in her memory and she couldn’t help but remember the weird dream from the previous night. She dropped her gaze to the desk and took a deep breath.

“You’re sure that we’d never met before this year, right? We’d never had a class together or chatted at a party?” Byleth asked. The teasing humour had disappeared from her voice and Claude seemed to pick up on it.

His brow furrowed and he dropped his amused pretenses. “No, I’m pretty sure I would have remembered that,” he said.

Byleth bit her lip and nodded. “Have you ever felt like everything you ever did was leading you in circles?”

Claude looked genuinely interested now, his playfulness suppressed by his curiosity. “At times, maybe,” he said. “Something about this is familiar to you?”

Byleth opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a notebook. She flipped through it to the page where she had made the sketch that morning, after her dream. She turned the page to face Claude and let him pick it up to study it closer.

“It’s a throne,” he noted. “It looks like it’s Old Civilization.”

“It’s pre-Unification,” Byleth agreed. “That symbol,” she pointed to the roughly sketched swirl on the back of it, “makes me think it would be religious. Seteth says he doesn’t recognize it and I haven’t found any record of it in the old monastery’s records.”

“Maybe it’s in the capital somewhere?” Claude asked. “Dimitri and Edelgard have spent a lot more time in Fhirdiad than I have, so I can’t be certain.”

“It’s not in Fhirdiad,” Byleth said. “I don’t know why I know that, but I know it’s not there. I dreamt of a large, empty stone chamber for three days in a row and then last night I dreamt of the same chamber, but this throne was there.” She paused, recalling the longing that had coursed through her when she had seen it for the first time in her dream. “I wanted to sit on it,” she murmured.

Claude looked puzzled and he slid the notebook back to her. “Honestly, while I’m not one to subscribe to all the spirit stuff, it seems to me like you have real memories of it that have been surfacing slowly.”

Byleth closed the book and slid it back into the drawer. She brushed her thumb over the handle on the drawer and frowned. “That’s honestly what I’ve been kind of afraid of,” she admitted.

- ~ -

It was late in the evening by the time Byleth had finally finished up everything she had wanted to do on campus. The sun had set almost two hours ago and the dim, artificial yellow lighting across campus provided only enough illumination to make every student or staff that passed by her a looming shadow.

She pulled her coat tighter around her stomach and burrowed her nose into the scarf she was wearing. Byleth had just left the part of campus where the Archaeology and History departments had their offices and she was headed through the main part of the campus when she spotted a lone figure standing on the quad in front of one of the dean’s offices.

Her curiosity got the better of her, and she slowly approached the figure, squinting through the gloom to see if she recognized them. To her surprise, as the figure tilted their head up, illuminating their features, Byleth recognized Dimitri as he stared solemnly at the building. Almost immediately she stopped walking, pausing around 30 feet away from him. She wanted to approach him and check in on him, but at the same time, the moment felt strangely private and she wanted to respect that.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to make a decision, as Dimitri turned and spotted her himself. His shoulders straightened and he tucked his hands into his pockets. He strode towards her and Byleth noted the polite smile that he was wearing. It looked forced, but practiced at the same time and Byleth felt her heart clench. It was a smile achingly similar to the one she had worn after her father had died.

“Hello Byleth,” Dimitri greeted politely once he had gotten close enough.

“Hello Dimitri,” she replied cordially. “What are you doing here so late?”

He laughed lightly. “Well, we are getting into the end of term and I’ve got a few last assignments to turn in by the end of this week. I had been working in the library, but they’re closed now, so I’m headed home.”

He was lying. She wasn’t sure exactly how she knew, but maybe it was simply the fact that she knew Dimitri was a business student and the business library was at the south end of campus, not near the centre where they currently stood in the cold night air.

Byleth frowned. “Is everything alright, Dimitri?” she pressed carefully.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, smiling ruefully, but much more genuinely. “You are very perceptive,” he admitted. “Everything is alright though,” he assured. “I’ve just been feeling a bit off today. It’s like there’s something about this date, in particular, that is an itch I can’t scratch. I’d been trying to follow that feeling and I ended up here.”

Byleth glanced at the offices around the quad. This building was one of the oldest on campus and was part of the restored old monastery. Above each of the three main offices was a beautiful stone carving. From left to right they depicted a deer, a lion, and an eagle. They were the symbols of the three student-life houses that Claude had told her about, and if her research was true, they were also the symbols of the old Officer’s Academy that had been run out of the monastery.

“I get the feeling,” Byleth admitted. “It’s like there’s this string in your chest that’s yanking you along through memories that don’t feel like yours.”

“Yes,” Dimitri agreed. “I never spend much time on this part of campus, but this,” he gestured to the carving of the lion over their heads, “it feels so strangely familiar.”

“Maybe it’s the Blue Lions of old speaking through you,” Byleth suggested lightly and Dimitri laughed softly.

“I should like to think I would know if that were the case.”

He fell silent after a moment and Byleth studied him. He looked tired, but a lot less solemn than he had when she had first found him.

“I’m sorry about your parents,” Byleth said before she could stop herself.

Dimitri’s shoulders tensed, but then they relaxed and he sighed. “Yes, it seems like everyone is.”

Byleth reached out to touch his arm and he looked towards her. There was a deep, resonating sadness to the blue of his eyes and before she could stop herself, her hand had found its way to land on his cheek. Dimitri, to his credit, didn’t react to the boldness of the gesture and Byleth gently retracted her touch.

“I lost my father too,” she admitted quietly. “The circumstances were different, but I’m still sorry you had to go through that.”

Dimitri nodded. “I’ve been well supported, thankfully. I’m sorry for your loss as well. Unlike what people say, it doesn’t really get any easier.”

Byleth smiled sadly. “No, it doesn’t.”

A sharp, cool wind blew around them and Byleth bristled in her coat, shivering. She nearly stepped closer to Dimitri on an instinctual level but managed to catch herself before she could. She stepped away instead, leaving a respectable distance between them. They were familiar enough, but the intimacy in the moment they had shared was almost alarming to her and she needed a clear head.

“Get home safe, Dimitri,” Byleth said gently. She tugged her coat more tightly around herself and gave him one last reassuring smile. “I’ll see you in tutorial.”

- ~ - ~ - ~ -

Garreg Mach Monastery - 12 Lone Moon, 1 AU

“The church is really coming along, Your Grace,” Claude complimented. There was a teasing lilt to his voice when he said her title and Byleth elbowed him.

“Just because you don’t believe in the goddess, doesn’t mean nobody else does,” she scolded lightly.

Claude shrugged. “You’re the one who invited the foreign national to visit,” he pointed out.

Byleth sighed. He was right, but she didn’t want to admit it. She walked away from him instead, heading toward the Reception Hall of the monastery, assuming he would follow. He did so, after a few paces, and they walked silently back through the bustling halls of the monastery. Monks and knights would pause in their step to nod or bow to Byleth and she offered them the best smiles she could before they were passing her by and moving on with their tasks.

“It feels different around here now, doesn’t it?” Byleth asked as she led Claude into the Reception Hall.

“Maybe that’s just because we’ve all changed so much. It has been six years since we started our year at the Officer’s Academy. Cyril tells me that you’re reopening the academy in the Great Tree Moon of next year,” Claude commented.

Byleth laughed. “To say we’ve changed is a bit of an understatement. Fódlan has changed a lot too.”

“Definitely,” Claude agreed. “I can’t take anything away from you or His Majesty on that front. You two have done a wonderful job.”

Byleth paused in her step and studied him. “You could have helped us,” she reminded.

Claude laughed. “Yeah, but then I wouldn’t get to be here as foreign royalty. I would just be another Lord under His Majesty and the Almyrans would still be pounding at Fódlan’s Locket.”

Byleth sighed. “I suppose that’s true. What is it they have taken to calling you, the King of Dawn?”

He shrugged. “My father’s rule was stagnating. I suppose I have merely supplied a breath of fresh air for Almyrans. The new partnership with Fódlan has helped me curry more favour than I would like to admit.”

Before Byleth could reply, a familiar, booming voice pulled their attention across the Reception Hall: “Claude! Byleth!”

Byleth smiled at the familiar voice as she watched her husband approach them. He was smiling broadly as he took in Byleth and Claude. He paused to embrace Claude briefly before turning to Byleth and pressing a warm kiss against her cheek in greeting. Dimitri tried to pull away, but Byleth gripped his collar and planted a soft kiss on his lips before he could withdraw fully.

Claude laughed at her. “I see you two are the same as always.”

Dimitri slid one of his hands into hers as he smiled. “We try to be. How have you been Claude? We haven’t seen you in person since the Ethereal Moon.”

Byleth felt a pulse of unexpected bitterness rise in her chest and she bit down her retort. She didn’t want to snap at Dimitri when he was visiting the monastery, especially with how infrequent his visits had been recently. She didn’t want to complain, especially in front of Claude, about how she had spent almost as much time with Claude as she had with her husband since they’d been married.

Of course, it was a burden they had to bear. Byleth had a responsibility to the church at the monastery and Dimitri had a responsibility to the nation in Fhirdiad, so they spent much of their time separated by distance and work. It wasn’t exactly the married life she had imagined for them.

Claude and Dimitri had moved onto discussing some political motion that was in the works in Fhirdiad by the time Byleth managed to refocus on the conversation and she squeezed Dimitri’s hand. She stole a glance at him and noticed that he looked even more tired than he had when he had arrived three days prior.

“You must exclude me, Claude, my beloved, but I have something I have to do before dinner this evening. I will see you both then,” Dimitri said. He smiled at Claude and leaned down to give Byleth another brief kiss before he pulled his hand out of hers and was slipping away.

Byleth couldn’t manage to disguise her disappointment fast enough as she caught Claude giving her a curious look as Dimitri walked away. She quickly frowned and turned so Claude was only looking at her profile, hoping to dissuade whatever conversation he wanted to have about the interaction.

“This is different from the last time I was here,” Claude noted quietly. “His Kingliness is usually much better at picking up your signals. He was always better at it than anyone else, so it’s odd to see him so blind to it today.”

Byleth’s frown deepened. “We both have our own duties,” she said firmly. “There is no break for us in any of this.”

“No,” Claude agreed, “but surely a man can take a break to shower his wife with praises?”

Byleth sighed. “I don’t know why you think you’re qualified to speak on someone else’s relationship,” she pointed out sternly.

“Consider this the concern of a friend then,” he supplied. “Teach, I have never met a man more enamoured with a woman than Dimitri is with you. But, if that’s what all of your interactions have been like recently, something is wrong.”

Byleth sighed. “We got through the war,” she said simply. “We will get through this.”

She walked away from Claude then, not really caring if he followed her. It wasn’t that she was angry with him for his words, more frustrated that her own emotions regarding hers and Dimitri’s relationship had been so easy for him to discern. She was also frustrated that he had been right in the first place in noting the disconnect between the spouses. Besides their short, snipped conversations in the evenings and mornings, Byleth honestly couldn’t remember the last time she and Dimitri had had a real, personal conversation and it did make her nervous.

Without intending to, Byleth headed for the training grounds. It was an old habit she had of working out stress through fighting, something that had developed during her years growing up as a mercenary. The grounds were thankfully empty and Claude seemed to have picked up on her annoyance and had wisely chosen not to follow her.

Byleth set up a line of training dummies and then a line of magic targets on the far side of the hall. She forewent the training weapons, opting to work on her brawling skills. She picked the softest of the dummies and started with a few slow jabs before she worked into a faster, harder-hitting set that made her hands throb minorly. The pain was therapeutic, though. It reminded her that she was feeling and that helped, especially on days like this.

Once she had worn out her brawling drill, she chose to start in on her magic skills. Byleth called a crackling Thunder spell between her fingers and she turned to fire it at the targets she had set up, only to have to jerk her hand sharply left and blast lightning into the corner of the room, where it crackled and smoked with a bang.

Felix, who stood directly in front of her targets, seemed unphased as he strode towards her. Byleth folded her arms and frowned at him.

“I could have killed you,” she pointed out.

“I’ve taken a Thunder from you before,” he noted. “I’ve taken your spells at full-strength before, not when they were powered by your frustrations.”

Byleth blinked at him. “My frustrations?” she echoed.

“Don’t cast when you’re overly emotional,” he said. “You were the one who taught me that after I nearly burned Sylvain’s arm off. There’s nothing more dangerous to a magic-user than losing control.”

She had indeed taught both the Gautier and Fraldarius heirs the importance of control when they had been learning magic under her tutelage during their academy days and during the war. Byleth uncrossed her arms and brushed some of her hair out of her face.

“What are you doing here, Felix? I didn’t know you would be coming here with Dimitri.”

“Technically I’m not here with him,” Felix admitted. “We’re actually here to see Mercedes.”

“We?” Byleth questioned.

Felix’s lips pressed together and Byleth answered her own question as the pieces clicked in her mind. She smiled.

“Congratulations, Felix,” she commended.

He nodded. “Thank you. Annette will find you to tell you officially before we leave.”

“Are you just here to avoid all the celebratory talks then?” Byleth questioned, gesturing to the training hall.

“I was looking for you, actually,” Felix corrected.

Byleth frowned again, her optimism draining away. “Why?”

“Because I heard you and Dimitri got into it yesterday,” he admitted.

It was true. At the meeting with Claude to discuss foreign treaties the day before, Dimitri had pressed Byleth and the church for resources they couldn’t supply and she had, in return, pressed him for legislation that wasn’t supported by a majority of his advisors. It had definitely been one of their uglier discussions, especially since their wedding and doubly so since they had a spectator in Claude.

“We handled it,” Byleth said curtly, which was also true, but only thanks to Claude stepping in as a mediator.

“You did,” Felix pointed out. “Dimitri has been beating himself up about it all day. That’s why he’s been avoiding you.”

“Avoiding me?” she said.

“You haven’t noticed? How whenever you two run into each other, he miraculously has some meeting or something to get to shortly after you see each other? How he seemed to have more to say to your mutual friend than he did to his wife earlier in the Reception Hall?”

Byleth pressed her lips together. “I didn’t notice,” she admitted softly.

Felix exhaled. “I know. That’s why I’m here. Because, as much as he’d like to pretend otherwise, Dimitri will never be the same as he was before the war. He’ll never be that perfect, princely figure again and he’ll certainly never be able to see himself in the same way again. Professor, he loves you very much so he’ll do his best to make sure you never notice, but he’s still struggling.”

Byleth twisted her hands together, rubbing her wedding ring almost nervously. “How could I miss that? Shouldn’t I notice things like that?”

Felix reached out and, in a rare move for him, placed his hands on her shoulders. “Professor, he is taking all the precautions to ensure you don’t see what he’s going through. He’s gotten better at hiding things from you since you’ve been here and he’s been in the capital. That’s why we’re here, right now,” he confessed.

Something clicked in her head. “Dedue wrote to Claude to invite him, didn’t he? And you and Ingrid and Sylvain and the others made sure that Dimitri would be here where we wouldn’t be able to hide from each other.”

Felix didn’t answer her question directly, but the answer glimmered in his amber eyes. “You take care of each other. You bring out the best in each other.” He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. “Don’t lose that, Professor. There’s a lot riding on that trust and love going forward.”

Felix took another step back and then he was fully retreating, heading out of the training hall. The door closed behind him and Byleth was alone. She felt anchored to the spot and afraid. She was scared of being blind enough to miss the self-hatred that roiled in Dimitri. She had always been able to see it before and if she was losing that gift, she didn’t know what she was going to do.

She loved him, that much was certain, and obviously their friends cared about them both a great deal too.

Byleth immediately left the training hall and jogged through the hallways of the monastery. She hadn’t done much running in the halls since her ascension and there was something oddly freeing in the action. She felt a smile creeping up on her face as she dodged around people and made for the Cardinal’s Room on the second floor where Dimitri was supposed to be in a meeting.

She opened the door and immediately saw her husband speaking with a few Alliance nobles. The conversations halted when she appeared in the doorway and Dimitri rose from his seat, surprise etching across his face.

“Your Majesty,” Byleth said politely, “I need to speak with you. It’s urgent.”

Dimitri nodded politely to the nobles he had been conversing with and followed her out of the room into the hall. Byleth led him ten paces away from the door before she pivoted sharply to face him. She reached up and grasped his face, pulling him down for an urgent kiss. He reciprocated after a brief moment of surprise and Byleth pulled away, staring Dimitri in his good eye.

“I love you,” she said firmly. “I will never be angry with you for fighting for your country. I am proud of you and there is no one I would rather do any of this with,” she said, letting her emotions flow through her words.

Dimitri stared at her face for a long moment before he kissed her again, more firmly than she had kissed him, and he let the kiss linger for a second longer. He inhaled shakily and pressed their foreheads together. Byleth rocked onto her tiptoes to relieve the strain on his neck due to their height difference and Dimitri smiled gently.

“Okay,” he breathed out.

“I love you,” she said again.

“I love you too,” he replied.

9 notes · View notes

yukiwrites · 5 years

Text

Sothis, Remembering

Thank you for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! This topic is so interesting even I’M at the edge of my seat aksçdlmkasd

Summary: After conjecturing what the Heroes’ Relics were made of, Byleth and Hanneman narrow down their search to the similarities of Byleth’s pulse to a Crest Stone’s. They would need to physically look inside the Professor’s body to find out, though what Byleth would see amounted to much more than answers to those questions...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7 - Part 8 - Part 9 - Part 10 - Part 11 - Part 12 - Part 13 - Part 14 - Part 15

The days passed as though in a blur -- Byleth and Hanneman were barely away from each other after school hours, noses deep in their research. Of course, they tried not to be seen together as often so as not to arise suspicion, changing their meeting places so often Byleth needed a second mind (a.k.a. Sothis) to remind him of where they would meet next.

During a particularly busy morning, the two professors hoarded the Heroes' Relics in their possession at an unused storage room, far from the main halls of Garreg Mach monastery.

For the hundredth time, they tested each and every one of them: they all shone in a shimmering red when at the hands of a crest-bearer, be it Byleth or Hanneman. However, as always, only in Byleth's hands did the Sword of the Creator shine, despite its insides being hollow.

Hanneman shuffled his own hair in frustration. "It's precisely because of the Crest Stones imbued within each weapon that anyone who bears a crest can wield them." He huffed, gripping at the legendary sword until the nodes of his bony hands turned white. "Of course, only those whose crest matches the stone of the Relic can take out the weapon's full potential -- but it is completely different with this." He raised the weapon overhead, as though looking through the hole would make an idea dawn on him out of nowhere. "However, only this- only the Sword of the Creator is different; in anyone's hands but yours, it is just an elaborate pile of bones. Perhaps I could injure someone by whacking their heads with it, but that's about any use I can find for it." He narrowed his eyes, mostly forgetting Byleth was there, though still directing his speech towards the younger man. "But it should be impossible! Unless you yourself are a Crest Stone, it makes absolutely no scientific sense that only your Crest enables you to wield it -- the magic has to go both ways! From the weapon," he rested the sword over his legs, moving his fingers in the directions of the magical flow was supposed to go should a Crest Stone exist, "to the stone, and from it, to the wielder's Crest. Yet, it does not happen this way with-"

It took Byleth a brain hiccup to digest what Hanneman was saying. Him and Sothis exchanged glances -- the floating girl hovering around the room out of sheer boredom as usual -- and widened their eyes at the same time. "Wait, slow down. Back up." Byleth placed one hand over his forehead as though to slow down the rush of thoughts cascading through his mind, lifting the other one to stop Hanneman from talking. "You said 'unless I'm the Crest Stone itself'?"

The older man looked to the younger one as though speaking of something obvious. "Why, yes. You are a unique case -- you possess a power that makes so little sense it is yet to be documented; so it is not far from the truth to say that you are 'unique' in the very essence of the word. Somehow, the flow of magic that should go through the Stone to your own Crest is completely reversed when you wield the Sword -- instead of your Crest resonating with the Stone and, as a consequence, imbuing the weapon with power, you yourself feed it with the energy it needs to be considered a Hero's Relic. Hold it like this," he shoved the sword on Byleth's chest, forcing the younger man to hug it.

The Relic shimmered in red immediately, but Sothis was able to catch what Hanneman was talking about -- something that could only be able to be noticed if one was paying attention: the sword started shining from the parts that Byleth touched first, as opposed to how any other Relic behaved -- through the Crest Stone.

"My! For someone who blabbers all day long research this, research that, Hanneman is actually a competent observer!" Sothis mused as Byleth looked at the bright weapon.

"Hanneman, what if-" Byleth placed the sword on the floor with a tunk. He slowly widened his eyes, watching it fade in color first at the places the tips of his fingers were.

Unless he ‘were’ a Crest Stone. Voices of a distant past; memories that willingly dug themselves deeper and deeper into his mind, eluding any who tried to uncover them.

High quality 'materials'.

The faint pulsating each Stone radiated.

His own chest.

"What if I- what if I actually have a stone inside of me?"

"Preposterous!" Hanneman replied immediately, slapping Byleth's shoulder. "Magical item it may be, it is still a physical object! A human being cannot truly function with a foreign object inside one's body. First and foremost, it would need to hold actual space within the flesh -- and I assure you that no part of the human body is there by mere coincidence; all parts have their roles."

Frowning, although understanding the nonsense he was speaking of, from a biological point of view, Byleth couldn't help but feel this- this yearning deep within his chest. The silent, void chest that had never uttered a sound.

Yet, at that moment, he could practically feel at the tips of his fingers -- feel the phantom thumping his heart was supposed to sound; the beat that should've been a constant throughout his life.

Hanneman kept talking despite Byleth's inner turmoil, deafening even Sothis' exasperated plea for the younger man to stop this line of thinking at once since it was making her feel sick. "As such, even if it were possible to actually insert it into one's body, the stone would need to occupy the space of an organ -- even take over... its... role..." Realization dawned in Hanneman midspeech, his eyes widening as they searched for Byleth's, mirroring his surprised expression.

"My heart!" Byleth looked at his own chest as though he could see its silent inhabitant. "Hanneman -- the stone- it's in my heart! It would all make sense if-"

The older man couldn't stop a large grin from sprouting up, his eyes losing their focus as he completely turned into research mode. "It- as mad as that sounds, it does make sense! However, even if it IS true, what -- or who -- could've inserted such magical, one-of-a-kind item inside a mere child? You've never had a heartbeat as far as you remember, yes?"

"Yes, but that's not the problem right now." Byleth sprung up to his feet. "You need to open my chest, Hanneman. I have got to know if this is true, or not. We can't start conjectures on 'what ifs'."

"My word!" Hanneman also shot to his feet, ignoring the protest of his old joints. "As eager as I am to open up a test subject, you are very much alive, Professor! I do not have the medical license nor the knowhow to keep a subject alive once I start poking at its insides-"

Both Byleth and Hanneman blinked, their minds set on this mad experiment. "Manuela!" They said in unison, snapping their fingers. They looked around at the mess around them, nodded and stormed off of the room, not bothering to lock it behind them.

Manuela had just taken a sip of her tea when the duo exploded into the infirmary with their mad idea, making her sputter and choke on the beverage. "You want me to do WHAT?!"

"It is for the sake of science, Manuela -- for the sake of uncovering the secrets of this world!" Hanneman puffed his chest, seeing the entire world glimmering due to the potential scientific breakthrough he was about to witness.

However, the healer was more than used to her colleague's research mode, so she blatantly ignored him as she dried her mouth with her handkerchief. "I don't think you understand how complex a heart surgery is, dear Byleth! I'll need to quite literally SAW through your sternum, you know? Open up your ribcage and risk you getting an infection just for what? Curiosity? I'm sorry, but I can't agree to this."

"The voice of reason, at last!" Sothis threw her hands up in the air, crossing her legs as she floated about. "Give up this egregious idea at once! I am barely holding on as we speak..." She huffed.

Byleth himself felt lightheaded due to his link with Sothis, but he couldn't stop -- not when they were so close. So close to discovering... something. To digging something up that had been always just out of reach. He grabbed Manuela's shoulders, not realizing how desperate his expression had turned. "I need to know this, Manuela. I beg you, I'm begging..." He lowered his head. "I must know about this lack of heartbeat. I trust your skills completely -- I know you will not allow any ill to befall me during the procedure."

Taken aback by the explosion of emotion the usually stoic Professor displayed, Manuela started to sway positively.

She chewed her lower lip nervously, frowning deeply. "Oh, very well. But only after I make the necessary arrangements -- later tonight at the LEAST."

"Perfect!" Hanneman loudly clapped. "The Archbishop will be away until tomorrow's evening mass, so this couldn't be more ideal!"

"T-thank you, Manuela." Byleth rested his head on her shoulder, the lightheadedness swooping his entire body.

"NO! No, no!" Sothis protested, her voice fading away slowly -- her own consciousness being absorbed into nothingness as Byleth himself passed out. “Noo…!”

The body was exhausted.

So much power was used. So much destruction reverted.

Using the Pulses in every corner of the land only to heal specific spots of it drained more than one would think. So, so exhausted.

"... apply- anesthesia?" A male voice rang at the back of one's head, as though an afterthought through a thick glass.

"-do-...nk I am? Of cour..." A female voice replied, fading away, away... so slowly one felt that even the voice was tired.

One was tired. Exhausted.

Why were they (they? Who are they?) so prideful -- why did they (who was he referring to? What was his mind seeing? A stone throne...?) ravage the beautiful nature to that point?

Ah, was it a mistake from one's part to share knowledge with them? (Share knowledge? Heal the land? Was he seeing a dream? He could see through the eyes of someone else, as though he were trapped into their mind.) But now... it did not matter. The body was exhausted and would perish should it not rest. (The darkness started to make sense -- a very unique stonework inside an underground facility extended as far as the eye could see, a green light illuminating his steps.)

One must rest. (He saw the motion of blinking, though his own eyes did not feel the need to do so -- his eyesight was so much farther from the ground than before, as though he had become someone much, much taller. Another being entirely.)

The power leaves one's body. One has left one's children to care for the land until one can walk it once more. For now... Rest.

Darkness.

Byleth moved his head to the sides, trying to look, seeing nothing but blackness.

The sound of bone being slowly, ever so slowly, sawed, filled the world. Byleth felt it, for the first time.

He felt his heart beating.

The feeling lasted for a single beat, however, as he felt, or rather, saw his own heart being ripped out of his chest. "NO! I DON'T WANT TO SEE THIS!" Sothis yelled so loudly it felt as though she was beside him, not inside of his mind. She sobbed loudly, hiccups filling the void.

Byleth screamed inside the darkness, echoing his mindmate’s wails; the memories of being torn apart while still maintaining a sliver of consciousness cleaving his mind into two.

"THIS... this is-" Sothis curled herself up into a ball. "It's how I-"

Byleth held Sothis' hand as the both of them lay in the cold, somehow now able to physically touch her. "It’s how I died."

#byleth #sothis #hanneman #fire emblem three houses #fe 3h #my writings #yuki's commissions

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atomicstardust · 6 years

Text

Behind The Trigger (Part 1)

Right, so this thing was supposed to be a short 500 word ficlet for @itsallavengers since they’re having a rough time. Then it kept going, I got near the end, and then finished up with that cliffhanger and a part two planned. I hope you like it! The first thing I saw from you was you spite-writing WinterIron against that one anon, and then I saw you liked the assumed death trope so....this came from that. <3 ~~~

Tony was the flashy target.

He was the one who spun through the air, who taunted the villains, who always got hit but got back up.

Bucky was his shadow.

The steady hand behind the scope, the one who made impossible shots, the one who was never seen.

When you thought target you thought Tony. No one could ever find Bucky, so he wasn’t a target.

Usually.

---

Tuesdays were cursed days.

True, his parents died on a Monday, but he’d been informed on Tuesday. He’d met Ty on a Tuesday, he’d found out about Sunset on Tuesday. He’d woken up in Afghanistan on Tuesday.

Tuesdays were cursed, and that was just the way the universe worked.

Bucky died on a Tuesday.

---

Tony wasn’t there, was on a business meeting in Beijing.

He should have been there.

“Sir,” JARVIS said through his phone, interrupting a meeting. JARVIS never interrupted something like this unless it was life or death. (Later, he’d think back on the irony of that thought.) “There has been an emergency.”

“Go,” Pepper said with a deep frown. “I’ll cover.”

“I would appreciate if you could come along Miss Potts.” JARVIS said cautiously and they both froze and looked at each other. Tony stood, apologizing to the group in Cantonese and explaining there was a personal emergency within the family. Thankfully, they seemed to pick up on the grave tones and agreed.

JARVIS only directed them to the plane, where the crew was speeding to get it ready before schedule. The door sealed shut, ensuring that no one could listen in.

“Spill.” Tony demanded, sitting down with Pepper beside him.

“It’s Master Barnes,” JARVIS said quietly. Sympathetically. “He is…” A pause. JARVIS never paused. “Dead.”

He could barely feel Peppers fingers winding through his, squeezing tightly. Her voice was strangely muffled, even when she was sitting right beside him. The suit was there, folded awkwardly in front of him, controlled by JARVIS.

“Sir, can you tell me what 76 times 8263 is?” JARVIS said, his voice steady.

“627,988.” Tony said, stuttering over the numbers.

“That number divided by 8?” JARVIS continued.

What was the number again?

“627, 988 divided by 8.” JARVIS prompted.

“78498 point 5.” Tony said, feeling the numbers slot into place. Numbers were good, the numbers never lied. He blinked and looked up.

He didn’t bother with denial. JARVIS never lied either.

“Who?” Tony said.

“They’re all dead.” JARVIS said first.

Not good enough.

~~~

“Tones,” Rhodey said. He was waiting, of course he was. He didn’t look at him with pity, like he was afraid Tony would shatter.

Or snap.

He just reached out, JARVIS already pulling the armour off him without a command and Tony would scold him, but Rhodey was there, dragging him into a hug. Every time, he’s fourteen again, Rhodey’s arms always solid and unshaking as he hugs. Tony reached up, tangled his fingers in Rhodey’s polo shirt, because Rhodey’s fashion sense was Like That.

“What happened.” A demand, not a request.

“We don’t know.” Rhodey said, and Tony would draw back but Rhodey wouldn’t let him go. “But they knew he was coming. The entire base was a trap.” A pause. “He’s not coming back.”

~~~

He stared down at the whiskey, swirling it around in the glass.

“You’re not here to stop me.” Tony said, watching the condensation. He stared at it until his eyes blurred and he fell asleep out of sheer tiredness.

It was a sick type of routine, pouring out a glass, but unable to take it, unable to forget because even if he was dead Bucky’s memory didn’t deserve this.

The bots were the only ones allowed in the workshop at first. DUM-E took away the glass every time, and U followed him with the broom for when he inevitably smashed it. Butterfingers tried to clumsily draw a card to cheer him up, and JARVIS always kept piano music playing in the background.

~~~

Rhodey showed up with shitty sci-fi movies, Happy brought apple juice and shot glasses, and Pepper gave everyone her ridiculously amazing hand massages.

~~~

Tony kept working, and didn’t talk as much.

He wore sunglasses everywhere.

~~~

Tuesday was also the day he learned Bucky wasn’t dead after all.

~~~

He was staring at another glass of whiskey. He was not drunk, but he wasn’t working and his mind was loud.

“Sir,” JARVIS said, interrupting him, “Master Barnes is not dead.”

A beat of silence, a rush of hope that Tony ruthlessly quashed.

“Suit.” he rasped. JARVIS would never lie to him, so Tony skipped past denial straight into relief. “Get me Mark 40. How? I thought they were all dead.”

“There was a tunnel, built into an old sewer system. They blew that up too when they fled, so even when we excavated the whole place, it looked like more rubble.” JARVIS said, wrapping the Mark 40 around him. It wasn’t his most powerful armour, but he could move fast. And hit hard. If he thought about it too hard, Iron Man just helped Tony take the power of something like the Jericho Missile, and compact it into something shorter than his forearm.

“The people involved?” Tony said, performing a quick check of the weapons. He wasn’t as loaded as War Machine, but what he did have...hurt.

And hurt them he would.

By the time he’d finished suiting up, his relief had turned into anger.

“I have a location,” JARVIS said, “Colonel Rhodes is calling, shall I con-”

“Block.” Tony ordered. He couldn’t talk to Rhodey. Rhodey would make him wait, to delay him until Rhodey caught up. “Time to test out the new feature.”

The Shotgun armour was built to go up to speeds of Mach 5, but he hadn’t fully tested it yet. JARVIS’ pointed silence was horribly judgmental, but Tony stared at the little red dot on the map in the corner and said nothing.

He was going to get his boyfriend back, and blow everyone there into smithereens. No tunnel was going to save them from that.

JARVIS’ disapproving silence grew as he blocked all the calls and messages, the world hurtling past at 1700m/s. The base came into view, sitting in the middle of Siberia. Considering JARVIS didn’t have an inkling of its existence until however he’d gotten coordinates 20 minutes ago, they wanted to keep Bucky hidden.

They would burn for that.

“Engage retroreflectors.” he murmured. The armours surface shimmered and then the armour vanished from sight. Harley’s suggestion for a ‘stealth suit’ was the only way he’d get into that facility without being found out and he was never so thankful for that.

“Sir, Colonel Rhodes is asking for you to wait.” JARVIS said neutrally.

“I can’t.” Tony said, letting himself freefall into a steep dive. “They could be doing anything to him.”

“Sergeant Barnes would want you to be safe.” JARVIS said. “If you get injured trying to get to him, it would hurt him.”

“Where’s the faith J,” Tony said, blinking away tears. He was so close. “I’m not going to get hurt, you’ve got my back.”

“As always.” JARVIS said, part statement, part promise. He brought up the scans for Tony without further comment, highlighting the best route inside.

JARVIS was the best.

Tony inched in through a propped open door, the only sound the faint whirring from the machinery.

There was no one in the hallway, the base was practically ancient since there was no technology he could hack. His unease grew as he kept going through the back of the base. They were all gathered nearer to the front, facing the only spot the Quinjet could land, but there had to be someone right?

“One heat signature found.” JARVIS said quietly, placing it on the map. “The rooms beyond are lined, I cannot figure out if there is anyone inside. The imaging around shows that they are cooler than most, however.”

“Cold enough to house a cyrotube?” Tony asked rhetorically. He flew down the hallway the other side, just in case of a trap, but there was no one there. He flicked off the retroreflectors, and then kicked the door in full force.

There was a man standing there, holding a bloody scalpel like he was auditioning for a horror movie. Tony didn’t give him a chance to speak, flying straight into him and wrapping the metal fingers of the armour around his throat.

“Tell me where he is.” Tony said. He didn’t ask, he demanded. “Now.”

“You could do whatever you want.” he gasped, scrabbling at the arms of the armour. “I’m never going to tell you.”

Truth. There was nothing but triumph and confidence in his gaze. He could give him to Natasha, she’d eventually get it out of him, she always did.

But he didn’t have time.

Soon enough someone would see the broken door, and since this level was deeper, he’d have to fight his way through all of them solo to get Bucky out.

Tony twisted his head, breaking the spine with brute force and letting the body drop to the floor.

“JARVIS, remaining rooms.” he ordered, spinning and heading for the first one. The lock melted open but there was simply a room with medical equipment.

Some of the blood was fresh.

JARVIS kept scanning, pulling up all the readings as Tony started systematically clearing the other rooms.

The last one, with a red marking on it, revealed Bucky lying strapped to some sort of table.

His breath caught, knees nearly buckling in relief.

He hadn’t let himself hope until now, hadn’t dared to believe.

“Come on sweet cheeks, let me see those pretty blue eyes.” Tony said shooting forward and ripping him free of the straps.

“Sergeant. 32557…” Bucky’s eyes cracked open slightly, staring at Tony blearily. “Tony?”

“Yeah, yeah it’s me.” Tony said, swallowing hard at the lump in his throat. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“You’re not real.” Bucky said, eyes sliding closed again and making no move to get up. “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’renotreal.”

“I’m real,” Tony said, glancing quickly at the scans. No one around, and the others had arrived and were engaging with the other hostiles. He pulled the armour away, grasping Bucky’s hands, metal and flesh. He pressed Bucky’s metal fingers onto the reactor. “Feel the vibrations? It’s me.”

“I know.” Bucky said, letting Tony press his fingers to the reactor as Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

Then his fingers abruptly tightened on the reactor, gripping the casing tightly.

Tony lurched away in panic, the armour starting to close around him, but Bucky’s fingers around his upper arm didn’t let him go far.

With a light click the reactor separated from his chest.

Tony collapsed.

This suit still ran on his arc reactor energy, not its own.

And now it had nothing.

The reactor dangled from Bucky’s fingers. He leaned down, and Tony saw the real reason he hadn’t opened his eyes the entire time.

There was nothing left of his boyfriend in those eyes.

“Hail HYDRA.”

~~~

Tuesday was the day he wished Bucky was dead.

#winteriron #tony stark #bucky barnes #tw:assumed character death #gee #stars writes #gift fics

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sonicrevival · 5 years

Text

Ultimatum- Chapter 2 of 5: Partners

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18500557/chapters/44003266#workskin

Sonic: Revival- Chapter 2 Ultimatum, Part 2 of 5: Partners Sonic skidded over the snowy ground, dodging another swipe from Mecha Sally’s blades, ducking into a roll to escape the blast from her head laser. “Silver, little help?!” He called out, backpedalling from his opponent. “Kinda busy here!” Silver shouted back, catching a barrage of missiles and hurling them back toward their source- The hulking, heavily armoured mech that barrelled toward the wreckage of the Tornado, swinging an equally massive maul down at the three Mobians ahead of it. The mech’s shield came up with unnatural speed, the missiles exploding against it harmlessly, and the trio scattered. Laughter sounded from the armoured cockpit, another barrage of missiles shooting skyward before arcing down toward the group. “Did you really think it would be that easy? That I would just let you walk away with my new favourite toy? Well, consider this your rude awakening!” Eggman grinned. Sonic gritted his teeth, wanting to bite back, to tear into Eggman for daring to refer to Sally that way, but he couldn’t take his attention away from the Robian for a moment, lest she skewer him on one of those blades. He was down to his last nerve. They had won. They’d saved her. They’d destroyed Eggman’s defences, defeated Mecha Sally, and evacuated the base. They’d bid their farewells to the Arctic Freedom Fighters, and climbed aboard the Tornado. They were home free. Then Eggman reactivated Mecha Sally and shot them from the sky with another of his blasted Egg Beaters. Now they were trapped in the middle of the icy tundra, caught between two opponents, both in full form while all four of the Freedom Fighters were tired. Silver was in the best shape of them all, but he still had to focus on evasion and defence, which wasn’t an easy task. There was nowhere to run. Even if they could’ve retreated, they would lose Sally again, perhaps this time for good. They had to fight, but they were running on empty. Worse, Mecha Sally seemed to be performing better in the freezing temperatures than she had anywhere else. He couldn’t tell if he was being hindered by the cold, or if he’d made another upgrade since their last fight. Eggman swung the maul down again, only for it to be enveloped in a teal glow, stopping dead. Silver buckled under the strain, growling as he forced himself to stand again. “Guys, now!” He shouted. “Right!” Amy called back, Eggman turning his cockpit to focus on her. The hedgehog was clinging to Tails as the fox dove toward him. He shifted, hurling her straight for Eggman, hammer forming in her grip. “Alright, let me show you what a real hammer looks like!” The shield snapped into place again, Amy’s weapon clanging dully against it, causing the mad dictator to laugh again. “Well, show me! I’m waiting!” “Gotcha!” She smirked. Eggman’s laughter stopped for a moment, as, with both arms occupied, Tails zipped past them, spinning into the cockpit itself. The robot stumbled back, knocked off-balance, with a crack spreading across the visor. Amy was thrown loose, allowing Tails to catch her and set her down. “That worked!” “Yeah, but he won’t fall for it again… That thing’s fast enough to counter Sonic, and it looks like he’s upgraded his targeting systems so we can’t overwhelm him with numbers again.” Tails replied. “It’s tough too. Hitting it wasn’t exactly painless.” “I’m starting to run low on energy too…” Silver added. “We need to find a way to end this, and fast…” “New target inbound.” Mecha Sally droned. “Airspeed: Approximately Mach 2.5. Distance: Ten kilometres and closing.” “A-ha, that will be Metal Sonic, back from his little mission!” Eggman grinned. “Another Freedom Fighter falls…” “Target does not match Metal Sonic’s signal. Warning: Large spike in Chaos Energy detected.” “Eh?” Eggman turned his machine’s scanners toward the source of the signal, the Freedom Fighters taking the moment’s distraction to regroup. “Target is decelerating. Switching to attack vector.” A flash of bronze, followed by the roar of engines and a cacophonous sonic boom, tore through the battleground. The pillar of fire and smoke speared between Eggman and Mecha Sally, arcing upward into a loop. The engines cut as it reached the apex, the figure slamming back into ground, kicking up a cloud of snow. Blue optics shone balefully from the mist, as the newcomer rose from its kneeling position and stepped into the light. “Okay…” Emerl slammed her fist into her open palm, rolling her neck back and forth as Nicole’s avatar flickered over her right shoulder. “Who’s first?” “Nicole?” Sonic ventured. “Hello, Sonic. Tails, Amy, Silver, good to see you all again.” She smiled back at them. “What’s going on? What’s with that robot?” Amy asked, bracing herself against her hammer. “Tails and I will explain later.” Nicole replied. “For now, this is my new friend, Emerl.” “Hey everyone.” Emerl called out, still focused on Mecha Sally. “Tails?” Sonic and Amy both turned to look at the fox, who in turn appeared to want to be anywhere but here. “Uh, it was a secret project from the old Brain Trust days. We elected to lock it up unless it was really, really needed… It’s performing well, though….” “Priority Five. Unit: NICOLE. You have activated the Gizoid unit?” If it was possible for a Robian to sound perplexed, Mecha Sally did. She kept her weapons trained on the new arrival, but her optics had locked on to the small avatar hovering near her. “Yes. And Sally, if the real you can hear me in there, then don’t worry. We’re going to get you out.” “This unit finds that… unlikely.” “Wow…” Emerl paused. While the Robian and the AI had conversed, her third optic had been scanning every detail of her newest opponent. “Just… wow.” “Haha, it looks like even your new weapon appreciates my genius!” Eggman laughed. “Emerl, this isn’t really the time to start being impressed with Eggman’s work…” Nicole frowned. “No, no, I’m impressed because this is easily the worst possible combat robot design ever.” “What?!” Six voices shouted at once. “Well, just look at it.” Emerl waved her hand, a hologram of Mecha Sally’s design appearing beside her. Another gesture and the hologram exploded, individual pieces spreading apart from each other. “All those weapons and armour are far too heavy for those servos to use properly. This frame is designed for speed and dexterity, but the robot itself has been built as a walking tank. It doesn’t even need most of these, it would legitimately be fine with one pair of guns and one pair of swords. Hell, with this many weapons it must struggle to power them all, I bet these weapons are actually weaker than they would be if they were fewer in number. And- Is that a gun in her cranium? Why? Just… why?” All eyes were on Emerl, slightly incredulous at her sudden outburst. Eggman seemed to recover the fastest. “If you’re quite done insulting my work… Mecha Sally, kill her.” He grumbled. “Yes Master.” She droned, stepping forward to swing her blade down toward Emerl’s head. The Gizoid sidestepped the swipe, arching her back away from a thrust, palmed aside her other arm, before raising her hand to meet the oncoming chop. With a loud clash, the energy sword met her left palm, and stopped in its tracks. Mecha Sally strained, trying to force the weapon down, but Emerl held firm. “Power issues? Called it,” She taunted. “Nicole, now!” “Right, right,” The AI nodded, flickering out as she beamed herself toward the Robian, only to bounce back. “Hng.. something’s blocking me out. Shielding her systems.” “Foolish little Freedom Fighter!” Eggman jeered. “Even you cannot get past Mecha Sally’s Power Ring Matrix!” “Thanks for telling us, genius!” Emerl tensed her fingers, and shattered the energy blade in her hand, shards falling away like glass. “That would be the backpack part, right? Wow, an external power unit on a combat droid, that just makes this worse.” “Her core should be in her chest.” Nicole corrected, tilting her head quizzically at Emerl’s hologram. “Wait.” “Only thing in the chest cavity is a self-destruct bomb, which just seems like the wrong way round to do things… Wait a second… oh σκατά.” “What the hell did you do!?” Sonic snarled, charging toward Eggman’s mech, only to bounce off the shield again. “I wouldn’t advise doing that, hedgehog.” Eggman laughed. “You see, after Mecha Sally’s near misses I decided to make sure that she could never be returned to your side. After all, a Robian core is a very powerful battery. Why, your father has kept on working without needing it replaced for well over twelve years now! The Princess’ core could run her body for decades… or it could run one, much larger robot for, oh, I’d say a few months? Like this one! And there’s my master-stroke in this, Freedom Fighters! You destroy my Egg Beater, and you will lose your precious Princess’ beating heart in the same blow!” Emerl’s attention shifted from the confrontation between the eternal enemies, as Mecha Sally hadn’t paused with the rest of them. Her remaining sword clashed dully against her plating. She backstepped, rolling around her slow swings, trying to reach her backplate. Her body pivoted at the waist, head opening up to expose the barrel of the gun hidden there, a pulse of energy thudding into the Gizoid’s face, knocking her head back for a moment. “Nicole, I know this is awful, but I need you to focus. I think we can fix this, I just need to get that power ring out,” Emerl rolled back, crouching low. “He… he tore her apart…” Nicole murmured, her avatar shimmering over her shoulder. “I know, I know, but we can turn this around. I’ve got a plan. Trust me, please,” She pleaded, dodging more shots from the Robian. “Right, right…. I can do this. We can do this,” Nicole shook her head, her image solidifying. “Sync?” “Sync!” Emerl burst forward, feeling the AI speeding up her reaction times again. “These cannon shots are weak as hell, but I think I’ve got a use for them…” Her crest popped up, an identical cannon emerging from within, blasting into the ground at Mecha Sally’s feet, kicking up a cloud of snow. The wall of cold obscuring her heat sensors, the snow itself blocking her line of sight, the Robian was unable to see Emerl rolling around and slamming into her back. “Oh my gods this thing has an ‘Open’ button!” Emerl groaned, opening the Ring Matrix and tearing the golden ring free, letting it slip through her fingers and slide down her arm until it rested in the crook of her elbow. Mecha Sally froze, then fell limp in the Gizoid’s arms. “Alright, I’m going to give her a charge to keep her alive, but it’ll let you get in there and free her. Unfortunately, it will probably charge her up a little, so the others are going to have a fight on their hands…” “The others? What about you?” Nicole asked. “I’m gonna take out the big bot. It’s predicting them, but that morbidly obese monster hasn’t got a clue about me.” Emerl glanced over, spotting the others dodging away from Eggman’s missile strikes, barely able to strike back. “But what about Sally’s core?!” “Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. Just hop into Sally’s systems and do what you can about that programming!” “Alright… Good luck,” She said, disappearing into the Robian’s systems. “You too…” Emerl nodded. With a pulse, an ember of golden Chaos energy ignited in the open Ring Matrix, before the Robian shuddered back to life and began to spasm, the new power flooding through her system, and a whole extra consciousness cramming itself into her already-limited processor. Emerl stepped back, looking up at the Egg Beater, swinging its hammer down toward the Freedom Fighters. The thrusters on her back warmed up, as she flicked the Power Ring back into her grip, clenching her fingers around it. She felt its remaining energies flow into her own core, enveloping her in gold, all three eyes burning with the same unearthly light. Her rockets fired, and she launched herself into the air, driving herself upwards and toward her quarry. Sonic’s last nerve was gone. Whatever shred of composure he had left had been torn apart when Eggman’s newest atrocity had been revealed. He slammed his body against the shield, still bouncing off without really denting it. If he’d just had his energy, he could’ve focused his fury into the power needed to pull Eggman out of his robot and make him pay for what he’d done. The Egg Beater shuddered as the newcomer robot slammed into the shield, engines roaring as she pushed against it. “I got Nicole into Mecha Sally’s systems, and I’m gonna extract the core from this mess of a mech, but I may have had to juice Sally up to keep her alive. Could you guys keep her off my back? Just long enough for Nicole to do her work!” Emerl shouted down to him. Sonic looked up at her, rage clearing for a moment, before spotting Mecha Sally charging toward her back. Seizing the chance, he leapt into the air, crashing into Mecha Sally, grabbing her and rolling over, sending both of them into a spin. Tearing herself free, Mecha Sally lashed out with her remaining sword, missing Sonic by a hair as he thrust his hands against her shoulder plates, boosting himself downward, both of them falling into the snow. She recovered faster, flipping a cannon out of her newly-swordless arm, aiming at Sonic as he began to pick himself up. Fortunately, a teal glow seized her arm, wrenching it away from Sonic, as Tails and Amy landed in front of him, giving him the room to stand. “I think we can handle this, right guys?” Sonic allowed himself a small smile. “After all, there’s nowhere left for her to run, and we just have to stall for time.” “Get out…” Mecha Sally growled, clanking her first against the side of her head, as her cannon fired at Silver. He blocked the blast with a wall of telekinetic force, but it was enough to release his grip on her, allowing her to charge the group again. “You’re becoming quite the pest,” Eggman growled, glaring at Emerl through his cockpit glass, as both missile pods locked onto her. “But know this, you won’t win this battle and save the Princess. You can do one or the other, but you can’t win without killing her.” “Eh, I’ll wing it,” She shrugged. Eggman growled and slammed his fist against the controls, grinning as he listened to the sound of the missile pods releasing an entire salvo in a single moment. “Wuh-oh.” Emerl flipped back, accelerating away from the trail of rockets. A copy of Mecha Sally’s arm cannon grew from each of her forearms, firing two pulses of plasma into the cloud of artillery following her. Two detonations blossomed into a raging inferno, a chain-reaction of explosions that obscured the two opponents from each others’ view. Seizing her chance, she dropped back to the snowy ground, discarding the cannons, as her forearms began to shift and reshape. “You call those embarrassments on Mecha Sally’s arms swords?” Her hands folded away into a pair of trapezoid panels, golden plasma forming a pair of forward-facing blades on each of them. The blades hummed, the energy visibly flowing from the outer edge, looping into the gap between the two. “How about these?!” Surging forward, she leapt through the cloud of smoke left over from the conflagration. The Egg Beater lurched forward, swinging the maul straight down toward her. Leaning back, she slid on her knees under the head of the weapon as it crashed down, scraping against the icy ground as she scissored her chainblades around the haft. Trapped between the two blades on each weapon, metal began to melt away from the hammer, blades sawing into it. Eggman growled, pulling the hammer back up, only to drag the Gizoid up with it. Letting gravity take her, Emerl slid down the pole, cutting the blades deeper into it, until with an almighty flex and a roar of exertion, she split the maul in two. Folding the dual-chainswords back into her arms, Emerl grabbed the falling half-maul, rockets straining against its weight. Snarling, she twisted her body, the momentum keeping her in motion and carrying the maul in a wide arc around her form. “Catch!” She released her grip on the ruined maul, hurling it straight into the Egg Beater. The huge mech stumbled back, unbalanced by the weight of its own weapon, and pitched over, crashing down into the snow. It threw the hammerhead aside, but Emerl was already upon it, missiles spearing from the two launchers that had formed over her shoulders. The shield snapped into place once more, blocking the rockets, but once again, she used the smoke to break Eggman’s lock on her. Flying in close, she ducked under the shield, grabbing onto the mounting bracket with one hand, as she reformed the plasma chainblade on the other, driving the weapon straight into the joint between arm and shield. Searing through the struts, she tore the shield from its mounting and jumped onto the incoming right arm, running the length of the forearm before slicing her blades directly into the elbow, cleaving the joint apart. “No!” Eggman shouted, watching her take to the air and soar away from the severed limb. Furiously punching in commands, the mech rose back to its feet and opened up its missile pods again, ready to launch yet another barrage. Before he could lock on, however, Emerl swerved back toward him and fired the launchers on her shoulders again. Each rocket streaked from its tube, and slammed into the pods, detonating every single one of the would-be dictator’s unlaunched munitions. There weren’t many left by this point, but the blast was still enough to destroy both pods and heavily damage the Egg Beater’s shoulders. Inside the cockpit, Eggman raged, slamming his fists against the console, howling with fury. Wherever this tiny bot had been dredged up from, it was slowly dismembering his newest Egg Beater, and had also eliminated Mecha Sally’s defences against mental intrusion. Sparing a glance for the mechanical squirrel, he saw her struggling to hold back the four opponents, mostly forced to try and avoid their attacks and strike back whenever she could. Even a man of his stubbornness could recognise that the battle was lost… but ordering a retreat now would just bring the Freedom Fighters and their new mechanical friend straight into his Death Egg. Staying to fight would see this newcomer disable his mech and allow Tails to extract Sally’s core from it, while Nicole would overcome the mechanical squirrel’s defences and restore her mind. Either way, the battle was lost. But, he allowed himself a grin, that didn’t necessarily mean the Freedom Fighters were going to win. Eggman took a deep breath, and returned to his controls. He began the separation sequence for his Eggmobile, then turned to his failsafe commands. Turning the keys above the two he had chosen, he sat back in his chair as the explosive bolts connecting the Egg Beater’s helmet fired, blasting the domed structure clear of the heavily damaged mech. Enclosed within his glass bubble, the dictator steered his pod free of the Egg Beater as its knees buckled and the giant collapsed awkwardly into the arctic wastes. Unit M-S_01 beginning failsafe detonation sequence. Unit E-B_03 beginning EMP charge. As the mech hit the ground, a panel on its chestplate opened, and a small cylindrical shape rose from it, red warning lights flashing along it. At the same time, Mecha Sally threw Sonic off of her, then paused, going rigid as her own torso plating hinged apart, exposing a round, black shape with a digital dial on it, which began to rapidly count down from sixty. “Eggman!” Sonic yelled, glaring hatefully up at the Eggmobile. The scientist simply laughed, turning the vehicle around and accelerating back toward the Death Egg. Sonic turned back to his friends, looking straight at Tails. “Can you get that thing out?!” “N-not without my tools, and those were in the hold of the Tornado!” The fox replied, panic evident in his voice and the look on his face. “Silver, what about you?! Can you brute force it!?” “I’m trying, but I can’t get a grip on it! It’s integrated into her construction and I’m not that precise with these powers!” At the same time, Emerl slammed her fists into the metal on either side of the EMP generator, crumpling the structure. She gripped the cylinder in both hands and pulled, wrenching the whole assembly from the downed Egg Beater. The slowly-accelerating warning lights did not go out, however, and Emerl quickly saw the reason: Wired into the base of the weapon was a small orb, about the size of a Mobian heart, pulsing with blue light, and with four connection points, all linked up to the detonator. It didn’t take much to figure that this was Mecha Sally’s stolen core, now serving as the battery for the weapon that would kill her, Nicole, and Sally herself if she didn’t find a way to stop it. Emerl cursed quietly to herself. “Next time I see that man, I will kill him.” She growled, as she began to disconnect the wires from the core itself, tearing them from the bomb so as to not damage any part of the core. She let her shoulders sag in relief, tension leaving her frame for a moment. Then she noticed that the EMP was still beeping, and growing more frantic all the while. Disconnecting the core hadn’t stopped it, only caused it fire earlier, presumably with less power, but still in killing range for its intended targets. The core and the EMP were connected, not by wires but by a welded link. She attempted to pull them apart, but the joint was too strong and she didn’t feel like accidentally damaging the core while trying to save it. Activating the head laser again, she focused the beam and severed the metal structure holding the two devices together. Gently, she placed the core down on the snow, then took several steps forward before leaping into the air and blasting away, launching herself in the direction of Eggman’s slowly-retreating hovercraft. It took less than a second for her to make the calculations necessary, before she folded her body up and span rapidly in place, mimicking something she’d seen Sonic do during his fight. Rather than launching herself forward, however, she uncurled and thrust her arm out, putting all of the momentum from her rapid rotation behind it as she hurled the EMP generator after the mad scientist’s escape craft. The weapon rocketed from her fingers as her momentum slowed, and she halted, hovering with her hand shielding her optics from the glare as it travelled along its predicted arc and bounced off the cockpit glass, moments before a small pulse rippled out from it and sent the Eggmobile into an uncontrolled downward spin. For a moment, she considered flying after him. Ultimately, however, saving Sally was the most important task. Rescuing Nicole’s friends was why she had come out here, after all. Her optics returned to their normal colour, as her ring energy faded, and she dropped back to the ground, scooping up the fallen core as she landed. It still pulsed regularly in her hand, and there looked to be no signs of damage from the rushed separation. Across from her, the others were still clustered around Mecha Sally. The robot was no longer fighting them, simply standing in place as the clock in her chest counted down. The quartet’s attempts to pull it from her body weren’t going well, Emerl noted, as she approached. Sonic’s head jerked up toward the Emerl, as if he was expecting a hostile, but he clocked the armoured figure and the small orb clutched protectively in her hands, and relaxed slightly. “Hey, you’ve got a lot of strength in ya. Think you can pull this thing out?” He asked hopefully. “Not without damaging her,” Emerl shook her head. “From the plans, it’s pretty securely mounted in there, probably bigger than the opening. You’d probably need to partially disassemble her to do that, and not only is this not a good environment for that, but it’s something I can’t do. I’m basically only good for fighting.” “Then… there’s nothing we can do to save her?” Silver asked. “There has to be something!” Sonic snapped. “We didn’t come all this way just to lose her like this!” “Nicole can do it,” Tails spoke up, focused on the countdown. “We can’t remove the bomb, at least, not here… but Nicole can turn it off.” “How much longer does she have left?” Emerl asked. “Thirty seconds.” “Then she needs to hurry it up…” Amy murmured. “Come on, Nicole…” The timer continued to tick down, dipping under twenty seconds as the five waited in stoic silence. Then, as the red digits began the final countdown from ten, the clock stopped. For a moment, it slowly dropped another few digits, taking more and more time to change each time, before stopping altogether and flashing at the frozen time, before deactivating entirely. All five cheered, as Nicole appeared, flickering in front of Mecha Sally. “I’ve shut down the bomb, and disconnected it completely, so Eggman can’t turn it back on,” She announced. “Fortunately I hadn’t got into the real heavy work on her processor, so I was able to divert my attention and deactivate it.” “Oh thank Aurora,” Sonic sighed heavily with relief. “So, you’ve just got to fix her brain now, right?” “That’s correct,” Nicole nodded. “Sit tight for just a while longer, and I’ll be right back.” Nicole faded from the physical plane again, diving into the depths of Mecha Sally’s processor.

#Sonic #Sonic the Hedgehog #Fanfic #Sonic: Revival #Emerl the Gizoid #Nicole the Lynx #Miles Tails Prower #Amy Rose #Silver the Hedgehog #Mecha Sally #Sally Acorn #Dr. Eggman

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askjeeveshypno-blog · 5 years

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What I know about consent violations from having seen a lot of them

Crossposted to Fetlife.

*TLDR: This stuff is complicated, memories and stories are often flawed, and outside of a few sharp lines there is no consensus on what IS a consent violation to say nothing of what is the correct punishment for one. *

Hi, I’m AskJeeves. I’m a “community leader” but please don’t blame my communities for what I’m about to say. I literally ran this past nobody but my wife so the responsibility for my words would be entirely mine and indeed, it’s possible some folks I work with running organizations will be unhappy with me for my directness here. FWIW, I also have never been the head consent person in any organization. I’m just a board member of three different kink groups who has also been in the community for a really long time.

But anyway, in various kink positions of responsibility in hypnokink, regular kink and a kinky arts organization, I’ve seen quite a few complaints. And here are some general impressions. I’ve messed with some details for privacy but kept the spirit of the complaints intact.

1. Most of the scene likes to gossip and the drama around consent violations is pretty sweet gossip. The chain of secrecy is almost never intact. I’m good at keeping secrets. When I hear about a consent complaint, I treat it as confidential and don’t talk about it. But people who know I’m in a position to know VERY FREQUENTLY talk to me. This puts me in this wacky position of “A complained about B, and everyone seems to know that. A is talking about it and B is talking about it, and people want to talk to me about it, but I don’t 100 percent know WHAT A and B are saying and if one of them is leaving a detail or two out on purpose and I reveal it, I’ve seriously breached my responsibilities,” so I do a lot of smiling and nodding about consent complaints. Also, “B and I are at the same party and B is recounting a romanticized version of what they did that leaves out a lot of facts and if I’m quiet it looks like I agree but I’m really not in a position to speak up,” which also sucks, but they way.

2. The vast majority of complaints we get are in gray areas, and it’s almost impossible to nail down what a “consent violation” actually is outside of what’s actually illegal or specific enough to be spelled out in rules we already had:

a. A guy wrote about kink stuff on his public facebook on the regular. Somebody who was mad at him got drunk and posted something on the same facebook page about how much he sucked for not coming to her play party. Said guy got drunk person banned from a dungeon for “outing her” in a place he’d already outed himself.

b. I’m pretty judgy about JK Rowling retweeting TERFS, but should a con punish someone for retweeting a post that outs somebody?

c. If someone steals someone else’s money without permission, is that a consent violation?

d. If C and D make plans to play, and then C loses interest but never actually says “actually, I changed my mind,” and just puts off or ghosts D, how many times can D follow up, in what ways and getting what responses, without it becoming harassment? (Soft nos are VERY complicated from a “trying to enforce consent rules” perspective. In this situation, C almost always says that D is ignoring a “no” and D almost always says that C seems really busy so D thought D would keep trying and they were eager to do the play C had earlier said they wanted.)

e. If E made a promise to follow a bunch of rules set by a group, and then broke one of them, and F, a member of the other group, complains to a my group that E consented to follow the rules and broke them and the complain to MY group, which has different rules, is that violating the first group’s consent?

f. Hypno-specifically, what counts as non-negotiated use of persuasive language and where?

g. The above complexities quadruple for trying to ban someone from an event or organization for something they did online. Does this happen in rare circumstances? Yes. But the bar is quite high.

h. Some of y’all who are black and white thinkers or just very decisive will feel like you can go down this list going “Yes, no, yes, yes, no” but suffice to say, even if one of these seems straightforward to you, it hasn’t to me in the past, perhaps because of further details I’ve left out for brevity or something I changed to make the situations less specific..

3. If you’ve been banned or whatever, threatening to bring in a lawyer never helps you. Kink organizations are private. We mostly have our own lawyers and know very well how incredibly legal it is to exclude someone from a private organization for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all unless it’s a discriminatory reason. Proving “discrimination” is very difficult, proving “defamation” is too. Suing a kink organization for not letting you in requires money up front that almost none of us have, so it’s an empty threat anyway unless the person making the threat is independently wealthy. I write this under the assumption that if you ARE independently wealthy and are willing to sue us into the ground if you don’t get what you want, these words won’t stop us anyway.

a. Suffice to say that when you threaten to sue it indicates to me as a person in a position of responsibility is that “bringing in a lawyer to make threats” is something you’re willing to do when you don’t get what you want, and if my organization continues to deal with you, this will almost certainly happen again. So why would we want you in our private organization? Do you really provide so much benefit to the organization that this constant threat is worth it to us?

b. Caveat: If someone has sexually assaulted you, by all means, call the cops or a lawyer if you feel comfortable doing so. I’m not at all saying that legal mechanisms have no place in kink when directed at the person who hurt you. But as fair as organizations are concerned threatening to sue, or coy letters about how you might threaten to sue if you don’t get your way, are counterproductive and have a strong whiff of bullshit, which is never a good thing if you’re trying to convince us you’re not lying about anything else.

4. Long relationships that end in one or both parties accusing one another of consent violations the moment they break up are a nightmare to deal with on the consent side. Because abuse REALLY DOES happen in long term relationships. But there are many ways of being a shitty partner that are consent violations. People who have just broken up last week can almost never tell the difference.

5. People who talk about consent ALL THE TIME have a bad habit of setting their own rules about it in ways that benefit their own bullshit. Such people are often so excited to talk about other people’s consent violations that they make a big deal without having investigated or otherwise gotten the full story. So people who make a big public deal about rumors of other people’s problems have raised a red flag about themselves. This is completely irrelevant if they never have a consent complaint raised about them. But if they do, the red flag is there. A red flag doesn’t decide anything, but people are going to notice it.

6. I get that Jeff Mach got paid. Just about nobody else in kink does and if you’re looking to get paid, running a con is a terrible way to do it. We’re volunteers throwing parties/events for the community. We want people to be safe but we also hang out at our own parties/cons and we don’t want to hang with jerks. Nobody gets banned for being a jerk alone, but if you’ve yelled at us, been an asshole when you dumped our friend, been accused of minor things many times before, or otherwise caused a lot of problems, that’s not going to help you get what you want. Again, if I personally think you’re a jerk but no one ever complains about you, that’s fine. Some of you ARE jerks and I demonstrably haven’t. But if you’ve got what feels like a long history of being difficult or causing problems, that’s a strike against you. My kid brother has a long history of cussing out cops and has been told he has the worst driving record in the county where we live. Most of the judges and cops in our county have met him and he was unpleasant every time. If you think every new time he’s a defendant there is a clean slate and none of that prior stuff matters, you’ve been sold of a vision of our justice system, and possibly humanity, that doesn’t exist. We are trying to be fair but it would be weird to expect a bunch of volunteer kinksters to be less susceptible to their own perceptions.

7. Rumors people have heard about bad behavior, complaints from unverifiable and likely fake scene names, or a friend making a complaint on behalf of an anonymous friend are simply impossible to investigate or do anything about.

8. Two years ago, a group of people got together to lie about an innocent person assaulting someone. They were people the consent folks at the event liked and trusted. And then the truth came out. It is never impossible that this is happening. And it ruined what seemed like a pretty solid kink organization. There are mitigating factors here and there but the bones of it are an organization people put thousands of dollars and untold hours into that brought a lot of people joy was ruined, because like eight people didn’t get what they want on something incredibly minor and broke the consent system, and the con, on purpose. Again, the consent folks didn’t handle things optimally either, but when eight people are willing to tell the same lie it’s tough to imagine that ending well for them, their victim or the organization. Consent organizers never want that to happen to us, but it’s unrealistic not to accept that it could.

This stuff is complicated. And again, I’m only writing on behalf of myself. But these kinds of issues are what folks who seriously work on consent face. I'm happy to talk about them. But if you think you have an iron-clad, one-size-fits-all solution, you probably don't?

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oppressiveliberator · 6 years

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what age did Ghetsis discover that he had magic abilities? What can he do with his magic?

((Again, if this doesn’t answer! Because when I start rambling I always, always go off track!! Feel free to ask for more info! Hell, feel free to ask for more regardless lol

ALSO ONCE AGAIN PLEASE FORGIVE ME APP USERS THERE IS REALLY A READMORE THERE BUT. /GESTURES @ TUMBLR

OKAY SO GHETSIS AND HIS MAGIC.

Ghetsis discovered his magical abilities somewhere around the ages of 3-5. When he showed his parents, they were quick and harsh to shut him down for his unnatural and freakish display. This didn't put him off, however, only annoyed him and made him question why this was such a problem when his skill in damn near everything else was praiseworthy, but eventually he skulked off to the Harmonia Estate library and records and began to seek out knowledge on the matter. Between diaries and history books and magic books, over time he learned to use magic on his own.

Ghetsis's magic is tied to his life force. As a result, if he overmagics himself, he's in actual grave danger. So he tries not to overuse his magic considering magical exhaustion has done him dirty in the past.

A Harmonia's powers are typically divided into passive(a usually singular inherit thing that, so long as they aren't completely ignored or rejected and unindulged, typically persist at all times without any conscious effort on the part of the user) and active(powers that need to be used with some deliberation or exertion such as emotional intensity or frustration and so on.)

Ghetsis's passive power is the ability he's well known for--his ability to get his way. Ghetsis is naturally and with minimal effort and based on will and intent, able to talk his way into somebody's head to get his bidding done and to be believed and obeyed--it’s not infallible, but it’s pretty easy to be lulled into it for your average person. He first noticed the passive power when he was singing on stage--I'm not fully certain how it went down, but it was something to the effect of that he somehow managed to sing with such passion that he magically drew the crowd's undivided attention. I mean like. Babies stopped crying to listen to him sing. It was a strange sort of hypnotic ability and simply because he was passionate and wanted to be heard. Not on purpose.

(Ghetsis learned to suppress this ability over time, preferring the challenge of psychological manipulation without magical assistance. At present, it's not usually 'activated' beyond that he's got a fairly intimidating and dominating aura about him, and people feel inclined to listen to him. Believing him, however, is usually simply his own studies of psychology and manipulation at work--not only can he magic his way into your head, but he's gotten to the point that he really doesn't have to and can do it without any magical interference. Dangerous.)

The active abilities vary. Generally I leave it as a sort of vague ability to manipulate the world around him to certain degrees. Ghetsis can do this on his own--manipulate elements, for example. However, he can also call upon/use other things to use their energy/power and put less strain on himself:

The Victini movies I believe introduced the Dragon Force, an invisible energy, that the People of the Vale(whom i headcanon to be the Harmonias) used to cultivate their land and live in harmony and prosperity, until the Twin heroes fought and caused a war. This caused the dragon force to go wild, giving Kyurem the energy for both Twins’ perspectives on the situation to split from it up Zekrom and Reshiram. Unsatisfied with this, the Dragon Force continued to run rampant with the intensity of the Twins's feelings and anger and the disruption of the harmony that had been, even after the war had ended, and began to wreak dangerous havoc and destroy the area, leaving the once fertile land barren and turning it into desert.

Eventually, The King Of The Vale(King Harmonia,) with his partner Victini, moved the Sword of the Vale--a big ass sword-looking building that's kinda part of the Harmonia estate now--to Eindoak town which somehow put the Dragon Force back in check by sealing it up--if the Sword of the Vale were to be moved somehow, then the Dragon Force would leak out again(i still haven't seen the movies and i really really should.) However the dragon force remains in the earth. . .and Ghetsis calls upon it when using magic that affects the world around him to make it easier and less dangerous for himself.

I'll usually describe it as some kind of fog or smoke coming from the ground, usually green or purple. Used unwisely the Dragon Force can make a big mess of the world. But since ghetsis is magically capable, even when he uses it for ill, it doesn't go wild like it did back then. Yet.

He can also call upon the power of legendary and mythical Pokémon, namely Unovan ones, and this is also part of the power of the Dragon Force--rather, he uses it to reach the Pokémon to use power from it. The thing is that Ghetsis doesn't ask for this power. He demands it and commands it to be given.

Fortunately he doesn't do this a ton and, if he does, it's usually for minor things that the legendary won't notice too much if he draws it out--if he went too hard on this, he'd probably be in trouble with a lot of Pokémon, but as it is he's taking like. The equivalent of a shed hair magically, on average if he does this. It’s not something they really notice on average, unless they’re not being acknowledged by other entities at the time--like, imagine that a god hears all these requests and prayers, so one is gonna be a drop in the bucket, but if there aren’t many then each one is gonna be a little more noticeable even when expected, you feel me?

Next is ancestral spirits. Because in the past the Harmonias used magic, the remains of their spirits are magically powerful as well. And with magic remaining dormant in most of his family, of he's near one of them, he can take from the magic they don't use(as long as it isn't too much, given that that would kill them)--but the spirits and remaining of deceased ancestors is more powerful and are more malleable to use to manipulative the world around him. Of course, if they don't like something he's doing. . .well, again. the dragon force can be used to force their compliance, but generally if they don't like it, it’s not easy or advisable to draw on them.

Finally. . .Kyurem. Ghetsis controlled Kyurem without any Pokéballs or anything. He's Kyurem's sort of hero the way N and the Protag are the Heroes of Truth/Ideals--I may refer to him as the Hero of Ambition sometimes just so the naming scheme is complete. So he can call upon Kyurem to a greater degree as well--which typically manifests in the form of STAB if he were using ice. So. Flying and dragon types fuckin beware i guess.

(Hell, he doesn’t really even need to call on Kyurem sometimes, especially since Kyurem is very much dormant--it doesn’t have much better to do and will just kinda support him in general. But since he’s not usually with it it’s not as strong as it could be. Still a force to be reckoned with, still a big legendary ice dragon connected to his person.)

His powers are watered down from the powers Harmonias had thousands of years ago due to lack of use, so they aren't Pokémon level strength or anything. But as far as magic goes with Harmonias he's the first to have really mastered it in a long ass time.

Ghetsis’s abilities are pretty immense, but it can also be very, very straining depending on what he does. Again, it's connected to his life energy--if he overdoes it too much in one go, he'll get sick, bleed from orifices he shouldn't be bleeding from, collapse, suffer injury, outright pass out, or even die. Even if he draws on someone or something else for power, he needs to use his own magic to do that and to direct it.

And while he doesn't give a damn about the lives of others. . .imagine if you were pulling on a rubberband that was around something pretty solid. You keep pulling and, whether it breaks or comes loose, it's gonna come hurtling at you at mach fuckin 10 and hurt your hand, if not hit you in the face and take out your eye. Now imagine doing that with a life. Chances are, getting smacked in the face with another life will remove your face and you'd die--same thing would probably happen to Ghetsis if he were to just draw and draw from a source until it was gone. Gradually would likely be less damaging, but magical overload is a thing, too--he can't just infinitely store magic in himself, he can’t just channel magic through himself infinitely without a break, he doesn't have the room for it even though he has such a large and overbearing presence. So he has to be careful with magic.

(I kinda made a messy drabbly thing featuring Ghetsis and @sacriflare a while back in which Ghetsis protects Lys from Yveltal so he can put it in a Master Ball, even though Lys didn't believe this possible at all. After doing so, Ghetsis collapsed though he was still conscious, just in pain and real fucked up and probably drooling blood or something awful. So with enough effort and energy to pull from, he can do lots of things, but on his own he'll tire faster--theoretically holding off the god of death from sucking the life out of him and his friend? Uuuuuuuuuh he was lucky to be alive when he was done. and that Yveltal is a flying type because that ice typing probably saved his ass.)

(In addition to those he also knows more 'witchy' things, like sigils and using crystals and stones and stuff like that. This pulls less from his life energy and more from nature in a weird sort of magical-alchemical way I guess.)

Many things Ghetsis does can be done without flourish--he channels magic through his cane because, well, if it backfired from his hand he'd lose another hand. He'd rather break the cane. That's replaceable. He can use his hands or his voice or his mind but that's more painful and strenuous--and, again, if something goes wrong that’s not gonna be good for his physical body. However, he can also make magic circles on the ground--in fact, he does this in the anime to push fire into the Light Stone to revive Reshiram.

Allow me to reiterate that.

This man revived a sleeping legendary Pokémon, on his own, with his own magic. In a canon material. And all he needed was the legendary's sleeping form, some torches, and a big enough space to make his magic circle in--a magic circle he made with magic, not a physical means.

That! He did THAT!!! (The glowing red obedience brainwashing is from the Colress Machine. But tbh bringing the legendary out of the rock is a bit more impressive to me. Anybody can command Pokémon. Most people don’t do /gestures) that.)

(credit where credit is due, tho, colress, you are p gr8.)

So you can probably see why I figured 'okay. He's pretty magically capable. I can OP him if i do it right.'

I'll run down some other canon i drew from.

In the games the Abyssal Ruins tells tales of the king buried within, The Great King Harmonia who ruled and protected Unova 3000 years ago.

Ghetsis's passive ability, aside from other canon instances, is inspired by:

Listen to King's words.

Here we praise King.

King's light shines.

King moves his people

Active abilities are also inspired by some of the contente here, such as:

King's light shines. and Shine if agreed. - Ghetsis can control fire to a certain degree, as well as just generally create light and visual imagery.

Eating is receiving life. - Ghetsis can draw life energy out of others, though this isn't something he really knows how to do at the moment unless he severely injures or exhausts his target--i.e. causes them to already be draining of life or not ‘holding onto’ their life. He doesn't use this much however and this power is more ritual than inherit(if he were to do it there's probably be a magic circle involved or something more elaborate than just magic use.)

Saved all from waves. - the Great King Harmonia saved Unova from a horrific tsunami. Probably caused by a clumsy lugia. Similarly, water is something he can control, though he probably wouldn't be able to stop a whole tsunami by himself. Maybe a storm.

Act strong if agreed. - buffing and debuffing, some healing, but for the most part his healing is best in the form of like. Ritual necromancy at best.

In the anime(and I’d include pics for this but I don’t remember which episode it was and I have a lot of frames i’d have to go through to find out):

Anthea and Concordia can slip between planes of existence and live hidden away there with N. This usually manifests as a fog, and entering it takes you off the plane you're on and into another one, seemingly in some sort of forest, though there's a swamp inside too that we've seen, and a whole building, so there's probably way more to the area. There's an invisible source to it from the outside world, which Ghetsis had Team Plasma locate and break through, as the idk source shield thing keeps what's outside out but can be broken through to enter. When you're forced out of the plane and back into the previous one, your surroundings will be completely different, so it's not exactly somewhere that fully corresponds to the material plane.

I’ve decided that Ghetsis can also do this--this plane of existence(i also call it 'slip space') is where Ghetsis is at present day, and he has his own little cabin house hideaway in there where he's recovering and plotting and resting.

What's supposed to happen is that the fog disappears and closes up the entrance. However, Ghetsis opened the space in a bad physical and mental condition. As a result the magic is a bit. . .wonky. it's not usually properly closed up at all, and so if the fog is discovered and walked into, you'll wind up in the woods Ghetsis is hiding in. However, the fog's current existing criteria is something like 'place with a lot of trees and low external visibility' or something like that. So sometimes it isn't even in Unova and you can reach it from somewhere else entirely--and, subsequently, Ghetsis can leave it and wind up somewhere else entirely too. It's mostly connected to him, so it only moves if he's still inside--it'll stay where it is if he leaves, so he can go back to it, unless he closes or deactivates it entirely.

Like I said earlier, in the anime Ghetsis performs the Ceremony of Revival--which, the first(?) time he uses it during N's coronation, causes Reshiram to come and burn down his castle and kill a bunch of people and really piss Ghetsis off because what more do you want reshiram????? The second time he uses it(i assume it's the same thing) he has his grunts set up a circle of torches on some altar somewhere, his cane glows, he makes a massive glowing red magic circle on the ground, he lifts the light stone in the air, and all the fucking fire just goes up to the light stone and into it, eventually giving enough strength to Reshiram for it to come back to life/wake up, and it woke up pissed. He knew it would be angry though. Idk what that says about this process but it says something.

. . .anyway, Ghetsis can do a lot of things with his magic because he has most of King Harmonia’s powers, albeit watered down. But some things are too much for his mortal human body to handle. . .ever. not even just in his current condition but period. So nothing too intensive. . .and for the most part, not a ton of simply benevolent things like healing. But intensity is kinda dependent on how he goes about it.

(On the topics of passive and active skills, N's passive is obvs his ability to communicate with and understand Pokémon. Does he have others? Maybe! Thats for N-muns to decide. Ghetsis will try and teach him to use anything he finds out that he has, tbh--and see how he can use it for the future haha.) ))

#long post #long ass post #holy shit this is a long post #Asks | The Truth Won’t Save You Now #Worldbuilding | Show Me Where Can Do How Can Do It Who Can Do This With You #Magic | I Don’t Need To Try To Control You Look Into My Eyes And I’ll Own You #Headcanon | The Horror That He Brings The Horror Of His Sting The Unholiest Of Kings #History | Who’d Ever Dream A Child As Sweet As I Seemed Would Be The Source Of So Much Pain And Strife #((thank you very much for the ask❣))

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