#watch him do double duty again and it be some random ass creature

[linc-karo-27]

🕯️Reblogging this again for the Prayer Circle of more Graha in the Fanfest trailer 🕯️

Like I can't remember if they show the trailer in Japanese like the Live Letters as it is in Tokyo so mass watching every English Dub person sprint to yt to hear it will be an experience.

I made a cursed image in response to yesterday's 6.5 trailer. Its bad but I love it

Feel free to use it

[tehrevving]

Now Where Will You Be - 1

I’m starting a new series :O

Basically I really liked the dynamic between the characters in “One Chance” so I’m writing some more stuff in a slight AU of that universe. The only important thing is that instead of the reader only being there for a few days, she’s there with him indefinitely, and this will of course never be addressed. 

Chapter 1: Featuring  a descriptive fight with blood and gore, gun play, blood kink.

It’s a full blown miracle when some random, well dressed man walks into the Devil May Cry office and asks Dante to kill some hellish creatures for him. Dante can’t believe that his half-assed advertising actually worked. If the man had come in just a few days ago then he would have said no, but he’s feeling a little bit better now, a little bit less depressed. He turns to the source of his sudden personality change to find her standing there beside him and he finds that he can’t resist the way that her face lights up when he agrees to it.

Dante puts on a shirt this time, he’s not sure why he’s bothered because he knows it’s just going to end up getting destroyed anyway. She insists on coming with him, insists that she can handle herself and while he’s a little bit concerned, he can’t really do much but believe her. He has no idea where she keeps getting all of these clothes from, but she ends up dressed in a dark coloured tank top and black jeans with a large belt. His heart leaps into his throat when he sees she’s got thigh holsters on, and it leaps again once more when she turns to him and ever so sweetly asks if she can borrow some guns.

He’s even more concerned when she immediately gravitates towards a shotgun, holding it in her hands with glee. He warns her about the kickback but she just shrugs, says “I know,” and straps it against her leg along with a pistol and some small blades. She winks when she notices that he’s watching her twirl them in her hands and lifts it up, running her tongue against the flat side of the blade. Dante gulps and averts his eyes while she laughs.

She stands in the doorway waiting for him, all loaded up. She cocks her hip and stares at him and he just can’t help but think that he’s going to be very distracted during this job. Then she’s smiling and taking all of it off and shoving it into her bag, because obviously you can’t just wander the streets fully loaded.

It’s a pretty leisurely walk because he doesn’t have a car. She points out all of the things that are different than she’s used to, and what’s going to change. She points out a few places that she wants to visit later and Dante sighs now realising that he’s going to have to play tour guide.

Eventually they reach the abandoned warehouse, well it’s abandoned because of the infestation. Apparently there’s a nest of gross things crawling around inside, the guy wasn’t too specific about what they actually were. She straps her arsenal back to her body and then pulls out a pair of what looks like heavy duty walkman headphones, but with no wires. “In case they’re loud,” she says and he shrugs, throwing his sword on his back and holstering his guns.

She gestures for him to enter first and he’s still unsure about her tagging alone. “You don’t need to watch out for me,” she smiles, “but if I need you, you’ll know. Alright?”

Dante nods even though he’s not sure at all.

He walks through the door first, because he’s basically bulletproof. There’s a reasonable sized nest of grotesque creatures, writhing and crawling over each other. They shriek at him, inhuman screams echoing so heavily off the walls that it makes even his ears ring, he realises that maybe she does know what she’s doing.

The creatures start limping towards him, their gait is wobbly, unsteady. They drag themselves along the floor using their disgustingly long claws. The sound is like nails on a chalkboard and it grates deep inside his skull.

Dante takes in a deep breath and draws his sword. He moves forward with speed and cleaves the heads off four of the creatures with one fluid slice of his weapon. Their too hot blood gushes from their empty necks and rains down on him. He thinks he probably should have thought that through a little bit better.

They’re not difficult to defeat but there’s a lot of them. He fights through as many as he can while she takes up the rear, the ones that he misses. He slices through more and then turns to make sure she’s okay, and then finds himself utterly distracted.

He watches as she plants her feet on the ground, lifts up his shotgun and double taps two rounds right into the face of his horrific abomination, already mangled from his sword. Her arms shake from the recoil but she holds steady as the creature screams and falls to the floor in a twitching heap. She cocks the gun again, turns to him and grins. Fuck his pants get so tight suddenly that he can hardly move. Not that he needs to because he’s almost immediately skewered through the chest by a wicked scythed claw. Dante grunts and shoots the damn thing in the face without even looking behind him. The claw drags sticky against his insides as the weight of the creatures drags on it as it falls to the floor. He pulls the thing out from his back with a squelch and a spray of blood. He turns to find her staring at him, giggling, like she knows she’s the reason he got stabbed.

He finds he’s more motivated then, covered in their blood and his own. He goes after the remaining creatures while his skin itches as it knits back together. He notices that they don’t attack her like they attack him, they approach her like they’re curious, like she’s not a threat even though she’s ripping them apart. Damn they go for him through like he’s personally fucked and then murdered their parents.

Suddenly they’re all dead, heaped in sizzling, rotting piles of flesh on the bloody warehouse floor. He turns and finds her blowing on the steam that billows from the muzzle of her shotgun. There’s demon blood and guts streaked across her ripped shirt, he can see parts of her coloured bra peeking through and even covered in guts he’s never seen anything so alluring.

He stalks towards her like a predator and the creature inside of him purrs when she doesn’t back down. She digs her nails into his chest and pulls him to her lips while he walks her backwards. He crowds her against the shitty, blood stained brick wall, caging her in. Dust falls from the bricks as he puts his hands through them in his desperation to keep her in his grasp. She pulls away and stares directly into his eyes, “not enough carnage for you huh?”

“Not enough carnage,” he growls, “not enough payoff.”

She digs her nails hard into his skin, through the holes in his shirt where the sythe stabbed him through. The skin is already healed but she digs into it like the wound might just open up again. “I call it your horny energy,” she laughs, “when you rile yourself up and the fight just isn’t enough to disperse all the adrenaline. The air around you goes hazy, like looking at a fire. Sometimes you get too eager, and then it’s not just demon blood covering the floor afterwards, if you catch my drift. Powerful devil pheromones are enough to drive even a human mad.” She bites her lip, leaves him to ponder her words and then she’s on him.

He doesn’t even know why he let her talk, why he didn’t just pull her body to him because now she’s biting at his collarbones while playing with his belt and it’s amazing. She undoes it carelessly, yanking his pants barely down enough to free what she wants. She plays with his cock, squeezing at it roughly while Dante tries his best not to shred her pants in his haste to have her.

He lifts her up while she puts her legs around his waist and his dick almost instantly finds the already wet entrance of her cunt. She bites down on his bottom lip and digs her nails into his shoulder, rocking her hips until he can’t help but press inside of her.

He fucks her roughly, because he really doesn’t know how to do it any other way. She takes everything he gives her and begs for more. She cries out his name and claws at his skin.

She reaches behind him and he thinks she’s just feeling him up, but then there’s a click and her hand is coming back with one of his guns. He hears the clip fall to the ground as she uploads it, and he pulls away from her lips as his cock throbs inside her. He opens his eyes to find her pointing the gun straight at his face, still with a bullet in the chamber.

He leans forwards and bites down on the cold steel, the metal creaking against the force of his fangs. He feels her cunt tighten around his cock.

“Can I shoot you?” she asks, and then seems taken back by the way his eyes blow wide open. “No, you’re not ready,” she murmurs and then pulls the slide back as more bullets fall to the ground.

She brings it to his temple, presses the cool metal to his skin. “Fuck me harder Baby,” she whispers and suddenly he finds that he can’t stop.

She keeps the gun at this temple as he fucks her, as he thrusts hard and fast into her tight, willing body. He can’t say the feel of the metal doesn’t spur him on. He licks the remnants of blood from her neck and chest while she bites at his jaw and uses her free hand to claw lines upon lines of marks against his chest.

He struggles to keep it together as she starts biting at his throat. Because that’s her cue to him that she’s close, and because she knows that once she digs her teeth in and draws blood, he won’t be able to help spilling inside of her.

Her body spasms around him, and her arm holding the gun is shaking as she comes. She calls out his name and the wall behind her back turns to dust as he starts to come. She fires the gun just as the pleasure gets too much and even though it’s empty, even though the only reaction is the soft click of the empty chamber. The anticipation of more is enough to send him over the edge.

The warehouse is an even worse state once he’s had his fill of her. She just holds onto his arm for support so she can stand, nuzzling at his shoulder and smiling.

“Guns huh?” he asks later, once they’ve got their clothes back on and they’re walking back to the office.

“Don’t knock it until you try it,” she grins, “give it a little bit and soon you’ll be begging for me to blow your brains out when you come.” She laughs when her words make him stumble and make a slight moan escape from his lips. “Don’t worry,” she smirks, “just you wait and maybe I’ll give you a demonstration after the next job.”

[mittensmorgul]

I rewatched 15x07 today and I just couldn't stop seeing how much Eileen was Chuck in 15x7. Her personality, the "ew" when Cas said some part of Sam's soul is in Chuck, her reactions to any talk of Chuck, how she was standing behind Sam and sort of side eying him when Sam said he had been in Chuck's head... Well, even when she propositioned Sam, they were supposed to be looking for ways to *stop* Chuck. Why do you think the show chose to focus on that instead of developing Saileen's relationship?

omg, okay... so you see this exactly the same way I do, and I really wrestled with whether to post this publicly or not, because every time I bring up these extremely valid points, confirmed in canon by Chuck, I get told I’m either a horrible person for thinking this way or I’m delusional or a moron for feeling uncomfortable ignoring this stuff just for the sake of a ship. And I just... can’t ignore it. Because it’s canon.

One of the Big Questions of the entire season is “what is real, and what is Chuck.” Eileen returned ONE EPISODE after we learned the extent of Chuck’s ability to fuck with them directly, via Lilith. The notion that Chuck would just drop that lesson on them and then peace out is just... idiotic to me. We were supposed to see Sam’s statement at the beginning of 15.06, and Dean’s reply, as the huge flashing neon warning sign it was supposed to be:

Sam: No. I haven't had a vision since Colorado. I think maybe they stopped.Dean: Oh, I doubt it. Not until Chuck gets His end game, you know? The Winchester Bowl. Cain and Abel 2.0. This is God we're talking about. G-O-D. Wouldn't be too worried about finding Him. He'll find us. 

LOLOLOLOL I mean, yes? He doesn’t even have to look hard to find you? He knows exactly where you are and how to manipulate you. He’s been doing it basically forever.

and then all of a sudden *random dead character we haven’t seen or even MENTIONED in three years* just suddenly appears specifically needing their help? And we’re supposed to think it’s an unproblematic win all around?

Sure Jan.

Chuck honestly couldn’t have chosen a better lure to send them. Someone the Winchesters would be thrown off by, someone they felt guilt over not having been able to save. Someone they’d be willing to drop everything else to help, and wouldn’t question remaining present in their lives. Someone they would trust without question. And specifically someone who had the kind of connection to Sam that Chuck could exploit to further the divide between Sam and Dean. Exactly as we saw happen... Dean made assumptions about their relationship and retreated even further into his own issues, leaving Sam alone and open to Chuck using Eileen in exactly the way we saw play out in his Vision of the Future in 15.09... driving Sam into her arms only to kill her off in a horrific, tragic situation in order to manipulate Sam into the reckless nihilism that engulfed their world by the end. Sounds exactly like what Chuck failed to accomplish with the whole BMoL plot in s12, which we ALSO know was orchestrated BY HIM, thanks to 14.20. Same story, different turn of the wheel.

Because Chuck needed all of that to get around the effects of that wound and lay down a trap that would eventually be sprung at the end of 15.08. If Cas hadn’t gone poking around in Sam’s wound, compromising Chuck’s plan, theoretically I believe he would’ve continued to use Eileen as his eyes on the Winchesters. The whole “lure Eileen out of the bunker and ensure she brings Sam along for the ride” thing felt more like a scramble to find a faster solution to his bigger problem and eliminate the compromised middle-man in his ability to directly mess with the Winchesters, which brought us to 15.09 and his desperation to force Sam into “breaking the connection” by his own choice. Since it was Sam’s will that fired the not-a-bullet that wounded them both in the first place. He literally had to break Sam’s will that generated that connection in 14.20.

As far as Chuck knew, his plans for Eileen to seduce Sam had failed, repeatedly. Between Cas’s cockblock entrance in 15.07 (which I still struggle to see as Sam ready to accept her proposition, for SO many reasons... I mean just look at his face in the first moments after it registers that she’s propositioning him. Those initial reactions are absolutely not undiluted romantic interest and passion, much as some creatively edited gif sets would lead you to believe.

I appreciate this one, with the further context of 15.09 to support my tag on it from the day after 15.07 aired.

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/189512551075

The look Eileen gives Cas is just screaming come on you believe me right? I’m completely innocent in all of this! Just nice little sweet resurrected Eileen! Like Chuck hadn’t expected Cas to show back up and interfere with his Seduce Sam for Manpain plan.

But that seduction scene actually hurts to watch... I mean, Sam is still feeling the guilt and pain over having killed Rowena, only to discover all of her worldly possessions and magic had been entrusted to him (and not yet knowing that specific spell to resurrect Eileen had been planted by Chuck as a deliberate manipulation in itself...).  LOOK AT THIS SERIES OF FACIAL EXPRESSIONS AND EXPLAIN HOW THIS IS ROMANTIC INTEREST AND NOT GRIEF AND SHOCK:

https://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/189663948344/adaav-sam-winchester-15x07

Okay, now that’s out of the way, back to Eileen.

Why did they make this particular choice for her character instead of developing a real relationship with Sam and Eileen? Because she was never written with the intent of becoming Sam’s endgame love interest.

Full stop.

Anyone who says otherwise is either choosing to believe that because it props up their chosen ship or they’re unaware of the numerous times that Robbie Thompson has contradicted that statement.

I mean, I don’t usually quote this source, but this is Robbie Thompson speaking recently (within the last year) specifically about the creation of Eileen’s character:

Next up: Eileen and Shoshannah. Did they specifically want a woman hunter?

Robbie: No, it was just, they were looking for standalone episodes. So what will happen is the showrunners will come around and say, “Hey, we need a myth-arc episode. Please deliver X, Y, and Z, but build an episode around it. Or [do] a standalone.” I had this idea for this character and I had worked with Shoshannah, sort of tangentially, because I was the writer’s assistant and I wrote an episode of Jericho. She wasn’t in the episode that I wrote but she played Bonnie on that show and (this is a spoiler if you haven’t seen Jericho) her character has an untimely death. But Shoshannah was so good in the series, and she was so terrific in that episode. She’s a badass in that episode, with a whole infiltration thing and she’s blowing dudes away with a shotgun, and I was like, “Oh, I wanna see her kick some ass.” I always wanted to work with her again. So I pitched the episode with that character in mind, and then I was like, “I’d love to work with Shoshannah again.” They reached out and she fortunately had a window in her schedule; she was available.

Then I reached out, I think originally through her manager, to say, “Hey, can you put us in touch because I’m not deaf and I want to make sure I’m getting an authentic experience for the performer.” So she and I exchanged a bunch of emails. She’s since gone on to be a showrunner and a writer in her own regard. She’s a really, really brilliant writer and a brilliant actor as well. It was great being able to get her the script early so she could help me fix the parts that didn’t work. Then, on the day, she and Jared had really great chemistry and John Badham, who was the director of that episode ("Into the Mystic" 11.11), they really played around and found a lot of fun moments that weren’t scripted at all. That was just them having fun and building moments.

All those cute chemistry moments... were never even scripted. She was intended to be a one-off character that was unsurprisingly very well loved by fandom, and who was brought back when the overarching plot made her MoL connection relevant to the story in 12.17. Unfortunately for her, that meant her ONLY purpose for returning to the story was literally to be killed for Sam’s manpain. They gave her just enough cute chemistry with Sam to imply they had the potential for a romantic connection, and then killed her in one of the most brutal and horrific ways possible. Which was literally exactly what Chuck used her for in s15.

I’d like to suggest that, knowing the full truth of her entire situation, that the sinister parallel being suggested in 15.07 is not between Cas and Eileen, but between Eileen and Lee Webb. Sam’s history with her is similarly tragic to Dean’s history with Lee. And Lee represented a version of an apple pie life that tempted Dean-- the prospect of having food, fun, health, and happiness instead of the grind of hunting. Only it was a lie, because Lee hadn’t made that life for himself, he’d built it off the magic of a creature he sacrificed an endless stream of human lives to in order to falsely manipulate his own circumstances. The cake is a lie, in other words. Just like the cheerful hangover breakfast Sam and Eileen were preparing at the beginning of the episode. It just... wasn’t real. We were being urged to consider this parallel. And not seeing it for what it was required having some heavy duty ship goggles glued on.

This was doubled-down on in 15.08, with Sam being a bit overbearing and nearly getting himself killed in the opening hunt, pushing Eileen to their “agreement,” which additionally foiled Chuck’s plans to push them together romantically. Eileen couldn’t spy on Sam for Chuck if she still retained enough independence to set boundaries like that, you know? If she didn’t have eyes on the Winchesters, she wasn’t useful for what Chuck was using her for, and she was punished for that failure as much as Sam was, being forced to hurt Sam in 15.09.

Heck. This is how I’ve always seen all of this. If folks enjoy assuming some Grand Romance between Sam and Eileen, more power to them. But honestly I just can’t personally see the justification in canon for that read on things. Not to say that Sam and Eileen won’t choose to come to a different understanding in the future, or that their relationship couldn’t develop into something more once Chuck has been dealt with, but I can’t see it as romantic yet. I’d be totally down to ship them in that eventuality. And in fanon, I’m totally here for it even now.

[justaramblingromantic]

superheroes need childcare benefits too

Characters/Pairing: Kobayashi Rindou, Tsukasa Eishi, Tsukasa Hi’en (OC)/EiRin

Type: Superhero!Family!AU, Freestyle

Word Count: 3071

A/N: Inspired by this post. 

This drabble has been sitting in my draft pile for a couple of months already, I think? I was fooling around with the random super power generator and decided to write out something with the results I got, just for fun. Was also in the mood to write cute baby things...so there was that, too, lol. 

The thing about being a superhero was that the benefits suck.

There were no such thing as paid leave or annual bonuses and the nature of the work was akin to voluntary military service to the country so it wasn’t exactly very high paying in the first place, either. In fact, it was something like an anonymous, part time obligation to society on top of juggling a ‘normal’ day job and whatever life issues and familial commitments the ‘normal’ population had to deal with…only maybe with a bit more explosions and dangerous, life-threatening events randomly thrown into the mix.

You get to meet all sorts of interesting people with interesting abilities too, and then, depending on their intentions and alignments, you try your hardest to incapacitate, or outright kill, each other. Fun times.

Rindou quite enjoyed it, actually. The thrill of living a secret double life. The excitement and unpredictability that came with every mission. And who would not enjoy being a superhero? Her partner was something amazing too, and they worked together seamlessly. Their abilities complemented each other extremely well, and after all the years of being paired together, their teamwork was one of the best in the country, for their rank and specialty type, even.

That was just as well, since they were partners in every meaning of the word. They had known each other from a young age and had only grown closer over the years, from teammates to best friends to lovers.

Recently, they had also become parents. And with parenthood, came responsibilities that both were suddenly acutely conscious of, towards the tiny young life that they had made together. Being reckless for the sake of having fun was no longer acceptable. They had to be more careful during assignments now, and for the moment at least, they had also agreed that both should not be going on call at the same time – one would remain at home on baby watch while the other was out performing their civic duty.

“Rindou.” Eishi’s calm, smooth voice spoke over the comm earpiece that she was wearing. “Are you heading home soon?”

“Mm,” she replied distractedly, concentrating on focusing her powers and directing them to work as she intended. Her abilities had always been a bit on the wild side and not very easy to control, and she constantly had to work on them so that they would not get the better of her.

It was a simple rescue mission this time. There was a serious collision between two freight vessels off the shores of Tokyo, just sitting on one of the major shipping routes. She had been activated by the agency because her powers were probably the most useful to deal with an incident of this scale involving huge mobile constructs. The crews of both vessels had already been evacuated and airlifted out of the scene so now it was her turn to flex her muscles and get down to business.

“Can you swing by the store for some milk and eggs on the way back? We ran out.”

“’Kay~” Slit gold eyes grew unnaturally bright as she concentrated, willing all her energy into intense mental focus. Visualizing the bright, glowing rope of power in her mind’s eye, she proceeded to grab firmly onto it and give it a mighty heave.

Just like that, the atmospheric pressure dropped, and the energy around her shifted.

Hovering midair over the vast ocean, a mere fifty feet above where the partially submerged cargo ships were rapidly taking in water and about to sink right in the middle of the high sea traffic zone, the redhead watched musingly as a couple hundred thousand tonnage of steel and freight creaked and groaned ominously as the absolute laws of physics were exerted on them…in an entirely unnatural way.

“Is there anything else that you want me to pick up, dear husband?” she asked cheerfully. She was in a good mood today, and for obvious reasons. The sun was shining overhead, the weather was great. All in all, it was a really nice day to be out and about, even if she had to help haul back to the bay two huge ass ships.

There was a pause, and then her significant other remarked. “You’re just really happy to be finally out of the house, aren’t you?”

Before Rindou could respond, a loud, unintelligible squawk transmitted through the earpiece, followed by what sounded like awkward, unsteady flapping. Both parents winced at the ringing, pitched cry.

“Is that En-chan? What’s he doin’? He sounds energetic.”

“Our son is sitting on my shoulder.” Was Eishi’s reply. “I think he’s screaming for you.”

She could not help but grin at the mental imagery of her somewhat ruffled mate having to stay at home wrestling with their quirky and unruly offspring. The baby was barely six months old but the rapid manifestation of his unique abilities meant that his parents never quite knew what to expect next when it came to him. Regardless, Rindou still thought that her son was the best thing since sliced bread. Eishi more or less rolled with the lofty opinion because he largely felt the same way ever since they handed him the squalling newborn straight out of the delivery suite.

“Geeze, he’s probably just hungry again. Feed him well, Tsukasa~!”

The semi-submerged vessels were no longer sinking. If anything, they were expelling water at an incredible, exponential rate, and starting to recover miraculously from their previous, badly listing conditions. Rindou kept a halfhearted eye on the ships, but her attention was caught more by the slight commotion coming from the other end of the line.

Eishi muttered. “He doesn’t want his bottle. I don’t think he’s even interested in milk right now.”

More indignant chirruping and belligerent rustling could be heard from the other end of the line. The older of the two also seemed to be having quite a time of it pacifying the younger one. “En, settle down. I know you hear her voice, but your mother’s not here.”

There was a querying, unhappy cry of what sounded like a young eaglet. By then, Rindou could not contain her curiosity any longer. Her son had been a normal human baby (a super cute, chubby cheeked one) when she had left the house, but apparently that was no longer the case. She would have been more worried as a mother if not for the fact that this peculiar occurrence happened too often for her to be alarmed anymore. In their household, this type of situation was only normal, when one’s offspring possessed the rare ability to randomly shapeshift.

“Eh? What did En-chan become this time? How come all the interesting things happen only when you’re home alone with him? That’s hardly fair at all!”

There was a brief pause as her husband struggled not to share his actual thoughts on the matter, which more or less amounted to how he would rather have preferred not to have anything interesting happen at all when he was left in charge of watching their only child. Because Hi’en was still very, very young and had no control whatsoever over his powers, the infant often randomly shifted into supernatural creatures that had only been heard of and read about in myths and legends. The first time it happened, the boy was only a couple of months old when he abruptly turned into a phoenix chick, and when the panicked parents found the young creature floundering about in their son’s cot, they had initially thought that someone had stolen their precious offspring only to replace it with this strange looking…scraggly, angry baby bird of unidentified origins…and that which could also random burst into fire.

The problem with their child being able to shapeshift into random mythical creatures was that when he was in those forms, feeding and caring for his needs became a unique challenge. Sometimes Hi’en would stay in one creature form for an hour at most before popping back to his sleepy human baby self, other times, he stuck with whatever form he was most comfortable with for days on end and that was when his parents abruptly realized that (mythical) animal husbandry had also became an important prerequisite when it came to parenthood. This time was no different.

Eishi observed his awkwardly flailing son, all wings, talons, feathers…paws, claws and tail. The wings on the back were still small and not yet fully developed, the feathers all fluffy brownish-bronze baby down and not even molting anytime soon. The body was that of a very young lion cub; soft russet gold fur still speckled with camouflaging spots and clumsy, tapering tail fat and stubby from infancy. The front limbs ended in raptorial, razor talons and the back limbs in feline paws and equally sharp pinprick claws. A fuzzy, aquiline face with beady golden eyes and a sharp hooked beak paid rapt attention to his male parent, who was squinting at the youngster just as discerningly.

Hi’en let loose a series of demanding chirrups and clumsily headbutted his father for attention. Eishi plucked the youngling who had insisted on climbing precariously onto his shoulder when he heard his mother’s voice earlier and cradled his cat-sized child against his chest, barely even flinching when the baby dug his tiny claws into his forearms for stability. The white-haired man balanced the cellphone between his ear and shoulder, distractedly replying Rindou even as he padded into the kitchen with the fussing cub in tow.

“I think he turned into a griffin this time.”

“…Huh. What do those eat?”

That was a very good question, and one which the young parents found themselves asking almost every other week these days.

In the background, the massive constructs that were the damaged shipping vessels were now floating lightly on the shimmering ocean surface, delicate as a pair of drifting feathers. Thanks to her abilities to manipulate gravity and air, sending the ships back to the shipyard for repair would be a breeze. Pun intended.

“Think the packet of raw chicken sitting in the freezer will work?” Rindou asked as she started to gather and shape the climate to obey her will. Her gaze turned upwards, watching the gigantic nimbuses roll in and dim the skies overhead. The barometric pressure quickly dropped further, and the ambient wind speed started to pick up. The previously calm, tranquil waters became more restless, choppy, though not turbulent enough to send the ships back down to the bottom of the ocean. Rindou exerted her will and steadily pushed.

The two vessels slowly started to move, the howling gale and reduced inertia enough to set them both limping in the direction of port. Rindou trailed her responsibilities closely, making sure that they would reach their destination with no unforeseen accidents along the way.

Back home, Eishi obligingly popped open the door of the freezer compartment and pulled out the cellophane wrapped tray of chicken. He presented it to Hi’en, who nudged at the Styrofoam curiously with his beak before recoiling from it with disdain.

“No?” he asked the little griffin. His son peered at him briefly with his slit gold eyes before deciding that his father’s shirt buttons were much more interesting. He started to peck at one of them, trying to pry it off.

“I’ll defrost and cut the meat into smaller strips to see if he wants it,” Eishi spoke into the phone, shutting the freezer door and setting the packet of chicken on the counter to thaw. “I think we should find that anthropology professor at the university again and seek his opinion, just in case.”

Rindou grimaced at the thought of meeting the suspicious, twitchy man once more. She was pretty sure that the man was starting to suspect that something weird was going on with the overly insistent couple who kept asking him overly specific questions regarding the diets and behavioral patterns of legendary creatures that should not exist.

“Alright, if you feel that’s gonna help.” An excellent idea struck her. “Maybe En-chan would want fresh seafood instead. I can rustle up a waterspout and bring some catch of the day home!”

“…Please don’t do that.” Eishi was quick to shoot down the idea before his mate could run wild with it. The last time she did something similar in a misguided attempt at domesticity while harboring delusions of a homemade dinner, it rained fish intermittently over the city for an entire day. “The agency frowns upon that sort of power misuse and we don’t have enough fridge space.”

Rindou grumbled. What use were her powers even if she couldn’t apply them for little things like that?

“Come home soon,” Eishi continued. Their child lifted his head from where he had been gnawing at his father’s shirt and chimed in with an accompanying series of inquisitive peeps and chirps. “We’re looking forward to your safe return.”

Despite her disgruntlement, Rindou’s cheeks warmed happily. “Then I shall, since you asked so nicely.”

When two beings with the recessive mutated genome that gave them unique abilities produce an offspring, it is virtually guaranteed that their progeny would inherit the same metamorphosed DNA sequence as well. However, just because that peculiar gene had been passed down from parents to child did not mean that the latter would end up with the same type of ultra-abilities that either parental units had. As such, having children when one possessed superpowers was very much like entering a lucky draw.

There is an implicit understanding that there will be a special prize, but what it is exactly or how useful it will be is something entirely up in the air until the child’s powers finally chooses to establish themselves.

Even before the birth of their son, Eishi and Rindou had already decided on his name out of two reasons.

The first was for bond. Both parents were distinct air types and spent so much of their time in the skies that they might as well have been born birds themselves. They had flown together, fought together, courted, loved. Their mutual joy, their steadfast devotion to each other… Hi’en was the precious culmination of all this happiness.

The second was for blessing. It was the parents’ sincerest wish for their firstborn that he would always be able to fly as far and as freely as he wanted to, just like a brave and lithe swallow, unfazed and unhindered by all the challenges that he would ever meet in life.

When Hi’en’s powers initially manifested in an unexpected way that turned him into a firebird, his parents wondered if they had perhaps named him a bit too aptly. Even though the kanji ‘Hi’ in his name translated to ‘flight,’ it also shared the same pronunciation for the kanji that denoted ‘fire.’  

Regardless of the fact that their child’s abilities bore no similarities whatsoever with theirs, his parents remained endlessly delighted and fascinated with their strange little chick. All of his little milestones and progresses Eishi noted down meticulously and Rindou cheered for with pride and glee. Hi’en was developing physically and mentally faster than the average infant, though in all likelihood it was because he was switching forms so often. However, all that growing was exhausting for the young baby, and so he ate a lot, and then he slept a lot.

When Rindou returned that evening, it was to a quiet apartment with the lights dimmed. There was a flickering glow emanating from the living room, and when she exchanged her shoes for indoor ones at the genkan and went down the hallway, she discovered that the source of light was from the television, the volume muted so that only the images were playing across the screen. Eishi was sprawled out in the middle of the couch strewn all over with toys, his eyes closed, faintly, halfheartedly humming a lulling song. Curled against his chest was a little ball of fur and feathers, and the little thing must have tuckered himself out after running his father ragged all day, for he barely stirred even when his female parent approached and sank onto the adjacent cushions.

Eishi cracked opened one eye, sleepy lavender meeting quietly amused gold.

“…Okaeri,” he greeted his mate softly. He wasn’t exactly his usual neat, immaculate self. It appeared that even possessing the ability of accelerated thought process was no match to counter the sheer unpredictability of a small but determined infant. Eishi’s hair looked like he had run his hands through it several times that evening alone, his shirt was missing some buttons and partially untucked, and there were unidentifiable stains on his jeans and also on his collar. She thought that he looked manly and attractive all the same, exuding responsible daddy vibes, very irresistible.

“Tadaima,” she mouthed back. Her hand came up, fingers brushing over his crown, trying to help arrange the unrulier locks into some semblance of order. “Looks like you had a nice time with En-chan,” she drawled innocuously, trying not to grin at his visibly disheveled expression. She petted his hair affectionately, at the same time leaning in to brush her lips against his jaw. “You’ve worked hard today, papa~”

He silently tilted his head against hers, his arms already occupied cradling their child. Rindou’s gaze lowered onto where Hi’en was quietly sleeping. His fuzzy little face was barely visible, tucked under one downy front limb as he continued to doze, his little torso gently rising and falling with the cadence of his deep, steady breathing. Just looking at her son made her very happy, regardless of what form he chose to take. He was safe and protected, he was perfectly healthy, and he was growing up well. That was all that mattered.

“…Ah. I forgot the milk and eggs.”

Eishi’s eyes had closed again, and he leaned just a little more into her before she could move away.

“Let’s do that tomorrow… Stay.”

…So maybe she wasn’t the only one who felt a bit lonely now that they wouldn’t be able to take missions together, at least not in the immediate future.

She snuggled down beside him, this boy she loved first long before he gave her another to dote on and adore. Their family might be small and there were also times when it felt like they had no idea what they were doing, but to her, this was perfect.

“’Kay.”

Eishi: Accelerated Thought Process, Mid-Air Combat

Rindou: Gravity Manipulation, Primordial Air Manipulation

Hi’en: Mythical Bestiary, Electric-Fire Manipulation

Chouko: Faithifery, Existence Sense