#whoever wins we lose haha whatever

[talesofwhimsy]

WHY?, “Sin Imperial" // Car Sear Headrest, “I Can Play the Piano”

[solbach-colbrock]

Up Top! - Seth Borden X Reader

SUMMARY - You and Seth have developed a… unique high five

WARNINGS - none

WORDS - 1k

NOTES - This is actually something I used to do with a friend of mine. I thought it would be cute to write. Also Chase is in this one

~*~*~*~

Neither of you were sure how long you had been doing it, but by now it was practically automatic. Every time you and Seth got excited, you would… well, it wasn’t quite a high-five, but that was the closest approximation you could make. You got a few odd looks and laughs the first couple of times, but at this point you got looked at funny if Seth’s palm didn’t collide with your forehead when you two were hyped up about something.

At least part of it was due to your height difference. Being shorter than him, you had already become his designated armrest, so it was no real surprise when he started joking about your height by holding out his hand to high five you right at your face height and you just… smacked it with your forehead in spite. It was goofy, and the fans definitely loved it. 

You, Seth, and Chase were filming a video for Chase’s channel. It was a quiz challenge thing, all the questions coming from Twitter fans asking you about details of your past videos that you were likely to get wrong. The two losers of the challenge had to dye a strip of their hair whatever color the winner decided. Two of you were gonna end up matching, and as funny as the concept was, you’d rather not let either of them decide what colors your hair was. 

“I fucking knew it, too! My first fucking thought was, ‘oh it was definitely my green hoodie’, but then you started talking and I started doubting myself! Motherfucker,” you exclaimed, sinking into the backseat of the car. You put your head in your hands, annoyed by the laughter coming from the brothers in the front seats. 

“Haha! I messed with your mind!” Seth laughed.

Y: “Guys, this man in gaslighting me! I have it here.”

S: “Alright Chase, your turn.”

C: “Damn, alright. Hit me.”

S: “What was the name of the man who was rumored to have hung himself at the Shanley Hotel?”

C: “Ah, fuck. How am I supposed to remember that? We filmed that a couple months ago.”

Y: “Even I know the answer to this, and I haven’t even been there yet.”

S: “How the fuck do you know then?”

Y: “I watched the video! I was interested in the lore! It was new information!”

S: “Fuckin’ nerd, alright. What’re you a fan or something?”

Y: “Oh, I’m so sorry for supporting you and your career, Jesus.”

S: “Ok Chase you’ve had plenty of time to come up with an answer. What do you think his name was? Like, honestly, if I didn’t have the answer right in front of me, I don’t think I'd be able to answer this one.”

C: “Fuck, um… David or somethin’? I don’t know!”

S: “Final answer?”

C: “I guess? I really don’t know.”

The smirk on your face grew to a grin as he answered.

S: “Wrong, it was William.”

Y: “Get fucked! Oh, I knew you weren’t getting that one.”

S: “Now you two are tied.”

C: “One of us is gonna lose.”

Y: “Seth is already losing this one.”

S: “Yea, there’s no way I’m wining. I’ve only got two questions right.”

Y: “Should we do a tiebreaker? One question, and whoever gets the answer right first wins?”

C: “Oh, yea. We gotta find a question both of us could answer, though.”

S: “Alright, I’ll look. Give me a second.”

You and Chase relaxed for a moment, avoiding opening your phones in case you came across the same question that Seth could ask you. Chase turned around in his seat when he heard you chuckle to yourself.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing. Just deciding what color would look best on you two.” He rolled his eyes at you, his competitive side coming out full force now that it was down to the wire.

“What makes you think you’re winnin’?” You folded your arms over your chest in defiance.

“I’ve watched the videos multiple times. I know what the fans have seen.”

S: “Okay, shut up. I’ve got the question. At the Hatfield Estate, what did the ghost of Arnold whisper in Josh’s ear?”

Y: “Oh, shit! Fuck, I know this!”

C: “God, what was it? I was standin’ right next to him when it happened, too. Damn it…”

S: “You guys get thirty more seconds before I need an answer, right or wrong. Whoever gets closest, I'll take it.”

C: “God, was it ‘come find me’? I remember it was a little kid sayin’ it.”

S: “That-“

Y: “No! It was ‘over here’ because after we started freaking out about it the REM pod started going off in the other room! Like it was trying to show us where it was!”

S: “Yea, that’s correct, actually. Chase, you lost.”

You were practically jumping in the back seat from excitement, cheering at Chase’s distraught state. Your hyper reaction was infectious, and Seth stuck his arm towards the back seat for a high five. You threw your head forward, your forehead making contact with his open palm.

S: “Let’s go! Good job.”

Y: “I fuckin’ knew it! Now I have to decide on a color.”

S: “Wait fuck I forgot I have to do that. What the hell am I celebrating for?”

The three of you wrapped up the video, opting to post pictures of you dying their hair as well as the final result on instagram later. 

“How many edits do you think we’re gonna get out of the high five this time?” Seth asked, knowing full well there would be some made within an hour of posting the video. There were always at least a couple when you two did that. The fans loved your silly little habit. They thought it was really cute and endearing, and frankly, so did you.

“Oh, plenty. It’s been at least two months since we did that on camera. They’re gonna eat that shit up.”

“Will you two just fuckin’ date already?”

“Chase!”

“Shut up, bro!’

[rzyraffek]

Imagine the slashers seeing the reader doing rolley polleys down a big hill on snow and she goes a bit too far and the slashers have to chase after her

This can be for John, Billy and stu, and more!

Headcanon IS THE BEST

Yesyesyes good. I kinda changed the idea but its very similar, She/her pronouns, sfw and Request open (I think like i need to say it, please go Look at my pinned post there is all info u need to know before requesting)

Billy loomis

"I wanna!! I go slide of big hill!" "Yeah whatever, but im not joining you, somone has to be smart here" ">:( loozer ur lose"

He kinda realised that she couldnt stop after good minute, and he had to run for her

"NO more rolling! You could die!" He was a little nervous "😵‍💫tomato😵‍💫" "what? Wha? U know what I dont care, lets go i dont want you sick"

They both got sick btw

Stu macher

"Hon wanna do race! Whoever wins has to buy winner a beer" "a beer? You are weak😈Imma win"

She won, but she rolled so hard that he accualy had to run and stop her

"Haha you alright?? You look like u gonna puke" "I won😈 also i dont really think i can get up can you help me"

Yeah she kinda got stuck in huge pile of snow. Of course He helped her (after lauthing and taking some pics)

Hush man[j o h n]

Big man loves snow🥰 he doenst really mind cold too!(for the whole movie he was outside)

As much as he loves snow He loves you more! "I- I wanna go slide of big Mountain!" "Its -4degrees outside u gonna freeze to ground" "Worth it"

"Honneyy can we go on cute walk in snow in forest its pretty!(its a trap John she wants to roll from hill) "Oh yeah sure! Just wear something warm" "sure hehehe😈"

Later when they are walking cutley in forest "omy Look john we are on biiigg hill Look at that" "oh yeah! Wait- what are you- *y/o yeeting him* *insert john rolling and screaming* (it remjnds me of this one scene in lion king when the bab lion trows dad lion off the Cliff)

She of course joined him in this lovley rolling activity

"😈hehheeh hi john how u feeling" "betrayed and cold"

[airplanned]

WIP Wednesday Thursday

Zoro and Sanji are both dumbasses, just in different ways.

--

Zoro's in the kitchen being underfoot, and just because he's in the damn way and he knows Zoro will hate it (haha!), Sanji smacks a kiss to his cheek.  Loud and popping and as annoying as he can possibly make it.  He's expecting Zoro to flail out an arm, to snarl at him and shout at him, and Sanji would laugh and laugh and laugh.  

He's not expecting Zoro to whip around in one smooth movement and slap his ass. Loud and popping and as annoying as he can possibly make it.

Sanji's soul jerks out of his body, leaving him stiff, wide-eyed, and frozen for a beat too long before he explodes with, "You fucking shitty lump of mold!"  

But Zoro's already out the door.  He shoots Sanji a grin over his shoulder that for a moment makes him look his age, and even as Sanji's skin and bones vibrate with indignation, the rest of his insides melt at the sight.  He should go after that idiot and drag him into a storage room.

He should go after him and punt him into the ocean.

It's impossible to decide which one is the more appealing option.

Fucking asshole.

He sighs and turns back to his meal prep.  But maybe his sigh was a bit too wistful, because Nami clears her throat.  He looks up to where Nami and Usopp have been sitting at the kitchen island.  

Sitting and watching.  

Usopp gives him a look like he's trying to do long division in his head and also has to sneeze.  Nami just looks exhausted.

"Please tell him not to do that in front of Luffy.  We don't need him getting ideas."

"Forget Luffy," Usopp says.  "Y'all shouldn't do that in front of me.  My eyes are delicate!"

Sanji laughs.  "No argument from me."  Except now that Sanji's had a moment, he's actually not against whatever that was happening again.  And, yeah, without other people around.  Yes.  Good.

"You did start it," Nami says.

"And Zoro finished it," Usopp adds.  They give him weirdly identical pitying looks.  Clearly, they've been hanging out together too much.

Sanji shakes his head.  "Look, he may have won that battle, but he won't win the war."

Nami blinks at him.  "The...war?"

"There's a winner?" Usopp asks.

Sanji nods. "That's what he says."

For a moment they both stare at him, but he's in agreement with them that it is an absurd game and Zoro makes no sense at all. While they're working through it in their heads, he chops more onions.

Nami's eyes are narrowed in thought as she slowly asks, "So...how does one win the war?"

"Oh!" Usopp jumps in. "Okay, so they're gonna get worse and worse until one day Sanji dares Zoro to marry him. Not just dare him, but double dog dare him.  That means you have to do it.  And then Zoro will say--" in what he must think is an impression of Zoro, Usopp frowns and glares off into the distance and says , "I never back down.  And then they'll get married!"

This explanation (although amusing) does not answer any questions and does not clear up anything for Nami.  "...That sounds like they both lose. No offense."

"None taken," Sanji says.  As if he'd dare Zoro to marry him.  We would never.

Well...actually... he could see picture it if he was in an extremely competitive mood, and he could see it if their fights escalated without Zoro backing down until they got to that point.  

But it's not like that would happen any time soon or anything.

"No no," Usopp explains. "You see, they'll both write their own vows, and whoever cries first when they read them loses."

"So...Sanji," Nami says.

"Oh yeah.  No doubt."

They both turn to give him pitying looks.  Identical pitying looks. 

"You're going to lose eventually," Nami says.  "No way around it."

"Yeah. Sorry, man."

"Just give up now and save us all from...that."  She waves a hand over her shoulder.

Sanji's not quite sure where to start with this.  They're making a big deal over nothing, and he has everything under control.  "Nami, it pains me to disagree with you--"

She throws her head back and groans.

"--But I will not be bested by sentient moss.  Don't worry.  I'll win before it escalates that far."

Now both of them are trying to do division and need to sneeze.  They turn to look at each other, holding some telepathic conversation.  (Way too much time together.)

"Okay, I'm out," Usopp announces, and Nami agrees with a, "Yep."

They both vanish from the kitchen without a decent goodbye.

[abimee]

Oh I love how you found out about the humans and how the moon landings were fake (ha) and of course I won't spoil anything, but I always assumed that because of the all too human like emotions and personalities of the Androids they needed to keep up moral or less they'd all loose it (kinda like what we saw in some of 9S's endings)

im personally really curious about why the androids Have emotions in the first place and why YoRHa (or whatever androids keeping up the yoRHa bit??) are sending purified water up to the moon in otherwise empty containerships, if all thats up there is Gestalt/Replicant storage. like for the android emotion thing if humans Did make us why would they give us the ability to possibly defect In losing morale, and if we (as in 2B and such) Wasnt made by humans then who and for what purpose, if the original goal of yoRHa isnt what we are currently being told

not to mention what would happen If we did just like. win the war. Like if we finally ended the conflict with the machines and it was time for humans to come down from the moon what on earth would the Commander (and whoever shes working with...?) do, just up and come out like ''haha yeah guys uhm actually. all the humans died a long time ago sowwy"

also why do Eve and Adam look like us if theyre apparently machines and why do they bleed 👁️ AND WHY ARE DEVOLA AND POPOLA HERE. i have so many questions im hoping to learn about in route C

[luckyqueenreign]

Okay girl I need to vent and have a favor to ask:

1. Why the fuck is Nicholas trying to tell us what our hubby’s biggest turn on is??!!! Like we were dating him for over a year and there have been scenes in challenges talking about this already. Lazy writing on FB’s part

2. I was slightly mean to Meera but for whatever reason I can’t be mean in this game (I always fear that I won’t win if I am bc on a different season that I played twice, the time I was drama and mean to everyone I didn’t win haha)- all that to say can you give us screengrabs of the Meerat convos when you’re mean to her? Especially the gem scene cause I didn’t do that one!

3. Please don’t hate me but I’m leading Finn on. Picked his route because the drama I do like in this game is when I play the boys. So I’m going to keep Finn and Suresh both on their toes and pick the options for yes with both! Whoever I end up picking, I’ll replay again from these episodes to pick the opposite. Also F U fusebox for telling us things were going to get steamy in the shower with Finn this week and the only thing steamy was the actual shower steam😐 I need more bits this season people!!!

4. Everyone talks about the shit that MC has been getting this season but talk about what FB is doing to Alfie mate!!! First, I don’t think there is like anyone I’ve seen actually on his route. Like FB you have DESTROYED his chance at happiness by making him attached to MC. LIKE BABE IVE TURNED YOU DOWN FOR EVERY SINGLE OPTION THIS ENTIRE SEASON AND YOU STILL HAVE FEELINGS FOR ME?! So many interactions and options this season have been wasted because he’s been a gnat that’s always around MC’s head. Like we could have had WAY more Li interactions if they just let us deny Alfie from the beginning and leave it at that.

ahahaha I thought the same thing!! I wish they added in a line like but you knew that about Suresh already or something like that.

that wont happen this season...everyone literally bullied us and I honestly believe they ADDED on these moments because of our complaints they wouldnt make us lose for bullying now. Also ill have to go back but I will post later and Ill tag you.

I could never hate you!! I actually was considering doing this as well until I saw that our choices in SMP mattered so now im wary of deviating off of Suresh route. BUT BABE DO YOU!!!!!! Also yes such a tease!!!

honestly this is so true...the only reason why I even entertained Alfie was because I saw from the leaks how deliciously jealous Suresh got whenever we kissed/did anything with Alfie. So of course I gave in and snogged him at every chance I got. But its even worse because I definitely led him on, then cheated with my ex 🫣😩 and this boy is still after me!! BUT what I recently discovered from a very helpful anon was that if you're on the Dana route, Alfie basically comes after you AGAIN in episode 34. The man has never given up on MC even when she picks Dana. I feel for him.

[sixosix]

hey!!! i'm absolutely in LOVE with your writing! i especially love your good luck charm kuroo one (i am a huge kuroo lover) & atsumu's drabble it's so freaking cute!!

idk if you're taking requests rn (ignore this if u aren't T_T) but may i request kuroo with a reader that has really pretty eyes? like, so pretty that everyone around them just, stops whatever they were doing just to stare at their eyes!! i just need an ego boost to get through this week!!!! 🐏

hi thank you sm i feel so flattered >__< an ego boost, you say? hope this helps. yes requests are open haha thanks for requesting!

fluff, kuroo is a bit (understatement) whipped, wc 850

kuroo likes volleyball.

it's a sport he plays mostly every single day -- willingly, kenma pointed out once, disgruntled -- of course, he does, and of course, he should.

loving volleyball is easy. he loves the thrill, the adrenaline, everything that makes up the game of volleyball. he loves it, and his passion shows in his face whether he wins or loses.

kuroo loves volleyball: a fact.

volleyball players like kuroo find it hard to seek something else that’d grab his attention when he could just give it his all on volleyball: a fact, that suddenly didn't apply to kuroo because of today.

he blames it on you.

you're a transfer. he's never seen you around before until today, and that's only because you've arrived today. he knows this because as soon as he enters the classroom, his attention is on you in an instant.

if he had met you before, he knows that he would've remembered you.

you make it hard to ignore you, it seems. the boy sitting in front of you is a blushing mess, shoulders hunched awkwardly as if he's conscious of every action he's making. kuroo almost feels bad.

but you're not even looking at him. you're staring outside, face glowing from the sunlight pouring generously on your skin. kuroo dares to take a step closer, almost wary.

your eyes grace his presence with acknowledgment.

and-- okay, maybe a bit too dramatic. back off. but judging by the quiet sounds of breath hitching around him, it's not too far off. maybe it was him who suddenly forgot how to breathe.

pretty, he thinks. and then thanks whoever was responsible for making it a sign of courtesy to stare at someone's eyes when speaking.

your eyes glitter with recognition, staring right at him. he feels as if his feet are pinned to the ground.

“thanks,” you say. and kuroo, in horror, realizes he has said it out loud. “i get that sometimes.”

his ears flush a dark red, he knows it does, because then your expression shifts to amusement, and some who were watching look at him as if he's crazy.

“just sometimes?” kuroo finds himself continuing as he makes his way over to the desk beside you -- his desk; how lucky. “shame.”

your laugh sounds as breathtaking as your eyes.

kuroo feels himself fall, and he's not quite sure how deep the ground will be -- not sure if he even wants to be caught.

he doesn't know what this feeling is, but it's similar to getting the last point to winning a match.

it's a little thrilling.

when people talk to you, they're strangely closer than usual, yet they all avoid your eyes with nervous glances around the room, kuroo notices.

but he can’t be too jealous. he completely understands. he almost wants to give them a moment of silence as respect.

he sighs, having to physically pull you away from this girl who seems too keen on talking to you with her hands on yours. it’s not jealousy. it’s not, stop saying that. he just… feels protective. or something.

“sorry, hana, someone’s a little too impatient,” you laugh as you’re dragged away by kuroo who grunts in acknowledgment to the bewildered girl.

“we were supposed to be at the market ten minutes ago,” kuroo grumbles, displeased.

“i know,” you say. “but it’s funny seeing you jealous.”

“i’m not,” kuroo huffs stubbornly. hook, line, and sinker -- he’s a fool. “i can just ditch you right now and treat myself to dinner, babe, don’t act so smug.”

“but i thought we were gonna go on a date?” you purposely widen your eyes and look at him through your lashes. when they're round like that, kuroo feels as if he's looking right at something like a double-edged sword.

kuroo feels as if he's signed up to something dangerous.

“fuck,” says kuroo, pained.

he has come to a revelation.

this strange feeling -- which he usually brushed off as the thrill of finding a new friend -- is not, in fact, platonic. far from that, even. the pace of his heart ringing in his ears and the heat under his cheeks means something.

a date. and his brain is too pleased with those two words for it to be platonic-- he’s not stupid.

he is a weak man when it comes to l/n y/n. that is a fact he wishes you shall never know. (maybe you already do; those puppy eyes come to him too often now when you want him to say yes.)

kuroo loves your eyes, that is a fact. he’s long accepted this. it makes him feal a little weak in a way where he doesn’t mind.

kuroo loves your eyes, your hair, your smile, your lips, the way you say his name, the way you make his heart beat: facts, facts, facts.

“i think i might be in love with you,” he states.

you stare at him -- he loves it, being the center of your attention -- and grin so widely that he worries your cheeks might hurt. “i think i might be in love with you, too.”

with the way you look at him, and the way his heart bursts, he thinks maybe it’s not so bad.

[t-wordy-kk]

Prank Day:

After a bunch of chaos in my personal life, here’s the promised prank war fic!! This is one I feel really good about, the ideas just kept flowing and I just kept writing, so I hope you all enjoy!!

Word count: 4,097

(Only warning is language, otherwise SFW)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"This isn't just a prank day anymore, it's a war!"

Just like any other normal workday, you were partnering with Bruce and Tony in the lab, and you were thinking it would be a normal day. No extraterrestrial threats to worry about, no bank robberies, just a relaxing workday. But of course, you thought too soon.

"Y/N, Steve needs you in the lounge, I just got a text from him," Tony said with a smirk on his face that Bruce saw, but you didn't.

"Okay, tell him I'll be up in a minute. Don’t know why he couldn’t text me instead, but it’s whatever," You replied as you walked out of the lab, only to turn the corner and get hit with water balloons. "Wow guys, that's really nice of you. Now I'm soaked!"

"Oh yeah, Steve doesn't need you anymore. Happy prank day!" Bruce exclaimed, high-fiving Tony. This was a semi-normal occurrence, every third Friday of every month, it was prank day in the tower. The only people that participated anymore were you, Tony, and Bruce. They normally just teamed up on you until you gave in, and today was the day you completely forgot about its existence.

"Jerks," You muttered, walking to your room to change clothes.

As you were walking, you passed by both Tony's and Bruce's bedrooms, and you got an idea.

"Tony, Bruce, I need you guys, now! This isn't a prank, I swear." Out of breath from running back down, you stood in the lab doorframe after changing, patiently waiting for the fun you planned to begin.

"Bruce, should we believe her?" Tony whispered.

"She sounds pretty worried, we should go," Bruce replied, putting his test tube that he was holding back on the rack and following you out the door, with Tony following close behind.

"Y/N, what do you-" Bruce started as he got hit with the same water balloon dispenser that hit you, Tony getting hit right after while you managed to dodge it.

"This is serious, I was changing and I heard noises from inside your guys' rooms when I was walking by them," You said, expertly hiding your smile and minor giggles at what was to follow.

"It was probably Loki again," Tony hypothesized. "I'm going to give him a piece of my mind once this is all over."

Once you got over to their rooms, you clicked a button you hid in your pocket to make the recordings play from within their rooms. "See, I told you something was in there."

"Tony, you take your room and I'll take mine. Y/N, stay here, we'll be right back," Bruce said. "On the count of three, Tony. One, two, three!"

As they opened the doors and walked in, they triggered the tripwires you set up and each got hit in the face with a pie and more water balloons. "And that's what you get for pranking me when I didn't even know it was today!" You yelled with a fist pump.

"Haha, very funny.”

"Oh, this isn't just prank day anymore, war has been initiated!" Tony yelled, running into his room to find his rules for a prank war because, well, it was Tony, why wouldn't he have a list of prank war rules?

"According to the official Tony Stark prank war doctrine, the war shall start at midnight. Once midnight hits, whoever does the most pranks within a 24 hour period wins. No involving others, all pranks must be performed by yourselves with no peer involvement, blah blah blah. Me and Bruce against you, Y/N, since you decided to start this whole thing."

"But I-"

"Rules are rules. And since you decided to initiate this, whoever loses will be subject to doing whatever the winner wants. Now, I'm going to bed, see you all tomorrow," Tony said, walking back into his room, only to get hit again. "Y/N, get rid of these water balloons!"

“But it’s only 3:00 in the afternoon!”

“Oh, right. Back to the lab!”

Slowly making your way back, your mind began to wander. If you lost, you would get punished. Not knowing what Tony meant by that, you could only hope it wasn’t them exploiting your sensitivity just to get laughs out of you. The two of them almost found out when they did your physical, as they were pressing on your stomach and you noticeably had to hold in your laughter. It was obvious then that the constantly turning gears in their heads were up to no good, but you let it slide and never brought it up since then. And neither have they, which left you worried.

“So Tones, what’s this punishment of which you speak?” You asked as you tapped Tony in the middle of his back, hoping to prepare yourself for the worst.

“Up to the winners. No limits,” He responded, turning around and poking your side since he couldn’t reach you back, making you flinch away. “Is it that bad of a deal?”

“N-no, it’s fine,” You stuttered, walking to the other side of the lab and poking Bruce the same way you did Tony. “Bruce, any better information from you than Iron Beard over there?”

“Nope, he said it all.” As you turned and walked away, he sneakily fluttered his fingers along your ribs, knowing you would react similar to how you did when Tony poked you. As you jumped and squealed in surprise, you turned around to see him focused on his work. “You alright Y/N?”

“Y-yeah, I’m perfectly fine, nothing wrong here.”

“Since when am I Iron Beard?”

Going back to your room, you felt very tense the whole way up, not knowing if anyone would try to sneak a poke to your ribs or a finger flutter to the back of the knees. You weren’t sure if they did it intentionally or if it was just coincidence, but you were still on edge. After your SHIELD training, it was difficult for people to sneak up on you, but today it seemed like you forgot everything you had learned on the way to your room.

“Hey Y/N, I-”

“Holy shit!” You yelled, turning around only to find Peter standing behind you. “Oh, hey Peter.”

“Is everything okay? I mean, you seem really on edge and I’m sure you’re great, but I just wanted to let you know that I found your regular hair soap in the kitchen cabinet, don’t know why, but I think Mr. Stark switched it for bright blue colored soap, and-”

“Thanks Peter,” You said in relief as he passed you your shampoo. “All I’m gonna say is to be careful, tomorrow is a prank war between the lab rats and me and I don’t want anyone to get in the middle of it. So just let them know, I guess.”

“Good luck to you then, they always win.”

“That doesn’t help me.” Watching Peter walk back down the hall, likely getting ready to warn the others, you began to think of a plan, keeping you up into the late hours of the night.

The next morning, you woke up late, remembering that you were in the midst of a prank war with Tony and Bruce. You tried to walk out of your room, but there was plastic wrap taped to the outside of the door. Luckily you noticed it and walked under it.

"Morning boys, lovely sunrise, isn't it?" You said, walking into the kitchen where you found them drinking their morning coffee at the expensive kitchen island that Tony had installed.

"Hey Y/N, do you want a leftover breakfast wrap, or would that be too plasticky for you?" Tony asked, a smirk evident on his face while Bruce barely contained a chuckle.

“Haha, very funny. I’m getting French toast, you two better not have screwed with it.”

“That’s the last thing I’d mess around with,” Tony mentioned as you put some on a plate, grabbing the powdered sugar container.

“Glad to know I’m safe,” You sassed back. As you began to shake the powdered sugar on, the lid came off and the whole jar spilled onto your food, as you realized that it was salt instead of sugar. “Damn it!”

“See you in the lab Y/N!” Bruce called from the hallway.

“I’m going out to get food!”

Walking down the sidewalk to a small bakery, you began plotting ways to get back at the boys. Water balloons again? No, they would be expecting something as naive as that. Hacking the technology so it goes against them? That would mess up everything you’ve worked on, so you’d have to start over. Messing with their food? That one got you thinking, they messed up your food, so why couldn’t you mess up theirs?

After you got yourself a pastry from the bakery, you made a quick stop at the grocery store, where you found the perfect way to get back at the boys and hopefully win the war. Who doesn’t love spicy peppers, especially mixed in with their food? Tony and Bruce constantly babbled about their hatred of spicy foods the first time you made Mexican food and added a little bit too much cayenne and chili powder for their liking. That was a fun trip to the store to get more milk that day, but it gave you the perfect ammunition to use now.

“What’re we working on this time?” You asked, your mouth half full of your pastry as you walked into the lab. After setting up some minor pranks, of course. It was a prank war, anything counted.

“Glad you asked. While you were off putting more salt on your food than you needed to, we were working on this robot, and now we need a test person. Are you up for it?” Tony asked in response, stealing a small piece of the pastry you held in your hand. “Thanks.”

“I was at the store, thank you very much. And I guess, what’s it supposed to do?”

“Well, just stand here, and it’ll hold you still despite how much you move, it’s a work in progress but we can’t do anything else without a test.”

“And why are we making this?” You asked in iminent worry, feeling as though it was a prank.

“Just to see if it could be used as a temporary cell while transferring enemies to jail,” Bruce added, going back to the blueprints that you had no prior knowledge of.

“And you want me to test it?”

“Yes, now are you in or not?”

“Fine, just don’t hurt me,” You said, stepping up onto the mini platform. You had to admit, it was very compact, space-wise, giving enough space for people to move around like it wasn’t even there.

“Okay, so it’s gonna wrap around your wrists and raise them above your head,” Tony said as he clicked a button while Bruce scribbled down notes on a random sheet of paper, likely an addition to the blueprints.

“It’s a little snug, but it’s supposed to be like that, right?”

“Yes Y/N, now it’s gonna wrap around your ankles and lift you upwards a little bit,” Bruce added as Tony clicked another button. The machine did exactly what they said, but you were still lost on the main purpose. You decided to not ask, especially since you didn’t want to provoke them any further, knowing you were in the middle of a prank war.

“And you’re sure this isn’t a prank.”

“Nope,” They unanimously responded while you felt small, repeated strokes at the bottom of your feet, getting bombarded with the tingly ticklish feeling. “Everything okay?”

“I-is it supposed to do t-that?” You stuttered out, doing everything in your power to hold back your laughter.

“Oh, the pokes? Yeah, it's supposed to do that,” Tony answered, pressing another button that sent small electric-like shocks through your body, not enough to hurt you though. And that was your limit.

“Gehehet it off pleheHEHEASE!!”

“Test subject cannot hold back laughter with pokes and shocks, perfect. That’s all we needed, thanks Y/N,” Bruce said as he closed his notebook while Tony turned the machine off, helping you down. You could’ve sworn he dug his fingers into your hips a little more than necessary, but that could’ve been the residual ticklish shocks coursing through your body.

“Is there a reason you subjected me to that?” You asked, rubbing your sides and finally ridding yourself of the tingling feeling.

“We needed a test subject, and with your sensitivity and willingness to help, you fell right into our prank. One point for the bros!” Tony yelled, trying to give Bruce a high five but missing his hand by a huge distance.

“Damn you! I’ll find a way to get you back, I swear by it!” You exclaimed as you left the lab, narrowly avoiding the cliche water bucket over the door prank, which disappointed Bruce. But you knew you would get them back.

As the day went on, you barely avoided some of the pranks, like the glue as your hair conditioner, which you almost didn’t notice until you were about to put it in your hair, and the pie in a box the boys put in your room that you let hit the wall. They got into a lot of the pranks you set up, mostly because you knew where they would be based on their routines and plotted the perfect ones. It got down to the last half hour of the war, and everyone sat around the dinner table, hoping that nothing was going to backfire on them.

“So, who is winning the battle of pranks?” Thor asked as he shoved a spoonful of his food into his mouth.

“We have one more win than she does, so there’s obviously a clear winner.” Glaring at Tony from across the table, he smirked back at you, despite him not knowing what you had planned.

Once you returned from the store earlier in the day, you used the peppers you bought while you were there to make a loaf of spicy bread to go with dinner. Knowing that the rest of the team could handle really spicy food, you knew that they would be on board with your prank. You still told them in advance before you all went to eat dinner, but they were more than pleased. It turned out that some of the team ran into one of the boys’ pranks at some point in the day, so it was a perfect way for them to get back at them too.

“Oh, I forgot to mention at the beginning of dinner, but I made something today for us to have, it’s an old recipe that’s been passed through my family and I wanted you guys to try it,” You lied, getting up out of your chair to get the bread. 10 minutes left on the prank timer, perfect.

"What even is it Y/N?” Steve asked, expertly playing along with the prank.

“It’s a special bread that my mom would make during special occasions like parties, birthdays, holidays, stuff like that. But everyone in my family has always enjoyed it, so I thought that you guys would too.”

The only part that wasn’t a lie was the fact that you did have a recipe for bread that you got from your mom. She was a baker, so she would make stuff like bread all of the time. You found a way to grind up the peppers you bought so they wouldn’t be noticeable, but still really spicy, making the bread loaf like a firebomb to the mouth.

“And, here’s the masterpiece,” You said with a small smile as you returned with the bread. Tony and Bruce hadn’t caught on, perfect. 8 minutes left, this better work.

“That’s so nice of you Y/N, can I have a small slice?” Wanda asked, knowing what was coming in the following moments.

“That actually looks really good, I want some!" Tony yelled, his inner child coming out.

"I'll have some too," Bruce added. "Wait, Y/N, be honest, is this a prank?"

"No," You lied, cutting up the bread into thick slices with a small one for Wanda, just enough for you and the rest of the team. "Here you go guys."

“Does someone else want to give it a go? Make sure it isn’t poisoned?” Tony asked with a hint of sarcasm.

So, to satisfy Tony’s ridiculous wishes, the rest of the team all took a bite of their respective slice, all of them giving compliments. And you could tell they weren’t trying to hide the prank, because their tone of voice sounded the same as it always did.

“Not poisoned?” You asked with a laugh, knowing it would hurt Bruce and Tony. 4 minutes, time’s running out.

“No, it’s some of the best bread I’ve ever eaten Y/N,” Nat responded, a smile on her face. Whether it was from the bread or excitement about the prank, you couldn’t tell. But it was a genuine smile, so she was putting on a great act.

“Well, you two are the only ones who haven’t had any yet, just take a huge bite and go for it,” Clint said from his chair, already finished with his piece.

“Please? I need an opinion from everybody,” You mentioned with a sweet smile, one that you knew they couldn’t say no to.

“If you truly need opinions, then opinions you’ll get,” Bruce said as he took a huge chunk from his piece and put it in his mouth, Tony doing the same.

"Thanks for making this Y/N, I think it’s really good. Phew, it's a little spicy," Tony said, breathing a little faster due to the heat. 2 minutes left, almost a winner.

"Yeah, what did you put in this?" Bruce asked, a visible sweat on his forehead.

"Oh, so remember when I went to the store? That was to get the final ingredients for the recipe, so there’s just some ghost peppers, habaneros, cayenne peppers, you know, spicy stuff like that," You said with a smile. “Wait, did I not mention that this was a special spicy bread, exclusive to prank wars? Oops.”

"You WHAT?”

"Where’s the milk, come on, it’s gotta be here,” Tony asked, digging through the fridge without finding anything. “Did we seriously run out?”

“Tony move!” Bruce yelled, shoving Tony out of the way but having the same luck. “Who had the last of it?”

“I knew that this would happen, so I got you guys milk already.” Pulling out two glasses of milk from behind your leftovers in the fridge, you passed them to Bruce and Tony. 30 seconds left, one prank to go.

As Tony and Bruce began drinking their glasses of milk, you watched the clock count down. 10 seconds left, it was now or never.

“Oh yeah, that milk has been watered down.”

“WHAT?!”

“Timer complete. The winner, with 24 pranks pulled, Y/N,” FRIDAY announced, causing Bruce and Tony to begin complaining, while you and the rest of the team began cheering.

“Who’s the prank master now, boys?” You asked, sticking your tongue out and doing your little happy dance, when you felt someone grab your arms from behind. “Wait, wait, wait, get off!”

“Well Y/N, there’s one thing you forgot about. Remember our deal, about not getting others involved?” Bruce asked, raising an eyebrow in your direction.

“Oh shit,” You whispered, remembering the rule after a moment of thinking. But that didn’t matter, you still won.

“Yeah, oh shit. So baby spider here told us all about your little idea, and that was really spicy by the way, so good execution, but we have your weakness now,” Tony added, a wide smirk on his face. “Happy prank war Y/N. FRIDAY, send in the new project.”

As you watched the small, metal box fly into the room, it landed on the floor and opened, revealing the same machine that Bruce and Tony used on you just hours earlier. “Peter, the betrayal!! Wait, no, no, no, no, not this again. We can talk about this, right? You guys win, is that what you want? Just don’t do it, please.”

“Look at that, we haven’t even done anything to her yet and she’s already giving up. No matter, you broke the rules, you get the rewards,” Bruce told you as Tony lifted you up and put you on the platform, giving your lower ribs a small squeeze in the process.

“Nohohoho!”

“You brought this upon yourself Y/N.” The machine wrapped itself around your wrists and ankles, just like it had that same morning. As it moved you up off of the floor, your heart began racing. Surely they wouldn’t make it too bad, right?”

“Initiating sensitivity test, take two. Action!” Tony yelled, pressing the buttons on the remote to get the machine moving. As you let out helpless giggles, the machine poked and prodded the bottoms of your feet, occasionally scraping up and down your soles.

“Maybe some outside influence would help,” Bucky suggested, winking at you while you gave him a death glare. Well, the best death glare you could muster, given your current situation.

“Nohoho pleheheahse!!”

“He’s right Tony, maybe some outside influence would help. Part 2 of the sensitivity test, initiating,” Bruce said, pressing the button to add the small electric shocks while Tony fluttered his fingers along the backs of your knees, causing you to squeal.

“NOHOHOHO TOHOHONY PLEAHAHAHA!!”

“Subject reacts more to outside influence, let’s change the rate a little bit.” Bruce locked his hands into your ribs, making sure to dig his fingers in between each one. Trying to move away, you realized that you were truly stuck.

“BRUHUHUHCE IHIHI CAHAHANT!!”

“Oh yes you can, you were obviously able to deal with us having to eat crazy spicy food and drink watered down milk, this should be nothing,” Tony mockingly told you, moving from your knees up to your underarms, expertly scribbling his fingers into the sensitive skin.

“WHYHYHYHYHY!!!”

“Don’t ask us, you’re the one that did it. Just apologize and it’ll be over.”

“But you guhuys deserved ihit heHEHEHEY!!!”

“Tony, I think I’m still a little hungry, any ideas?” Bruce asked from behind you, still moving up and down your sides with no intent to stop.

“Well, we do have fruit here, Y/N, any ideas of the fruit?”

“STOHOHOP TEHEHEASIHING!!” You yelled over your laughter, your face as red as a tomato.

“Oh wait, I know what they are. I hope you like raspberries, Bruce.” Barely even a second after Tony spoke, Bruce lifted your shirt and started relentlessly pressing raspberries all over your stomach, still poking and prodding at your sides.

“You should try Tony, they’re really good.” Moving up to your neck, Tony began blowing raspberries back and forth between the sides of your head while you constantly turned it, trying to block him from his vicious attack.

“PLEHEHEASE NOHOHOHO MOHOHORE!!”

“You know what to do Y/N,” Tony sang out, continuing to tickle you wherever he could reach.

“IHIHIHIHIM SOHOHORY PLEHEHEASE!!!”

“She apologized, I never would have believed it!” Bruce mentioned, a hint of sarcasm in his tone. You could tell that he’s spent too much time around Tony, it’s like they were sharing a brain.

“Lehehet me gohoho,” You said, trying to catch your breath while the phantom tickles ghosted throughout your body, making you continue to giggle. It didn’t help that you were still stuck in their machine, which you were eventually released from.

“Who’s the winner now, huh?”

“You guys are, but that was cruel,” You softly said, a stray giggle here and there.

“The watered down milk, that was smart. And your timing was great on that, I’ll give you that win,” Tony said, giving you an encouraging pat on the shoulder. “Just prepare yourself for next month.”

“Maybe next month I’ll actually remember,” You replied with a laugh. “I made you guys cookies earlier, I put them in your rooms if you want them.”

“Not spicy?” Bruce asked, concerned for his taste buds.

“No, not spicy.” As you watched Bruce and Tony walk down the hallway, you suddenly remembered the water balloons you left set up, even though it was a naive prank. “Guys, wait for-”

But it was too late. Hearing the mechanisms move around and the splashing of the water balloons, you decided it was in your best interest to run.

“GET THE MACHINE!!”

[the-bau-quinjet]

Nice to meet you, where you been?

Chapter 2 of In Breakable Heaven!

Summary: Reader becomes acquainted with some members of the BAU.

Warnings: none that I can think of!

Word Count: ~1900

Penny came back out to the foyer, handing you the oversized t-shirt and shorts you left here last time you slept over. You pulled them on quickly, following Penny to the living room where you instantly realized, it was more than just you, Penny, and the tall man in the apartment. You stopped moving as you took in the additional new faces. You had never met Penny’s team before, but she had talked about them a ton. You blushed again thinking of how you must look a mess right now.

“Everyone, this is Y/N! She is my very best friend and she is very sad so we are going to cheer her up.” Penny started the introductions. “Y/N, this is Derek Morgan, Jennifer Jareau aka JJ, and Emily Prentiss.” You took in the names as Penny went around the room. Eyes bouncing between a very muscular bald man and two of the most attractive women you’ve ever seen. “Oh, and for a more formal introduction, this is Dr. Spencer Reid, although you two met at the door.” Your eyes attempted to meet his again, but he was staring at the ground. You couldn’t help the whisper that escaped your lips “Doctor.”

 Either the profilers didn’t hear it, or chose to ignore it, along with the blush forming on your cheeks yet again. You looked around the room again and couldn’t stop yourself from speaking your thoughts. “God, is it a requirement to be hot as hell to work for the FBI?” Everyone laughed as you threw your hand over your mouth, eyes widening. “Oh God. That’s embarrassing. It’s true though, what a good looking team.” That earned more laughter form the group.

  It was clear they were all wondering why you had just sobbed into their coworkers adorable sweater vest. You waited a beat hoping someone would say something. But since they were all staring at you, and you hate awkward silences, you couldn’t help but blurt out “today was my 3 year anniversary with my boyfriend,” Not noticing the slight frown appear on Spencer’s face, you continued “but I went over to his place and found him in bed with another woman. So now I am very drunk.” Their faces all softened, offering slight words of encouragement as you sunk into the sofa and picked up the bottle of white wine from the table. Not even bothering with a glass, you started drinking again. You drank nearly half the bottle before taking a breath.

 “Woah” you heard someone say, but honestly you didn’t know who. “Why don’t we play a game or something? Maybe switch to water so you don’t completely hate yourself tomorrow?” You realized it was JJ talking. “I am always down – hiccup – for a game. I must warn you, I am extremely competitive though. Plus, I don’t get hungover so I’ll be fine.” You looked at their disbelieving faces. “Fine” you muttered, annoyed at having to explain this again, “I’ll switch to water for a bit. But only because I want to win.”

 Penny went to get the cards, confirming your statement “Y/N is right ya know. She has never been hungover. I’ve seen her drink countless tequila shots, chase them each with a wine cooler and clean her entire apartment before 8 AM the next day.”

 “Impressive.” Derek smirked as he looked at you.

 “What can I say? It really boosts my productivity.” The room chuckled as the hot doctor chimed in.

 “Your liver is responsible for breaking down all the alcohol you consume into an enzyme called acetaldehyde, the toxin responsible for hangovers. Recent studies have shown about 23% of people are able to break down the acetaldehyde much faster resulting in little to no hangover symptoms. Whether or not you experience hangovers is based 45% on genetics.” You looked over to him, wildly impressed with the first words you’ve heard him say.

 “What’s the other 55% based on?” You asked, intrigued to finally know why you don’t actually experience hangovers. He looked surprised as he met your eyes for the first time since you entered the room.

 “It’s actually a mixture of volume of alcohol, water, and food consumption.” You chuckled as he said this.

 “Well, it must be genetics for me because there are a few times I remember making very bad choices…” You felt the thought slip away as Dr. Spencer Reid smiled at you.

 “How can she even do simple math right now? Based on the story she’s had 10 drinks in the last 3 hours?” Emily whispered to JJ and Derek. They exchanged glances as Penny finally sat back down with the cards.

 “What should we play?” She asked the room, but mostly you. You could already feel your competitive edge creeping in as you tore your eyes from Spencer’s to suggest one of your favorite group games. “Egyptian Rat Screw!” It should be especially fun since you were all drinking. Nobody seemed to know the game though, so you quickly explained the rules as you took the cards to shuffle and deal.

 “Remember, whoever gets all the cards wins. Slap sandwiches and doubles. Royals have the special rules we just talked about. If you slap and there’s nothing there, you have to put a card in the bottom of the pile.” You said as everyone got situated around the table unsure what to expect. “Ready?” you asked, a mischievous grin on your face.

 --

 After winning the first two games you couldn’t help but tease everyone “I am definitely the drunkest one here. I thought a group of FBI agents would have better reaction times!” You giggled as everyone laughed along with you. You dealt the cards into five piles, one for each agent. “No cards for you?” Derek asked. “Nope.” You popped the “p” as you took in their confused faces. “I’m going to start with no cards and see if I still win.” There was a clear competitive glint in your eyes, with a matching smirk.  They seemed disbelieving that you would pull out another win, but continued along with the game.

 You hadn’t even tried slapping the table until there was only Spencer and Derek left with cards. Emily, JJ, and Penelope were chatting aimlessly, having lost interest a few minutes ago. You sat up and stared at the ever growing pile of cards. The whole game was basically memorizing the order of cards, or at least the general timeline. You knew as soon as Derek played his jack, Spencer would follow with an identical card. As you spotted the first jack hit the pile, Derek taunted Spencer “Haha pretty boy, one chance to get a royal or I’m pulling in the big pile.” The two of them seemed to have forgotten that you could get back in the game. Spencer smiled as he flipped over what you knew to be a jack. It was clear from the smirk on his face he knew it was a jack as well. What he didn’t count on was your cat-like reflexes slapping the pile before he could finish laughing at Derek’s sad face.

 The two of them looked shocked as you picked up the cards, readying them for the next set of flipping. “Damn girl, I thought you forgot how to play.” Derek laughed at the smug grin you were wearing. He only had two cards left. Easily knocking Derek from the game, he joined the side conversation being had in the kitchen as he resigned to another round lost. You turned to Spencer, almost whispering “Looks like it’s just you and me, Doctor.” Spencer looked up from his cards stating, “you sound pretty confident considering your opponent has an eidetic memory and knows the exact order of both our hands.” You stuck your tongue out as you placed your first card. “Not fair.”

 Minutes passed as the game drew on, neither player really making an advance. You yawned as you flipped another card onto the table, losing focus for just a second. Reid recognized the pattern emerging, getting ready to slap after your next card. You forgot to look at the potential for a sandwich, playing your next card. You noticed it a second to late as you slapped your hand down. Spencer beat you too it though, and when your hand landed it was on top of his. You didn’t move at first, shocked to have lost so many cards at once. Spencer was gloating as you picked up his hand and put it on top of yours.

 He finally looked down to see you pulling the cards toward you before jumping up to get them back. You held the cards close to your heart, faking the offense you felt at his suggestion that you would cheat, despite your very obvious cheating. When he reached for the cards, you backed up into the couch, holding them above your head. He knelt over you, leaning forward to reach your outstretched hand, forgetting for just a second that he really didn’t know you at all and being this close should make him uncomfortable.

 You shrieked as he tickled your sides to pull the cards in. He was gloating yet again as he pulled them from your grasp, not realizing how close the two of you had become. The two of you froze yet again as you felt that same magnetic force as earlier pulling you closer as you looked into his eyes. He cleared his through as he sat up, returning to his seat to finish the game. 

The two of you continued the game until you only had a few cards left. “It appears as though your winning streak is quickly coming to an end.” Spencer joked with you, playing a queen. He was clearly trying to ease whatever tension was lingering from your couch experience. You glanced at the cards in the middle of the table. It must have been 45 cards in the pile. You switched tactics to playing the cards as quick as possible to prevent another mistake.

A queen meant playing two cards in a row. You knew you had two sevens in a row in your hand, so you were ready to take him down. You glanced up stating “Rule 1: The Doctor lies.” You stated matter-of-factly as you flipped over your first seven. “Oh, and don’t blink.” You said, playing the second and slapping it before he finished comprehending your two Doctor Who references. You just had an instinctual feeling that Doctor Who would distract him.

 You finished the game with relative ease as the others made their way back into the room. You celebrated as you took the rest of his cards, completing the game and adding another tally to the mental scoreboard you had in your head. As everyone sat back down, you put the cards away. It was now 12:30 in the morning and suddenly you were exhausted. You rose from your seat, putting your coat back on your shoulders. “I should go home” you said, earning stares from everyone.

 “You are completely welcome to stay the night here!” Penelope said as you continued preparing to leave.

 “Thank you, Penelope, but I already feel so much better.” You chanced a glance at Spencer to see him staring right back. “I want to go home and lay in my bed and throw all his stuff out the window. Plus I could really use some fresh air right now.” Everyone started to verbally object now. Sometimes you forgot what Penelope does for a living and how much she’s seen. “No really, I’ll be fine.” You continued, “I live in The City Block, it’s only half a mile from here!” This did nothing to satisfy the worried looks on the five faces staring back at you.

 “That’s on the way to my building.” Spencer stated. “I’ll walk with you, okay?” You looked up, surprised. Slowly a small smile appeared on your face. “Okay.” Somehow that was all you could manage. Everyone said their goodbyes as you and Spencer made your way out of the apartment and started walking down the street.

 tag list:

@mac99martin​ @eevee0722​ @l0ve-0f-my-life @haylaansmi @dinonuggets15

[ct-multifandom]

Miracuclass Amogus Cringe

I was going back and forth about making this post, but then I saw @charming-mage ‘s and I was like screw it we’re doing this. This ended up 10x longer than I thought it’d be.

Marinette (crewmate) - tries to organize everyone into a buddy system to corner the impostors, gets frustrated when people agree to her plan and then start running rogue. When discussions start she’s leading the conversation and asking the most questions. She greatly prefers crewmate over impostor because she likes the mystery solving element of discussions.

Marinette (impostor) - whenever she kills someone she goes, “ahhhh” out loud and panics while her avatar sprints away from the body. She likes coming up with convoluted plans, especially when she can communicate with her fellow imp(s), and tries to make it seem like she’s in two places at once wether it be through venting or falsified testimony.

Adrien (crewmate) - he has to unmute and ask how to do like every individual task to the point where he’s been voted out over it before because cmon, you’ve gotta be lying about it at this point, just piece it together and stop unmuting during task time. He makes puns and sings little improvised songs while tasking. When he suspects someone but they don’t get voted out, he offers to tail them at the cost of his own safety. Same with fixing sabotages late-game. To him, getting killed is just part of the game progression, and it’s not a big deal because he trusts his fellow crewmates to avenge him and doesn’t mind ghost-tasking.

Adrien (impostor) - okay maybe he lies about not knowing tasks sometimes. But it also took him a while to learn imp mechanics and he kept asking about them out loud like, “what’s the red square task on the floor? Why’s my name highlighted?” And somehow nobody noticed while his partner(s) were like nggggg Adrien no... At least he’s good at playing innocent/fake-detective-ing in discussions. Whenever he kills someone he makes some stupid one-liner about it out loud.

Alya (crewmate) - we got Sherlock Holmes over here. She overanalyzes every tiny detail and isn’t scared to sacrifice the sus for the greater cause. When she finishes tasks, she likes to hang out by security and snoop in case of the rare satisfaction of catching someone red-handed. If there’s an emergency meeting, it’s probably because she probably saw something. She supports Crewinette’s plans to corner the imps. She thinks tasks wins are boring and that it’s a lot more fun to win through voting correctly. If they task-win or lose she stops before the new game and asks who the imps were and for a recap of their actions.

Alya (impostor) - a force to be reckoned with. She’ll wait for the perfect moment to strike someone, and then cover her tracks, join a group and win herself a strong alibi anyways. Her reputation as a ruthless detective protects her, even when the game is set to show that the ejected person was innocent. She always chooses someone to kill and someone to blame for it, but sometimes she gets carried away and they vote her off for pointing too many fingers.

Nino (crewmate) - he’s just tasking, man. If he gets killed he’s like, “oh mf” and just keeps ghost-tasking. He mostly hangs out during the discussions unless he has something solid to say, only jumping in at the end to confirm, “so we’re voting for _?”. He leads his own little crewmate squad around when he finishes tasks to protect them while they finish theirs.

Nino (impostor) - mostly plays off the strategy of his partner(s). He likes playing the protective team-player type “innocent diversion” role while the partner(s) get to killing, so when discussions start he’s totally in the clear, which gives him an opening to dodge suspicion in the future if he needs to take over killing. He pretends to fix sabotages all the time because people rely on him to do that as a crewmate.

Max (crewmate) - freakishly good at the card scanning task. People always ask for his secret and he’s like? It’s so easy? He has every map memorized to a t so he can point out the contradictions in people’s stories like an ace attorney character. It’s surprisingly really helpful. He’s the opposite of Alya in that he’s a big supporter of the “guys, stop voting off random innocent people, we have like five tasks left. Whoever hasn’t done them, just finish them” strategy.

Max (impostor) - he tries his best to protect his partner(s) in the discussion while laying low himself, and sometimes he gets voted out for it, but if he senses that there’s nothing he can do, he’ll throw them even further under the bus to build credit for himself. He doesn’t like sacrificing innocents as a crewmate, so his defenses are only sus when he’s caught being wrong. He sabotages a lot to control people’s movements and vents liberally unless he committed to a tasking group. That being said, he can go whole rounds without killing out of caution.

Kim (crewmate) - he’s the guy who calls emergency meetings early into the game only to say, “I miss you guys :)” He gets voted out all the time for doing troll-y crap and ignoring Crewinette’s plans. He’s also severely confused by some of the tasks and game mechanics, but fakes it till he makes it, until the discussion where he rarely says anything valuable and just jokes around. Sometimes, though, he’ll offer a tiny offhand detail and everyone’s like Kim, I hate to say it, but you’re a genius or that’s the piece we’ve been missing! And he’s like haha ok. He’s always behind on tasks, sometimes out of laziness, sometimes out of confusion, but he’s one of the people Max is impatiently waiting on.

Kim (impostor) - he gets caught in the act a lot and it’s hilarious, but other times he gets away with everything the entire time, which is kinda scary. He’s weirdly good at introducing so much confusion and derailment to discussions that everyone gets totally lost and doesn’t know what’s going on, allowing him to survive when they could’ve easily figured him out. Unlike Max, he knows literally nothing about the maps and always says he was at the “slidey thing” or whatever and everyone’s like idk wtf the slidey thing is, and if this were anyone else they’d be gone immediately, but it’s Kim so he might actually be telling the truth. He refuses to learn the names of anything because this really helps him out.

Alix (crewmate) - always trying to convince her friends to experiment with ridiculous game settings. Occasionally, she gets to them, and they get games with comically unbalanced imp:crew ratios, awful lighting, an overwhelming load or lack of tasks, or hilariously low cool downs. She revels in the chaos. When she tasks she usually moves from place to place alone but tries to hop in with groups to confirm her movements. She’s pretty good at sussing imps out when they offer enough information, but otherwise she just makes goofy comments with Kim.

Alix (impostor) - not too worried about killing people and venting. She moves fast and dashes from place to place, joining a group on the opposite side of the map from her last body. If anyone says, “I saw someone vent but I didn’t see who” it was probably her. She likes the “stand in a clump and watch the chaos ensue when one person drops” technique as well as the gambling “hope that the UI for the task everyone’s doing covers your killing and venting” strat. Sometimes she’s forced to vent to a dead end and gets caught, and sometimes the big brain detectives catch her, but she’s usually pretty smooth.

Rose (crewmate) - a big fan of hide and seek mode. She likes grouping up for tasks, protecting each other at the cost of efficiency. During discussions, she has a hard time believing anyone’s the impostor, and everyone’s like, Rose, we know there are exactly three of them, you can’t defend every individual person. Whenever she gets killed she is like *gasp* et tu, Brute? No matter who it was.

Rose (impostor) - runs around with her squad when... oops... looks like something got sabotaged! Uh oh, wonder who could’ve done that? She’s in a battle against that task bar more so than the players, and tries to stay away from killing. She emulates crewmate behavior perfectly so no one ever suspects her until really late. If she’s the only imp left and she has to kill, it’s like an Agatha Christie locked room mystery level of drama and betrayal within her squad. But we were all together the whole time... omfg no way... it was one of us.

Juleka (crewmate) - she secretly prefers when everyone tasks alone, but goes with the squad for Rose. She only talks in discussions if she’s 100% sure about something, and she often incomprehensibly mumbles vital evidence. ~10 minutes later when they catch the imp she’s like iItoldyouso and the crew’s like ??? If she gets killed and her tasks are done, she haunts that impostor relentlessly. Sometimes she even organizes ghost brigades in ghost chat and gets everyone to follow them.

Juleka (impostor) - definitely gets a kick out of the kill button. Whenever she takes someone down she’s like heeheehee. If she was peer pressured into a task team again, she’ll anxiously try to slip away unnoticed for a second to catch someone in the hallway outside, but if she’s alone, she’s on a hunt. Nobody is safe. When she defends herself on voice chat she also mumbles incomprehensibly and everyone’s like sure, fair enough.

Mylene (crewmate) - seasoned task group leader. She also sings little task songs like Adrien. She tries to organize people into chatting regular status updates so they can tell if someone goes missing. She reports every body she finds and actively participates in the discussion, but whenever she makes good points, she gets overlooked. Then, the crew’s like Mylene, why didn’t you say anything sooner? And she’s like agjdjdhh Either that or she gets voted off for always reporting and being too eager to discuss on top of it.

Mylene (impostor) - gets her partner(s) inside her team and tries to tag-team anyone passing by, only for all the impostors to have alibis when she reports. If the ratio is right, they can destroy their own group, and then immediately point the finger at whoever is left, which works about half the time. Mylene is a pretty convincing actress, but the high IQ tricks only work a couple times.

Ivan (crewmate) - he’ll take one for the team if he has to, especially in those sabotage cases where you’d have to be isolated and vulnerable. Otherwise he’ll protect his group. He has an “innocent until proven guilty” attitude when he runs into other people on the map, and skips during a lot of the votes.

Ivan (impostor) - we all know he can’t lie to save his life. He usually gets voted out really fast if he kills someone because he gets nervous and starts saying contradictory things when questioned. That being said, he’ll do what he can to keep his partner(s) in the clear. He never vents because the risk is too high for him, instead just running around and saying, “sorry” out loud when he catches a victim.

Nathaniel (crewmate) - he’s the opposite of Adrien in that he’ll do anything to avoid getting killed. He runs around tasking on his own, but he’s usually behind because he’s so focused on avoiding everyone, to Max’s frustration. He also never reports bodies. This causes him to be sus at all times, so he gets voted out a lot. Wild Nath sightings are rare and terrifying because he’s never in the clear and he’s just standing there, menacingly. Imp!Alix sees him as a fun combo of Where’s Waldo and Assassin.

Nathaniel (impostor) - the millisecond that cool down timer runs out, someone is getting killed. Hit and run. He’s good at entering a fairly crowded large space, striking, and staying in everyone’s blind spots while he runs away, especially when the lights are out. He likes venting to isolated areas and killing as many people per round as he can, laughing when someone finally reports and everyone unmutes to go WHAT!? at the number of deaths. He tends to operate separately from his partner(s) unless they have an actual plan.

Chloe (crewmate) - gathers every single person in medbay and makes sure they all watch her scan. Yeah okay, we get, you’re a crewmate. She feels personally offended whenever someone kills her, which is often, since people tend to jokingly target her. During discussions, she accuses anyone and everyone of being sus, even if she just walked past them or saw them tasking alone. She likes stalking people as a ghost and spilling tea in ghost chat.

Chloe (impostor) - reacts similarly to Marinette when she kills. She will throw her partner(s) under the bus if it’s more advantageous in the long run, and she’s great at shifting the blame to innocents. People vote her out a lot anyways, and she says she can’t believe that they even like this stupid little game. Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. Unless she wins. Then it’s fun.

Sabrina (crewmate) - discussion detective supreme. She keeps track of every piece of evidence and testimony, every detail. She tails the sus at a distance, trying to catch them doing something. Sometimes it gets her targeted, but sometimes she catches them and calls emergency meetings to snitch. Somehow she manages to do this and finish her tasks at the same time.

Sabrina (impostor) - sabotages everything, and tries to get her partner(s) to do it too. Once she won because the crew just didn’t fix O2 in time. She avoids killing Chloe, but feels bad if she has to kill anyone else too. She typically just sticks to making other people seem suspicious, and likes the game mode where you can’t see if you voted correctly or not.

Lila (both) - she rarely joins these games. She isn’t even a member of the chat group they use. They occasionally invite her, and she usually lies about how busy she is, but she accepted a couple times to further her narrative. She pretends to be really bad at being an impostor to establish herself as someone incapable of trickery. Regardless of her role, whenever the body announcement pops up, she goes, “oh nooo, not [victim(s)]... nooo....” and Mari’s like stfu Lila.

Bonus Polaroid kids because,,, they <3

Kagami (crewmate) - hella efficient at tasks. Two discussions in and she’s done. She’s the interrogation specialist who stresses out the imps and crew alike with her barrage of questions. She likes moving either alone or in partners, three people maximum, unless Crewinette needs her, in which case she’ll stick to the plan no matter what.

Kagami (impostor) - you’re walking through the base / there’s no one around and comms are down / out of the corner of your eye you spot her / Kagami Tsurugi. She will have you cornered and you won’t be able to do anything about it. She always has a made up explanation for what she was doing, but sometimes it falls through solely because she’s always acting sus.

Luka (crewmate) - he likes crewmate a lot more than impostor. He’ll tag along with a task group until he’s done, and then he’ll go lurk in the corner and spy on people. He moves along the walls, and a few times this has led to him witnessing murders in the middle of the room while the imp only saw him after it was too late. Cue the mad dash for emergency meeting.

Luka (impostor) - works together with his partner(s) to perform some high level backstabbery. He rarely gets voted out unless he messes up because he builds bonds of trust with like half of the crew while he leads the rest into his partner(s)’ traps. He feels bad about killing sometimes, but he doesn’t mind sabotaging.

Zoe (crewmate) - she finds one or two other people she trusts and follows them around. She uses the logic of “well we could’ve both killed each other by now but we didn’t so they must be safe”. She immediately recounts everything that happened to her that round in discussions, even irrelevant details, just in case they might end up useful, and tends to bandwagon with voting.

Zoe (impostor) - tries to catch people in secluded corners or rooms with closable doors to kill them. She avoids taking risks, but sometimes she reports her own bodies and tries to act all surprised by the discovery. She’s a good actress, but she’s not the best bs artist, although the crew is used to her giving a ton of details right from the start, so they don’t suspect her unless there’s a hole in her story.

Marc (crewmate) - does tasks on his own but makes sure to stop near crowds when he can. Whenever he’s running around alone and sees someone else, he immediately turns around like ohmygodohmygod and anxiously dances around the other person who’s more than likely just another, equally anxious crewmate with places to be. He still gets killed a lot.

Marc (impostor) - he goes full anime villain mode. All according to keikaku. He’s one of those people who disproportionately rolls the impostor role and ends up with it like twice every five games. He plans out every move he’s gonna make, every complex lie and big brain play, and sometimes he gets that glorious evil win, but sometimes his plans are totally sabotaged by stupid things like Kim’s trolling.

[kiranatrix]

Hi! hey I was just wondering, if L is someone who in the manga sees himself as a person who solves cases for fun and addresses what he does as "not justice at all" then isn't that an inconsistency on his character? bc like, on the first chapters of the manga he stated "justice will prevail" and in L: Wammy's house he has a line that says "I'm justice" so I guess I was just curios, does L really cares at all about justice? or is he just fulfilling a personal liking by solving cases?

Oh I’m sure L believes at points that he’s ‘justice’, but what that looks like to him isn’t just from a neutral point of view. Justice to L is triumph, not completely fair and legal dealings born from a desire to right a wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s evil or doesn’t value life. But L is self-aware about what motivates him, if you consider Near a reliable narrator (I do), and he tells the Wammy kids as much in Chapter 109:

Solving cases is his hobby and he considers himself responsible for many crimes, but it’s fun!

L repeats these same ideas in the main manga so we don’t just have to rely on Chapter 109. The above statement is one of the first things we learn about L. He has a reputation for refusing boring cases, and this is well-known in the policing world, as mentioned by Soichiro early in the manga.

[I always laugh a little that they think L wears suit pants and snappy dress shoes like James Bond]

L only takes the cases he’s personally interested in, “otherwise, forget it.” So he’s turned important cases down, ones he could have solved, because he wasn’t interested or it didn’t seem fun for him. We can see from INTERPOL’s chatter that they don’t reach out to L lightly, he’s almost like a last resort.

His justice isn’t that reliable when it comes to what they need, but they got lucky with the Kira case since L was chomping at the bit for it. And of course the other big statement L tells the Wammy Kids he repeats to the Task Force is that he hates to lose (which is how he magically knows Kira is also like that). So I think we can take L at his word that he is not justice.

Other aspects of that Wammy’s speech bear out in L’s actions in the manga— the crimes, the lies, considering it a game. I don’t need to list out all the unjust things L does that contradict being capital-J Justice, but he shows again and again how the ends justify the means, even if it results in doing something illegal or morally wrong. In that Wammy’s House one-shot line you mention, his claim is ironic since he’s literally just committed violence on half a dozen kids for the crime of trying to cuddle him lol. It’s a childish belief that justice means exerting force to get your own way, but easily excusable in a kid. But while L grew up he never quite outgrew that. Real justice isn’t whatever you want at that time, others be damned, that’s just selfishness.

Let’s also consider the other detectives that L has put out of commission, Eraldo Coil and Deneuve (that we know of). Someone purely interested in justice would find no satisfaction or need to knock others out of the crime-fighting scene, the more detectives means more cases solved, right? MORE justice! Haha, no, that’s not how L sees it. They are competitors to him in this game, and thus must also be triumphed over and cast aside, their aliases commandeered like trophies.

Not that the intention of Ohba matters that much here since he prefers to let readers decide these things, but he too says L is not just (and even a lil bit evil). Justice is not a monolithic notion where there’s only one obvious ‘side.’ That’s how both L and Light see their battle but neither can look outside themselves as arbiter. Ohba had some fun with us readers framing Light vs L’s ‘justice’ as two sides, two ‘teams’ for readers to choose between and root for, then letting both sides fail. The joke being that neither side was justice and whoever won would only do that, WIN.

Does all this un-justice-like behavior contradict L’s sense of self? No, I don’t think so. I think L knows why he’s doing it (for fun, to win) but he can ALSO believe he’s in the right. He had a very high personal interest in catching Kira, but he also believed stopping him was the right thing to do.

I’m afraid all this sounds like I’m dogging L when he’s my second fav character— I really love him, and even moreso because he realizes what drives him, accepts it, and doesn’t make excuses about it. But no one human being exemplifies justice, and by the very act of declaring yourself to be that, it’s falsified. Perhaps Ohba really played up these grandiose declarations early on (which appeared less and less from L as the manga went on) to highlight how similar Light and L were in their thinking despite being on opposite sides. L saying, “I’m going to catch you because that sounds like a really fun time!!!” has a less dramatic ring to it than making some noise about justice lol. It elevates the stakes of the game for readers and served L’s purpose better (provoking Kira).

[oxnardsart]

New Boxer Beat Chapter’s out!  boxer-beats.com

    Boxer Beats was almost at the finale, again. Foxie and Lesbuni sat together, despite the larger crowd and tight seating, Lesbuni always made sure there was room for Foxie and her guard. However, the bunny could tell Foxie wasn’t feeling her best.     “I’m sorry about the other day... are you still upset?”     Foxie watched the show, looking empty. “It’s not a big deal. There’s just a lot going on right now.”     Lesbuni hugged her arms around her girlfriend, “Well I’m here to make it better!”     After a few more fights, it was Foxie’s turn.     “Are you... dressing up for this match too?” Lesbuni wondered, “I-It’s fine, whatever you want to do...”     Foxie smiled, she was glad to see Lesbuni knew not to control her, and to try accepting her instead! Like anyone else, Foxie just wanted to be herself. Or, in this case, someone else. ...But it still counts as being herself! Right?     Foxie got dressed into her Anomaly outfit, and already she felt so much happier!     The hamster announcered, “Laaaaaadies and women, girls too - welcome to one of the last fights of the nights!” The gals in the audience cheered in excitement.     “And all you guys out there...” The men in the audience looked up, Oxnard smiled and casually said or asked, “Sup?” The guys mumbled in response, also casually.     “And to all my not-guy and not-girl pals in the audience...”     “Are you just going to group us all in one category?” A chameleon under the booth yelled out in response.     “Nope!” Oxnard huffed, “I’m going to read out each type I have listed here and give everyone a semi-interesting starter. And then when I’m done, I’ll listen to whoever tells me that I forgot to include someone.”     “Anomaly, you can start the fight while I read all these.” Oxnard waved his wrist at him to start.

    “Good luck, Anomaly.” Don Badge waved from the audience, his big red nose pointing in the air, and a great big smile shining underneath. “You’re Don’s favorite.”     “Awww...” Anomaly sighed, he loved having fans! “Why don’t you come see me after the show sometime, little buddy?” Anomaly winked in Don’s direction.     “Um. Hey!” From the other side of the audience, Lesbuni growled.     “What? I know you don’t wanna see me after the show... but I’ll show you inside of me after~” The audience got a good laugh out of that, it sounded dirty! But that was Anomaly saying he’d be back to Foxie after... right?     “Don wants. To see you. Always,” the badger rang back.     “You stop that!” Lesbuni yelled, “I’ll come over there and beat you so bad, I’ll wind up in jail too!”     “Hey guys, come on, there’s enough split personality here for everybody’s body.” Anomaly awkwardly grinned, “I’m supposed to be the one fighting up here, not the audience!”     “Oxnard’s taking too long!” A chameleon in the audience spoke up again.     “The audience isn’t being patient!” Oxnard yelled back.     “Don’s hitting on my girlfriend!” Lesbuni cried and started climbing over seats.     “Don has. The fox hots.”     It was chaos. Everyone was fighting, and Anomaly was still without a fight of their own on stage! But finally, the lights dimmed and focused on the entrance, where a chubby, round figure stood unwillingly.     “WELP. THEY FOUND ME. GUESS I GOTTA FIGHT.”     It was Anger Mouse!     It looked like the mouse didn’t want to fight, the Do-Gooder following him kept patting his back, nudging him up on stage, “You can quit the fight if you don’t want to do it.”     “WHO SAID I DON’T WANNA FIGHT?” Anger Mouse yelled up in response.     “Then why were you hidin-”     “I WASN’T HIDING. LET’S FIGHT, ANATOMY.” The fat purple rat hopped into the boxing ring.     Anatomy, er, Anomaly, raised an eyebrow. Did this mouse really want to fight?     “ALRIGHT. IT’S BOXING TIME.” Anger Mouse announced, “WE’RE DOING DODGEBALL.”     Suddenly, a bunch of bouncing rubber balls fell from the ceiling, most bounced out of the ring right after landing in there.     “GAH! GOSH DARN IT. Stupid balls.” Anger Mouse complained. “YUP, WELL, y’know the rules, don’t ya?” He whispered to Anomaly, looking sincere, “You just gotta hit me with balls to win the match. COUGH COUGH. AHEM. SO LET’S FIGHT, WITH OUR BALLS.”     The audience all stopped fighting, they wanted to watch this!     Anomaly picked up a dodgeball, “Um, is the referee going to come out and tell us to start? Or... do we just start?”     Oxnard announced over the speakers, “Aro’s in the bathroom. Just fight!”     Somewhere out there, Aro the referee was quite embarrassed, hearing the speakers from the announcer echo into the restroom. No one needed to know that!     Anomaly shrugged, eyeing Anger Mouse to make sure he was ready, and threw!     ...But he missed.     Anger Mouse waited for Anomaly to find another ball and throw it, but he missed again. “HEY, COME ON, AIM A LITTLE.” The fat rat picked up a ball! And then he, he... rolled it to Anomaly? “TRY AGAIN.”     The fox threw again, but it went right over Anger’s head.     “WHAT’S THE DEAL? YOU CAN’T THROW?”     “You’re too short!”     “WHAT!?”     Anomaly picked up a ball outside the ring, and came back in only to... roll it over to Anger Mouse. “If you’re so good at throwing, prove it.”     Anger Mouse confidently picked up the ball, leaned back to throw, aaaand... dropped it. “HA! YOU CAN’T trick me THAT easily...” his voice started to crack and squeak. At this rate, no one was going to get the other out.     “Come on F- uh, I mean, Anomaly!” Lesbuni cheered, “You went to pie school, or whatever. You should know how to throw balls!”     “Throwing pies and throwing balls are very different, they’re totally different shapes!” Anomaly panicked, things weren’t looking good. “It’s complicated, you wouldn’t understand!”     “TRY USING BOTH HANDS,” Anger Mouse screamed. Anomaly couldn’t handle so many people yelling at him. This wasn’t as fun as his first performance.     “Wait... a performance!” Anomaly grinned, anything was more fun as a show. The fox dashed around the ring, collecting balls all for himself. “Watch this, Angry Pants!” Anomaly started juggling three big dodgeballs in his hands, the audience was mildly curious. But then the fox started walking forward, right onto a dodgeball! But Anomaly didn’t slip - he stood on top of that ball as he juggled the others in his paws. He then raised a leg, balancing on one foot!     “Hey Anger, keep an eye on these balls for me.”     “YOU’RE MISSING A PAIR,” he grumbled as he peeked under the fox’s tutu.     “Hey, it’s a costume! Don’t judge me there.” Anomaly giggled, and suddenly lost their balance. “Oh fudge!”     “GAH!”     As Anomaly landed on his back, the dodgeball under his foot shot forward, right at Anger Mouse! It punted the little guy right off stage - flipping over the ropes and landing on the ground outside the ring.     “Anger Mouse is outta the house!” Oxnard exclaimed, “Anomaly, watch out!”     The fox on his back looked up, the three balls they were juggling were falling right towards him!     “Those balls are coming down on him hard!”     “I wish I was in his boots right now.”     “Happens to me all the time! What’s the big deal?”     With the audience’s eyes all on those balls, Anomaly timed his kicks to knock the first two away. The third was on its way, but the fox reached up and caught it in both his paws. He was safe!     “Whew! He did it folks,” Oxnard yelped over the speakers. “That was almost a draw, but Anomaly is goin’ to the finals! That performance was quite a kick in the balls, fella. Watch it next time.”     The audience cheered, and Anomaly hopped around happily. He did it!     “You’re amazing, Anomaly.” Don cheered from one side.     “You’re gonna win it all, Foxie!” Lesbuni squeaked from the other.     Anomaly was happy, but hearing Foxie’s name brought him back to reality. It was back to being Foxie with the show over. She wished these moments lasted longer. Foxie was left wondering one more thing about the fight...     “HEY!” As Foxie went back to her guard in the hallway, Anger Mouse chased behind her, “WAIT.” The short mouse took her hand as they went through the exit.     “Um, what’s up?” Foxie asked the little guy.     “YOU’RE GOING TO THE FINALE.” Well, that was obvious.     “Yeah... I mean, I won the fight... so, that makes sense.” Foxie nodded.     “I DIDN’T try to win.” Anger Mouse grumbled, looking down at the floor.     “You didn’t? Haha, I didn’t even realize it... you gave me a lot of chances to hit you, huh?” Foxie thought. “And you almost didn’t show up at all!”     “I WAS HIDING. I WAS GONNA GIVE YOU THE MATCH.” Anger Mouse sighed, “I didn’t want everyone to watch me lose. But...”     Anger Mouse rubbed his face, was he sad? What was going on? Foxie pat his head gently, she almost forgot, this loud little guy was just a little kid.     “What’s wrong?” Foxie leaned down to ask.     “DON IS MY FRIEND. I GUESS. SO... Y-YOU GUYS... GET TO BE IN THE FINALS TOGETHER.” Anger Mouse sniffed, “HE WANTED TO SPEND THIS WHOLE COMPETITION WITH YOU. THAT’S THE REASON WHY HE JOINED. THAT, and I asked him. I thought we would be on a team...”     Anger Mouse lost on purpose, so that Don and Foxie could be together in the finale?     “Oh, Anger... you didn’t have to do that.” Foxie smiled sympathetically.     “HE’S GONNA FORGET ALL ABOUT ME.” Anger Mouse shrieked with a high-pitched scream, “HE WANTS TO BE FRIENDS WITH YOU INSTEAD. DON’S THE ONLY ONE THAT CARES ABOUT ME. I’LL BE FORGOTTEN BY EVERYBODY.”     “Anger, no... that wouldn’t happen.” Foxie rubbed his back, looking at either of their guards to step in... but no such luck. She felt like she was playing mommy. “If Don and I become friends, we can all be friends together!”     “Y-YOU’LL join us?” Anger asked, sounding hopeful.     Were Anger and Don in a club? Well, whatever made him happy again. Er, wait, was Anger Mouse ever happy?     “Sure, I’ll join you guys. We’re all boxing prisoners here.”     Anger Mouse squeaked and grinned wide, clapping his gloves together. “Heeee!”     You know, when he wasn’t being an angry brat, this rat was kind of cute.     “THANKS LADY.” Anger Mouse went towards to his guard and reached for his hand, “GOOD LUCK WITH DON. KICK HIS BUTT!”     The chubby mouse chuckled and walked off into the hallway. Was Foxie supposed to beat Don? Or... if he was a fan, maybe it was his dream to be on stage with Foxie in the finale?     Foxie felt happier as she left for the night, “For a pair of bad guys, Don and Anger Mouse sure are sweet.”

[osakaso5]

IDOLiSH7 5th Anniversary Special Story: Opening Doors...

Chapter 5: A Burning Passion

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Tsumugi's Thoughts: Several days later...

Tsumugi's Thoughts: They began filming for Shining Rainbow Kitchen!

- - - -

Whoosh...

Tenn Kujo: Ah... I can see Manami Bay.

Iori Izumi: That must be their famous morning market.

Haruka Isumi: There's so many people, even though it's early morning.

Yamato Nikaido: .........

Iori Izumi: Hey, Nikaido-san.

Yamato Nikaido: ...Hmm?

Iori Izumi: Stop looking like you're about to fall asleep. You're the one who wanted to come here.

Yamato Nikaido: Yeah...

Haruka Isumi: You look like a zombie... Are you bad with mornings or something?

Iori Izumi: He's never been much of an early riser, but it seems he also stayed up late last night...

Tenn Kujo: For work?

Iori Izumi: No. He was gaming with Yotsuba-san.

Tenn Kujo: Pathetic.

Tenn Kujo: Wake up, Yamato Nikaido. You're supposed to be a professional.

Yamato Nikaido: It'll be fine. My eyes will pop right open once the cameras start rolling...

Tenn Kujo: That work ethic is exactly why Gaku took the Crescent Wolves role from you.

Yamato Nikaido: ........

Haruka Isumi: Ah, he's finally awake.

Haruka Isumi: Did you wanna be in Crescent Wolves? I guess you do kinda look like Shizuo Chiba.

Iori Izumi: I didn't expect you to care about it so much.

Yamato Nikaido: Yeah... Ugh... I dunno why, but I just broke out in a cold sweat for some reason.

Tenn Kujo: Hehe. Not feeling sleepy anymore?

Yamato Nikaido: Don't get me wrong here. I'm not gonna pretend like we could ever be rivals. I mean, this is Yaotome we're talking about.

Iori Izumi: What do you mean? You could beat him just fine, Leader.

Tenn Kujo: Gaku won't lose that easily.

Haruka Isumi: ...Are you guys competing for the role now?

Iori Izumi: Not now, but we will eventually.

Tenn Kujo: I'm sure we'll have our showdown someday.

Yamato Nikaido: No, we won't. Let's go eat some lobster already. 

- - - - 

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Tamaki Yotsuba: Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Toma Inumaru: Cock-a-doodly-doo!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Cluck cluck!

Mitsuki Izumi: That's a lot of chickens! What's up, chickens!?

Tamaki Yotsuba: Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Toma Inumaru: Cock-a-doodly-doo!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Cluck cluck!

Mitsuki Izumi: This is Dearest Poultry Farm, the home of Dearest Eggs!

Mitsuki Izumi: They play their chickens music to make them lay good eggs!

Tamaki Yotsuba: Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Toma Inumaru: Cock-a-doodly-doo!

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Cluck cluck!

Mitsuki Izumi: We're gonna sing them idol songs so they can lay good eggs!

Tamaki Yotsuba: Co... Huh!? Like chickens?

Mitsuki Izumi: Yep.

Tamaki Yotsuba: Right now!?

Mitsuki Izumi: You're the one who started clucking! Sing a MEZZO" song. Sogo's watching.

Tamaki Yotsuba: Okay. So-chan, I'm gonna do my best so these chickens lay good eggs!

Toma Inumaru: Uh, do I gotta sing too?

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: What about me?

Mitsuki Izumi: Of course! Ah, or will TRIGGER's manager get mad?

Mitsuki Izumi: This might get cut, but you might as well do a medley! Tamaki, you're first..!

Tamaki Yotsuba: Cock-a-doodle-doo ♪ Cock-a-doodle-doo ♪ Cock-a-doodle-doo ♪

Toma Inumaru: Cock-a-doodly-doo ♪ Cock-a-doodly-doo ♪

Ryunosuke Tsunashi: Cluck cluck ♪ Cluck cluck ♪ Cluck cluck ♪ 

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

Mitsuki Izumi: There! Thanks a lot!

- - - -

Momo: Wow! This is really stylish, for a rice shop! Says here the name is Iketeru Rice Mill!

Nagi Rokuya: OH! Japanese modernity! I makes me want to cosplay!

Sogo Osaka: Apparently the owner of this place is popular with women because he's really handsome.

Torao Mido: I bet I'm hotter, though.

Rice Mill Owner: Welcome.

Nagi Rokuya: .......!

Torao Mido: Wha..!?

Sogo Osaka: Huh..!?

Momo: Whoa!!! What a hunk..! I didn't think it was gonna be a foreign guy!

Rice Mill Owner: Haha. I love Japanese food, so I moved here. Do take a look around.

Momo: Not to mention he's a real gentleman~! Hmm...!? What's wrong, you guys!?

Nagi Rokuya: ...Oh my god...

Sogo Osaka: He looks exactly like Nagi-kun's brother...

Torao Mido: Are you sure you're not related to this dude..?

Rice Mill Owner: Haha. I don't think there's that many guys with a face as good as mine.

Momo: Whoa..! Even his vibes are kinda handsome!

Rice Mill Owner: You're here for the Radiant 16-Grain, right? You gonna cook it right away?

Torao Mido: It took him like a second to get casual with us...

Sogo Osaka: He must not be one for customer service...

Nagi Rokuya: OH... My brother is more lovely. He lacks confidence yet acts haughty, which is a part of his charm.

Momo: But I'm weak to hot guys...

Nagi Rokuya: No, no, no! Think of how sad Mister Yuki will be!

Rice Mill Owner: I don't like seeing people frown. Let's all be happy, instead.

Rice Mill Owner: With my shop's grains ☆

Torao Mido: He winked at us.

Sogo Osaka: He seems like a good businessman.

Nagi Rokuya: In any case... Please, let me take a picture of you.

Rice Mill Owner: OK. Do you wanna be in it too, or is it just gonna be me?

Momo: He's super good at handling customers...

Sogo Osaka: Mido-san, you said you were more handsome than him. Go on, defeat him.

Torao Mido: No, to tell you the truth, I'm not really all that assertive...

Rice Mill Owner: Well, what'll it be? Should I start polishing the rice? 

- - - -

Gaku Yaotome: This is the General's Farm, where they grow the General's Edamame!

Riku Nanase: We're already here! The trip felt so short!

Minami Natsume: The video collection Yuki-san showed us of Momo-san was quite impressive.

Riku Nanase: The pictures you showed us of Mido-san doing cool poses were impressive too, Natsume-san!

Gaku Yaotome: Your collection of Izumi Junior morning pics was really something too, Nanase!

Yuki: You had a nice collection of dinner pictures featuring Ryunosuke-kun yourself, Gaku-kun.

Riku Nanase: It was so much fun! I'm glad we had no trouble along the way!

Gaku Yaotome: Right. Our lunch boxes were delicious, too.

Minami Natsume: Not to mention the climate is nice here.

Yuki: Yeah. It's so warm.

Gaku Yaotome: And we've got someone repping every one of our nations.

Yuki: I didn't know we were nations.

Gaku Yaotome: Why don't we have a competition to see who can defend their group's honor the best?

Riku Nanase: A competition?

Minami Natsume: Oh dear... I thought we were supposed to be Team Peace.

Yuki: TRIGGER's a warrior nation.

Gaku Yaotome: Why don't we see who can find the biggest edamame?

Riku Nanase: Fine by me! What does the winner get?

Gaku Yaotome: You want a prize? Well... Any ideas?

Yuki: Let's all wager whatever we can find inside our pockets.

Gaku Yaotome: Pockets?

Riku Nanase: I've got, um... Some chocolate!

Gaku Yaotome: I've got my phone.

Minami Natsume: I have a handkerchief.

Yuki: I've got a piece of gum. Alright, so whoever wins gets all of these things.

Gaku Yaotome: Wait a minute!

Riku Nanase: Yay! I'll get a new phone and a handkerchief!

Yuki: You could've mentioned the gum, too.

Minami Natsume: If I win, I'll show you those pictures of Tsunashi-san again on our way back.

Yuki & Riku: Yay!

Gaku Yaotome: Yay! ...Wait, I'm not letting you have my phone! It's got a bunch of my personal info!

Minami Natsume: Oh my. I just so happen to love personal information.

Yuki: So do I.

Gaku Yaotome: Hey!

Riku Nanase: Ready, get set, go!

Gaku Yaotome: Nanase..!

To be continued...

[originaldanganronpascenarios]

Wattpad request- Amacha oneshot. Not spoiler free

I just love writing for Amacha! This ship needs a lot of growth in order to make it happen and I just love writing for it. This one is platonic not romantic since that's what I felt like writing.

3rd person POV

Tenko was walking around the 'school' wondering what she was going to do. The killing game began. She could feel safe around girls but many of the male students made her feel nervous. Thinking that even though she might probably win a fight with them if they try anything she can't deny possibility of surprise attack. The anxiety was slowly killing her from the inside, however she remained her energetic self. She had to, otherwise she could lose herself to despair and do something regrettable.

As she continued exploring on her own she felt someone tap her shoulder. She immediately grabbed that person's hand and threw them on the ground. After seeing her attacker's face- wich was Rantaro she yelled "YOU TRIED SOMETHING YOU FILTHY DEGENERATE!?"

Sitting up he rubbed his back in pain "No... I just was wondering what you were doing here all alone. After all it's quite dangerous, but I see that you are more than capable of self defense" he looked at her "I guess it's my bad for approaching you in such way though..."

"Ugh of course it is" she crossed her arms. Rantaro stood up "Well I guess I'll get going since you neither need help nor you want me around"

"What's with me needing any help? Do you think I need someone like you to guard me!?"

"I'm sorry that I didn't wanted anyone wandering off on their own" he said annoyed.

"You can't expect me to believe that! You can be plotting something and acting like you mean well"

"You have a point I might not seem trustworthy. I'll leave you to whatever you were going to do, goodbye" with that he left.

She felt uneasy around him but now she felt even worse alone, although her pride didn't let her admit to her mistake. She decided to finish exploring at that and tried to take her mind off everything. So she thought that exercise was in order.

Running around the building she thought about her encounter with Rantaro wich was exactly the opposite of what she wanted. It made her even more angry "Stupid degenerate... Thinking that I need help. If someone he needs it more! The audacity!" she started running faster "Who does he think he is!"

"Tenko?" she heard someone call her name out once she turned towards source of the voice it ended up being Kaede. Her angry expression quickly changed into a smile "Hello Kaede! What are you doing out here?"

"I was about to go to my room but I noticed you here all alone so I came by to check on you. After all it's dangerous to be all by yourself at times like these"

"Aww you are so considerate! Unlike that degenerate..." she crossed her hands. The pianist's curiosity took over as she decided to ask "Huh? Did something happen earlier?"

"That guy with green hair- what was his name again...?"

"Rantaro?"

"Yeah him! He just came up to me and said that he was 'wondering what I was doing all alone' and I know better than that to believe him. He definitely was plotting something!"

"How can you know for sure?" Kaede tilted her head "I know what kind of situation we are in but if we're going to suspect everybody then we can't move forward"

Tenko fell silent and tried to think through her actions. Seeing her suddenly lost in thought Kaede quickly said "But if you want to suspect him it's okay! After all nobody can know who you can trust without doubts"

"You're right" Tenko looked at her "He just gives off this suspicious aura... I mean we don't even know his talent! He definitely does hide something but don't worry if anything happens I will protect all the girls!"

"Of course you will" Kaede smiled "Sorry but I'll have to leave you now I'm pretty exhausted" the pianist fake-yawned.

"Sleep well!!!" Tenko said energetically before she parted her ways with Kaede. She continued her small exercise and thought yet again of what Kaede said to her.

"I must keep an eye on him so he has no time to strike!" she thought loud "But how do I do it? Follow him?" she had no idea what to do next. However she decided to look for him right away.

"Earlier he just came out of nowhere and now I can't find him anywhere!" she continued her search. When she finally found him he decided to walk in the opposite direction.

"HEY!" Tenko shouted making him turn around "Are you talking to me?"

"Who else?" she said and quickly realized that she didn't know what to say.

"Alright then, what do you want?" he asked, although earlier he was annoyed now his voice was calm and collected.

She got an idea it was rather risky but she decided to swallow her pride "I wanted to apologize for snapping at you earlier" he didn't expect to hear that from her but he didn't wait to answer "I guess we're both to blame. I should have called for you like you just did instead of surprising you" he smiled at her and she smiled back "Well I'm glad we settled that out, I'll be on my way" he turned around but she quickly grabbed his hand "WAIT! Let me go with you"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah! After all I think I proved last time that you are pretty defenseless... and I don't want to worry about someone more than I have to" the last part was quite hard for her to say. After all saying stuff like that when you don't mean it was never easy.

"Well I can't stop you if you want to go with me"

'Sweet' she thought as she noticed that her plan was working. She was just following him around as he felt quite uneasy feeling her staring at him in silence.

The two heard voices coming from the game room. Rantaro decided to enter it thinking that whoever was there could get rid of the akward silence between him and Tenko.

"Rantaro, Tenko! Look Tsumigi did my nails for me!" Kaede said showing off her nails "Whaaa!? Don't show them off like they are something flashy!"

Despite Tsumigi's request Tenko got closer to take the look "So cuuuute!"

"See Tsumigi! Tenko agrees they are adorable!"

"They are not that amazing..."

"Ooh painting your nails, huh? You know, I can do that too" Rantaro admitted and the girls turned towards him.

"You can!? But you're a boy" Kaede asked lowkey surprised.

"Could it be you've done it for your girlfriend? Or girlfriends? Y-"

"Wait! Pause!" Tenko said crossing her arms "Let him speak becouse I don't want to even think of those possibilities!"

"Are you jealous?" Kaede teased.

"Wha-? Why would I be??" Tenko looked at Kaede.

"Well either way that's not the case. No girlfriend or anything. What gave you the impression?" he stopped Kaede and her further teasing. Even though they just made up he still could feel that Tenko felt uneasy around him and he didn't wanted it to get worse.

"Yeah I guess you wouldn't have one. You seem like one of those types" Tsumigi spoke up "I was just messing around earlier"

"Wait what do you mean by those types?" Kaede was confused.

"A gradient is nice" Rantaro thought out loud "But with nails like yours Kaede, I recommend a French slant"

"French slant? Is that some kinda cooking technique?" both Kaede and Tenko said at the same time. Kaede giggled shortly afterwards.

"Haha no it's a kind of design" he explained "It will be faster to just show you. May I?"

"You'll do it for me? Then yes, please!"she seemed excited.

"Alright then" he got closer to Kaede and began working on her nails.

"Do you mind being still?" he asked and she immediately corrected herself.

Tenko looked quite annoyed "Hey Tsumigi" when Tsumigi faced her she continued "Can you do my nails too?"

"What?" she asked surprised "I really love the way you did it for Kaede and I want something like that too! Unless you don't want to..."

"No it's oka-"

"Wow! It looks amazing!" Kaede said excited "Maybe you are actually the ultimate Nail artist!"

"Tsumugi, Tenko look!" she showed it off yet again.

"I'm glad you like it, but I think you are overreacting a little bit" he smiled awkwardly.

"Stupid normies..." Tsumugi said under her breath and left.

"Wait don't leave!" Tenko tried to stop her but it wasn't enough "Damn I wanted cute nails too..."

"I can do yours too if you want" he suggested.

"I guess it will do" she sighs. She really wanted her nails done by Tsumigi.

"I'll leave you two be if that's the case" Kaede winked "NO" Tenko shouted but it was for nothing since Kaede just smiled and closed the door of the game room.

"Listen if you're not comfortable being with me alone I understand. You don't need to act Tenko" he said in rather serious tone.

"I don't know what you're talking about" she looked away.

"Yeah you definitely don't" he rolled his eyes.

"I want to get along with you. I just don't know what to do or say" she didn't knew anymore whether she was lying or not. After all her first goal was to keep an eye on him. She told herself that he's the enemy and acted rather hostile yet all he did was understand her? It might have been just a bunch of empty words but she didn't feel like that was the truth.

"Let's try this again okay?" she requested before reaching her hand out "I'm Tenko Chabashira! Ultimate Aikido master! What's your name?"

He looked at her hand, smiled, then shook it "Rantaro Amami, I can't remember my talent but I hope that's not a problem for you"

"You can't remember?" she pretended to be shocked "Then let's help you remember together!" the two laughed after that little act and carried on.

"Do you still want me to do your nails?"

"Absolutely!" she paused and realized something "Wait... Kaede took the nail polish" she looked disappointed.

"Well we can do something else"

"Like what?"

He thought for a while "Doesn't your hair get in your way while you train? I can show you few hairstyles that will both look cute on you and won't be an inconvenience. And if you want to keep them long I can do something more special"

"That sounds great!"

=>???

"A Body has been discovered!"

Tenko immediately looked at the nearby screen. Just looking at that bear made her want to punch it but now something more important is happening.

"Everyone, please gather in the library!"

"Oh no..." she looked at the corpse.

"W-why?" she murmured as her eyes started tearing up "Why does it hurt so much?" she thought.

"It's a joke, right?" There was no mistaking it. It was Rantaro. Someone who she talked to, laughed with... Is no longer alive.

She wanted to break down but considering everyone was there too she couldn't allow herself to be weak.

"Tenko?" Tsumigi said looking concerned. As a response she wiped away her tears and smiled at her like nothing ever happened "Do you need something Tsumigi?"

~Mod Angie

[acanvasofabillionsuns]

Just Get Together Already

for @raaindropps happy birthday amor!!!

thank you to @main-chive and @an-absolute-failure for beta-ing!!

Summary: Janus and Roman are #dense. Everyone and their boyfriend is tired of this. Warnings: a couple death threats (in the vein of “i’m mildly upset with you but i’m not going to actually do anything”) Wordcount: 3257

“Amor, I hate to ask, but… are you cheating on me?”

“No! I would never!”

His reply comes a little quickly, however, and Rose narrows her eyes suspiciously. “So I have no need to fight anyone for your hand?”

“I will fight you!” Someone leaps out from around the corner and both of them gasp at the newcomer. They’re wearing a domino mask, obscuring their identity until they declare, “It is I! Janice! I have come to win Vincent’s heart!”

“Then fight me!” Rose responds, drawing her sword, and Janice mirrors her. They both crouch, each watching for the slightest twitch that will give away the other’s attack. At the same time, they lunge towards each other, sword meeting sword and steel clashing together.

“And now I’m too lazy and also it sounds really tedious to make you take turns stabbing at each other, so we’ll just have you both roll and whoever gets higher wins the sword fight. Sound good?”

“But where’s the drama in that? The tension of their rivalry? The excitement of forcing one to yield?” Roman laments, then gasps. “Do we not even get to see who draws first blood?”

“Janice leaves her side undefended for a split second too long and Rose manages to nick her arm,” Remy deadpans. “Happy?”

“I suppose,” Roman groans.

“If you don’t think you’re good enough to beat me in a single roll…” Janus trails off, raising an eyebrow.

“Ha!” Roman scoffs. “Grab your dice, loser, I’ve got a +5 to dexterity and I am not going to concede victory to someone with a 0 modifier.” He pauses, looking over to Remy. “This is a dexterity roll, right?”

“Yeah, sure.” Remy waves nis hand. Roman and Janus both roll, Roman so dramatically that his die falls off the table and he has to search the floor.

“Haha! 12 plus 5 equals 17!” Roman cheers, picking up the die, at the same time Janus calls out, “17.”

“What?” Roman asks. “No it’s not. Let me see.” He peers over at their die. “Huh. It’s a tie.” He looks up at Remy. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Virgil interjects, “that right as one of you is about to force the other to yield, Vincent cries out, ‘Wait!’ and runs between you.

“‘There is no need to fight for my hand when I have two,’ he says. ‘I can simply date both of you; it shouldn’t come to this. What do you say?’”

“Rose instinctively scoffs at the offer. Share Vincent? With Janice? Inconceivable!” Janus levels Roman a Look, and he continues hastily, “But when she sees that her close-mindedness would lose her her love, she acquiesces.”

“Janice accepts the offer at once, happy to stay with her lover and have a solution that works out for all of them.”

“And so the three of them—I don’t know, cuddle or something—and live happily ever after until the next adventure.” Remy concludes.

“Now that this plot is resolved, can we fight some dragons or something?” Roman asks eagerly.

“Yeah!” Virgil seconds. “This is DnD, not some reality TV drama; the relationship stuff is interesting enough, but it doesn’t really scream adventure.”

“Look, girls, I’m DMing the best I can, okay? If you don’t like it find someone else to deal with the three of you,” Remy tells them. “I promise next time it’ll be more exciting or whatever, but figuring out the relationship stuff is necessary.” Ne shrugs. “If that doesn’t ‘scream adventure’ to you then congratulations, the boring part’s over.”

“It’s not boring,” Virgil protests.

Remy stands up. “Whatever, doll. I’m gonna go get more Starbies.” Ne leaves.

Virgil slumps back in his chair. “I pissed nym off, didn’t I?”

“It was a group effort,” Roman offers.

“Ne’ll get over it; give nym some time to cool down and then say you like nis DMing and it’ll be fine,” Janus says.

“Alright.” Virgil nods. “Thanks.”

“No problem, dear.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

roman lettuce: you gays wanna go to the mall later?

too tired for this: sure

mr. snekman: sure

and suddenly: sure

roman lettuce: ew who said you could come

and suddenly: you asked the whole chat

roman lettuce: so?????

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I still don’t see why he has to come,” Roman sighs.

“Because he’s my friend, and Janus’s friend, and you did ask the whole chat,” Virgil points out. “He wanted to come; just because you’re his brother doesn’t mean you get to ban him from hanging out with us.”

“But I’m your boyfriend,” Roman tries. “Surely that counts for something?”

Virgil hums consideringly, looking him up and down. “You aren’t that pretty.”

“Hey!”

Virgil snickers, bumping their shoulders. “Relax, I’m kidding.”

Roman huffs, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of his shirt. “I know,” he mumbles.

“Princey, seriously, I was joking. You’re gorgeous.”

“Princey?” Roman echoes. “That’s a new one.”

“Yeah, because you’re my Prince Charming.” Roman’s face flames at that, and Virgil smirks.

“Now, do you want to keep complaining about your brother being here when you really don’t mind that much, or do you want to accompany me to Claire’s so we can pretend you dragged me there and I can get new nail polish while maintaining my image?”

“Oooh, I wanna see if they have any new sparkly ones!” Roman says excitedly, then pauses. “Promise not to complain if I take a while looking at earrings and stuff?”

“Maximum of twice, and purely to keep up edgy appearances,” Virgil promises.

“Good enough! Onward!” Roman grabs his hand and drags him through the mall.

It’s half an hour later when they’re leaving Claire’s that either of them think to ask where the other half of their group went.

“Welllll, Remus will probably have dragged Janus to Spencer’s—” Roman starts.

“Right, and Janus will say they went along so they wouldn’t be alone but mostly went to look around, too—”

“—but by now they’ll be done looking and maybe have bought something, so probably best to not look there—”

“—and Janus will probably insist they need food if they’re going to deal with Remus any longer, plus they’re probably wondering where we are too, and they know how much I love snacking while wandering around the mall, so they probably dragged Remus to the food court to eat and also wait for us to show up.” Virgil concludes.

“Brilliant as always, amor,” Roman says, leaning over to kiss his cheek.

Virgil flushes a little. “You too.”

“And so eloquent!” Roman teases. Virgil elbows him.

“Let’s just go find the others.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So,” Remus stretches the word out until he’s completely out of breath.

Janus rolls their eyes. “Yes?”

“You wanna help me see how many fries I can shove in my mouth before I choke on them?” Remus wiggles his eyebrows.

“No,” Janus deadpans, wondering if it’s too soon to roll their eyes again. Is there a specific amount of time that needs to elapse between eyerolls? Not important.

“Okay!” Remus says, dropping the topic much too quickly. Janus squints at him. “Let’s talk about Roman, then.”

Janus squints harder. “What about Roman?”

“How you want to date him.” And there it is.

“Let’s go back to the fry thing,” Janus tries. Remus cackles.

“Nope!”

Janus sighs. “Fine. Why do you think I want to date Roman?” 

“Please, I’ve seen the way you look at him. And the way he looks at you! You two should get over yourselves and just kiss already.”

Janus ignores most of what Remus said to ask, “What about Virgil?”

“He’s dating both of you! He’s not going to care.”

“This is Virgil we’re talking about; he’d probably think we were leaving him for each other,” Janus points out.

“Yeahhh,” Remus agrees. “Hm.”

“And speaking of Virgil, just because Roman’s willing to be metamours with me doesn’t mean he wants to date me,” Janus tells him.

Remus sighs. “But he does want to date you.”

“Who wants to date Janus?” Roman interjects, he and Virgil walking over to them.

“Me,” Virgil says, sliding into the booth next to them and squeezing their hand, smiling at them.

“An idiot,” Remus says, grinning sharply at Roman. “Not that you’re an idiot, V, or that anyone wanting to date you is an idiot for it, JanJan.”

Virgil sighs lowly. “Thanks, Rem.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey! Do you guys want to see how many fries I can fit into my mouth before I choke on them?”

“Why?” Roman groans. Virgil simply scrunches up his face.

Remus sighs. “You’re all so boring.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So. Roman.” Patton perches on Roman’s bed and smiles widely at him. He doesn’t say anything else.

“So?” Roman echoes after a moment.

“You and Remus went to the mall today?” Patton asks. “With Virgil and Janus?”

“Yeah?” Roman asks. They’d told Patton that when they left, why is he asking when he already knows that? And, “What’s with the emphasis on Janus’s name?” Patton smiles cryptically.

“Get anything new?”

“I got some nail polish?” Roman offers. “Matte pastel blue.” Patton’s eyes widen with interest, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the answer he’s looking for.

“Anything else?” At Roman’s bewildered, get-to-your-point look, he adds, “Liiiiiiike a datemate, maybe?”

Roman blushes bright red. “No! Janus doesn’t like me like that.” Patton sighs. “No, don’t sigh at me like that, they don’t!”

“If you say so,” Patton singsongs.

“I do say so,” Roman says, a little disgruntled by how clearly Patton doesn’t believe him. “They’ve given zero indication that they like me, and I don’t even know if they’re poly or not! And even if they are poly, why would they like me? Just because we’re both dating Virgil doesn’t mean they’re interested in me too.”

“Ignoring the many indications that they like you that you’re just too oblivious to notice, they would like you because you’re pretty, and kind, and a good person, and you try your best and don’t give up, and you’re always unapologetically yourself, which is really admirable, and you’re amazing.”

Roman, embarrassed from such praise, skips over genuinely reacting to it to gasp dramatically. “Patton! You’re my brother! You’re not supposed to like me.”

“So you know you’re getting a critical, objective opinion when I say all this,” Patton grins.

“Doesn’t it being an opinion mean that it can’t be objective?” Roman asks.

“Irrelevant!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i’m the brother of an idiot: I’m going to go insane :)

i’m dating two idiots: elaborate??

i’m the brother of an idiot: Direct quote from Roman about Janus “they’ve given 0 indication they like me” yes they have???

i’m dating two idiots: ah

i’m dating two idiots: understandable, have a nice day

i’m the brother of an idiot: Thank u

im the twin of an idiot: can i pls just lokc them in a closet oh my god

i’m dating two idiots: u know what

i’m dating two idiots: lemme do my plan

i’m dating two idiots: and if that doesn’t work go wild

im the twin of an idiot: alright fine

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Aw, yeah, date night with the homies.” Virgil flops onto the couch in between Roman and Janus. “What movie are we watching?”

“Before the two of you say anything,” Roman starts, and Janus groans. “Before the two of you say anything, just hear me out.”

“Must we?” Janus asks.

“Unfortunately,” Virgil teases.

“You both may be wondering, ‘Roman, haven’t you watched this movie enough times to have memorized the script? When will it be enough?’ And to that I reply that there are never enough times you can watch Tangled.”

“Didn’t we watch that last movie night?” Janus asks.

“I refer you to ‘there are never enough times you can watch Tangled,’” Roman declares, and Janus sighs.

“At least you have the taste to pick a good movie to watch a million times.”

Roman doesn’t dignify that with a response, clicking play and settling in.

After Tangled, they watched Treasure Planet (or, well, half of it. They paused it in the middle to make a blanket fort and never got around to unpausing it).

“Roman. I love you.”

“I love you too!” Roman adds quickly. Virgil raises his hand.

“But I am going to kill you.”

“Corazón,” Roman tries. “Light of my life.” Virgil shakes his head.

“You looked me directly in the eyes and put that +4 wild down, Roman; you asked for this.” Roman sighs.

“I accept my fate.”

“Good.” Virgil leans over and kisses him, booping Roman’s nose as he pulls away. “Boop. You’re dead.”

“Alas!” Roman cries, dramatically falling back onto the floor and sticking his tongue out. He stays there while Virgil and Janus take their turns, then picks up his cards “stealthily” and cracks an eye open. “Uno,” he declares, putting a card on the pile, before dropping his cards and going back to being “dead.”

Virgil frowns at his cards, draws one, sighs and places it on the pile, then stands up. “I gotta go to the bathroom, be right back. You guys can play without me.”

“Alright,” Janus says.

Virgil hopes it’s not blatantly obvious that he’s leaving to try and get the two of them together. Virgil’s UNO deck has some of the write-in cards, and he’d taken that opportunity to create a card that said “Kiss one of the other players or draw 25.” And if he’d used his ability to count cards to make sure that Roman would get that one, knowing that Roman is fiercely competitive and hates losing, then, well, it was his and Janus’s fault for being so dense that he had to resort to this to try and get them to admit they like each other.

He just hopes Janus—who helped him learn to count cards in the first place—doesn’t put two and two together and realize what Virgil’d done. Or at least if they do, then they don’t ruin the plan.

He loiters in the bathroom for a couple minutes, eventually flushing the toilet, running the sink for a minute, and heading back out.

Roman’s holding a bunch of cards. Seriously? They didn’t even have to kiss on the lips; the card hadn’t specified. He could’ve kissed Janus’s cheek and called it good!

“Did you guys start another round without me?” Virgil asks, hoping his first instinct is wrong.

“No,” Roman says, smiling sheepishly. “I got a card that says I had to kiss another player or draw 25 cards, and you weren’t here, so…”

Virgil resists the urge to sigh loudly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i’m dating two idiots: @i’m the twin of an idiot alright

im the twin of an idiot: LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Remus!” Roman shouts, pounding on the door. “Let us out of here!” His only response is a cackling laugh. “Remus!”

He tries the knob, hoping it might be unlocked. No dice.

“Do keep banging on the door,” Janus snarks. “That’ll totally get us out.”

“You have a better plan?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. We text our friends and get one of them to come get us out of here.”

“Oh. Huh. That’s actually really smart.”

“Why, thank you.” Janus rolls their eyes.

“I didn’t mean it like you’re not usually smart!” Roman corrects quickly. “I just would never have thought of that.”

“Well, hopefully you thought to bring your phone in here?” Janus asks, a little sheepishly. “I left mine in my jacket pocket.”

Roman rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

rom(an)eo: hey

rom(an)eo: remus locked me and janus in a closet

rom(an)eo: pls come get us out?

have a patton the back: Well,,,, I would,,,,, if this didn’t sound like a really great opportunity for you to finally confess to Janus,,,,,,,,

rom(an)eo: patton

have a patton the back: :)

rom(an)eo: patton cmon please

have a patton the back: :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

rom(an)eo: amor remus locked both your loves in a closet pls come get us out??

like my soul: I’m driving right now and can’t respond further. I’ll see your message when I get where I’m going

like my soul: (I’m not receiving notifications. If this is urgent, reply “urgent” to send a notification through with your original message.)

rom(an)eo: darn

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

rom(an)eo: remy can you come get me and janus we’re locked in a closet?

excuse you: o tea??

rom(an)eo: no

rom(an)eo: no tea

rom(an)eo: just come help us

excuse you: idk babes

excuse you: first u don’t sound v sure of whether you’re locked in a closet or not

excuse you: now you’re denying me my lifeblood

excuse you: idk where all this attitude is coming from but it has Got To Go

rom(an)eo: wait remy please??

rom(an)eo: remy??

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Roman sighs. “Our friends are all useless.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah; Remus is the one who locked us in here in the first place and Remy is more interested in the drama of it then coming and helping us,” Roman tells them. “I texted Virgil but he’s driving.”

“Emile?” Janus suggests.

“I don’t have faer number, and I’m guessing you don’t know it well enough to call faer?” Janus shakes their head, and Roman frowns.

“Well, what about Patton?”

“He said—I mean,” Roman corrects quickly, “he’s not going to help.”

Janus frowns slightly. “What’d he say?”

“Nothing,” Roman tries, but Janus isn’t having it.

“Did you annoy him and now he’s refusing to help because he’s upset, or something?” Janus demands. “It can’t be that bad, just tell me what it is or make it up with Patton so he’ll get us out of here.”

“He’s not mad at me,” Roman mumbles.

“Then why isn’t he coming?”

“I…” Roman pulls up his conversation with Patton and shoves his phone at Janus, hoping they’ll understand and he won’t have to say anything.

Instead, because the universe hates him, they look over at him confusedly. “‘Confess’?”

“Yeah…”

“What does Patton want you to confess to me?” Roman is going to kill Remus once he gets out of here.

“I like you,” he whispers, squeezing his eyes shut.

There’s a few agonizing moments of silence before Janus whispers back, “Me too.”

Roman lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, eyes popping open to scrutinize Janus. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Janus tells him, smiling a little at him. He smiles back.

Then he breaks eye contact, looking over at the door, and tells them, “Great news! The door doesn’t open with a confession. Any other ideas?”

Janus snorts. “You could tell Patton we confessed and have him come get us?”

“Or,” Roman suggests, eyes lighting up with mischief, “counterpoint: we don’t tell him and pretend we still haven’t gotten together to spite him—wait. Are we dating now?”

“I mean, I’m down if you’re down.” They lift one shoulder in a half-shrug.

“I’m definitely down.”

“Then I guess we’re dating now,” Janus says, snaking their hand into his. Roman squeezes it, and Janus squeezes back.

“So. Spiting Patton?”

“Oh, definitely.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I can’t believe you got locked in a closet with him and you didn’t confess!” Patton complains. “I mean, I even brought it up! It can’t be that the idea never crossed you. And! This is literally the stuff of fanfiction and movies! It would’ve been perfect.”

“Maybe for you,” Roman points out, squashing down a smirk. “Can you imagine for me, though? I just got trapped in a tiny closet by my twin and all my friends refuse to help me. How is that romantic?”

“Still,” Patton pouts.

(Two weeks later, Patton walks in on Roman and Janus kissing and screams.)

[digimonnetwork-project]

Episode IV

Previous Episode

Leo’s Pride

Isamu was having lunch with the transfer student today.

Aki glanced over at Masato, noticing this fact as well. Mastato tapped his foot under the table, yeah, he knew Isamu had the right to sit wherever he wanted and talk to whoever he wanted, but he was spending an awful lot of time with the new girl.

“Do you think he’s going to stop hanging out with us?” Aki asked, worriedly adjusting his glasses with a disappointed frown, it wouldn’t have been the first time this happened to the duo.

Masato tapped his foot faster, “The least he could do is give us a proper ‘bye guys’ instead of this silent treatment.” The long haired boy huffed and tossed glare over at Imasu and Ju as they ate lunch together, “What does she have that we don’t?” He was more upset than Aki about this, he’d genuinely liked Isamu and believed that he’d stick around. After all the time they’d spent practicing for soccer and tryouts coming up soon...

Can’t be right all the time, Masato supposed.

Their comments did not go unheard, however, as it just so happened that Kaiyo Nakano was passing by their table with her bento box, “She’s got charm and wit, for one thing,” The brown haired girl said as she stopped and sat at their table with them, “And he’s smart and nice. Maybe they like each other.” She suggested.

“They’ve known each other for less than a week.” Masato pointed out, with an unimpressed sigh, “How could they possibly like each other that much?”

Kaiyo smiled and took a bite of her rice, “I haven’t known either of them very long, but I like them both just fine.” She announced.

Aki brushed some of his blond hair behind his ear, “That’s different, Nakano, you like everyone.”

“Just call me, Kaiyo. And I don’t see how that matters, there’s no waiting period to see if you like someone- unless” She started to snicker, “You thought I meant like-like!” Kaiyo giggled and broke into a laugh, “I just meant- he- she-! Haha guys and girls can just be friends you know!”

Masato and Aki stared at her, blushes rising to their cheeks as they realized how they’d misinterpreted her comment. Kaiyo wasn’t done teasing them though.

“Oh! But wait, what if they are in love!? Maybe they were star crossed lovers in a past life, bound to meet again and again in each lifetime, always to be torn apart, haha! It’s just like a Shoujo manga! Ha! Oh, don’t tell me, one of you is the reborn rival; here to win Ju away from him-wait not, it’s Isamu you’re upset about losing! Is he the love interest then?!”

“Th-that’s enough!” The pair sputtered in unison, making a few heads turn in their direction, but Kaiyo did manage to calm herself down before they drew too much attention.

Kaiyo chewed another bite of rice before speaking up again, “I don’t know Isamu very well, but when he served that detention for  Ms. Mazawa, he couldn’t stop talking about meeting you two at the park. He didn’t even mention that you were practicing soccer until I asked him, he just wanted to hang out with you.”

“R-really?” Aki asked, “Soccer is his favorite thing, he didn’t mention it at all?”

“Nope.” Kaiyo answered, “I know he’s been spending a lot of time with Ju the last few days, but she’s still adjusting to living in Japan, once she’s settled maybe Isamu will introduce the three of you. Who knows? Maybe you’ll like her too. Lord knows you boys could use a girl or two in your friend circle.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” Masato asked, Kaiyo giggled and continued her meal instead of answering.

Isamu and Ju stood from their table and started outside without emptying the remains of their lunch in the garbage bin. Masato stood up too, and started to follow them, leaving his lunch untouched on his table while Aki scarfed down a few bites and went after Masato, properly disposing of his lunch waste as he passed the bin.

Left alone at the table, with Masato apparently not hungry enough to care, Kaiyo reached into his bento box and swiped his dessert, “Well if he doesn’t want it.” She grinned.

Aki followed Masato into the court yard where they spotted Isamu and Ju sitting on a bench, looking over a nearby bush. More than anything, Aki wanted to tug on his friend’s sleeve and tell him to go back inside- whether it was just because whatever Isamu and Ju were doing was none of their business, or because he didn’t want to find out that Kaiyo was wrong about the situation, he wasn’t sure.

But he also knew that Masato wouldn’t stop, even if he did tug on his sleeve and insist they leave Isamu and Ju alone. They’re backs were to the approaching boys, both of them had put their lunch down and it looked as if they had decided to finish eating outside while the weather was still nice. Only Ju had her laptop resting on her knees, and Isamu appeared to be dropping bits of food into the bush.

Aki heard Ju speaking, “The Admins are all Tamers too,  but they don’t access the Network like everyone else, they program all city events, create new games, organize tournaments for the coliseum and monitor for bugs, all from the outside.”

“Do Tamers become Admins when they get too old?” asked a voice that came from the direction of Isamu, but didn’t sound like Isamu.

Ju shook her head, “No, Admins…I don’t really know actually, what qualifies someone to be an admin, I heard that the youngest admin is only seventeen.”

What in the world were they talking about?

Aki might have asked, but Masato was faster and bolder than him, and reached to tap Isamu on the shoulder, but in doing so came into Ju’s eye line. She gave a startled screech that made Isamu jump and shout in surprise. He whirled around, eyes wide searching for whatever had made Ju scream and his gaze settled on Masato and Aki, immediately relaxing.

However, it seemed he was not the only one looking. From the bush, three shapes leaped out at them, Aki screamed as a brown and red furry…thing knocked him to the ground, Masato gave a similar cry as two creatures, black and white dog-like animals, did the same to him.

“It’s alright Ju, we’ve got it, prepare the Digital con-” The white one on top of Masato started, but cut off when it realized that he was human and not…whatever it was expecting.

The creature on top of Aki noticed this detail too, and hopped off him, wide eyed and flashing a guilty look at Isamu. The brown haired boy fiddled with his goggles awkwardly “Er, Aki, Masato, I can explai-”

Aki didn’t give him a chance, once the initial shock was over he scrambled to his feet with a scream and made a break for the sports field. If he could make it passed to the road, maybe he could flag down a car or something. It flashed through Aki’s head that maybe he was being a bit of a wuss, but any thoughts about turning back to hear what Isamu had to say were dispelled the moment he realized Masato was running too.

Well, at least they were being wusses together.

“What the hell were those things!?” Aki shouted as he ran.

“I don’t know, I don’t care, just keep moving!” Masato replied.

Behind them, Aki heard Isamu call after them, “Guys wait!” They turned their head slightly to see that Isamu and Ju were both chasing after them, along with the three strange creatures that had jumped out of the bush at them.

It was the one that had landed on Aki, the cat-like animal with a red mohawk that shouted at them, “Watch out for the Digital gate!”

The what? Aki saw Masato turn his head back, and skid to a halt, but Aki wasn’t fast enough to stop and ran into him.  The force made them both tumble forward, into a strange distortion in the air he hadn’t seen until they were right on top of it. “Guys!” He heard Isamu shout before all sounds were cut off entirely.

Masato’s face planted into the ground, and was smooshed deeper into it when Aki landed on top of him. Dazed and confused it took Masato a moment to realize that he was not on school property anymore. Aki gave a terrified gasp at their surroundings.

All around them was blackness, a series of lines and dots lit the floor, going through a slow rainbow gradient. What Masato initially thought was a building, on closer inspection just seemed to be a block with no doors or windows. It almost looked like a Microchip. In the distance, Masato could just make out an outline of what appeared to be real buildings, a city of some sort.

Aki squeaked suddenly as Masato stared in awe, “Yeah, I’m seeing this, where are we?”

“N-no, Masato-” Aki tugged his sleeve and pointed across the strange space where a large furry creature stood glaring at them, “What is that thing?”

In response, the monster snarled, “Call me a thing, do you? I am Apemon! And I will crush all human parasites in the name of my Lord Nabermon!” The monster rushed them, as his name implied he was very apelike with wild yellow fur and a large bone strapped to his back.

“Masato!” Aki cried, clutching his sleeve.

The longer haired boy yanked him to his feet, “Run for it Aki!” He yelled, dodging to their right as the monster leaped into the air and brought his bone down like a club, completely obliterating the section of the floor they’d dropped onto only seconds ago and revealing more circuit-like lights underneath. Masato pushed Aki ahead of him, ducking behind one of the smaller block structures for momentary cover. “Go that way, I’ll draw it’s attention this way” Masato told him, pointing off in the direction of the distant city “When it’s clear you head back toward that gate thing Isamu mentioned!”

“”What about you!?” Aki gasped, clearly already out of breath from their previous flight.

Used to running for far longer, Masato waved his hand, “I can outlast you any day of the week, if I stay behind I can buy you enough time to get home and get help.”

“Like Isamu and the transfer student?” Aki asked.

Masato remembered the creatures that were with them, Isamu and Ju hadn’t seemed bothered by the presence, and, now that he was thinking about it, they must have been feeding them behind the bushes. Maybe those creatures could help. “Yeah, go find them, they can’t be far behind us.”

Right on cue, as if summoned by their names, Isamu, Ju and the creatures that accompanied them appeared through the gate. Apemon still stood between them and the two boys.

Isamu looked around in awe, “Is this the Digital world?” he asked.

“No,” Wemicmon replied, and pointed toward the far off city, “That’s the Network, over there, this entire plane is the dimension between our worlds. The Digital World is below us somewhere, I think.”

“Actually,” Ju corrected and pointed to a gateway across from the one they’d just come through, “The Digital World would be through there.”

Both of them fizzled in the air for a moment, they would close soon. Isamu feared for a second that if they missed their chance they might get stuck, but remembered that they could return to the real world through the Network.

“Where do you learn this stuff?” Isamu asked, quirking an eyebrow at her.

“I’ve been a Tamer for three years.” She reminded him with a smirk. “Don’t worry, you’ll pick it up.”

There was no need to open a Digital Construct in this space, so Isamu and Ju kept one eye on the battle while they searched the nearby area for Aki and Masato. It didn’t take long to find them, and give a brief explanation of where they were and what the Digimon were.

“But if we’re friends with these guys, why does the big one want to kill us for that lord Nabler- Nobba…” Aki struggled to remember the name that Apemon had called out earlier.

Isamu didn’t have the first clue what he meant, but Ju’s eyes narrowed as she thought about it, “Nabermon?” She asked.

“Yes!” Masato nodded, “That’s the one. Who is he?”

Ju didn’t answer, just pointed back to the Gate, “You two need to get back to the real world now. Isamu, you and I should lure the Digimon closer to the Network so we can call for backup.”

“What? Why, what’s happening?” Isamu asked, pulling down his goggles to scan the enemy Digimon.

Apemon was a champion level Vaccine Digimon, who used the bone club as his primary weapon. He didn’t seem that much different than the first enemy he and Wemicmon had faced together.

“Because if he’s with the Court of Demons we can’t afford to underestimate him.”

“The Court of what?” Masato asked.

“I’ll explain later, just get to the Gate!” Ju lifted her D-Gauntlet and punched in a code, activating a speed boosting item she had won in the Network. Cannismon and Leptomon began running faster, easily dodging Apemon’s attacks.

Isamu punched in his own code, he’d only played a few games at the City and mostly got more Digicures, but he did get one item that would be of use at the moment. Apemon wasn’t stupid, and realized that he would never catch the twins and turned on the much slower Wemicmon, the bone club swung down on him, but Isamu’s item activated a shield that deflected the blow.

The inventory menu on his D-Gauntlet had told Isamu that the basic shield item he won was only good for a single use in battle, he hoped they could get help on time.

“Fever claw!” Wemicmon shouted, slicing Apemon across the face and leaving a mark over his eye.

“Moon Surge!”

“Sun Blast!”  The twins attacked from either side of the yellow animal Digimon.

Their team attack usually worked like a charm, since their target could not defend against both attacks at once, but Apemon ducked low, “Metallic Fur!” He snarled, and the hairs on his body hardened to needles, shooting out and knocking the two canine Digimon out of the air.

Still on the ground, Wemicmon was spared the assault, but was also helpless to do anything to help his friends as Apemon’s fists caught flame next, “Magical Monkey Punch!” He shouted as he pumped them with his fire attack.

“Cannismon! Leptomon!” The golden haired Digimon shouted, his whole body began to glow “Lynx Fla-”

“Mega Bone Stick!”

Too slow to get out of the way in time, Wemicmon was thrown to the side by the blow. Cannismon and Leptomon were pinned to the ground by the needles and with Wemicmon out of the way the path was clear for Apemon to reach the children.

Wemicmon hopped back to his feet and dashed back toward the battle, but his Tamer knew he’d never make it in time.

Isamu swallowed hard, “Run!” he urged the others.

He grabbed Ju’s hand and dragged her away, they didn’t have time to call the Network for help they needed to get out of here and find a place to hide.

There wasn’t time for that either, and Isamu knew it, but if he could just buy a few seconds, maybe Aki and Masato could make it out. Apemon’s shadow loomed over him, he pulled on Ju’s arm and threw her ahead of him, hoping that maybe she could get out too.

“Isamu!” Wemicmon shouted, and his claws lit up for an attack but Isamu knew he was done for. He raised his hands to hide his face, it wouldn’t help but some instinct deeply rooted into human nature made him throw his arms up to block the attack. He knew he was going to die.

At least until his D-Gauntlet started reacting!

The light from his D-Gauntlet blinded Apemon, and the large Digimon stumbled back away from it. The device beeped wildly, and the boy shut his eyes against the light.

“Isamu! What did you press?” He heard Ju call over the beeping.

“I didn’t press anything!” He answered, Masato was running back toward them, reaching to pull Isamu back so they could escape, but Aki was staring out passed Apemon.

He pointed out where Isamu had last seen Wemicmon, “What’s happening to the cat guy?”

Isamu squinted, trying to see Wemicmon through the light of his D-Gauntlet, but couldn’t see him anywhere. It took him a moment to realize that the reason why was because Wemicmon was now glowing the same as his D-Gauntlet.

“Wemicmon Digivolve to…!”

A shape grew out of the smear of light that Wemicmon had become, growing taller, and bigger, the light quickly faded to reveal a new creature, similar to what Isamu had seen become of Scrofamon his first night in the Network.

“Nemaemon!”

The light faded from Isamu’s D-Gauntlet, and even Apemon had turned to see the new Digimon. He was the same color as Wemicmon, larger with a full mane, looking more like a lion. He had a belt wrapped around his torso that was keeping shoulder armor on Nameamon’s left arm, clothlike tendrils sprouted from his back between feathery patches of fur.

“His horn disappeared.” Isamu gaped, noticing that Wemic-no, Nemaemon’s face was far more cat-like than ever.

“Not going to comment on all those belts he’s suddenly wearing?”  Ju blinked.

“How about that he’s got to be like ten feet tall!?” Masato shouted in a near panic.

This detail was what Aki noticed too, and he shrunk back, “He’s not going to hurt us, is he?”

Apemon seemed to lose interest in the humans at the sight of the new challenger. Isamu dropped his goggles over his eyes again to read the scan data on his partner’s new form. Nemaemon,  mythical Digimon, Data type, Jungle Troopers. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, this was Wemicmon? How cool!

“Metallic fur!” Apemon shouted, shooting needles toward Namaemon, who simply ducked low and his new shell deflected the attack.

Nemaemon rushed the enemy, dropping to all fours and now fast enough to keep up, “Inferno Bane!” He said, body slamming the other Digimon, raising back to two feet and holding Apemon down while breathing fire into his face.

Apemon grunted with pain and picked up his bone.

“Mega Bone Sti-”

“Eclipse Snare!” Everyone had been watching Nemaemon in awe, and hadn’t noticed the twins recover from the attacks they’d endured. Apemon was bound tightly by the beams of light and darkness that Cannismon and Leptomon wrapped around him, “Nemaemon, now!” Cannismon hissed.

The lion-like Digimon didn’t need to be told twice, “Leo’s Pride!”  He raised a fiery fist, the flames shot out and took the form of a lion, running toward the trapped digimon and engulfing him in the fire.

“-Lord Nabermon, grant me-” Apemon dropped midsentence, knocked out completely, Isamu raised his D-Gauntlet and entered the sequence to convert Apemon to scan Data.

The Digimon pixelated and was drawn into the device, but more than that, the computer voice of the D-Gauntlet had an announcement, “Conversion completed. Map piece detected, would you like to view?”

“Um, not now.” Isamu said, Nemaemon stomped over to them and shrank back down to Wemicmon.

Isamu was a little disappointed at seeing his partner return to normal so soon, but at the same time, he knew he was having a hard enough time hiding Wemicmon, he’d never be able to keep Nemaemon out of sight.

He scooped up Wemicmon, “Let’s get out of here!” He said.

Nobody argued, Ju led the way out and the Digital gate closed behind them.

-

After the kids disappeared, a set of shadowy figures looked down at the former battle field, “You weren’t ever going to grant him the blessing of a Demon Lord were you?” The female figure said, almost with a laugh.

The bestial Digimon only grumbled in response, the clearest no that he could be bothered to give. That seemed to be enough because the woman did start to laugh.

“I thought so. So his mission was nothing but a wild goose chase them?” Again her companion did not give a real answer, but that didn’t seem to matter to her, “Oh well, those Tamers didn’t seem to be too experienced. Only one of them evolved their partner. A Digimon who cannot beat such fledglings is not worth of the scum beneath our feet, let alone our blessing”

“Indeed” The other replied, speaking for the first time, and turning away, “Come then, Mephistomon will want a real candidate selected soon…”

-

Back in the real world, Masato resisted the urge to drop to the ground and start kissing the grass after their close call. Aki said nothing, but his face was still white as a sheet, so Masato put on a brave face and was the first to speak as they started to wander back to where Isamu had Ju had been feeding their Digimon.

“So...A Digital Gate, huh?” It was sort of a pathetic question, but at least it wasn’t total awkward silence.

Isamu continued to carry Wemicmon, who yawned sleepily in his arms, “Yeah, they connect our world to the one we just came from” He said, and nodded to Ju, “She knows more about it than I do, I’ve only been a Tamer for a little while.”

“That’s pretty much the gist of Digital Gates. It's kind of weird, though...” She commented, “I’ve never seen two Digital Gates open up so close together. Back in Beijing they always appeared months apart.”

They reached the bench and Isamu set Wemic down so he could rest after his battle. He lifted his D-Gauntlet in amazement, he’d been able to make Wemicmon Digivolve to champion. That was incredible! Ju said that she’d had her partners for three years and she hadn’t been able to do that.

The corners of the screen glowed in sequence, a new code he needed to memorize, Isamu mouthed along with it, top right, top left, left, bottom right, top loft again.” He fished his pen out of his pocket and wrote that sequence down on his hand so he could transfer it to his notebook later.

He’d ask Ju about that after school maybe, but right now they had a lot of questions to answer from Aki and Masato, and not a lot of time to explain. Lunch break would be over soon. Even with the two of them telling the story together it was clear that the boys didn’t fully understand, Isamu didn’t blame them, he had first had experience as a Tamer and he still wasn’t sure he understood it all.

“Could we be Tamers?” Masato asked excitedly, as he paced back and forth in the courtyard “Where do we find Digimon partners?”

“How do we get the D-Gauntlets?” Aki pushed his glasses up, showing extreme interest in this, which was sort of a surprise for him.

“There’s always Digimon in the Network who are looking for Tamers.” Ju said, “Maybe you could talk to them sometime this weekend, you might get lucky.”

“Can they get into the Network without an ID?” Isamu asked as Aki and Masato quietly celebrated the idea of maybe becoming a Tamer like their friend.

Ju shrugged, as they reached the bench they’d started at “I don’t know, but I didn’t want them running off to go looking for a partner. We have until the weekend to figure something out.” She checked the time on her D-Gauntlet and slung her bag back off her shoulders, pulling her laptop out to check her email.

“So what kind of Digimon are there in the Network?” Masato asked, “I want to partner with someone cool, like Nemaemon.”

“Aw, shucks, I’m not that cool.” Wemicmon blushed, Isamu rolled his eyes and ruffled his Digimon’s mohawk earring a squawk of protest.

“All kinds of Digimon,” Ju shrugged, “But remember I said you might get lucky, just because you meet someone cool doesn’t mean you’ll get to be partners. I’ll talk to a few of them tonight and see if anyone’s interes-” She cut off suddenly and her eyes narrowed at the sight of something on her screen, “Isamu, have you checked your email recently?” She asked.

“No, why?” Ju pointed her screen toward him, Aki and Masato exchanged confused looks.

Isamu read the email out loud.

Urgent, do not enter the Network. All Digimon and Tamers be advised that the Court of Demons is planning a strike against the Network this week. A new Firewall is being programmed to shield most damage, but as a precaution, if you are not an Admin, please do not put yourself at risk by coming to the Network.

Gray.

He glanced at Ju, with a startled blink “Gray, like, as in the legendary Tamer, Gray?”

She nodded, “This is the same email he contacted me from three years ago.” Ju went back to her inbox where several more emails with subject lines warning them to stay out of the Network were waiting.

“The Court of Demons,” Aki repeated, “You said something about those guys earlier…who are they?”

The bell summoning them back to class rang, cutting short their conversation. Ju stood up, closing her laptop and putting it back in her bag, “The bad guys.” She said, “No one’s going to the Network until we get an all clear. Being a Tamer isn’t a game, so you’d better think hard about if you really want to do it.” She added with a note of finality and packed up so they could go.

Aki and Masato turned to Isamu for an explanation, but this was the first he had heard of this Court, the Digimon looked frightened though.

“We should head back.” he said, moving Wemicmon back into the bush,Cannismon and Leptomon ducked into it too, where they would hide until school was out and their Tamers came to pick them up.

As they passed by the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, the trio  continued to talk quietly about the Digimon and failed to notice a small shape swimming in the water. A small furry face poked out to stare after the group, at a particular boy.

“I found him!” A feminine voice said, and brown eyes sparkled happily, “My Tamer!”

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