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djarrex · 1 year ago

Text

burning hot

Howzer x f!reader | Fireball x f!reader | Howzer x reader x Fireball

ao3 | masterlist

The senator you work for assigned you to go to the clone base on Teth, where your primary job as a relations specialist has you venturing outside the job description.

It's been a while - but I just couldn't get these two out of my head. spoilers for the bad batch s3e6&7. 18+ only. explicit. oral. piv. a hint of creampie and a sprinkle of light choking. everything is consensual. almost getting caught. getting caught a little. after care and mention of the color system. a little bit of a threesome. I don't ship clones. no love triangle. reader is f! but no physical description is mentioned. It's been a long time since I've had to tag anything so please let me know if I need to add something. not gonna add user tags because I don't know who's out there anymore lol. enjoy the 10.5k words of smut with plot :)

Never would you have thought you’d one day travel to Wild Space, and yet here you are, just having entered the purplish atmosphere of a planet called Teth. You’re not traveling alone, though; you’re surrounded by a couple security guards of the senator you all work for, along with a few clones, although these particular clones are not soldiers of the Empire; they’re fighting back just as your Senator is, among a few others who remain in office. Your job is one that your Senator has entrusted to you when this all began, which is to facilitate communications and gather information for your office. Essentially, you speak with the clones about their experiences with the Empire, and see if there’s anything there that would help their case in the Senate, and eventually, to hopefully cast a light on the Empire’s crimes.

“We’re almost to the landing zone,” the pilot, a clone named Gregor, calls. Through the transparisteel you see the abandoned Monastery come into view, sitting atop a steep, mountainous pillar. Apparently, this is where the clones have set up their operations – their base. You figure it’s a good location because of how remote it is, being way out in Wild Space where the Empire’s shadow does not reach.

As the doors open and the ramp lowers, you see the several men who have been awaiting your arrival at the landing zone. Most of them, the ones who surround the pathway with their blasters held at ease, are in their helmets – but there are two clones in front of you without their helmets, one you quickly recognize as the Captain Rex.

You blink.

You know the other helmetless man, his hairstyle exactly the same as it was the day he was rescued, though now he’s in a full kit of armor, strapped with weapons. Your heart does a little flip at the sight of him. He looks good, you note. Healthier than the day you met him, and judging by the operation they have going on here, he’s been keeping busy.

Debarking the ship, you follow closely behind your security. You try not to linger too long on the giddiness you feel of seeing him again, but as you’re walking by, you see his eyes briefly widen with the realization of who you are.

He remembers you.

You first met Captain Howzer several months back, on the day he was rescued. Tagging along with your boss and security, you finally were able to meet the men who were the talk amongst the office: The rogue clones who were fighting back against the Empire. The garage in the lower levels of Coruscant was filled with these clones, some who were recently rescued and the ones who’d already been in the fight. On the day you met Howzer, you were getting to know the men who’d just been rescued that very day–him being one of them–by hearing their stories and gathering as much information as you could for your office, jotting down anything of note that could help the clones’ case in the Senate.

When you spoke with their captain, Howzer, you could tell he was angry – resentful. He told you all about how he’d been arrested back on Ryloth for merely opposing an order that was just plain wrong. Dissidence. He’d been arrested with several of his men who’d laid down their arms in solidarity, only to have been rescued with a saddening two who’d survived the year-long imprisonment.

The two of you spoke for what felt like hours – long after the garage had cleared out of visitors and others had fallen asleep. You weren’t sure what it was – but you were feeling a pull – one that brought you closer and closer to him until the both of you felt the unspoken. He was flashing you a look – and that’s what did you in.

Howzer fucked you in a supply closet that evening.

It was quick and desperate. Howzer had you pinned to the back wall of that supply closet just moments after he'd followed your invitation inside. As you quickly worked your bottoms off, Howzer's desperation was blatant, his cock straining against those tight gray pants he'd been wearing since the rescue. His hands were quick and his movements were sloppy yet he still was able to expertly find every little thing that got you off. At one point, Howzer had you bent over the counter of a shelving unit, roughly pounding you from behind with his hand pressed against your mouth. His normally perfectly styled hair was falling out of place, strands hanging down his sweat-slicked forehead. He had you seeing stars quicker than you’d anticipated, and when he was nearly at his own climax, he pulled out of you and finished off into the palm of his hand, punctuating the moment with a slap to your ass and a soft, breathy kiss to your temple that juxtaposed it all.

You’ve been working alongside clones for over a year now–since your boss had decided to covertly join the fight–and you’ve gotten to meet many of these familiar yet unique faces. It’s never been the way it was with Captain Howzer, though – not that you’re looking for that. However, since meeting him that evening, you always had the teeniest of hopes that you’d see him around again.

And now, several months later, you’ve run into him here on Teth.

You try to hide your growing smile by pressing your lips together and looking down at your feet as you walk. His boots fall in line behind you, and not even several steps later, he clears his throat.

“Remember me?”

His voice comes from behind you, gruff and playful at the same time, loud enough for only you to hear. You turn your head to the side to catch a glimpse of him from where he’s following behind you, his lips quirked at the corners.

You keep your voice low, glancing behind you as you walk. “Captain Howzer,” you greet simply.

He hums.

“Almost didn’t recognize you without the Imperial prison uniform,” you add.

Howzer lets out a wry laugh. “Felt real good to finally get out of those grays,” he tells you. “Felt even better to get back into my armor again.”

The group pauses, the leaders awaiting the doors to open.

“Glad to see you’re doing better,” you add, turning to face him fully. “This is quite the operation you guys have going on here.”

You swear you see Howzer briefly check you out, subtly eyeing you from head to toe. He grins. “So, what brings you here?”

“A job for the Senator. Apparently I’m good at getting you clones to share your stories and experiences.”

It’s the truth–that’s why you were assigned here for a while–but you’re also laying down little hints, something you know isn’t very professional of you but Howzer’s already reeled in.

He laughs at that, picking it up quickly. “I’ll say. I’d be happy to share even more with you.”

Barely minutes into a conversation with him and you’re already getting worked up, heat building in your lower stomach. “And I’d be happy to listen, Captain. That’s what I’m here for, after all.”

Howzer pitches his voice even lower. “How long will you be here for? You know, to listen?”

“Oh, that depends on how much you lot have to share.”

The same look appears in his eyes from your interaction all those months ago – the look that led the two of you into that supply closet. Even as the group continues inside, you can still feel his eyes on you.

“Once you’re settled, ma’am,” he says just a little louder, playing the part, “I’d be happy to brush you up on our progress here. For the Senator, that is.”

You once again fight to hide your knowing smile. “I’d be happy to listen, Captain Howzer. I’ll find you once I’ve settled in?”

He exhales deeply, a sly grin on his lips. “How about I give you a tour of the place first?”

Impatient.

But, honestly, so are you.

You look to your security and they nod in unison, and they step off to the side with a group of clones who are huddled over by the scanners.

You follow Howzer all the way to a seemingly unused doorway. He pushes it with some force to get it to budge, opening it up to the stairwell spiraling against the inner walls of the spire. The only lighting within the stairwell comes from the torch he just clicked on, and he takes your hand, guiding you down the spiraling steps until reaching the next platform. He sets the torch down and holds your shoulders, and you pull yourself closer to him.

“You know what’s been on my mind since seeing you come off the ship?” Howzer slips his hands under your shirt, teasing his way up to your chest. You gasp at his touches, legs already feeling like jelly.

“Tell me.”

He leans in. “How good you felt wrapped around my cock.”

You can tell just how wet you are already, and after waiting so many months to see him again, you’re growing impatient.

“I’m having a hard time remembering that,” you tease. “Maybe you could jog my memory?”

Even in the dim light you are able to see just how dark Howzer’s eyes get, the shadows of his face deepening with the expression of lust etching in his handsome features.

“Get your clothes off. Now.”

You start with your bottoms, pulling them off leaving yourself completely bare and exposed to the chilled air of the stairwell. Howzer doesn't take the time to remove all of his armor, only focusing on the parts that would get in the way. Before you can remove your shirt, Howzer stops you, his cock already hardened and in his hand.

“That’s good for now,” he orders breathily. Back against the stone wall, you bend your leg at the knee and Howzer takes it to hold against his armored hip as he guides his cock between your legs.

“You’re so wet,” he comments in a voice far too deep. He nudges into you, and the feeling was an incredibly missed one. “Gonna take me so well, baby. Just like you did before.”

“Howzer…”

“Hang on to me.”

You wrap your arms around his neck and Howzer hoists you up, effectively impaling you on his cock in the process. You cry out, the sound echoing throughout the stairwell.

“Gotta be a little quieter than that,” he chuckles confidently. “I haven’t even moved yet, pretty girl.” He kisses you then, his lips too soft for what you know is to come. “Promise me you’ll stay quiet. Can’t have anyone hear us down here.”

“Promise.”

With your back pressed against the wall and your entire lower half suspended in air by Howzer’s strong grip, you press your lips tightly together, and nod to give him the go ahead.

Howzer adjusts his grip and starts to move. He snaps his hips roughly, creating repetitive echoes of the sounds throughout the stairwell. Armor on skin. It’s only slightly uncomfortable, but you’re too lost in the feeling of him fucking you again to care about anything else. Your head falls back against the stone wall but Howzer won’t have that.

Between heavy breaths, he brings you back. “Eyes on me.”

When you meet his eyes again, you start to crumble. Even in this state they’re still such a soft, inviting brown, and you practically allow yourself to drown in them as you both near the finish. He sets you down on shaky legs, and turns you around. You present your ass to him, arching your back the way you know he likes. Howzer chuckles at that and quickly lines himself up to enter you again.

“Gonna paint this pretty ass,” he promises through gritted teeth.

The change of angle sends you into a frenzy, only this time, you’re able to cover your mouth.

The way Howzer fucks you is so needy and frantic, everything that was pent-up driving the way he snaps his hips and grips your skin. You can feel him everywhere – consuming you. Your body starts to shake when your orgasm hits and Howzer can feel it – it affects the speed of his movements with how tight you start to clench around him.

“Fuck – that’s it – so tight.” He groans – a syrupy rumble in his throat. “Feels even better than I remember. Shit.”

You quiver as Howzer yanks his cock from you. The feeling of the loss is soon replaced by the feeling of his cum spurting onto your skin, the sensation making you moan. You must look like quite a sight, because he keeps humming and groaning quietly as he continues to fist his cock, milking every last drop onto your skin.

Howzer pulls a small cloth from one of his pouches and wipes you off with it, helping you stand upright on your shaky legs. He starts to reattach his kit to his armor as you pull your bottoms back on, doing your best to fix yourself up without a mirror.

“Now that we got that out of the way…” The both of you laugh before you continue, “Wanna actually share with me some useful information that I can relay to my boss?”

Howzer wipes his forehead – combs his fingers through his hair. “That I can do.”

It’s been a few weeks since you got to the base, and you’ve been welcomed by all as if you were one of them.

You’re all on the same side here.

You even have your own room, a place to retreat to when you need some privacy, and the men set up sleeping arrangements in there for you as well. You contact your office once a rotation to keep them up to date, though there hasn’t been much to tell as of yet. What you do know is that the clones are planning something big, a mission to help free more of their brothers, and you suppose you’re going to be here until that becomes more defined. Your security–well, they’re the Senator’s security–left after the first day because they were really only there to protect you, a member of the Senator’s staff, while traveling to Teth. After they did their job, they left, leaving you to do your job in peace.

Since your first day, you’ve gotten to know quite a few of the men who are stationed here, and you’ve been able to speak to the leadership as well as the ones who normally stay back while a certain few others come and go, whether it be with the leaders or on their own respective missions. Captain Howzer is one of the men who come and go, mostly staying at the side of Rex, the clone captain who was the original contact of your boss, the reason why you got into this job in the first place.

You stay inside of the Monastery, not being a huge fan of the climate outside the stone walls. What you do enjoy is stepping outside to see the sunset and watching how the two moons rise into the mauve sky, when the humidity isn’t at its peak. Otherwise, you’d never venture out into the tangly jungle, or dare to climb the rocky terrain by yourself.

When Captain Howzer is around, though – you end up wandering off to places you normally would never go on your own. He keeps you busy, even when you both have some downtime from your duties.

Your secret encounters started off with him simply sneaking into your room at a time when nobody would ask questions. Then, it became him guiding you to remote locations within the base grounds, like the leech vessel that remains safely docked halfway down the spire, or even the transport ship that’s been under maintenance. You’ve even found yourselves behind closed doors in the communications room in the dead of night, riding his lap in one of the chairs. It’s always been quick sex so as to not get caught, but there’s a connection there that has you both feeling its pull. He always finds you before leaving for a mission, and never fails to pay you a visit once he’s back and debriefed. Hells, Howzer even kisses you like he misses you, but it’s just physical, and has to stay that way.

Currently, Captain Howzer and several others are away – gone for the past few rotations. To be completely honest, without him as an obvious distraction, you’ve been able to really focus on your job.

You’ve just gotten off a call with your office and are finishing typing out notes into your datapad, when Fireball, one of the clones who was rescued from an Imperial prison transport nearly a year ago, calls out to you from the kitchen.

“Chow time!”

A man who has quickly become one of your favorites, Fireball has long been the elected sous-chef around here, gladly taking up the responsibility of feeding his brothers when Captain Gregor is away. He’s cooked for you every day since you got here, making the dishes just as spicy and flavorful as you like. Not only have the two of you bonded over the food, you’re sometimes the only two inside of the main area of the base while everyone is either keeping up with their own duties around base or off-world on a mission. In those moments, Fireball has been able to really dig deep into his past experiences with you, sharing some of the more painful details that he’d otherwise keep buried and repressed. It isn’t always gloomy conversation, though; he is quite funny and keeps you entertained with cheerful anecdotes from his days as a soldier of the Republic. You’ve truly started to look forward to eating and chatting with Fireball.

With a smile, you set down your datapad and head to the kitchen, where Fireball starts to shovel out stew from a pot into a bowl for you.

“Smells delicious,” you tell him appreciatively, taking the warm bowl from him. “Thank you, Fireball.”

“You’re very welcome.” He returns your smile, offering you a seat at the table. “I think I’m getting the hang of this cooking thing. Gregor taught me some of his recipes and I’ve enjoyed making them my own.” He sits down beside you at the table, watching you take your first bite with his brows raised. “This is my take on tiingilar – added my own modifications. What do you think?”

The warm colors of the vegetables and the spicy scent of the steam rising from the surface really add to the flavor of the bite, all of it coming together and melting right into your mouth.

“Wow – this is good. You really know how to win over a woman’s heart, Fireball.”

You could swear you see his cheeks darken with a blush, his eyes casting downward as he takes a few bites of his own. “It’s the Captain who’s won you over, from what I’ve been hearing,” he then adds with a chuckle. “Howzer’s been asking about you every time he makes contact. I should know – I mostly man comms around here.”

It’s your turn to blush, your cheeks heating with the comment. “I-It’s not like that,” you stammer awkwardly, failing to defend yourself. “I’ve been helping h– talking him through some things.” Fireball looks amused, still slurping on his stew and watching you trip over your words. “I– we– I mean not we, but– ”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he interrupts, waving you off. “I haven't spoken a word to anyone about your relationship with the Captain.”

You freeze.

“...Relationship?”

Fireball leans close, pitching his voice low. “I know about you two.” Your heart nearly drops, but he’s quick to offer you relief. “Howzer told me. He wanted to make sure that if anyone found out, I’d catch the chatter first on comms. I know it probably wouldn't be very beneficial for your office to find out.”

“Oh, well, thanks.” You wipe the embarrassment from your face. “How long have you known?” Taking a heaping bite, you purposefully avoid his eyes.

“Well, I've known ever since I sort of walked in on the two of you last week.”

You almost choke on the bite. “What?”

“In the comms room,” he quickly adds. “I’m normally up to check the channels every hour. I could hear the two of you behind the closed door, thankfully, before I could open it.”

“Shit. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” he chuckles. “I’m just glad Howzer’s in a better mood overall. Now I can figure that’s because of you.”

You blink at him. Something sits wrong in your gut, and it’s not the stew. The last thing you want is for the guys here to think of you as a piece of meat – someone who is only here to offer them relief in a physical way. If word got out about what you and Captain Howzer have been getting up to, not only would that tarnish the view of you in the clones’ eyes, but would cost you your job for sure.

“Hey, I was sent here to help all of you – to offer an ear for your experiences but while also taking down anything of note to help the cause for not just my people but yours as well.” You sit up straighter, setting the spoon down. “We are all on the same side here, but I’m not just– not just a booty call.”

“No, that’s not what I meant, I’m sorry,” Fireball amends, his hand coming to rest over your own. “I know why you’re here. You helped me on the day I was rescued, too.” He smiles. “I haven’t forgotten about what you did for me on my first day of freedom, how you showed compassion and empathy towards what I’d gone through with the Empire.”

You soften then, offering an apologetic smile. You remember Fireball, meeting him in the same garage in the lower levels of Coruscant only a few months prior to Howzer’s rescue. “I’m glad I was able to help.”

A silent minute goes by then, the two of you finishing up your stew. When you take the last bite, he collects your empty bowl, making the short walk to the kitchen and setting them in a pile to be cleaned later.

“You being present, eating with me says more than you know,” Fireball adds after taking his seat beside you once again. “Normally I’m by myself in here when the leadership is away, back and forth between keeping the others fed and monitoring communications.”

You nod along with his words, unable to hide your growing smile stemming from your heated cheeks. Fireball continues and you listen.

“It’s just nice to have somebody to talk to, somebody different.” He rubs at the back of his neck, flashing you a bashful grin. “It doesn't hurt that you’re beautiful, too. I understand why Howzer’s so taken with you.”

Something clicks then.

You’ve developed a crush on Fireball.

It makes sense – him being someone who’s always there, someone who you’re always looking forward to chatting with. Of course he’s attractive, but it’s not just the exterior you admire about him; you truly appreciate who he is as a person – the decisions he made leading up to his turn against the Empire. Sacrifice. Heart. He’s brave and resilient. Maybe you’re just being silly, but you think he feels some type of way about you as well.

You and Howzer aren’t a thing. It’s okay to feel something for somebody else.

“I have to confess something,” you say to him, locking eyes with his curious ones, rounding as you begin to speak. “The guys here are so lucky to have you on their side. You’re a real catch – and honestly, any woman would be lucky to have you, too.”

The mood suddenly changes – the air charged. You want him, you decide. You briefly reason with yourself that this would not go against what you were saying before, about how you don’t want to sully the guys’ opinions of you by offering yourself up like this. This – this is different. You feel a connection with Fireball, one that’s full of tension that’s ready to snap at any moment. It’s too strong to turn your head away from, and you’re well aware the man sitting beside you feels the very same.

“Oh yeah?” Fireball bites his lip – runs his fingers through his hair. His voice lowers, gruffer and thick. The sound of it goes through your core. “Any woman?”

You take a beat, your heart thumping in your chest. He’s gotten closer – subtly leaning toward you. His hand slowly comes up, fingers gently pinching your chin.

“Say it, beautiful.”

You know he can do more than just cook and make you laugh – a man who is competent with more than just incendiary weapons. He’s been holding something back for a long time, you just know it.

“I want you,” you confess, your voice barely above a whisper.

And you want him to let loose.

“Stand up.”

Even though his voice came out just as quiet as yours, his tone was firm and certain, nothing to defy. You’re quick to stand, and in seconds Fireball is standing as well, his hands grasping your upper arms. You blink at him, awaiting for what should come next. You sense that he’s going to be the one calling the shots here – guiding you exactly where he wants you to go. He may not be part of the leadership around here but he sure as hell is in charge at this very moment. His eyes are deep in thought, that much you can tell. You figure he’s trying to decide on where to start, and the anticipation is making you clench around nothing.

Finally, his eyes make a decision, his hands offering your arms a gentle squeeze.

“Turn around.”

You oblige, awaiting further guidance.

“I also have something to confess,” Fireball says, his lips just behind your ear. You hold your breath as his hands travel all over your body, his touches featherlight and teasing. “I’ve wanted you for a while. Ever since you got here, maybe even before, when I’d heard you’d be joining us for a while.”

“Oh yeah?”

He bends you over the table in one motion, and pulls your bottoms down to your knees in the next. You swallow thickly as his discarded gloves plop beside you on the tabletop. Breathlessly glancing over your shoulder, you catch sight of him slowly crouching down, his face just inches away from your bare skin.

“Yeah. And when I heard you and the Captain in the comms room last week, I had to find someplace quick to work one out. Couldn’t get the sounds you were making out of my head.”

Fireball caresses your skin, his fingers coming close to your folds. Knowing he’s that close to touching you where you want makes you clench, a sight that he appreciates.

“Has… Howzer ever tasted you before?”

The question alone makes you whimper.

“N–no. Not yet.”

He only hums at that.

“Fireball – touch me, please.”

He continues to tease you, fingers gently prodding through your folds. The soft squelching sound of your arousal heats your face. Growing impatient and desperate for something more, you wiggle your hips, hoping to hint at him to stop teasing and get to it.

“You said to touch you, beautiful, and I am touching you. If you’re wanting something else, I need to hear you ask nicely.”

You could almost roll your eyes at that, but you’re far too worked up to be a brat. You know from experience that certain behaviors, though they can be fun, won’t get you very far.

“Please put your mouth on me. I want to feel your mouth on me, please.”

His response to you is a throaty chuckle, soon followed by exactly what you asked for. When he finally puts his mouth on you, you nearly cry out in relief.

He starts slow – still teasing while giving you the bare minimum. His lips plant little kisses to the backs of your thighs and all over your folds, his hands holding your hips steady. You’re so worked up that even the small amount he’s granting you is almost enough, but knowing what’s still to come, your body aches for more.

“Fireball, please, more.”

“I appreciate the manners.” You feel him chuckle again behind you, the vibrations even more teasing. Finally, you feel his tongue poke out between his lips, prodding through your folds.

You slam your hand against the tabletop. “Oh, fuck.”

He hums in satisfaction, quickly losing himself in your taste. Fireball practically latches his mouth to your pussy, his tongue vigorously working its way through and between your folds. The suction of your clit caught in his lips nearly ends you right then and there, but sensing that you’re incredibly close, he removes his mouth from you and instead stands. Disappointed, you turn your head to face him, catching sight of him wiping his mouth and removing the guard on his armor.

“I need to know what you feel like wrapped around me, beautiful.”

Seemingly awaiting your approval, Fireball runs his fingers through his hair, holding his hardened cock in his other hand. You gulp at the size of him, flushed and leaking. You haven't even touched him and he looks like he’s about to bust, his own arousal coming from just the taste of you.

“Fuck me, then.”

He hums.

You feel the head of his cock slide through the mess he made between your legs, and as he pushes himself in the slightest, you can’t help the shudder that rips through your body. He’s big, and even though you’re more than wet enough to take him, you’re clenching too much in anticipation.

He laughs at that – soft and sweet yet full of cockiness.

“Easy, darling. Barely even inside of you yet.” Fireball groans, the sound of it sending even more heat to your core. “Take a deep breath for me.”

You do, and he feeds his cock into you in that very breath.

“I won’t last very long,” he tells you once his armored hips are flush with your rear. “You feel too incredible.”

He starts to thrust then, slowly at first and even at the current pace you’re losing your mind. He’s so deep inside of you that you can feel him in your stomach. You don’t realize just how silent you’ve been through it all–too focused on holding your breath and keeping the noise to a minimum–until Fireball comments on it, briefly pausing and checking in to make sure you’re okay.

“‘M fine,” you assure him. Your hand finds his own from where it's grabbing your hip – extra reassurance. “Faster. Go faster. Please.”

You’re guided into a standing position, your back meeting the cool, hard armor covering his body. Fireball’s hand wraps around your throat, not squeezing with too much pressure but it's very much there. His other hand finds its way between your legs, rubbing at your clit to match his increasing speed. It isn’t long until you’re crying out in ecstasy into the palm of your head, tears brimming in your eyes at the intensity of it all. When you climax, Fireball feels it for sure, his own cresting at breakneck speed.

“Where do you want me,” he breathily gasps into your ear, still rubbing your clit into overstimulation. You don’t have it in you to care though, legs wavering from your ongoing climax.

“Inside,” you whimper. “I have the implant.”

“Fuck, okay.”

Fireball cums inside of you – and the feeling is indescribable.

Never before have you been with a partner who felt like this during an orgasm. He makes the most sinful of noises as his cock swells deep inside of you, his body shaking against yours. He pants into your ear while your entire cunt heats with his amount of release, enough of it to seep out even with his cock still fully inside of you, feeling it trickle down your thighs.

Fireball bends you down against the table once again when he pulls out, a gush of warmth following. Crouched down to watch his handiwork, he swipes his fingers through some of the mess along your inner thighs, bringing it back to where it belongs.

“Messy girl. Took me so well.” He stands, guiding you back to your feet, “Fuck, you’re perfect.”

“Anybody could have walked in on us,” you laugh breathlessly, that very realization making you quick in redressing, not caring about the mess still dribbling down your thighs and now soaking your underwear.

Tucking himself back into his undersuit and reattaching his guard piece, Fireball blinks dreamily at you. You’re pulled in by the look in his eyes, full of satisfaction and adoration. Your lips meet then, a passionate kiss that punctuates the moment perfectly.

“I should get to the comms,” he tells you almost apologetically. You nod in understanding, meeting his lips for another kiss. “See you around?”

“Of course,” you reply. “Looking forward to our next meal and conversation.”

The unspoken third activity hangs in the air, Fireball grinning knowingly at the implication.

It wasn’t even an hour later when some of the others came back to base after being away for a few rotations. You heard the team return, conversations loud enough to sound as if they were occurring just outside your room. Something about running into another shadow – those assassins you’ve been briefed on. Figuring this is a conversation you should be apart of, you gather your datapad and go to head out the door.

Right as you’re opening the door, Howzer is there.

“Welcome back,” you tell him with a hint of surprise in your voice, not at all expecting him to be right there. “I was just coming out to see what was going on.”

“We’ll debrief you later. Rex and Gregor have other business to attend to at the moment.”

You set down your datapad. “Oh, okay. Well, if you’re hungry, there’s a huge pot of tiingilar on the stove that was made about an hour ago. Should still be pretty warm–”

Howzer interrupts you when his lips passionately meet yours.

“There’s only one thing I’m hungry for,” he mumbles against your lips, quickly shutting the door behind him. “And she’s standing right here in front of me.”

You giggle at that, once again being swept off your feet when Howzer’s lips reconnect with yours. It happens so fast – his hands roaming your body. Too lost in the feeling of his mouth on yours and his tongue tasting your lips you don’t realize one of his hands has already lost a glove and found its way into your pants until you jolt from the sensation. Your reaction makes Howzer pause, a curious brow raised.

You never cleaned yourself up from earlier. A request to make contact with your office had come in immediately following what took place in the kitchen, and you were so consumed with work that you completely forgot to take care of yourself.

And Howzer noticed.

“What’s the matter? A little sensitive down there, baby?”

You only manage a nod, bashfully smiling through it against his lips. Howzer continues, only now his fingers move your soaked panties to the side. He pauses again, this time pulling his face from yours.

“Oh?” He hums playfully, narrowing his eyes yet still keeping his cocky smirk. “You're a mess.”

His fingers slip inside you with ease, and his eyes widen. You choke on a gasp when his fingers pull from you, his hand raising up between your faces for you both to see. Coated on his digits is the creamy film of a mixture of releases, and some of it still dripping from your pussy from what happened between you and Fireball.

“Now who did this?”

Howzer once again lowers his hand and slips his fingers inside of you, pulling them out only to swipe at your sensitive clit. The motions make your body jolt again, and he takes notice, clicking his tongue disapprovingly.

“Here I was thinking you took care of yourself because you’re just so needy.” He shakes his head, his tongue coming to wet his lips. “Now I see I’m not the only one you’re fucking around here.”

Howzer wipes his hand onto his glove, his eyes never leaving yours. Guilt and shame immediately flood your entire body – but you’re unsure why. You and Howzer aren’t a thing – nothing official. So why does he sound so–not angry, not upset–disappointed?

He tilts his head, a cocky look once again appearing on his face as he watches you.

“Hey, it's okay,” he tells you genuinely, reaching for your arms and pulling you towards him. He guides you toward a wall, your back firmly pressed against it. “I don't mind sharing. Why don't you tell me who it was, baby? Tell me who beat me into cumming in this perfect pussy while I was away.”

Crouching down, Howzer guides your bottoms off, pulling them from your feet and tossing it all to the side. He watches how you squirm under his gaze, his eyes taking note of every detail from the encounter you had.

“Couldn't have been Gregor,” he comments absently, swiping his fingers through your mess. He plants a kiss to an unsullied part of your inner thigh. “Couldn't have been Rex, either.”

The very names of both captains being used in this context makes you shiver, the thought of either of them touching you in such a way heating you up inside. They’re both incredibly competent – strong – skilled. You’re sure they’d completely and utterly ruin you for anybody else.

Howzer chuckles at your reaction and stands up, his hand still toying with you. “It wasn't them but I can tell you wouldn't mind that, hm? Such a filthy, needy girl. You'd take all of us at one time if that were possible, wouldn't you?”

The thought truly never crossed your mind until now – something to revisit later. You’re getting yourself into trouble – the best kind. You’re afraid of getting addicted to the feeling of these men touching you, first Howzer and then Fireball. They may be clones, but from what you can tell so far, they do things in their own, unique ways. You’d be lying if you said that you weren’t at all curious about how the others would handle you – if they’d take you roughly, tenderly – if they’d use their mouth on you or speak filth into your ear.

Your own fantasies scare you – threatening to make you lose sight of who you are and why you’re here. The most debauched of images flash into your mind – a scene of multiple men of this base taking turns using you in any way they desire.

Fingers slowly thrusting into you as he awaits your response, you gasp out a shaky “Yes”, making Howzer bite his lip.

He peers at you with darkened eyes. “We can discuss that later.”

But he's not finished questioning you yet.

“Was it Greer? Samson?” Howzer’s hand quickens, fingers plummeting harder into you. He curls them, too – massages the spot that makes your brain fuzzy. Lips brushing against your jaw, he continues to rattle off a few more familiar names, but you shake your head at each of them.

“Nemec?”

No.

“Fireball?”

When you finally hear his name, you can't help but gasp. Howzer catches on, humming thickly at your wordless confession.

“Ah, I see. I'm sure he was good to you, baby, so why are you this needy and wanting more?”

Howzer removes his hand then, instead heading over toward the door, leaving you pantsless and unfulfilled.

“Howzer, please.”

Hand reaching for the door controls, he turns his head over his shoulder. “Why don't I call Fireball in here so he can properly take care of you, hm? Seems you were left unsatisfied.”

When you don't respond right away, Howzer approaches you, his face serious and concerned. He takes your hand. “If this is too much, please let me know. It's all just talk if that's what you're comfortable with. We don't need to take it further.”

“I appreciate your caution. I really do – but I'm fine with it, Howzer.”

“You're sure?”

“I– I like that idea,” you admit quietly.

Howzer raises an intrigued brow.

You feed into it then, reiterating the foundation of all this talk.

“I let Fireball cum inside of me.”

“I know, baby. Want to tell me what else he did?”

“He ate me out from behind and fucked me against the kitchen table.”

Howzer’s eyes widen at your confession but narrow just as quickly, seemingly disapproving of the carelessness you displayed. Every encounter you had with Howzer so far has been off the beaten path, definitely not in a common area in the middle of the day no less.

He shakes his head.

“Anybody could have walked in on you two.”

It was risky – but exciting.

You bite your lip at the memory.

“I know.”

“When was this?��

“About an hour ago.”

Letting out a deep sigh, Howzer puts his hands on his hips, tilting his head to the side in thought. He watches you intently with his lips twisted. “Hm. Clean yourself up, then take off your clothes and get on the bed. I'll be back soon, okay?”

You nod, Howzer kissing you before throwing out one last command: “And don’t touch yourself.”

Body shaking and your heart pounding with anticipation, you quickly clean yourself up with a damp rag and shed the rest of your clothing before getting into your bed, just as you were instructed. Implications of Howzer’s final comments to you has you spiraling, different scenarios coming to the forefront of your mind. He’s going to get Fireball, you know it. He’s going to bring him right here to you, and the two of them will take turns with you – or, maybe, they’ll use you at the same time.

Your pussy flutters at that idea.

You try your hardest to present yourself in the best way for their return, propping yourself up against your pillows and wrapping the blanket around parts of you that they would have to remove themselves to expose you. It’s a lengthy twenty or so minutes until Howzer returns, but just as you thought, Fireball’s right at his side.

“Hello, boys,” you say in the sweetest voice you can muster, despite the small amount of disappointment for the wait. Their eyes flash the very same dark shade of desire, pooling deep in those soft brown eyes they share.

“Sorry for keeping you waiting, darling. I made sure no one would be around. Had to make up an excuse to borrow Fireball for the evening.”

“You didn’t touch yourself while you were waiting, did you, beautiful?”

Your eyes flicker to Fireball, shaking your head no.

“Good girl. Following orders so well already.”

Howzer agrees and starts to undo his holsters and the rest of his armor, Fireball wordlessly following the other in preparation. Neither of them take their eyes off of you for too long, staring at you as if they mean to devour you completely.

And you think they just might.

Dressed only in their undersuits now, Howzer doesn’t break eye contact with you as he addresses the other, gesturing to you with a jolt of his chin.

“Fireball, she told me what you did out in the kitchen, where anybody could have walked right in,” he begins, that same firm, disapproving tone present in his voice as it was with you. “Now, I want you to show me exactly what you did to make our girl so damn messy.”

Our girl.

You could get used to this.

“Of course.” Fireball grins. “I’d be happy to.”

You bite your lip at Fireball as he approaches, but you glance quickly to Howzer, who has decided to sit this one out in the chair against the wall.

His eyes don’t leave you, though. He’s going to watch.

“A proper bed,” Fireball comments, caressing your cheek in the palm of his hand. He rips the blanket from your body and leans toward your ear, lowering his voice so only you can hear. “I can’t wait to break you apart. I’m going to ruin you, beautiful.”

Your heart skips a beat, then Howzer speaks up in the background almost knowingly. “We all know the color system, correct?”

Not looking towards the man in the chair, you nod, Fireball nodding along with you.

“Good.”

With that, Howzer leans back, legs spread. You can already see the outline of his cock straining in his skin-tight pants.

He wants a show, and you’re going to give him one.

That is, if Fireball doesn’t destroy you first.

“I can’t believe how messy you were,” Fireball comments in disbelief as his hand slips between your legs. “Kept me inside of you that whole time, even let Howzer finger you like that.” He continues stroking you, paying extra attention to your clit. “Spread your legs this way,” he directs, angling your body so you’re exposed to Howzer. Fireball teases you in the same fashion as he did just a little while earlier, planting kisses all over your thighs and folds until you’re begging him for more. Howzer, meanwhile, has started to palm himself over his clothes, watching with his lips parted.

The extra pair of eyes on you turns you on even more.

“Fireball, use your tongue like you did before.”

He smacks his lips, squeezing your thigh in warning. “Now, now, where are the manners you were using so politely before?”

You’re not in charge here. You never were.

“...Please.”

Satisfied, Fireball grins. “Good girl.”

He attacks your pussy with his tongue, only this time, he’s sloppier. Maybe it’s the change of angle, or maybe it’s the audience, but he’s using his tongue in a way that has your head spinning and hips bucking. Fireball seems to be spurred on by this, doubling his efforts and even using an arm to keep you pressed into the bed. He switches to suck vigorously at your clit before lapping at you and it’s already far too much. Your body is desperate for release.

“I’m– I'm going to cum. Please let me cum. Please.”

He pulls his mouth from you, his lips smacking against your wet folds from a sloppy kiss. Wiping his mouth, he flashes you a devilish grin.

“Not yet. You’re going to cum on my cock, just like before.”

Defeated, you flop your head back onto the bed, your climax receding. You know that the disappointment won’t last for long, though.

Fireball stands, kicking his bottoms all the way off and peeling his shirt off over his head. You’re granted a perfect view of his entire body, the muscles and hair and soft patches making your head spin. You even discover he has a tattoo – a rather large piece that starts from his hip and travels up his side, the shape of flames twisting around to his pectoral.

You go to adjust, to change position, but Fireball stops you. “No, no. You lay just like that,” he tells you, guiding you back to where you were. “Hold your knees up for me. Good girl – just like that.”

Still laying on your back, both men have a perfect view of your pussy, clenching with need before their eyes.

Fireball leans down to your ear again, his cock hot and dragging heavy against your stomach. He’s so incredibly warm. “We’re going to give him a show. When I cum, I’m going to fill you, and you’re going to take it all like the good girl you are.”

You gasp at his filthy words of promise, but Fireball isn’t pleased with your lack of verbal response. He pinches your cheeks between his fingers, not hard, but definitely firm enough to get your attention. “You tell me if I’m going too rough,” he asks you sincerely. “I’m having fun with you, but stop me if it’s going over the line.” You nod weakly, desperate to feel him between your legs once again. He shakes his head. “Sweetheart, I need you to say it.”

“I’ll let you know,” you promise. “I’m green, Fireball.”

“Good.”

With that, he stands back up at the edge of the bed, scooping his hands under your rear and dragging you up above the edge. Your hands grab at your knees as instructed.

“Deep breath,” he commands, turning his head over his shoulder at Howzer, almost as if he’s giving him a pointer – a jab about his size.

Your lower half hovering over the bed, you take that deep breath, already knowing what’s to come. Fireball impales you on his cock, sinking even deeper than before without the armor as a hindrance. Every part of his hips and groin make contact with your skin this time, including the maintained curls at the base of his cock. He holds there for a few moments, taking deep breaths, almost as if he’s composing himself.

You once again glance at Howzer, his cock outside of his waistband now and being fisted by his hand.

You could gush from the sight alone.

“I’m green,” you remind Fireball.

Sweat already starts to bead at his hairline, strands of hair falling out of place. He looks wrecked already and he hasn’t even begun moving yet.

“You feel incredible like this,” he sighs in admiration. “I should just have you sit on my cock while I’m manning comms. Keep it warm for hours until you’re shaking.”

“Fuck, Fireball–”

“Yeah, would you like that, beautiful? To be my pretty little cockwarmer?”

“For fucks sake, enough,” Howzer growls out from behind him. “Just fuck her already, or step aside.”

You almost laugh at how Howzer’s impatience is somehow shorter than your own, but Fireball isn’t having it. He goes from zero to ten in seconds, pulling his cock all the way out before slamming back in. Your entire body jolts from each thrust, breaths being punched out of your lungs almost uncomfortably. The feeling of his cock knocking into the back wall of your cunt is all you can focus on, and as Fireball becomes more intense, he stalks talking.

“Tell him, beautiful,” he begins, his skin slick with sweat and lips parted. “Tell him who the first one was to cum inside this pussy. Tell him who claimed you there first.”

You hear Howzer groan from behind him, and it spurs you on. You did want to give him a show, after all.

“You did, Fireball,” you choke out. “You did.”

“Damn right,” he continues, more hair falling out of place. “And I’m going to do it again, but you’re going to cum with me. You cum when I say and only when I say. Understood?”

“...Yes, sir.”

Your ranking comment seems to be one that does Howzer in, because you can hear the telltale sounds of the Captain cumming into his own hand. Fireball though, he takes your comment and runs with it, twisting his face into determination. The muscles of his abdomen flex violently as his thrusts change into quick jabs. He’s utterly disheveled, but he’s not done with you yet.

“I can feel how close you are. You’re so fucking tight around my cock.”

You nod absently, too far gone to speak. There’s so much pressure built up inside of you that you feel you’ll burst at any moment; and that moment comes when Fireball’s fingers find your clit, rubbing at it in quick motions.

“Cum. Now.”

You’re thankful to hear the words, because you fear you were about to anyway. You feel yourself gush around his cock, along with that familiar feeling of heat coming from his own release being pushed deep inside of you. You’re drunk on it – utterly lost in euphoria. Out of your body. The only thing keeping you tethered to reality is how Fireball caresses your cheeks, so incredibly tender compared to how he just handled you.

“You okay, beautiful?”

His eyes look wide with concern, full of fear that he crossed a line. You reassure him with the sincerest smile you can manage at the moment, your head still dizzy with endorphins.

You then see Howzer appear beside Fireball, his face reading the same expression.

You reach up to take Howzer’s hand. “You wanted Fireball to make a mess of me again,” you say quietly, still coming back to your body. “Look.”

Both men look at where you’re gesturing, their eyes blown wide and lips parting with a groan. You clench and relax your muscles, pearls of white seeping out from your swollen pussy and dripping onto the floor. You giggle tiredly at their shared reactions.

“I know you need a break, baby,” Howzer says, running his hand along your thigh. “But I want you so bad right now.”

“Then have me,” you offer. “I promise I’m green, just a little tired is all.”

Fireball cleans himself off and starts to redress. “I’m going to get some water.” He hands Howzer a different rag and places a kiss on your forehead. “I’ll be back shortly.”

Howzer lifts you and lays you down the other way, your head now supported by pillows. He strips off his undersuit and takes his place beside you, one hand caressing different parts of your body while the other carefully runs the rag between your legs.

“You’re breathtaking,” he tells you. “And you looked so good getting fucked like that.”

You smile at him, holding his chin in your hand, running your thumb along the scar. “I can’t believe you just watched,” you tease. “I almost expected you to push Fireball out of the way, especially after how impatient you got.”

He laughs at that. “I’ll still have you, baby. I’m not worried.”

“Have me now, Howzer.”

“You sure?”

“Please. I want you.”

“Okay, pretty girl. I’ll be gentle.”

Howzer climbs on top of you, holding your face in his hand as he swipes his cock through your folds. You wince at the sensation, far too oversensitive for any type of teasing. Even though he just came into his hand not long before you got yours, he’s already hard again, and easily slips inside of you. Both of you share a soft moan, Howzer’s eyes fluttering shut at the feel of you wrapped around him.

Your leg bent and held against his hip, he slowly starts to thrust, his heated chest pressed against yours.

“I missed this,” he admits. “I thought about you a lot while I was away.”

“Fireball told me that you were asking about me every time you made contact.” You giggle when Howzer looks away in embarrassment, but your hand finds his scarred cheek, delicately redirecting his eyes to yours. “It was sweet.”

Howzer’s lips meet yours, his hips resuming that same, slow pace. It’s relaxed yet he’s still hitting so deep, a balming sensation that sends butterflies through your stomach.

A knock at your door makes you both pause briefly, but you soon recognize it as Fireball returning with water, and invite him in.

“Leave it on the table,” you direct Fireball. “And come over here.”

Howzer gives you a curious look, though not letting it faze his movements. Fireball obeys and is at your side in an instant. You take your hand from Howzer’s shoulder and instead reach for the waistband of Fireball’s undersuit. His brow raises, and this time, Howzer halts.

“I want to suck your cock while Howzer fucks me.”

Both men once again widen their eyes.

“This is what I want,” you offer before either of them can object or make an argument for your sake. “Howzer, it’s okay, you can go a little harder. I know you want to.”

Howzer smirks at you and nods, adjusting himself to kneel upright so he can give you what both of you need. Fireball can’t help but reach for your breasts, running his hands all over your chest. You guide his cock out from his undersuit and he steps closer, resting a knee on the bed to get a good angle.

“Howzer, I want you to cum inside of me. Fireball, I want you to cum on my tits.”

“Oh, fuck,” you hear one of them groan.

Looking up at Fireball with pleading eyes, you open your mouth and extend your tongue. His jaw practically drops at your gesture, taking that as the goahead to feed his cock into your mouth. You taste the tang of release still clinging to his skin and you quickly start to crave it, your mouth watering for more.

Howzer resumes his own movements, his hands clinging to your hips like a vice. They both use you, one cock nudging the back of your throat while another punches into your gut. Howzer’s normally perfectly styled hair quickly becomes mussed from exertion, those combed strands collapsing down his forehead.

Fireball thrusts into your mouth over and over again, drool starting to dribble down your cheek and chin. He keeps one hand occupied with squeezing your breasts while the other finds a home wrapped around your throat, just as it was earlier. That same tingly sensation floods your senses again from even the faintest of pressure offered, sending sparks to your core.

“She’s so close,” Howzer tells the other, as if you aren’t there.

Fireball smirks at that, squeezing your throat with just a little extra pressure.

“Fuck, do that again,” Howzer groans. “She liked that.”

Fireball repeats the motion, squeezing then releasing, and each time you clench with the return of pressure. It’s so much and just when you thought you couldn’t possibly have another one in you, your third orgasm of the evening hangs right there, though this one doesn't feel as disastrous. You start to welcome it but hold back, awaiting permission.

“It’s okay, beautiful,” Fireball coos. “Cum for us.”

Howzer chimes in, slowing his thrusts and angling his hips upward to hit that spot he knows will send you over the edge. “C’mon, baby. You can cum.”

When it arrives, it washes over you like a cool, replenishing rain, different from the others that were burning hot and unforgiving. You feel at ease and brand new. You feel safe with these men, knowing they’d do anything to take care of you. As you start to come down from your relaxed high, the pair dote on you with praise and gentle touches, then switch their focus to finishing themselves. You help them get there anyway you can, adding in extra clenches for Howzer and tongue movements for Fireball.

It isn’t much longer after that when Fireball pulls out of your mouth and pumps himself at the head, squeezing as his cock spurts his cum onto your chest. Howzer starts to crumble at the sight of the white ropes painting your breasts and drool coating your chin, and shortly after that, he’s burying himself as deep inside you as he can, pelvis flush with yours, and shakes and groans with his own release.

Both of them looked wrecked yet so satisfied. They also share the same admiration in their eyes as they get you cleaned up and hydrated.

Fireball sits at the edge of the bed, offering you and Howzer the blanket to cover up.

“Can I ask you both a personal question?” You and Howzer glance at each other, nodding in unison to Fireball before he continues. “What started…” he gestures with his hands to the two of you lying beside one another in bed, “...This?”

“We actually met several months ago,” you start to explain.

“And hooked up that same day,” Howzer adds with a grin. “Guess we sort of picked up where we left off.”

You laugh. “Captain Impatient here couldn't wait to get me alone on my first day here.”

Howzer shakes his head at your nickname, and Fireball only nods along as he listens to the two of you go back and forth.

“I don’t want to get in the middle of anything,” Fireball finally chimes in. “You two have something here – and I don’t want to ruin that.”

You make eye contact with Howzer, both of you thinking the exact same thing.

“You’re not ruining anything,” you assure him. “What Howzer and I have–” you look at Howzer again, to ensure you’re both on the same page, “--It won’t go beyond this right here.”

Fireball turns instead to his captain, wanting to hear what he has to say.

Howzer considers for a moment, tenderly grabbing your chin before responding. “I already told our girl here that I don’t mind sharing.” He pauses again. “That is– if you don’t mind sharing, Fireball.”

Fireball grins. “I definitely don’t mind. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t getting in the way of anything.”

Simultaneously, they both make eye contact with you. Howzer’s fingers delicately run across your cheek. “Are you okay with it, darling?”

You ponder their offer for a moment, thinking about everything it could cost you. You’re here for work, not for pleasure. You’re way out in Wild Space because you were entrusted with this job. Yes, you would lose this job if word got around that you’re sleeping with the clones. Yes, you’d lose the trust of many, and perhaps lose the faith of your people, who are counting on your office to fight against the Empire in a diplomatic way.

But you look at these two men, one laying next you, the other sitting at your bedside. Both of them would protect you without a second thought. Both of them have already shown how much they care about you. Both of them still allow you to do your job, mutually benefitting from it. They take your mind off everything that’s going on – the oppression of your people, the tragic experiences of recently rescued clones, the disheartening news when a mission fails.

And when the need arises, both of them can make you feel things unlike anything you’d ever felt before. It started with Captain Howzer – and you’re not at all about to turn away Fireball. You have strong connections with both of them, and you’re not willing to give up the physical aspects of those relationships.

Sitting up, you grab their hands, holding them in your own. You keep a serious expression on your face, wanting to display that yes, you’ve given this a lot of thought, even though you already knew your answer. You want to show them that you’re taking this seriously, and that their caution and concern are dually warranted.

That serious expression of yours morphs into eagerness, a smile forcing its way across your lips.

“As long as I can do my job without too many distractions, and as long as my office doesn’t find out – I’m okay with it.”

#djarrex writes #captain howzer x reader #clone trooper fireball x reader #howzer x reader #fireball x reader #howzer x reader x fireball #the bad batch #tbb #clone thirsting

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infwctednyacifier · 2 months ago

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bored n life sucks so gonna made a plural code that'll be called The Infwcted Code for now ig so yeah plural code except we have a really creative imagination and we're using it for this :3 pls tag us if u use this!!!!

Btw the Infwcted Code is on Pluralpedia as of 4/21/2025.

Basics

ⓘ; these are not specific to one thing and can be used for anything like gender, sexuality, role

❓ = don't know, haven't figured this out, difficult to explain.

❗ = this is important and you should notice or remember it

➕ = there's more that aren't listed for whatever reason

➖ = information has been abbreviated (shortened)

✔️ = this applies to me/I agree with this

✖️ = this does not apply to me/I do not agree with this

🟰 = I am neutral on this/my opinion on this is either or

Origins

ⓘ; it should be noted that these can be used for both systems AND individual headmates

❤️‍🩹 = adaptive and/or traumagenic

🍃 = endogenic and generally non-traumagenic

🏗️ = willogenic, parogenic, any form of intentionally created plurality

💥 = spontaneous or sudden

🧠 = neurogenic

🗃️ = complural (complex) or multigenic

⁉️ = quoigenic or generally unaware/confused about origins

🥣 = mixed origins

🚫 = will not/do not want to/do not feel comfortable discussing origins

📿 = religious, spiritual, etc origins

Headmates

👤 = headmate

🛐 = alter

🧩 = part

🧮 = sysmate/system member

🧶 = facet

🦜 = tulpa

🧰 = willomate

Specifics

🩹 = formed from trauma

😬 = formed from stress

🐣 = natalgenic or born in headspace

🍼 = protogenic or has been around for as long as anybody can remember

🤔 = confused/doesn't know/isn't certain about source/s

🕹️ = gametive or sourced from a game

🎶 = songtive or sourced from a song

🌍 = factive or sourced from a real life person

🌐 = fictive or sourced from a fictional character

🔖 = introject or sourced from an original source

📝 = OCtive/generally based on or is literally an OC (tends to count as introject but still separate)

👹 = exanthrope or a non-human member (real or fictional species)

Gender

ⓘ; we feel the need to mention that, for the genderless symbol, you can change the skin tone if you want to :)

♂️ = masculine/masculine aligned

♀️ = female/female aligned

🔣 = androgynous and/or multigender

😐 = neutral and/or along the nonbinary spectrum

👎🏻 = unlabeled, genderless, identifies as having no connection to or generally lacking a gender overall

🎁 = identifies primarily/only with xenogenders

〰️ = identifies primarily/only with genders that are fluid or fluctuate

Sexuality

📏 = straight/attracted to the opposite sex

🏳️‍🌈 = gay gay homosexual gay >:)

💐 = attracted to more than one gender such as bisexual, pansexual, omnisexual, etc.

〽️ = attraction fluctuates

🙄 = who cares who I'm dating? Mind yo damn business.

💔 = I don't feel anyways life laugh love? no die cry hate <3

Ages

🌱 = little, usually 9 and under

🌿 = middle, usually 10 and up

🪴 = systeen if you consider them different from middles, usually 14 to 17

🌳 = adults, usually 18 and up

🕰️ = members who are over human ages such as immortal, hundreds of years old, ageless, etc.

🌫️ = age hazy or not certain about their age

Roles

🎮 = host, co-host, generally fronts more than others to a noticable extent

🎬 = directors

🏥 = caretaker, no specifications

🛡️ = protector, no specifications

📋 = gatekeeper, no specifications

🚱 = persecutors

🧺 = holders (such as symptoms, disorders, etc)

🥄 = multiple roles/jack of all trades

🆘 = helper/assistant with no assigned role and helps whenever available/needed

#plural #plural community #plural system #plurality #pluralgang #actually plural #pluralblr #plural code #system code #headmate code

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kitsunexgari · 5 months ago

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Chapter OneSummary: Wanting to make a name for herself, Lexi (an investigative journalist) finds herself hot on the trail of the story of the century after being transferred to Seoul by management in her hometown of New York City. After months of research on the legend of the Squid Game she manages to track down the notorious recruiter. Only she doesn't realize that he's been tracking her much better and soon he has her exactly where he wants her. Tags: Kidnapping, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Hostage Situations, Guns, Face Slapping, Threats of Violence, Threats of Rape/Non-Con Notes: This is just an introductory chapter to establish a few things so not too much dark stuff happens in it but it definitely won't stay that way so keep that in mind.

Squid Game

The two words that haunted her every waking moments and sometimes even her dreams. Were they real? Did they actually happen? Or was it just a rumor being passed around on the streets from the desperate and delusional? It was something she was attempting to find out but as more and more time passed she couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t more of a fever dream than a reality.

She’d been sent overseas as an investigative journalist. It wasn’t even a job she really wanted to have. It was a job to pay the bills until she could do what she’d always wanted to do, and that was to be a writer. Novels. Not meaningless articles and puff pieces about the local art scenes in various countries. That wasn’t anywhere near exciting. The problem was that she was aware that if she didn’t somehow get her foot in the door with a big story first she’d probably never make it as the writer she really wanted to be. It was the only thing that had kept her working as a reporter, the potential networking she could do to get where she wanted to be.

It was only once she was transferred to Seoul did she start hearing this rumor. It wasn’t anything that her boss was interested in covering. Not by her or anyone else. According to him it was all made up nonsense but according to the people on the street the story was quite the opposite. Some people claimed their friends had gone to play this game and vanished entirely, never to be heard from again. There was no real way to verify this as it was, seeing as how anyone she heard this story from was homeless, an alcoholic, or both. She had tried to do her research on the names she was given but there was little to nothing to track.

If the authorities had any information on this type of thing going on they had no official word on it and she’d tried that too. Law enforcement was less than helpful, only responding to her once as if she were an absolute crazy person and not a journalist. Between her routine assignments and writing the mind numbingly boring articles that she had to put out every day she continued to do what she could to investigate the leads she needed to investigate to find out if any of this was true or not.

Just when she believed that it may be time to throw in the towel, she was given a tip from a random woman in a bar. One that she believed to be accurate since the woman was able to produce one of the business cards from the game. There were three shapes on the front and a number on the back. The woman said she fully intended to call it and join this game so she was extremely reluctant to give up the card. What she was able to get instead was the story of how this woman had been given the card in the first place.

That story in of itself sounded like complete bullshit but it was the most solid lead she had going for her at that point in time so it was at least something to keep investigating. The woman told her that in order to get the card she had been challenged to a game of Ddakji in one of the subway systems as she was waiting for her train. The man, as described by her, was tall and handsome, wearing what she believed to be an expensive business suit. He also carried a briefcase. This information was almost as useful as it was useless, considering there were probably a million men in the city that looked like that. However, the one detail that did set him apart from anyone else who might look like that was the game he would be playing.

It was from there that she went on a mission to try to find this man, an alleged recruiter for the Squid Game. Something which she was sure was being recruited for at that very moment if she was able to find someone who had just gotten the card. The legend told that hundreds of people were sent to some island after being selected so she figured she had time to figure out who this man was, where he might be. Though if she missed him this time around there was almost no telling when he may appear again, if he did at all. For all she knew it wasn’t always the same man, or there was more than one.

All of her spare time became dedicated to riding the trains, going from station to station, hoping to find anyone who fit that description while also playing that game. Day after day and night after night she rode the trains. Every line from beginning to end. Yet time and again nothing came of it. She’d been at it for weeks with no progress and asking anyone around her about this alleged guy playing this game once again met her with a bunch of weird looks or blank stares. She knew she couldn’t keep going after this, that it was running her completely ragged and sooner or later she would have to give it all up as a pipe dream, wondering what could have been instead of what was. There were probably other, better stories to follow that could put her on the map. Why was she wasting so much time on this? Why had it become such an obsession?

Late one night, as she sat on yet another random platform waiting for another train to take her to another station, she heard some type of commotion down the platform kind of next to her. Close enough that as she turned her head to look she could see what was going on but far enough away that the people involved wouldn’t have any reason to notice her or what she was doing. That was when she caught him. The tall handsome man in the business suit, with the briefcase, playing Ddakji with what looked like a homeless man. She sat up and turned on her phone aiming it to record what was going on as discreetly as possible, only stopping it when it seemed like the game was over and the business man was moving on. He had to come towards her and pass her to go back up the stairs to leave. She kept her head down as if she were looking at her phone for some other reason until he was almost gone. That was when she got up and started to follow in the same direction that he was headed.

Now that she knew what he looked like it was easy to keep track of him as she walked out of there. Being of a smaller size she blended into what little was left of a crowd there. He never once turned to look over his shoulder nor did he seem to peg her as someone who was trailing behind him. Things got a bit more complicated when he hailed a cab but she was able to get one right behind him and convince the driver to follow it after also offering him double the usual rate for the ride fare.

This took her to a nice part of the city where his cab stopped outside of a building with luxury condos. She had her driver stop past that location and down the street before she got out and doubled back to the building. Luckily, he was still in the lobby area once she had gotten inside, managing to catch the door before it shut as someone else was leaving. She entered casually as if she were supposed to be there, glancing at her phone every so often as if she were texting someone and not paying attention to whatever this guy was doing.

She was able to keep an eye on him as he stepped over to the elevators and pressed the button to call one down. Using her phone camera, she recorded him over her shoulder from behind so that she didn’t have to actually turn to look in his direction and be all the more suspicious. The elevator doors opened and he got on. She stayed where she was until the doors had closed completely then walked over to them to watch which floor it was going up to. The numbers continued to climb further and further until they stopped on the 27th floor. She immediately pressed the button to call another elevator and as luck would have it, seconds later it opened up letting a few people out before she got on then pressed the button for the same floor.

Shifting from foot to foot anxiously, she watched the numbers go up and continue to go up, hoping that they wouldn’t make any random stops along the way. She’d already risked missing him in the first place by not finding some excuse to get on the elevator with him but she thought that would be far too suspicious. Especially if he had happened to notice her without saying anything about it. The elevator finally stopped and the doors opened to the 27th floor. She looked both ways and realized she had no clue which way he could have gone until she heard what sounded like a door closing down the hallway off to her left. She headed in the direction of the sound, but part of her knew it would be somewhat futile seeing as how she would have no way to tell what door had just closed and for what reason. It didn’t mean he was the one who had entered it.

Her pace was still slow and casual even though she was the only one in the hallway at that point. She looked at every door as she passed, noting that there were names on each door under the numbers for convenience sake. Yet, nothing really stood out to her as any specific door that this man could have gone into. She also didn’t know if he even lived here, he could just be visiting someone else. Maybe her best bet was to go back down to the lobby and just wait it out. Follow him once he left the building. She would wait all night if she had to. This was as close as she’d gotten so far and she wasn’t going to let go of this lead easily. She glanced at the door closest to her before turning back to the elevator waiting area. Once she got there she called the elevator and stood back to wait.

“Looking for someone?”

“Hmm?” She looked up when she heard the voice speak but before she could turn around to see who had said that to her she was grabbed from behind, a cloth placed over her nose and mouth as she was held tightly against a considerably strong body. She struggled, doing the best she could to attempt to escape this grasp but in the end it was no use. Her vision soon began to tunnel before everything went completely dark.

When she came to, she found herself tied to a chair in a very fancy looking dining room. Her hands bound behind her back and her ankles tied down to the legs of the chair for good measure. Her head was pounding and her vision was still a bit blurry but the more she woke up the more she realized how completely fucked up this situation was. She hadn’t even told anyone where she was going or what she was attempting to do. Not since everyone had thought she was insane anyway. It wasn’t like she had a bunch of friends or family who would notice her missing either. She’d been quite a loner since before she’d even gotten to Seoul, far more focused on her career than having a social life.

A man came into the room a moment later. The exact same man that she had seen on the subway platform playing that game. It was obvious to her now that he’d noticed her and had been waiting to get the drop on her, but how? She’d barely done anything to stand out. It didn’t seem to make sense. Then again, if all of this was real and he really did recruit people to play this incredibly illegal game then he was probably more aware of his surroundings than she’d given him credit for. She had to admit he was far more attractive this close to her than she had initially given thought to. From his pocket he pulled a phone, her phone, one which he set on the table and slid towards her.

“I’m going to need you to delete any footage you have of me.” He said in a polite yet somehow creepy tone. Maybe it was just how calm he was as he spoke that made it creepy. She guessed she’d have expected him to be angry or something but if he was, that wasn’t coming across in his tone of voice or mannerisms.

“Why don’t you just break it?”

“That would be unnecessary I think, since as of now I don’t intend you any harm but that could easily change if you aren’t willing to comply.”

“Who are you?”

“Erase the footage.”

“You’re going to need to untie me for that, if it wasn’t obvious.” She rolled her eyes, attempting to play off her fear of this situation as annoyance knowing that he very much held her life in his hands. He chuckled and walked around to the other side of the table where she was sitting, standing behind her for a moment before she felt his hands over her wrists to untie them from the position they were in. Once she was released she brought her hands in front of her only to feel the cold metal of a gun pressed to the temple of her head. She wished she could have said this was the first time that had happened but having lived in New York City most of her life it had happened before.

“You won’t want to try anything stupid, just remember that.” He warned her.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” She said, attempting not to sound like a smart ass about it but kind of failing. She picked up the phone and used the face ID to unlock it. Holding the phone in a way he could see the screen as well, she went through her photo albums and videos to also show him what she had and that she was deleting them. “There, done.”

“Where are they uploading to?” He asked.

“What?”

“I can see they are being sent somewhere, as backup, not just a cloud either. Somewhere that you’d have to access yourself. Is that right?”

Shit. How did he even know that part?

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She lied. There was the sound of an amused chuckle before the chair was turned around to face his direction and the gun was jammed under her chin as he got down to look right in her eyes.

“Yes you do.” He insisted, “And you’re going to tell me where that place is.”

“What good will that do? You’d need to be me to get into it.” She hissed, “And newsflash, you’re not getting in there without clearance or drastically changing your appearance to look exactly like me.” He stared her down for another moment before backing up and shaking his head, it looked as though they were caught in a stalemate. He knew he couldn’t kill her if that footage was going somewhere else, and she knew that as well.

“It seems we are at an impasse.” He said after a moment, “And something tells me you aren’t going to be an extremely easy woman to compromise with, am I right?”

“Something along those lines, yeah.”

“Well then,” He said, “If we can’t come to a compromise then the only other solution is pure submission.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What do you think you’re going to do to me?”

“Looks like I’m going to do anything I fucking want.” His oddly terrifying grin widened before he struck her across the face with the back of his hand hard enough to send the chair toppling over which sent her to the floor in a daze. She blinked a few times, desperately trying to cling to consciousness as long as she could but between whatever he’d drugged her with before and the sudden blow to the head it was no use. The last thing she was aware of as everything went dark was the sound of unhinged almost sinister laughter.

#the salesman #the recruiter #gong yoo #squid game #squid game 2 #fanfic #Deep Cover

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reality-detective · 11 months ago

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Long Post... But Very Important 👇

HISTORY OF THE US NESARA LAW:

· NESARA was signed into law by President William Jefferson Clinton in 2000, at gunpoint because the Military forced him to sign it. He wasn't going to, and was to be announced by Alan Greenspan on Sept. 11, 2001, at 10:00am.

· This was prevented by the destruction of the World Trade Center by then President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and others involved with this great deception. They murdered 7,000 innocent Americans that day and stole billions in Gold and Silver from Building 7.

· In early 1993, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on charges by the Farmer's Union that banks in the U.S. were fraudulently foreclosing on farm mortgages and that the U.S. Government was in collusion with these banks. The testimony and proof brought into court by a retired CIA Agent let to further evidence and proof that Farmer's Union claims were legitimate. It also led to evidence that the 16th Amendment, the Income Tax Amendment, was never properly ratified by the required number of states and therefore, declared that income taxes were unlawful.

· Almost unanimously the U.S. Supreme Court Justices ruled in favor of Farmer's Union. The Justices recognized that overwhelming evidence proved the U.S. Government and the Federal Reserve Banking System were perpetrating FRAUD in many ways upon Americans. The Justices recognized that to remedy this situation, massive reformations would be required. When rulings were made by the U.S. Supreme Court, one or more of the justices are assigned to monitor the process by which rulings are carried out.

· In this case, five of the Justices were assigned to a committee to develop steps to implement the required governmental and banking reformations. As the Justices went about developing the changes, they enlisted the help of experts in Economics, Monetary Systems, Banking, Constitutional Law and other areas. They built coalitions of support and assistance with thousands of people worldwide, working with us to bring NESARA and GESARA to fruition. These people were called the "White Knights". The term "White Knights" was borrowed from the world of big business when a vulnerable company is "rescued" from a hostile takeover.

· Because of the enormously sweeping changes the rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court required, an EXTREMELY STRICT gag order was put in place on everyone involved. The Justices also sealed all records on the case until after the reformations are all accomplished.

· To maintain secrecy, the case details for the docket number assigned to the Farmer's Union case were changed. So, doing a search for this case will fail to reflect the correct information until after the reformations are made public. At every step of the process, anyone directly involved has been required to sign an NDA to keep the process of implementing the required reformations "Secret" or face charges of Treason which are punishable by death.

· To implement the reformations, the five justices spent years negotiating how the reformations would occur in agreements called "accords" with the U.S. Government, with Federal Reserve Bank owners, the IMF, World Bank, and numerous countries including the UK and the EU.

· The reformations required the Federal Reserve Bank system to be absorbed by the U.S. Treasury and all fraudulent banking activities to be stopped, as well as remedies to Americans for past harm due to FRAUD.

· The U.S. Banking reformations will impact the entire world and therefore the IMF, World Bank and other countries involved including the UK and the Vatican City.

· Members of Congress were ordered by U.S. Supreme Court to "DENY" the existence of NESARA / GESARA or face charges of TREASON, punishable by DEATH. Some members of Congress were charged with "Obstruction" and threatened with charges of TREASON. Therefore, all members of U.S. Congress have had to pretend that NESARA has not been passed in order to comply with the Justice's GAG ORDER.

O. SAT. 3 AUGUST 2024 NESARA GESARA REFORMATIONS:

· NESARA / GESARA is the most groundbreaking reformations to sweep the world in the entire history of the world.

· All foreigners will be required to return home in order for them to receive their GESARA Payments.

NESARA DOES THE FOLLOWING: 👇

a. Zero's out all Credit Card, Mortgage and other bank and loan transaction debts.

b. Abolishes the Internal Revenue Service and the Income Tax.

c. IRS employees will be transferred to the US Treasury National Sales Tax area.

d. The Federal Reserve will be absorbed into the US Treasury.

e. Creates a 14% - 17% National Sales Tax, applied to NEW ITEMS only for government revenue. Some of it goes to states, rest to new national government.

f. Used items sold will not be taxed. Food & Medicines will not be taxed.

g. Sets up Restitution Payments for those victimized by Chattel Property Bonds. Those Aged 61 and over will receive a lump sum payment. Those Aged 41 to 60 will receive scheduled payments set time and sign work contract. Those Aged 29-40 will have to sign a Work Contract to receive their funds. Initiates a Universal Basic Income or UBI for those 16-29 years old.

h. An increase for retired Senior Citizens up to 3x current SSN amount up to $5,000.00

i. Dissolves US Inc. and returns the country to 1791 Constitution and Common Law.

J. Admiralty-Equity & Civil Laws are dissolved. Judges & Lawyers will be retrained in Constitutional Law.

k. Restores the Original 13th Amendment known as the Titles of Nobility Amendment.

l. Requires that New Presidential and Congressional Elections occur within 120 days.

m. Monitors Elections and prevents illegal election activities of everyone.

n. Creates a new US Treasury Rainbow Currency that is Asset Backed.

o. Forbids the sale of American Birth Certificates as chattel property bonds.

p. Initiates a new US Treasury Banking System in alignment with Constitutional Law.

q. Restores Personal Financial Privacy.

r. Ceases All Military Activities Worldwide.

s. Establishes World Peace.

t. Releases enormous sums of money to be used for Humanitarian Purposes.

u. Enables the release of over 6,000 patents of suppressed technologies including free energy devices, anti-gravity and medical bed technologies.

THE RODRIGUEZ TRUST REDEMPTION AND EXCHANGE FUNDING PROGRAM: 👇

· The Rodriguez Trust, based in the Philippines, is reportedly over 100 years old. It is claimed to be the single largest source of funds in the world.

· Dr. Alan Cohler is said to be the asset manager of the trust. The trust is backed by gold, some of which is said to come from King Solomon’s Temple.

· However, these claims are often associated with spiritual and metaphysical beliefs, and their validity is not universally accepted. For definitive information, legal consultation is recommended.

· The value of both the St. Germain and Rodriguez Trusts have 3083 zeros behind them.

The "New Earth" is near 🤔

#pay attention #educate yourselves #educate yourself #knowledge is power #reeducate yourself #reeducate yourselves #think about it #think for yourselves #think for yourself #do your homework #do your own research #do some research #do your research #ask yourself questions #question everything #nesara #new earth #new life #coming soon

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felixcloud6288 · 5 months ago

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Dungeon Meshi Chapter 76

It's him! It's our boy!

Here's some ideas I got based on the title image:

The Lugantes appear to be dwarfs. They have a connection to the gold peelers. Maybe they hire people to assist with mining operations.

One of the gold peelers is dead. He kind of looks like the corpse retriever from chapter 31 who cast that illusion on Kabru's party but I'm probably not right.

The half-foot next to the Shadow Lord looks like the one from the bar in chapter 9. If he is, then that bar was likely owned by the Shadow Lord. I wonder if the people the orcs killed were ever resurrected.

The Shadow Lord appears to have some connection to the corpse retrievers Kabru killed. If true, then the Shadow Lord may have been helping them track adventurers and cover up their actions for a cut of the profits. Maybe he even sent his own men to kill adventurers and sent the corpse retrievers to "discover" the bodies.

That informant isn't an elf, but they're wearing the same cloak the Canaries wear. The informant has a connection to Fionil so I double-checked her appearance and she's also wearing the same cloak the Canaries wear. Fionil and the informant might be working for the Canaries, but the informant might also be acting as a double agent by giving information to the Lugantes as well.

Had to review the last few chapters cause I wasn't sure why Lycion was okay and just chilling with Laios's party.

He wasn't able to help the other canaries last chapter cause he was busy restraining Izutsumi.

Enough time passed since the end of chapter 74 that Izutsumi was able to get dressed. I don't know if I'd rather take the reasonable assumption that Kabru convinced Lycion and Izutsumi to stop fighting and she got dressed after, or if I'd rather take the silly approach and say the two of them just decided to stop fighting on their own and were just sitting around eating the leftover bavarois until Kabru showed up.

Izutsumi's scarf is tied in a bow and I refuse to believe she would have done that, and I am therefore going to headcanon that Lycion tied her scarf into a bow.

Fleki isn't dead so the lion obeyed the letter of Marcille's command to not kill anyone but not the spirit.

Mithrun survived by teleporting into a giant spider. The thing that hit the wall last chapter was the spider's guts.

That's...really gross.

And the teddy bear spider had teeth.

Mithrun can't teleport when making a lot of contact? So this means a grappler opponent is a hard counter if they can manage to grab and pin him before Mithrun teleports them.

Did Kabru choke Mithrun out? And was Mithrun the one who made the cuffs?

The giant spiders having non-spider heads really does just make them creepier. Especially when their bodies get crushed. Spiders have a decentralized nervous system, so limbs can react independently even after the brain is destroyed. And the rabbit-head spider's ears can still move despite being dead.

Is there a name for the way Laios is carrying Cithis? The best comparison I found was the piggyback carry where the rider is supposed to wrap their arms around the carrier. But since she's unconscious, Laios is holding her arms criss-cross to secure her.

Don't ever think Laios is stupid. He had enough intuition to figure out what happened after Cithis hypnotized him.

I don't know why, but I feel like Lycion would get along great with Laios's party. If they didn't have opposing goals, he and Fleki would probably be best buds with the gang.

I keep forgetting that Lycion is a beastman. I jokingly said he was the Canary's Senshi (because of fanservice), but he's actually more like a reverse Izutsumi.

On that train of thought, I'm going to assign Mithrun as the anti-Senshi (Doesn't care about his health or well-being at all), Fleki as the anti-Chilchuck (She seems like a snarker who complains about everything), Pattadol as the anti-Marcille (both are really high-strung and by-the-books), and Cithis as the anti-Laios (She's just evil). I don't know where to fit Otta in this so I'm just going to call her the anti-Namari cause why not?

On a completely pointless note, we can say that Cithis and Pattadol are heavier than Otta because Izutsumi could carry Otta but Laios and Senshi had to carry Cithis and Pattadol.

This image is really disorienting.

The dungeon doesn't adhere to Euclidean space but this just lays bare how nonsense the layout was. In particular, we can see the entrance to the fourth level on the left center of the image. You have to exit out of the bottom of a tower with no other discernible entry points.

The secret town on the sixth floor is in the background and we can see the top layer of the dwarf city ruins under it.

Falin's body has been moved.

Several early chapters in the series brought up the ecologic balance of the dungeon. In particular, I remember Senshi explaining that the golems on the third floor serve as a deterrent to keep the stronger monsters from moving to higher levels.

With all the levels now on the same plane, we're seeing something like that scenario play out. The natural bottlenecks the old dungeon structure had are broken and flying monsters have immediately attempted to expand their territories.

Some monsters can't survive in the upper levels because the mana concentration is too thin. If monsters are managing to move across different environments, that could mean that the amount of mana in the air is increasing as well.

I can't tell if the reason Laios is worried is because Marcille's actions will get people killed or because she's doing a bad job building the dungeon.

Fleki got brain damage when her familiar was killed, but Marcille wasn't affected by her familiars' deaths. It's probably because Marcille's familiars were constructs while Fleki's aren't.

Marcille's familiars were more like drones she was piloting remotely. When the first two were killed by the hippogriff, she had a stressed look to her eyes so the sudden disconnection might be mentally taxing, but it doesn't actually affect her.

Fleki's familiars are conjured by her. She has at least two familiars: the raven familiar she uses in battle and white dove familiars she uses for scouting. I want to guess that the white doves are more similar to Marcille's familiars; they're drones that let Fleki scout in wide areas and likely won't harm her if they get attacked.

Her raven familiar is definitely an extension of her. I mentioned in chapter 74 that she has a tattoo of some sort on her chest. That might be what lets her summon her raven. And she's able to control how much her soul exists in the raven. In chapter 73, she was unconscious until the raven flew back into her. But in chapter 74, she was just remote piloting it.

I realized while talking about Fleki that she wears a hawker's glove.

And again, the Canaries refuse to actually work with non-elves. It might be beneficial to work with Laios, but Lycion told him to not get involved. And as soon as Laios said no, Lycion immediately escalated to violence. Laios doesn't even know why the situation is worse than it seems.

Initially, Laios was in shock when Lycion showed off his power but then he was enthralled.

Kabru does not have a weapon. And I'd say he hasn't had a weapon since returning to the surface. He probably thought he wouldn't need one since he was just going to try negotiating with the Shadow Lord. And then everything happened.

Kensuke was all confuzzled and curious because someone else was holding it.

It's probably a mix of urgency and only recently meeting Kabru, but Laios got over Kabru lying to him really quickly. It's probably happened plenty of times where he met someone, thought they hit it off and quickly learned that wasn't the case. Shuro hurt far more because they'd been together for years. Laios had only known Kabru for about a month, so he could just brush it off as another failed interaction.

Kabru is a manipulator, and Laios is the one person he's never been able to successfully manipulate. He took an interest in Laios because Laios's party had been the most successful at navigating the dungeon, and Kabru wanted to know what might happen if he were to conquer the dungeon.

But at some point, that interest turned into an obsession, especially since he could never ensnare Laios with any of his usual methods. Kabru's conspiracy board shows how all the other figures, adventurers, and organizations tie together; but the Touden siblings sit in the middle of that board because Kabru can't figure out how they connect to anything.

His only avenue to getting close to Laios was by eating monsters, which he hated and it drove him so crazy that Kabru started picturing Laios as a deranged madman who is a threat to mankind.

And with the charade revealed, Laios is figuratively and literally slipping out of Kabru's grip.

Apologizing for his deception gave Kabru one chance to plead with Laios, but he had no idea what to say because none of his manipulations and honeyed words will work. He tried to explain the situation but he knows deep down that Laios doesn't care about the world or the greater good. Nothing Kabru says about the situation will convince Laios to leave a friend behind.

So Kabru decided to be genuine.

Laios's obliviousness to how others feel about him works in two ways. Not only was he clueless to Shuro not wanting to be Laios's friend, he was clueless to Kabru wanting to be his friend. Shuro dealt with a lot of grief because Laios thought they were friends the whole time. And Kabru suffered a lot in his efforts to become Laios's friends.

And they both did the same thing when they reached their tipping point.

And then he airs out all his grievances about Laios's obliviousness.

CANNONBALL BREAKER!!!

It's been a serious chapter and the tension got broken up by Kui reminding us that Izutsumi and Lycion were fighting each other right off-screen during this entire heart-to-heart.

Kabru didn't manage to stop Laios, but he managed to get his point across. While Laios is determined to save Marcille, he will not side with the lion. And when this is over, he and Kabru will sit down and get to know each other.

They all forgot that Thistle's house was converted into a floating island.

back

#dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi readthrough

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koikishu · 4 months ago

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Hello! If you don't mind answering my question, pardon my 2nd language. Did the kunuhi and shinuhi in Heian era get educate? Like reading, writing? Also, where did Zuijin 随身 (also called as zuishin) place in the rank?

Ryoumin Classes

So, proper education in the Heian period was likely limited to people in the Ryoumin classes.

Of those classes, the Imperial (皇族, kouzoku) and Noble (官人, kanjin) classes definitely got full educations with schools and tutors and in subjects we would recognize today.

Koumin (公民, which were mostly farmer peasants) would not need any significant formal education. Any formal records the Koumin would have needed to keep (such as calendars, inventories, tax records, etc.) would have been taken care of by a lower status member of the Kanjin class who would've been assigned to oversee their farm lands.

Although the Shinabe (品部, "court professional") and Zakko (雑戸, "military professional") classes were considered lower status than the Koumin, they likely would have had a basic education in reading, writing and arithmetic. This is because they had fairly regular interactions with the Kanjin class and it would have been good for them to have some level of formal education. They were also what we would call merchants & artisans, which means they would've been running small family businesses and being literate enough to keep their own records would just be practical.

Senmin Classes

Once you get to the Senmin classes, limited or as needed education would probably have been the most common.

The Ryouko (陵戸, servants of the Kouzoku or guards of imperial tombs), Kanko (官戸, servants of government ministries), and Kenin (家人, retainers or vassals of kanjin families) classes would have lived lives focused on service to others and the families/ ministries they served would've made final decisions regarding the direction of their lives. However, they did have the privilege of being able to marry and have children and they could not be bought & sold at will.

If the Ryouko, Kanko, or Kenin were given an education, it would likely have been at the discretion of the families/ ministries they served. I'm certain all 3 classes would have been taught the specific responsibilities and manners required for their service roles, but anything past a basic education would have been highly unlikely. Especially if they worked at very high levels of the government, an inability (or limited ability) to read would have helped maintain discretion and prevent others from using them as sources of sensitive information.

The last two classes, Kunuhi (公奴婢, government-owned slave) and Shinuhi (私奴婢, privately-owned slave), would have been very unlikely to receive even a basic education. They can be bought & sold at will and were not allowed to marry or have children of their own. These slaves are often used as manual laborers and would not have needed to be literate to do their jobs. They would have always had an overseer of some sort telling them what to do.

If a Kunuhi or Shinuhi were to have even a basic education, it's likely a former owner made an effort to give them one. Whether this basic education made the Kunuhi/ Shinuhi more or less valuable on the slave market depends entirely on cultural norms as well as what sorts of tasks their potential owners would want them involved with.

Zuijin/ Zuishin (随身)

A Zuijin/ Zuishin is someone who is a bodyguard of an Imperial (皇族, kouzoku) or high-ranking Noble (官人, kanjin) official. According to the Japanese Wikipedia page on the subject, anyone with this rank was considered a "ryogenokan" (令外官), or government official whose rank is not specified in the administrative code of the ritsuryō, or social hierarchy. In other words, they literally exist outside the class system. The reason for this is because Zuijin/ Zuishin are very high-ranking people (官人, kanjin) behaving like very low-ranking people (家人, kenin).

You see, the Zuijin/ Zuishin of the early Heian period (794-858 CE) were all members of a government office of the Imperial Court known as Konoefu (近衛府). To be members of this office, they needed to be nobles (官人, kanjin) of no less than 5th rank, which means they had full access to the Imperial Palace. So, the earliest Zuijin/ Zuishin were aristocrats (官人, kanjin) guarding other aristocrats (官人, kanjin) or royals (皇族, kouzoku). As the Japanese Wikipedia page says, "due to the nature of their duties, [the Zuijin/ Zuishin] had close personal relationships with the lords they were responsible for guarding, and these relationships tended to turn into personal, lord-vassal [a.k.a. kenin (家人) style] relationships." This was especially true during the Fujiwara Regency period of government (858-1068 CE), as the Zuijin/ Zuishin realized that the Emperors were merely figureheads and would have been keen on showing loyalty to the Fujiwara families in order to maintain their own high-status positions.

When the Cloistered Rule period started (1068-1185 CE), the "retired" emperors took power back from the Fujiwara clan and, while their very young sons sat the imperial throne, they ruled the country from behind the scenes. Therefore, any Zuijin/ Zuishin assigned to guard the retired Emperors were not only vassals (家人, kenin) of the Emperors (making them the most powerful of all vassals) but their actual aristocrat (官人, kanjin) status allowed them to be promoted to very high ranking positions within the Imperial court, such as Regent or the Head of Staff for the Retired Emperor! During this time, Zuijin/ Zuishin became very powerful agents of the emperor and they passed it all on to their children, who would then serve the next "retired" emperor as a hereditary job title.

#kimono #japanasks #heian #heianasks #ritsuryo #ritsuryou

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spadesolace · 2 years ago

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the idea of yoo - 0.6. what do you like about jimin? (half-written)

previous | next

in 2 weeks time, you’ve gathered information about karina that it feels like you could write a biography for her. at the same time, you’ve been talking to her about everything and nothing. although this has consumed your time to the point that ms. choi, your english teacher had to check up on you only to find out about your other business. to say the least, she was not pleased.

here you are, putting your bike onto yeonjun’s truck that was parked in front of the yoo household. first thing he could think of was food, you couldn’t blame him, he grew up with a tteokbokki shop.

“not now.”

“come on, we gotta eat at some point.” you were a bit irritated by it, abruptly about to leave only for him to come clean and discuss music theory along with art appreciation. clearly, he has been doing his assignment.

“well, you are quite serious about this.” yeonjun was fidgeting with his hands on the steering wheel, a habit you’ve noticed whenever he was nervous.

“yeah, but for real. can we eat dinner?”

“... fine.” yeonjun continues fidgeting with his hands as he looked at you with a hint of uncertainty.

“can we eat at your place? my siblings are causing a bit of ruckus at home right now…?”

“you know what, sure.”

that’s how you ended up with yeonjun cooking dinner for you and your sister, rei. trying his cooking which surprisingly ended up with you enjoying it despite calling it weird. the first time in a while you tried something new…

yeonjun was such a chaotic force in your life, having peace and order in your system only for him to come crashing and making it more exciting. teaching him how to maintain a conversation by table tennis, helping him get more information regarding yoo jimin, and simply also conversing with jimin in hopes of learning something new.

it was the week of the next date, the date that determines it all. sitting on the basement of their restaurant where bean bags and a mini fridge is placed. the sound of ping pong balls hitting back and forth could be heard.

“let’s practice this one more time.” starting the game, hitting precisely for him to hit it back. “where were you born?”

“here, in kwangya.” precisely hitting it back, making its way back to you.

“good. what do you like about kwangya?”

“i grew up here, haven’t left since i was born.”

“… yeah.”

“how about you?” a sudden curveball, one that almost made you miss it. it’s not a bad thing, but only a few would ask about you.

“what about me?” what is it about you?

“it felt as if the conversation is too short.” why can’t you open up?

“i don’t need practice.” sort of a lie, you simply didn’t want to talk about yourself.

“come on, just tell me about yourself.” a little bit won’t hurt, right?

“i was born in tokushima, japan. i have a younger sister named rei, and we’ve been living in kwangya ever since she was born.”

“what about your parents?” that’s a can of worms that even you can’t seem to open up.

“well, my dad works in japan. funny, talkative, and protective.”

“your mom?”

“lovely, caring… buried six feet under.”

he misses the ball, the game ends there and so does the conversation.

as everything dies down, your thoughts, drinking a bottle of yakult as you sit down on the beanbag and look at the scattered ping pong balls. yeonjun in his own world, you start to wonder.

“yeonjun?”

“hm?”

“what do you like about jimin?” silence, yeonjun looks you in the eyes and think of what to say. what’s there to even say when he had told you before what he likes about jimin.

“well, she’s pretty and smart. and she’s not mean to anyone and she smells like fresh daisies whenever you would walk by her, why?” a part of you wasn’t satisfied, as if something isn’t right.

“just wondering…”

“how about you?”

taglist [CLOSED]:

@1luvkarina @beawolfbealionbeyou @pandafuriosa60 @txtbrainrot @rinapomu @limbforalimb @yoontoonwhs @noascats @thefckghost @petruchiosstuff

#aespa x fem reader #karina aespa #aespa smau #aespa x reader #aespa karina #aespa #karina smau #karina x reader #karina imagines #karina #the idea of yoo smau #yoo jimin x reader #yoo jimin

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crystalandparrot · 1 year ago

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RC9GN x Reader

Part 1, Part 2

“Hey, (Y/n),” Bucky spoke, spooking said girl out of her stupor as the two walked to school.

"Huh?" (Y/n) question.

"How come you only ever talk to me? I'm sure other students would love to hear your ideas." Bucky said optimistically.

"You really think so?" (Y/n) asked, eyes shining.

"Maybe not, all of them-"

(Y/n) deflated, causing Bucky to wave his hands frantically.

"But that's because they're not for high schoolers! I mean the home alarm, your staff, those goggles on your head—"

"Hey, these goggles help me log important information and — okay, I see your point." (Y/n) deflated again.

"What if you made something to impress them?" Bucky asked with a snap of his fingers.

"Something to impress them..." (Y/n) thought out loud. "Oh! What about my mechanical spider limbs?" With that, eight mechanical limbs popped out of (Y/n)'s hoodie, lifting her off the ground and flipping her upside down.

"You look like Invader Zim," Bucky chuckled, walking past the, once again, deflated girl. The arms retracted suddenly. With quick thinking, (Y/n) flipped and landed on her feet, surprising Bucky. "Do you know any more cool moves like that?" He asked.

"I prefer to show off my intelligence rather than physical prowess. Sure it's nice to have the ability, but my superpower relies solely on my brain!" (Y/n) said as she pushed open the doors to the school.

"Then you should put that brain to good use," Bucky held out his hand for a fist bump.

(Y/n) reciprocated the fist bump and the two parted ways. (Y/n) walked to her science class, which she always had for 1st period on Mondays. Mrs. Driscoll greeted her with a grin.

"(Y/n)! Any new inventions?" Mrs. Driscoll asked with stars in her eyes. She puppeteered her late husband's skeleton to 'talk', "Your inventions are positively humorous!" Mrs. Driscoll laughed and smacked Jerry's chest.

(Y/n) smiled and placed her satchel on Mrs. Driscoll's desk. As she did so, Randy Cunningham and Howard Weinerman happened to walk in. "Mrs. Driscoll, I present to you," (Y/n) held up a small box with a crescent-moon-shaped attachment, "the, still in Beta, the C.R.A.V.E.S, a system that, when placed against the user's teeth," (Y/n) put the device against Jerry's teeth. The machine beeped, "it tells you exactly what they were craving! For example, your husband was craving...scallops?" (Y/n) looked at the device in question.

Mrs. Driscoll sighed lovingly, "That was my Jerry."

(Y/n) shivered, she tucked her device away and walked to her seat at the back of the room.

"Who's that shoob?" Howard whispered to Randy.

More students began trickling in when Randy leaned close to Howard, "I have no idea, but she's pretty smart."

"A smart shoob is still a shoob," Howard said, pointing his pencil at Randy. Inside Randy's bag, the Nomicon quietly blinked red from behind its Math book cover, facing the direction of (Y/n).

As the final student, Bash (fashionably late as always), trickled in, Mrs. Driscoll began writing in the blackboard. "Welcome back, students!” She puppeteers her husband once more, “I hope your Spring Break was a bone-afide success!”

“Ha! Word play.” (Y/n) chuckled to herself. She sat at the back of the class, the two seats next to her empty while all the other seats were taken.

“And as a Welcome Back, I’m assigning your first projects of the next semester!” Mrs. Driscoll announced.

The students all groaned with the exception of (Y/n), “Oh, goody!”

“And since the school board has cut funding for the science department…again…this time you’ll be working in groups of three.” The words seemed to echo around the room. None of the students (with one exception) listened to the rest, as they were too busy deciding who to add to their group. Friends will be split, enemies made, alliances formed in blood… “You can now find your partners-“ with that, hell broke loose. Kids jumping over tables, holding back their friends to prevent a steal, throwing dangerous objects. It got to a point that Mrs. Driscoll hid herself and her husband under the desk.

“Cunningham! Save me!” Howard screamed as he was pulled into the wave of students.

“Hold oh, Big H!” Randy, without hesitation, jumped into the sea. His leg caught the strap of his backpack as he jumped, forcing the contents to be spilled all over the floor. The Nomicon hummed and blinked as students stepped and kicked it to the back of the room, the mask caught in its pages. With all of the abuse, the cover even came off, revealing its true cover to the world.

With a metallic THUD, the Nomicon hit the metal cabinet next to (Y/n). The girl let out a noise of surprise and looked up from her notebook. The Nomicon blinked softly as (Y/n) picked it up. Her hands traced the delicate patterns on the hard leather book, the feeling not uncomfortable to her hands like she imagined it would be. With a bit of remorse (Y/n) held the book away from her, “Oh, exotic book, what secrets you must hide—but alas! It is my code of honor to not open a book that does not belong to me…unless of course bought or received from a trusted source.”

The Nomicon flashed red, humming loudly.

(Y/n)’s eyes shone, “Maybe there’s an exception for glowing mystic books,” (Y/n) ran her fingers over the pages that begged to be opened. The Nomicon’s flashes got faster and louder, its pages flittering as they waited to be opened.

“Has everyone found their partners?” Mrs. Driscoll asked.

(Y/n)’s head shot up and with a sigh, she tucked the Nomicon into her satchel, the flap open to make for an easier grab. “Soon, my precious.”

In the middle of the room, Randy and Howard sat, rubbing their heads in pain. “Oh, good. Randy and Howard, you’ll be joining (Y/n).” Mrs. Driscoll announced once she saw they the three were, in fact, without partners. “(Y/n) has the highest grade in the class, so even you two should get a decent grade.” She chuckled.

“What?! But she’s a shoob!” Howard moaned.

“A shoob with the highest grade in the class! Howard, we can use this!” Randy whispered, excitedly. Both of the friends grabbed their bags and walked to (Y/n) at the back of the class.

“I don’t follow.” Howard whispered.

“We’ll act like total shoob’s, say we don’t know how to do the project, she’ll get annoyed with us, do the project and — BOOM, automatic A.” Randy smirked. The two sat down and a sudden flash of red distracted Randy. He looked down, spotting his Nomicon in (Y/n)’s bag. He nervously chuckled, “I-is, is that my book?” Randy asked, pointing at (Y/n)’s satchel.

“Huh?” (Y/n) looked down, at her bag. “Oh, it flew to the back, I didn’t know who it belonged to.” (Y/n) gently took the book out and traced the cover again. Shaking her head, she handed it back to Randy, “Where did you get it? I’d love to read it sometime, I’ve never seen anything like it.” (Y/n) spoke quickly, enamored by the book.

“Oh, it’s nothing just a little family history book. Old baby pictures, family trees—Really boring stuff, I’ll just take it off your hands.” Randy hurriedly took the book back, and shoved it in his own satchel. The Nomicon flashed brightly and loudly, angry at the turn of events.

“You bring family history books to school?” (Y/n) asked flatly.

“I-it’s for our History class! Some extra credit thing that you definitely don’t need!” Howard back his friend up, grinning awkwardly.

(Y/n) looked between the two skeptically, “Right…” with a quick hand, she opened her notebook to a fresh page and began writing, “So, ideas for our project?”

“Yes! Our project!” Randy grinned, winking at Howard.

“Totally love that project! I can’t wait to…do our project!” Howard added in a fake excited voice.

(Y/n) sighed out of annoyance, “You don’t know what the project is, do you?”

“Nope.”

“Not. A. Clue.”

(Y/n) gripped the bridge of her nose, “Super,” she gritted out through clenched teeth. “Cool, cool, cool. Cool, cool, cool.” She angrily closed the notebook and stood. “Why don’t I work on the project and you two do the report? All you have to do is write what the robot does AFTER I give it to you.” (Y/n) commanded as she pointed to Randy and Howard.

“But what do we—“

“You write down what it does!” (Y/n) took a deep breath, “I will give you a list of what it does. All you have to do is write a well written report.” (Y/n) began walking out of the room, “Even though my robot will be A plus guaranteed,” she whispered cockily.

“Those who are building, go to Mr. Smith’s metal shop for your basic design! Everyone’s who’s writing a report please go to the library!” Mrs. Driscoll announced after seeing (Y/n) leave.

“Automatic A—“ Howard started, raising his hand.

“Here. We. Come!” Randy punctuated each word with the next step in their secret handshake. They ended with their signature turn and pose.

The Nomicon angrily blinked, catching Randy’s attention. Picking up his bag, Randy held up a finger to Howard, “Give me just one second,” he whispered. He ran out of the room and into a Janitor’s closet. “Alright, Nomicon, I only got a few minutes before Driscoll realizes I’m not in the library, so be quick about it—“ the Nomicon flew open suddenly, causing Randy to lose consciousness and ‘Vloomp’ into the Nomicon.

Randy screamed as he fell through the artistic clouds and through the painted leaves on the two dimensional tress. With a couple of bounces, Randy finally landed against a tree trunk. “What the juice, Nomicon?!”

A painted scholar walked through the trees, smiling at Randy. Or at least, to the person behind him.

A painted ninja stepped through the trees behind Randy and walked up to the scholar. The ninja gave the scholar a piece of paper, and folded his arms. The scholar read the paper and nodded at the ninja. The trees fell backwards, blending into the floor as more of scene became exposed. The scholar walked to his small house. The sun rose and fell in flashes, showing how long the scholar was in his house. The sun rose once more, staying in the air as the scholar left the house, this time with a small box. He presented it to the ninja and began talking. No words or letters left his mouth, the only thing Randy could hear was soft flutes as the scholar spoke.

The ninja waved his hand and took the box, smokebombing away. The trees on the other side of Randy fell, blending into the floor, further increasing the scene. There was a small town with a large flying serpent terrorizing the village. With a puff of smoke, the ninja stood in front of the serpent. He opened the box and pulled out a smaller box with a button. The ninja looked at the box in question then pressed the button…nothing happened. He pressed it again and again…still nothing. The serpent AND the townsfolk all laughed at the ninja as he sulked. Colorful words flew out of the box and presented themselves over the ninja’s head.

“Neglect the brain and the heart becomes vulnerable.” Randy read aloud. “Uh, that scholar clearly sabotaged the ninja! I mean, who gives someone a box that doesn’t do anything?” Randy asked.

The ninja and scholar looked at each other unimpressed. The ninja pulled out his sword and the scholar…why is he holding a Bō staff? The two quickly ran to Randy and simultaneously attacked him.

With a gasp and a bump to the head, Randy left the Nomicon. He rubbed his head and looked behind him to see the shelf he bumped his head on.

Randy peeked his head out of the Janitors closet and rushed out before anyone could see him, bag in hand.

“AHHHHH!!”

“Someone get the Ninja!”

“Help!”

Randy gasped at the sudden cries for help. With no one in the hall, this was the perfect time to put his Ninja suit on.

“Looks like it’s Ninja o’clock!” Randy reached into his bag…except…

Randy’s heart fell into his stomach as his hand missed the soft fabric of the mask. He glared down at the bag, and upon not seeing the mask immediately, Randy overturned his bag and emptied the contents. The only object that was matching to the mask in color was the Nomicon.

“Sweet cheese, I lost the Ninja mask!”

————————

I swear I can hear the music starting and cutting out at the end. Also if you saw the lesson in the first chapter before I edited it, no you didn’t.

#randy cunningham x reader #randy x reader #randy cunningham 9th grade ninja #rc9gn x reader #rc9gn #rc9gn au #howard weinerman #heidi weinerman #theresa fowler #bucky hensletter #randy cunnigham #bash johnson #julian #rc9gn nomicon #ninja nomicon #nomicon

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heyitsme1040 · 2 years ago

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When It's All Too Much [l.l]

summary : Loki’s been gone for a month to Asgard, and his return home gets delayed. You miss your boyfriend, and it is during the extinction of his mission that everything becomes too much. All your pent up emotions from the last month come bursting out. You’re surprised that Loki is there to comfort you as you’re crying. He helps you feel better from your emotional turmoil.

pairings : Loki Laufeyson x Reader

warnings : One use of y/n, crying (if I missed anything let me know!)

word count : 1,030

AO3 (x)

a/n : Day ten of Comfortember is here! The prompt was ‘sadness’.

Today was one of those mornings where everything seemed to go wrong. You’d missed your alarm, broke your favorite mug, and misplaced your phone. Not having the time to look for it, you rushed out of your apartment and to the meeting room Steve was debriefing everyone in. You slipped in the door just as Steve was assigning everyone missions for the week. While you worked with Tony in his labs, you were also the Avengers’ go-to lab technician for mission equipment. You needed to know where they were going to make sure the correct equipment would be sent with them.

“Y/n, we need you to modify Redwing’s stealth frequency,” Steve informs you.

“Of course, Cap,” you nod, “I can have that done in fifteen minutes.”

The meeting continues, and you write down the two other modifications the team needs on its equipment. You’re quick to enter your lab and get everything adjusted. You manage to adjust the frequency of Redwing’s stealth mode, adjust the plates of Bucky’s arm, and finally begin working the adjustments to the comms systems. Most of the team had already left for their missions when you finish adjusting the comms for their next missions. It’s quiet when you begin the walk to your apartment, and you feel yourself relax at the thought of Loki arriving home tonight.

You are surprised that the apartment is still empty as you enter. You turn the lights on as you walk through. Changing out of your work clothes, you trip over your phone next to the bed. You sigh, picking it up, having forgotten you couldn’t find it this morning. You quickly scroll through all your notifications. Replying to the most important emails, you pause seeing a message from Thor. Tapping the text, you feel your mood drop a little more reading that Loki’s business on Asgard is going to take an extra two days to finish.

You trudge your way out of your room, wishing he’d be home already. He’d already been gone a month, and you missed him. There wasn’t any way you could talk to him when he was back on Asgard, but you were grateful Thor was able to give you updates when Loki was gone. Having nothing left to look forward to for a few days, you head back to your lab feeling glum. You knew you were close to finishing your most recent invention, you just needed to figure out the final calculations to make it work.

The repeated failed attempts at a solution did nothing but sour your mood further as the hours passed. You were tired of everything going wrong recently. Everything was becoming too much and you couldn’t fight the tears welling in your eyes. You knew you wouldn’t be able to keep everything inside for much longer. Quickly you rushed to your room, hoping that you’d manage to get there before the tears fell.

Slamming the door behind you, you didn’t even register that the lights in the living room were turned on unlike how they were when you left. You leaned against the door, slinking down as the tears began to pour out. Your chest aches at the lonely feeling you’d had ever since Loki left and your brain focused on all your recent failures at the job you were supposed to be good at. Vision blurred by tears and head pounding at the intensity of your crying, you don’t register the dark figure that was coming toward you. It isn’t until you feel arms around you and smell Loki’s familiar linen and mint scent that you realize he’s home.

His presence is like a balm to your sadness, taking away the sharpest pangs of sorrow. He holds you tightly, stroking your hair while rocking the two of you. You cling to him tightly, grateful he’s here to hold you.

“I’m so sorry darling,” Loki says into your skin. “Everything’s okay, I’m here now. Let it all out.”

You cry harder knowing he’s got you. The feelings you tried so hard to keep at bay rise to the surface as you register he’s home.

“You’re supposed to be gone for another day,” you force out between sobs.

“I finished my diplomatic duties faster than I expected,” Loki calmly explains. “I didn’t want to be without you another day, darling.”

“I’m glad you’re home.”

“I’m elated to be home, darling. I just wish you’d had a better time in my absence.”

You shrug, knowing it was out of both your control. There had been a lot of small issues building up on top of you missing him. Everything was better whenever he was home. You slowly managed to calm down your cries, matching your breathing with his steady breaths. You pulled away from where your face was buried in his chest to look up at him. Loki’s hand cupped your cheek as his thumb swiped away your fallen tears.

“Hi my love,” Loki softly kissed you. “I’m sorry you were without me for so long. Do you wish to tell me what happened to make you so sad?”

“It’s dumb,” you mumble.

“Nonsense, whatever it is that made you feel that way is anything but dumb.”

You sigh letting the bitter emotions escape you, “It wasn’t one thing. It was a lot of minor things, and I missed you, so I guess I just let it all stay pent up for too long. I’m sorry this is what you came home to,” you sheepishly admit.

“Darling, I love coming home to you. No matter the state you are in, I am never anything less than happy to see you.”

You nod, convinced by his tone alone. You watch as he stands, offering his hand to you. Taking it, you allow him to pull you to your feet. He wraps his arms around you once again, embracing you properly.

“Thank you for helping me,” you kiss his neck, unable to reach his face.

“Thank you for allowing me to help,” Loki kisses your lips. “Now then, let’s lay down. I want to hear everything about the past month I’ve missed here.”

You smile, grateful he knows exactly how to take care of you.

Author’s Note : Reblogs are appreciated, likes are welcome, and if you want to read more of my fics then maybe follow.

#fanfiction #fanfiction writer #fanfic blog #marvel fanfiction #comfortember 2023 #comfortember #marvel #comfort fic #loki x reader #loki fluff #loki fanfic #loki #loki x you #loki x y/n #loki laufesyon x reader #loki laufeyson

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dimespin · 1 year ago

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What are the social implications of saratoans deciding to live outside the house system? What are some difficulties a pair who decides they want to live on their own might face? What are some of the advantages?

A lot of professions tend toward living this way so that the person can live in the same building as their office or business - it's especially common with people who work with secret, private or valuable information or materials, where reducing the number of people constantly walking around the area helps make security simpler, and maintaining a quiet home work space is desirable.

Lawyers, spellwriters, librarians, and accountants often live separately from their family in smaller homes, depending on the kind of work they do in their fields.

For that reason, while it's viewed as eccentric and antisocial, possibly curmudgeonly, and often seen as shirking family responsibility to some degree, it still has an air of respectability. Professional recluses (Atlas fits the stereotype basically)

Not everyone who chooses that lifestyle has the benefit of a respected career though, they tend to be viewed more negatively in that case, often associated with having troubles too great to allow a person to live with others or being too toxic even for the houses that take just about anyone like dead houses (like PenWell's) often do.

The pros: more control over one's own life, reduced responsibility for others (like avoiding being roped into childcare with no warning), less involvement in complicated family drama, fewer interruptions or disruptions of your work,

The cons: more responsibility for basic home management planning and chores (getting food, tracking when things will run out, tracking and paying bills, cleaning, building maintenance etc., - in the normal house system these are elder duties to either perform or keep track of and assign to others), more expensive due to economy of scale, risk of social deprivation and the negative effects to mental health that that causes, less social support when they need it if they haven't maintained relationships

#saratoan #worldbuilding

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donnerpartyofone · 6 months ago

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Maybe if I write this down I will get it out of my system and actually get some work done:

I decided to do a little year-end correspondence today, which would have included finally answering an email from an old college buddy who found me on LinkedIn (a red flag actually, but anyway). At that time, months ago, I sent him a quick email, and soon I received a lengthy reply detailing what seemed like everything that had happened to him since 2008. I felt overwhelmed. I don't mind a long letter, but a lot of it seemed to be a list of impressive professional achievements, and I couldn't figure out how to respond. The honest version of an in-kind personal update would be to say what a hopeless case I am, and how I found out through plenty of trial and error and a handful of abusive relationships that I'm not really meant for anything except struggling, but I managed to prevent myself from dumping all of that on him. With that stuff off the table, though, I couldn't think of anything to say at all, and I let it languish. Today I finally felt guilty enough about it that I re-read his letter with the intention of replying, and then I realized that this person is probably sort of insane.

I mean not to be so glib about it, but it was already a little weird for him to be sending this epic biography to someone he doesn't really know that well. We got along in college, but obviously we didn't stay in touch; I always thought of him as this sort of downtrodden Charlie Brown type of character, someone I liked but was never close with. His letter made it seem like he'd gotten his shit together in a big way since then, and you know, bully for him. But then I began to absorb what his letter really said, once I felt less overwhelmed, and like...it didn't seem good. There were these weird pieces of information that he sort of floated without really explaining himself. The last thing I knew was that, despite being sort of a self-pitying sad sack, he managed to land this terrific girl we knew, who I guiltily thought was too good for him. She had tons of great qualities, but was terminally insecure and I think in a lot of pain...so maybe they had a lot to offer each other on that level, it was none of my business. But in the guy's letter, he describes breaking up with her and writing an essay about it that won some literary prize; he says she found out about it, which seems to have this dark connotation, but doesn't say anything about what the consequences of that might have been. He just reiterates that he won a big prize, and moves on.

Well, he sort of says something else about it: Perhaps inevitably, he provides a breakdown of all these mental conditions he's diagnosed himself with over his long journey of self-discovery, including PTSD...which he assigns to a bizarre childhood injury. About which he provides no details. He just says that getting physically hurt as a kid made him permanently distrustful of the world, and that's why he broke up with his girlfriend, because the stress of the childhood injury made him afraid of intimacy. But he doesn't say that he was abused as a child, or in a dramatic accident, or that like, maybe his parents were checked out and neglectfully left him alone to hurt himself, or maybe, I don't know, they were poor and had physically dangerous circumstances...all he says is that being injured made him mistrust the world, and I guess that's why he's kind of an asshole today. Huh.

Then he explains how Trump and the pandemic were really great for him because adversity helped him find out who he is -- I think that's what he was saying -- and that's a bad sign in and of itself. During the past, uh...bunch of global crises that have seriously affected lots of people's lives and safety, I've noticed certain individuals using these mass events to get attention for themselves, and this inclination to make a catastrophe all about YOU is something I've learned to watch out for. Anyway, then he gives me his whole detailed political and sex/gender taxonomical breakdown, none of which contained anything really radical or novel, but I have a personal aversion to that kind of thing. I'm more forgiving of it in younger people, I guess, but I think there's something pathological about hyperactively putting every aspect of your existence in these little diagnostic boxes. It's simultaneously like, you want to be part of a club instead of just being yourself, AND you're wearing all these little egotistical badges of identity -- it's the thrill of taking a Cosmo quiz writ large, and you're insisting that everyone take it Very Seriously. This is not a good sign.

So I'm trying to figure out what I can possibly say to at least honor the fact that an old friend wrote me a long letter, and I think maybe I should read his prize-winning essay about breaking up with my other friend. And man, that was like...mainly a litany of complaints about her without any real understanding of who she is. There's like half a sentence devoted to the fact that she's very depressed and afraid she's wasted her life, and a bit more than that devoted to the fact that she drinks -- at which point I was thinking, well Jesus Christ WHY WOULDN'T SHE. The whole essay is about him visiting her at New Year's, being extremely cold to her, complaining about everything, showing zero interest in the obvious pain that she's in, and then waxing poetic (pilfering lines from actual writers) about how he can't wait to break up with her. And I mean, at least somewhere in his letter to me he suggested an awareness that he wasn't totally fair to her, but separate of his problems, I was bothered by the idea that this thing won him a literary prize. I mean I don't know if it was a big one, but they gave him a bunch of money, and it just seemed so symptomatic of what people always say about the literary world: that it disproportionately rewards young men who guiltlessly celebrate their own worst qualities. Even if the writing isn't very good, apparently.

When I had finished the email, I thought back on how I had almost written him this whole thing about being a worthless nobody, and then I thought, Man you do not deserve to hear about what a bad person I am! I mean this is probably exactly what he did to our mutual friend who was too good for him, getting her to be vulnerable about her self-esteem and then just dominating her. I'm not really mad at him, I feel sort of sorry for him on some level. But I don't think I can subscribe to a regular feed of these kinds of narcissistic confessions. It took enough of my energy just to write this like processing post, in order to NOT write him back. I've made the mistake of giving the wrong person attention before, and I don't think I'm going to do it again.

POSTSCRIPT I just realized that maybe there's an even better reason for me not to keep this contact going. In college there was a very awkward, drunken moment where I gave him this whole speech about how he shouldn't be so down on himself, or let other people push him around, because he's really a catch for a whole list of reasons. Unfortunately I think this was very confusing and taken as a sexual overture. It was kind of my fault for being extremely, historically obtuse about what men will interpret as an invitation to fuck, but at the same time this is a problem a lot of men have; you know, they act all lonely, and then you show them some understanding, and it turns into, "If you aren't gonna fuck me then why are you here." Not that this turned into a whole thing, but it definitely created a weird atmosphere, and then I started looking back on different micro-events, like...I didn't date much in college (or ever, really, and while I am picky I'm also just not very desirable), and then later in life when I finally had a boyfriend this guy made some remark about how he wanted to meet the boyfriend because he was confused about what kind of guy I would go out with, or something. Which is sort of a weird thing to express, like he needs to meet my boyfriend because he can't picture who I would choose to fuck? And then in his recent email he mentioned something I didn't remember, that when he got his big literary prize he had to go to a ceremony in the city, and he invited me to hang out at his hotel because he felt so alone among (and morally superior to) the rich lit world people. He seemed to want me to know how disappointed he was that I didn't come, but I sort of thought, Why me though? We had a lot of friends in the city, and I'd say he's closer to most of them. That's a little weird. He knows I'm married now, but I'm starting to feel like there could be something a little off about this aggressive bid for attention. Ugh, worrying about unwanted attraction is such a gross thing for women, it's like you either sound totally egotistical and like you're accusing someone of lechery, OR you try to play it cool and casual and it turns out you were wrong and now you're in a huge amount of trouble for being nice without giving out sex. Anyway, luckily I don't have to factor that into my decision to drop contact with someone who I cannot both speak to honestly AND make him feel like the things he says are cool.

#not interesting #don't get excited!

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mariacallous · 1 year ago

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To protect America’s vital infrastructure from hackers without relying on a moribund Congress, the Biden administration bet big on creative uses of existing laws. But the Supreme Court probably blew up that approach.

President Joe Biden’s strategy relied on agencies interpreting the laws that give them regulatory powers to include cybersecurity, with the expectation that courts would defer to their interpretations of those laws under a decades-old legal doctrine known as Chevron deference.

But in a landmark case decided in late June, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the United States Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority eliminated Chevron deference and ordered courts to determine for themselves what ambiguous laws say—without assigning nearly as much weight to agencies’ interpretations.

Now, that controversial ruling could completely upend multiple agencies’ plans to require better cybersecurity from critical infrastructure entities like hospitals, water systems, and power plants. It could even help corporate America overturn existing rules aimed at keeping hackers off cloud platforms, securing pipelines and airports, and improving disclosures of major breaches.

“There’s the possibility of lawsuits to test the waters in a lot of regulations,” says Harley Geiger, counsel with the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law. “It definitely becomes much more difficult to regulate on critical infrastructure cybersecurity in areas where there is not sound or clear statutory backing.”

Landmark Cyber Program Under Threat

Biden’s marquee cyber regulation may also be his most endangered: a pending requirement for critical infrastructure organizations to report cyberattacks within 72 hours and ransomware payments within 24 hours.

The regulation, authorized by the 2022 Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA), is meant to close massive gaps in the government’s awareness of the cyberattacks plaguing US companies every day. But when the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released the proposed rule in April, the business community slammed it for going further than lawmakers intended. By the time the public comment period closed earlier this month, many companies and trade groups had urged CISA to pare back the rule—with some of them even citing the Loper Bright ruling.

The criticism mostly focused on three aspects of the rule that could represent its biggest vulnerabilities in a future lawsuit: the definition of a “covered entity” subject to the reporting requirements, the definition of a “covered incident” that needs to be disclosed, and the list of information that needs to be reported. Businesses say CISA used much broader language for these three provisions than Congress intended.

“They have gone well beyond the text,” says one cybersecurity-focused attorney, who requested anonymity because they represent clients in disputes with federal agencies. “There's a lot of vulnerable aspects to it.”

Senate Homeland Security Committee chair Gary Peters, whose panel led the drafting of CIRCIA, added to the regulation’s legal peril when he filed a public comment saying that “the proposed rule is overbroad and needs additional clarity,” including on the definitions of covered incidents and covered entities. Peters’ objections are significant, because courts analyzing unclear laws will likely lean heavily on congressional intent.

It’s unclear if CISA will back down in the face of these headwinds. A spokesperson says the agency is “still assessing” the Loper Bright ruling “and any potential impacts that this may have on the agency’s rulemaking actions.” The spokesperson says the final regulation will be “consistent with authorities given to us by Congress.”

CISA officials “seem quite committed to the scope that they're aiming for, because they really seem to view it as important to their mission,” says Stephen Lilley, a partner at the law firm Mayer Brown who focuses on cyber matters. Even so, he added, “CISA now has to be thinking, have we pushed too far in light of these recent decisions, and do we need to be a bit more modest in our ambitions?”

The consequences of a government retreat are hard to predict but potentially serious. Scaled-back CIRCIA requirements could exempt more companies from reporting or reduce the amount of information they have to report, easing the burden on those organizations but weakening the government’s understanding of digital threats.

Most experts predict only modest changes. “I would expect them to try to make as limited a reaction as their lawyers say they need to make,” Lilley says.

Still, it’s clear that the officials behind the government’s biggest-ever cyber regulation—due to be finalized by October 2025—are on notice.

“There's no way that CISA takes the next [14] months to develop this rule without considering the effect of Loper Bright and the loss of Chevron deference,” Geiger says.

Planes, Trains, and Cloud Services

While CISA’s incident reporting mandate has attracted the lion’s share of post–Loper Bright attention, the ruling threatens a host of other existing and pending cyber regulations.

The Department of Health and Human Services is working on a rule that would condition hospitals’ receipt of federal Medicare and Medicaid funding on their compliance with cyber requirements. The closely watched HHS rule represents the Biden administration’s attempt to stem a massive tide of ransomware attacks on hospitals and the rest of the health care sector. But the powerful hospital industry has objected to new mandates, saying they will overly burden already struggling facilities. Few details are known about the rule—including its exact legal basis—so it’s unclear whether HHS has been rewriting it to address Loper Bright.

Corporate America’s most-loathed cyber regulation is the Securities and Exchange Commission’s 2023 rule requiring publicly traded companies to announce cyber incidents with a “material” impact within four business days. That rule may be safe from new lawsuits, given the SEC’s clear legal authority to require the disclosure of information that materially affects stock prices. But Geiger says companies might instead challenge the SEC’s authority to penalize companies for hacks, since the underlying law and regulation don’t mention cybersecurity. (The SEC declined to comment for this story.)

Lawsuits could also hit the Transportation Security Administration over its cyber requirements for pipeline, rail, and aviation operators. The TSA significantly modified its emergency directives to address industry criticism, but as the agency codifies those directives in more formal rules, disgruntled companies could seize the chance to sue. “There’s not a history of that agency doing cyber, and there’s not a great statutory hook to point to,” says the cyber attorney, who cited “a lot of frustration” with the TSA’s “perpetual invocation of an ongoing but undescribed emergency” to justify the requirements. (The TSA declined to comment.)

The Commerce Department could hit a legal snag with its proposal to require cloud companies to verify their customers’ identities and report on their activities. The pending rule, part of an effort to clamp down on hackers’ misuse of cloud services, has drawn industry criticism for alleged overreach. A major tech trade group warned Commerce that its “proposed regulations risk exceeding the rulemaking authority granted by Congress.” (Commerce declined to comment.)

Lawsuits could also target other regulations—including data breach reporting requirements from the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and financial regulators—that rely on laws written long before policymakers were thinking about cybersecurity.

“A lot of the challenges where the agencies are going to be most nervous [are] when they’ve been interpreting something for 20 years or they newly have interpreted something that’s 30 years old,” says the cyber attorney.

The White House has already faced one major setback. Last October, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew cyber requirements for water systems that industry groups and Republican-led states had challenged in court. Opponents said the EPA had exceeded its authority in interpreting a 1974 law to require states to add cybersecurity to their water-facility inspections, a strategy that a top White House cyber official had previously praised as “a creative approach.”

All Eyes on Congress

The government’s cyber regulation push is likely to run headlong into a judicial morass.

Federal judges could reach different conclusions about the same regulations, setting up appeals to regional circuit courts that have very different track records. “The judiciary itself is not a monolith,” says Geiger, of the Center for Cybersecurity Policy and Law. In addition, agencies understand cutting-edge tech issues much better than judges, who may struggle to parse the intricacies of cyber regulations.

There is only one real solution to this problem, according to experts: If Congress wants agencies to be able to mandate cyber improvements, it will have to pass new laws empowering them to do so.

“There is greater onus now on Congress to act decisively to help ensure protection of the critical services on which society relies,” Geiger says.

Clarity will be key, says Jamil Jaffer, the executive director of George Mason University’s National Security Institute and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. “The more specific Congress gets, the more likely I think a court is to see it the same way an agency does.”

Congress rarely passes major legislation, especially with new regulatory powers, but cybersecurity has consistently been an exception.

“Congress moves very, very slowly, but it’s not completely passive [on] this front,” Lilley says. “There's a possibility that you will see meaningful cyber legislation in particular sectors if regulators are not able to move forward.”

One major question is whether this progress will continue if Republicans seize unified control of the government in November’s elections. Lilley is optimistic, pointing to the GOP platform’s invocation of securing critical infrastructure with heightened standards as “a national priority.”

“There's a sense across both sides of the aisle at this point that, certainly in some of the sectors, there has been some measure of market failure,” Lilley says, “and that some measure of government action will be appropriate.”

Regardless of who controls Capitol Hill next January, the Supreme Court just handed lawmakers a massive amount of responsibility in the fight against hackers.

“It's not going to be easy,” Geiger says, “but it's time for Congress to act.”

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whencyclopedia · 1 year ago

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Ghosts in the Middle Ages

The medieval Church informed the people's religious imagination during the Middle Ages (c. 476-1500) and the world was therefore interpreted - even by heterodox Christians - through the Church's lens. Ghosts – referred to as revenants – were no exception in that the Church defined such apparitions as souls in purgatory requiring human intervention to find eternal peace.

In the Early Middle Ages (c. 476-1000), there was no consensus on the meaning of ghostly appearances since, following the biblical injunction to "test all spirits", it was usually thought that such an apparition was a demon. As the Church began to emphasize the reality of purgatory, however, the concept of the ghost-as-soul-in-purgatory gained more ground.

The souls most likely to return to haunt the living were those whose burial rituals were not performed correctly or who had unfinished business which required closure; suicides, women who died in childbirth, or people who died suddenly and tragically without time for confession and absolution. Another reason, often entwined with these, was the need of the living to properly say goodbye and let the deceased person go. Elaborate rituals developed to enable the living to cope with the loss of death, release their memories of the dead in order to lay a ghost to rest, and move on with life.

Ghosts in the Ancient World

In the Early Middle Ages, the Church distanced itself from the concept of ghosts as understood by pagan Rome – as the disembodied spirits of the dead – and interpreted them as demonic entities. The biblical epistle of I John 4:1-3 warns believers that not every spirit is "from God" and they should be carefully evaluated for demonic origin. If an apparition appeared in the form of one's departed loved one, it was most likely a demon assuming that shape in order to damn one by tempting them to question God's plan.

The Church taught that God was in ultimate control of every aspect of one's life and that, when one died, there was a place for every soul in the afterlife – in heaven, hell and, eventually, the in-between of purgatory – just as there had been in the social hierarchy of life. A ghost threatened that understanding because it was not only out of place but had returned to where it no longer belonged. If God actually was in control, how did a ghost slip its assigned place in the afterlife to return to the living? The answer, reflecting the I John 4 passage, was that the apparition was not a 'ghost' but a demon in disguise.

Prior to the rise of Christianity, ghosts were understood as a natural – albeit uncomfortable and unwanted – aspect of human existence. The pagan belief systems held to the same understanding of ghosts that the Church would eventually adopt – that spirits of the dead could return to ask help from the living in completing unfinished business, to punish the living for incomplete or inadequate funerary rites, or because some aspect of their death left them unsettled – but this concept was at first resisted by the medieval Church.

In ancient Egypt, people could write letters to the dead addressing problems ranging from why the writer was being haunted or experiencing misfortune to asking where some treasured artifact or document had been placed. In Greece, the continued existence of the dead depended on the memory of the living as expressed in monuments and rituals. The more vibrant the memory, the more vital the spirit in the afterlife. This same paradigm was understood and observed by the Romans who developed societies a citizen paid into which, upon one's death, ensured proper funerary rites and continued remembrance. An apparition, in all three of these belief systems, was a sign that the soul of the deceased was not at rest and some action was required on the part of the living.

The Church had to distance itself from this understanding in the same way it did with all other aspects of pagan thought in order to make its message completely new. Ghosts were demonized in the same way women, cats, attention to personal hygiene, and anything else valued by the pagans were.

#History #GhostsintheAncientWorld #MedievalFolklore #Saga #WHE #[#]

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twisted-art-wounders · 5 months ago

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YGO AU: Breaking the Seal 22

Chapter 22 Escape

Yugi discovers a horrifying truth and now it's time to take action.

Yugi sat back in his chair and let out a satisfied sigh. He placed his now finished deck on the tabletop before stretching his arms up into the air. It felt like he'd been working on this deck for hours but Yugi didn't mind, he knew this deck was exactly what he'd need to counter the Nameless Pharaoh's deck. They shared that old deck since Battle City so of course Yugi knew it like the back of his own hand, but he also knew his former partner was an excellent strategist and could find ways to over come any appoint.

Yugi was always a silent witness to his duels always behind him, watching, studying his thoughts and actions. The truth was if anyone could get into his head it would be Yugi since they did share more then just a body they would share their hearts and without speaking they'd always just feel what the other was thinking. A bond so few people have with each other, it was a bond Yugi once treasured between them. But now that bond was broken by the Nameless Pharaoh himself their powerful chain-their link was shattered by his selfishness. Now he stood upon a crossroads for his fate; for his destiny to claim his name his identity from the imposter who wears his skin.

Yugi's eyes fell upon the Chaos Duel Disk that rested on the table in front of him. Each of the swordsmen and all members of DOMA were granted one and Yugi was no different. He was so used to his own standard Duel Disk it would feel weird to use this new one but Dartz was insistent he use DOMA's custom made Duel Disk. It would help enhance the effects of using the Seal of Orichalcos was what Yugi understood. He decided not to question it much using this one or a Kaiba Corp branded one didn't matter in the end as long as the job was done.

Valon was busy with his phone when he noticed Yugi stretching his arms before going limp in his seat relaxing now that his task was complete.

“So finally finished eh?” the brunette asked with a slight smirk.

Yugi nodded “Yup! I'm definitely ready to fight with this deck!”

“Good lad! But you wont know who you're going up against till Dartz assigns ya so you may have to wait a bit to use it.”

“Assignment? He has to assign us targets?” Yugi looked at the man confused but Valon was still busy with his phone while he answered.

“Part of job mate. But don't worry you'll get your chance again! Heck you took out Pegasus without even knowing it right?”

Yugi thought back to his dream duel with Pegasus; true he didn't know it at the time but he was dueling the real Pegasus and he won. He still felt a sting of guilt over his victory of the creator, Yugi didn't want to hold a grudge against Pegasus but then again this may be karmic punishment for the once evil man who stole his grandfather's soul…

“Y-yeah…” Yugi answered with a touch of shame on his tongue.

As Valon continued to scrolled his phone; lost in the dueling profile of Mai Valentine that was kept on the Kaiba Corp duel servers. Accounts they'd managed to hack since Paradius was in the process of buying up Kaiba corp in full, giving them complete access to their systems.

After going over her profile a few times and not finding the information he was interested in; the profiles were only used to keep tabs on duelist' data, not personal info outside of a name. He figured he needed someone who personally knew her to give him better info.

Finally he peeked up from his phone and over to Yugi; he may have something he could use…so he asked.

“So uh… what can you tell me about that attractive blonde you hang out with?”

Yugi thought for a moment trying to figure out who he meant, before giving him a confused blink and slight head tilt.

“…Joey?”

Valon almost chocked on his own spit when he heard Yugi answer and got up angerly shouting

“What!? No! I meant the OTHER Attractive Blonde! Mai! Tell me about, Mai!”

Yugi held up his hands defensively sweating a bit embarrassed with a touch of fear at his over reaction to a simple mistake. When he saw him sit back in his seat and give him a slight glare Yugi couldn't help but chuckle a bit.

“Sorry! Sorry of course you mean Mai…” Yugi sighed with a smile before he really had to think.

“Well I don't know a lot about Mai to be honest…We met during Duelist Kingdom and she wasn't the most friendliest person to run into, especially towards Joey. He did defeat her in his first duel on the island and she didn't take it very well at all, that's why she got Rex Raptor to fight for her.”

Valon pouted a bit when he heard Yugi mention Joey but he let Yugi continue.

“But she did help us out when we were hungry and shared her camping supplies with us. I even helped her get her star chips back from a player killer. That's probably why she helped get me into Pegasus' castle when-”

Yugi paused for a moment when that horrible memory of the duel against Kaiba reentered his mind. He clenched his fists slightly as he forced himself to push past that memory. It was like smashing your toe into the leg of a side table and having to continue forward despite the pain. Valon had noticed his reaction and raised a brow he wanted to ask but felt this wasn't the time to push him.

Yugi let out a breath through his nostrils and continued.

“…Mai is a strong duelist she didn't only reach the finals of Duelist Kingdom but the Semi Finals of Battle City too! I think she would have made it to those finals too if Marik didn't get involved… ”

“Yeah, I know about her duel with Marik. Messed her up quite a bit I think…” Valon looked down at his phone again before looking back at Yugi.

“Honestly… I think Mai puts up walls to protect herself from being hurt. That's why I think she comes off as abrasive when you first meet her but once she gets to know you and she trusts you, she shows that nicer side of herself.”

Yugi sits back and then looks up at the ceiling above his mind now stirring as he thought deeper.

“I'm not sure about her past but maybe this is how she deals with being lonely? Joey told me once she said being around us made her feel good about herself…like she could like herself. I know what loneliness can do to you and I don't think I'd be who I am if I was still all alone…”

Yugi could feel the sting of tears threatening to surface at the corners of his eyes, He couldn't help but feel the wave of fear and anxiety hit him like a tidal waves crashes into a ship. It was strange it was like all of sudden all these negative feelings just surfaced in him and now they were starting to fill is mind with buried fears.

Yugi looks to the side at the brunette and asks.

“Is that what happens when you get older? Do you become more lonely? Do you put up more walls? D-do you lose all your friends? Is that all adulthood is? Losing your connections? Your bonds…”

Valon felt bombarded by Yugi's constant string of questions, questions he never really asked himself if he was being fair. He didn't exactly think about things like that but he could see the panic in Yugi's eyes and fear in his voice. He felt bad for the kid, he already knew life hadn't been all too kind to him. He wasn't much for comfort he knew that much but maybe he could try and ease him out of his panic?

“Yugi…I ain't much of a emotional expert but from my experience life is all or nothin'. I grew up an orphan so I already had less then most people. The only thing that made sense to me was fightin', it didn't matta who or what all I knew was the answer to anythin' was a fist to a mouth.”

Yugi listened intently, he didn't think Valon would share his past so readily with him but he was so he gave him his full attention.

“Wasn't long before me fists did write out a cheque I couldn't cash…Next thing I know me ass was in prison and the fightin' just got worse. I wasn't in no youth prison either I'm talkin' bout a full adult prison here mate. With real hardened convicts but it didn't matta to me a face is a face and me fist was looking to punch it!”

Valon tightened his fist and even in a sling he flexed his arm showing off his how muscular his arms were.

“Didn't take long for me to end up in a hole tho, trapped in solitary left to rot… like the forgotten trash I was…till one day the warden called for me. Long story short I was givin' an ultimatum; either fight for my soul or lose it. And I'm sure you know the endin' to that!” Valon grinned at Yugi.

Yugi couldn't help but see Joey when he looked at Valon…Joey was also a delinquent who used violence to solve his problems but thanks to Yugi and his friends, Joey grew past all that…it felt like looking into some dark mirror and seeing the man Joey may have become if he wasn't set on the right path.

“So the answer is to… fight?” Yugi tilted his head a bit trying to process what Valon's story was meant to convey.

“That's my way of life Yugi, you gotta fight to survive! And you and me are survivors!” He grinned again before his smile started to lessen.

“…but what for hm?”

Valon looked over at Yugi his eyes held deep melancholy behind them almost as if he was reserved to this truth.

“I know Alister and Raphael both have their reasons for fightin' it's what gives them purpose…but me?” He chuckles and brushes his bangs out of his eyes and leans back in his chair.

“All I am is some weapon, just point me at somethin' an' shoot.” Valon made a finger gun and fired it into the air like a child playing cops and robbers.

“Maybe… that's all I am huh?” Valon now looked up at the ceiling his eyes once a vibrant blue now seemed to lose some of it's saturation as silence feel between the two of them.

Yugi wasn't exactly sure what to make of this; he hadn't known Valon for very long but everything about him before seemed to feel like he always knew what he wanted in life. He always seemed to cheerful, confident, childish and brash. But now he was seeing a whole new side of this man…like he was seeing a person who was lost yet reserved to his fate, someone who gave up on hope…

Valon clapped his hands forcing Yugi out of his small trance, he watched the brunette flip his switch once against from sombre to delighted.

“Can't wait to fight Wheeler tho! Gonna be a helluva a fight with him I hope!”

Yugi's eyes widened

“Wait! You're gonna fight Joey?”

“Well duh kiddo he's my assignment! And since you failed to take his soul last time he's back on the table for me so-”

“W-what?! N-No! Y-you can't take his soul!” Yugi protested

“Mate I haveta he's my target and I'm a swordsmen, it's Dartz's orders.”

“Bu-but that's not fair! Why is Joey a target? He didn't do anything wrong!”

“It's not about that mate; we need strong souls and he's a chosen duelist picked by the dragons themselves so makes sense he's gonna be a target.”

Yugi held his head as his heart started to race at the thought of Joey being used as a sacrifice to DOMA's god. He knew this should be for the greater good but not the expense of his best friend! And what if they didn't stop there? What if all his friends were in danger!?

He was panicking and Valon could see that, he let out a sigh and tried to think of something to help calm him down…that's when he remembered what Raphael had told him the other day.

“Well…You know Raphael told me before that if we snatch the Pharaoh's soul first then all the other's wont matta…So just wait for Raphael to succeeded and maybe Wheeler maybe off the hook?”

He was hoping this may get him to calm down and it seemed to work since Yugi stopped panting and just sat still in his chair his hands slowly lowered. In his mind the gears were starting to turn…slowly he turned his head as he asked.

“…So if we get the Pharaoh's soul…everyone else can be spared?”

“From what I understand yeah, he's got the strongest soul after all. Guess it's from 3000 years of marinadein' in a puzzle?” He rubbed his chin a bit

“So just chill out and wait Raph don't miss twice you know.” Valon grinned once more as he saw Yugi sit up straight again, his hands moving back into his lap.

“Yeah…let's chill out.” Yugi smiled.

“Good lad!” Valon sat back in his chair again and picked up his phone to browse it again like before.

After a few moments of silence Yugi asked.

“Hey, Valon Can I got to bathroom? I think my milkshake finally working it's magic on me…”

Back in the dessert were Joey and Tristan, after being separated from Yami Yugi and Tea due to the engine of the train unhooking from the rest of the couches. Joey found himself trapped in a duel against Rex Raptor who was powered up by the Seal of Orichalcos. Looking for revenge against Joey for beating him all the way back in Duellist Kingdom and causing his life to spiral into and endless string of humiliation and defeats. With the dark power he was granted with form DOMA Rex was ready to finally beat Joey and take his soul.

“Rex we gotta stop this duel now if it keeps going you're gonna lose your soul! Can't you see you're being brain washed! ” Joey argued.

Rex chuckles as the seal over his forehead was glowing brighter.

“Wow the 'Great Joey Wheeler' is too scared to lose now that I have unstoppable power! ”

“That thing is messin' with your head! You're playin' with powers you don't understand!”

“I understand everything I need to! As long as I have this power I'll crush you! Besides Yugi used it too didn't he? And he almost beat you! You're just scared in the hands of the right duelist it'll beat you too!”

Joey growled and narrowed his eyes

“Yugi was brainwashed by those guys just like you are!”

Rex laughed “Are you kidding me? Yugi JOINED DOMA too! He wasn't brain washed! He choose to join them just like me and Weevil!”

Joey and Tristan both couldn't believe their ears, Joey's eyes narrowed again

“Yo-you saw… No! You're lying! Yugi would NEVER join them!”

Rex grinned as he saw just how upset this was making joey and he loved to see him stressed out.

“I'm telling the truth! I saw him back at DOMA's HQ, He even wore a new dorky dark outfit to try and look dangerous! He used some kind of evil power or something to make the whole building shake!”

Joey refused to believe it, no away Yugi joined them on his own they had to have tricked him again! His soul must be under their control it was the only thing that made sense! Then Joey heard about the evil power making the building shake which made him think about the weird earthquake that happened as they were driving back to professor's campsite.

“…Evil Power?” Joey asked.

Rex put his free hand on his hip and continued “Yeah some kind of dark power or something, gave him a real mouth problem too like he had some visible bad breath!”

Joey's eyes widened when he recognized that same kind of dark breath Yugi was emitting during their duel. Dark power that enhanced his hatred and anger making him stronger and even more dangerous.

//No…they're poisoning him! Trying to turn him into some evil avatar for their plans! Well I'm not gonna let them succeed!//

“Guess he's sick of being everyone's punching bag, I didn't even know there was another Yugi! Makes sense tho. No away some loser like him be anything worthwhile anyway.”

Joey's hand tighten into a fist as he felt rage boiling in his heart.

“Don't you EVER talk about him like that again.” His voice was low as he breathed through his teeth.

Rex looked over at Joey and grinned happy that he finally got a reaction from the blonde.

“Guess that's why you're besties huh? Losers of a feather gotta stick together huh?” Rex sneered.

Joey hid his eyes under his bangs as his mouth turned up into a grin.

“Yeah so what if we are losers to you? I know now matter what win or lose, thick or thin at the end I always got Yugi to back me up and I always got his back! That's why I can keep going no matter how bad things get. At the end even if I don't come out a champion I got my best friend to always pick me up! That's why I can move on and keep fighting.”

Rex rolled his eyes as Joey continued his speech.

“That's why I 'd never stoop to you're level Rex. I don't need some evil power to make me unbeatable! I can win with my own determination and skill. I know Yugi's being used by those guys and I wont stop until I save him! So come at me with all your evil Rex I'll still take you down! And when I do I'll save Yugi from DOMA's influence too!”

Rex sneered at the blonde again “You done yet? I'm ready to wipe the floor with you Wheeler!”

“Bring it on Rex!”

Meanwhile on top of speeding locomotive Yami Yugi and Tea were facing Weevil Underwood; now powered by the Seal of Orichalcos they were in a tight grip of a duel and unfortunately for Yami Yugi Weevil seemed to be winning. Thanks to the dark power of the ancient evil magic and Yami Yugi already in an emotional spiral, due to the loss of his partner. And now with his Dragon Timaius abandoning him during the duel he was all but distraught.

Weevil chuckled in his annoying way as Yami Yugi struggled to play another card, Tea could see how upset the Nameless Pharaoh was and Weevil certainly wasn't helping the situation either.

“Well well well it seems the former “king of games” is struggling against my fast army of insects! Guess the rumours are true once you lost you other half you lost all your will and skill along with him!”

Tea growled “Shut up you little cockroach! Yugi's gonna beat you like he's done before!”

“Oooo I'm shaking in my shoes! Come on you're highness! Why don't you show me that dark power you used before against Raphael? Oh that's right! I'M the one with the Dark powers now! HE! HE! HE!”

Yami Yugi hissed as he drew a card “Even without Timeus I'll still win Weevil! And when I do you're going to take us to DOMA's HQ! And I WILL Save my partner!”

“HeHeHe…You're already too late to save him… ” Weevil lowered his eyes.

Yami perked up when he heard that “What do you mean!?”

“I saw him back at DOMA's HQ…trapped in a card all alone and suffering at the hands of DOMA's leader! He was in misery and under going absolute torment! Such a sad sight…” Weevil's mocking tone was building Yami's anger more and more.

“But luckily for you I managed to convince them to give me his card…” Weevil chuckled as he pulled a card out from behind him and held it up. “This is it his soul card…”

Yami's eyes widened when he saw the card.

“His…soul? Give it to me NOW!” Yami demanded.

Weevil chuckled again waving he card around allowing it to flutter in the wind carelessly, it could so easily slip away and be blown away never to be seen against if he would lose grip.

“Now, now why don't you be a good boy and BEG me to see you're little pest again huh? Get down on your knees and beg me to see him!”

“Weevil…” Yami growled lowly, he looked at the ground then back at his hands. He could feel his legs starting to give way, he was desperate…maybe he should just give in? If he did then- UGH! No no he couldn't do it! He never beg that parasite to- but what if he was letting his pride control him again?

Yami's face was full of dread and confusion as he stood in the face of the blowing winds, Tea watched and wanted to speak only to have weevil interrupt her.

“Looks like you choose you pride over Yugi again! He He He! Now it's time to punish you all over again!” Weevil held the card up with his other hand and tore it down the middle.

As Yami watched the card, the soul of his partner be torn in half he felt his own soul…his heart become broken. Shattered into pieces as the weight of what he just witnessed hit him like a ton of brick, the emotional turmoil he suffered in that one instant breaking what was left of his composer as he fell to his knees grabbing his head he screamed out

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!”

Tea's eyes widened as she too witnessed Yugi's demise in front of her and held her mouth with both hands to hold back the scream she had in her throat as tears streamed down her face.

Weevil couldn't help but let out a sinister laugh as he watched Yami Yugi cry out in agony and heart break. It felt so good to watch him surfer like this and it would be even sweeter once he took his soul in a moment. Now it was time to lift and vale on his “trick”.

“Ha! You two are so dramatic! I tore up a useless bug card!” Weevil then showed them the torn monster card before letting the pieces fly off in the wind.

Once they both heard the bug duelist admit his trickery Tea was the first one to call him out on his cruelty. Prompting Weevil to say

“Wow you people really can't take a joke huh?” He struggled before he kept chuckling.

But Yami Yugi didn't speak at all, he slowly got back on his feet and stood back up right. The wind was blowing past his face quickly but inside his mind was racing with newly heated rage. Weevil's actions now sparked the Nameless Pharaoh fury, a darkness he tried to hide about himself was now back and at the forefront of it was his need to make his enemy pay…

Yami held the key to his victory in his hand a magic card called “Baserker Soul” and he was ready to use it.

His voice now carried his fury as he spoke.

“…I'm going to make you suffer…I'll make you pay!”

Dartz furiously walked down the hallway followed not too far behind by both Raphael and Alister. The echoing steps of his white business shoes filled the empty halls with noise as the leader of DOMA was enraged by the events that transpired not too long ago. Both Weevil Underwood and Rex Raptor lost their duels against the Nameless Pharaoh and Joey Wheeler. But that wasn't the problem in fact it was expected for them to fail, there real purpose was to keep the legendary duellists separated so it would be easier to pick them both off one by one.

No that's not what was angering Dartz, the locomotive the Nameless Pharaoh and Tea were riding on had derailed and sent them flying into a ravine below.

“Are you sure he survived the fall?” Raphael asked only to be met with Dartz's eye roll before he answered, exhausted he had to explain this to him.

“Of course I'm sure! I felt his presence just after the fall, it will take more then that to kill off the Pharaoh!” Dartz answered infuriated as they approached the door he wanted.

“He IS alive but someone is masking his presence from me! I need you to go down there and find him! Drag his miserable carcass back here if you have to!” Dartz pulled out his key card and swiped at the card reader before scanning his palm print to unlock door.

// …Even now you still try to undermine me, old man? I've worked too long and too hard for you to trip me up again!//

As the door unlocked and they entered the room Dartz looked around; seeing the room was in the same order he left it in when he dropped Yugi off a while ago. As his eyes scanned the room one thing was wrong with the picture that caused his already heated mood to boil over into new found rage. But being a gentleman Dartz kept his anger in check. He saw Valon sitting comfortably at the table on his phone not to even looking up when Dartz and other's entered.

Taking in a deep and controlled breath the teal haired man asked his subordinate

“Valon, Where is Yugi?”

Finally hearing Dartz's voice he perked up and looked over to see his boss in his signature purple suit along with his fellow swordsmen and grinned.

“Oh heya boss I- oh uh…” Valon paused looking around and seeing Yugi wasn't back in the room yet he answered “Oh right he just went to the lou!”

After hearing his answer Dartz took in a deep breath closing his eyes for a moment, in a clam demeanour he answered with a small chuckle.

“Oh, 'the lou'? I see… that's very interesting. Say did you know Yugi is an incorporeal soul?”

Doma's leader walked around the table now circling Valon like a shark in a tank circles it's prey, yet he still kept that eerily clam presence around him.

Valon and the other's could feel the dark cold atmosphere Dartz always seemed shrouded in start to fill inside the room again as the dread of something coming fell upon their very being. It was like a storm was brewing that there master was about to release it upon them.

Dartz then stopped in front of the brunette leaning in closely, his pressed lip smile fading as he breathed out opening his eyes.

“Which means he doesn't need a BATHROOM! LET ALONE FOOD YOU INCOMPATNINT FOOL! ”

Valon fell out of his chair and sprawled out on the ground before scrambling to get back on his feet.

“S-sorry boss! We all had lunch and he said he wanted the lou so-”

Dartz's silenced him with a verbal 'hiss' and a single finger before he stood up straight closing his eyes again. He brings both hands to his chest right were his Orichalcos medallion fell upon his chest in his robes. He made a mental connection to the medallion Yugi wore around his neck; there he could see him at the elevator doors waiting for the doors to open once they do he steps inside. Dartz sees him push a button then exists the mental state quickly snapping his eyes open before narrowing them again with a growl.

“He's in the elevator! He's going to basement garage!” Dartz turns to his swordsmen who look back at him making him stomp his foot in frustration.

“Well? What are you waiting for!? GO GET HIM NOW!” Dartz furiously points to the door, all three swordsmen run out of the door and quickly make their way down the hallway but not before they heard him shout.

“And may Leviathan help you IF HE LEAVES THIS BUILDING UNDER YOUR WATCH!”

Raphael was the first one to reach the elevators followed by Alister, as he rapidly pushes the down button waiting for the elevator to bring the lift up Valon runs past the two heading to the stair case door.

“Valon! What are you-” Alister tried to ask only for Valon to yell back

“You wont make it if you use the lift we gotta take the stairs!”

The other two followed the brunette through the door; the concrete stairs leading down to the next landing then continuing this same pattern, each one becoming further away like a long chimney leading down to ground floor. Before Alister could chime in about how this would be faster Valon using both his hands jumped over the railing and leaped down 3 floors before grabbing the railing to steady himself.

Raphael and Alister looked in shock at what had just happened, they knew Valon was reckless but this was a new level.

That's when it finally hit Alister making him yell down

“…You son of bitch! You're arm isn't injured!”

“Yeah! I'm a big fat liar! See ya on the ground lads!” Valon yelled back with a grin before he let go of the railing and repeated the same steps leaping from railing to railing making his way down.

Alister was still fuming as he looked over to Raphael who just shock his head at the entire event before him.

“I did the man's paper work Raph!” Alister pouted.

“Yeah try not to do that again…” was all he blonde said before he too jumped over the railing and fallowing Valon's actions grabbing the railing to steady his fall before leaping down again.

Alister gripped the railing hard still frustrated, he huffed then followed the others and jumped over the railing too.

Meanwhile in the basement garage the elevator door dinged open and Yugi stepped out looking around, all he saw were concrete pillars and lines of different vehicles parked in spaces. Paradesius was still a business after all so this was were the employees parked during the day. As Yugi continued to walk and look around he noticed by a wall closest to the elevators were a line up of motorcycles; a green Harley, and two sport bikes a yellow and red one. He knew instantly those were the swordsmen's motorcycles, he noticed them the first night they had met at the construction site lined up by the fence. Beside them were a few other black ones and finally he noticed a smaller dark blue one at the end.

The moment he saw it he got existed and ran over to get a better look. It was slick and slender yet still mini sized compared to rest of the bikes in the line up. It was the perfect size for him he thought, then he noticed on the side panel there was an electric blue lighting bolt that spelled out the word “Sonic” he couldn't help but giggle at that.

//Did Dartz really get me a motorcycle too?// he thought with a smile, thinking maybe he really was part of the Swordsmen now.

But he was brought out of his thoughts when he heard a “THUMP” echo through out he garage, the staircase door slammed open and Valon minus his sling stepped out into the car park and looked around. He was soon followed them another two thumps followed by the other two swordsmen walking out into the garage as well.

“Yugi! Jig is up! Come out, mate!”

Yugi quickly jumped behind a large concrete pillar.

//NO! Oh come on, not now!// he yelled in his head.

As Valon and other's walked and looked around the area; Yugi stayed on his hands and knees and quickly crawled on the ground hiding behind cars but keeping his eyes on the 3 men. Yugi was never more happy to be so small in his life, it made it easier to hide under the larger SUVs. The three men made their way through different rows of cars kneeling down slightly to try and look for Yugi's form, when they didn't see it they moved on.

Yugi knew he couldn't hide forever and if he hoped to have any chance at leaving he'd have to get past his fellow swordsmen. But what could he do? He wasn't Joey so taking on taller and stronger fully grown men wasn't on the table. What could he really do? He did have that weird earth shaking power…but then again it wouldn't be a good idea to use that while under ground. Especially because he didn't want to hurt them…even if they were trying to prevent his escape they were…his friends now.

Valon grew impatient and started running and looking under a few cars calling out.

“Come on Yugi hide and seek is a fun game but we're on company time, mate!”

// “Game?” Game! What kind of game is this? I just need to get out of here…// Yugi thought as he looked at the wall of bikes the small blue one built just for him, his salvation was right there but he couldn't get to it not without being caught.

Yugi peeked out again to see Raph and Valon coming closer to the car he was under.

//But I can't get anywhere if their all looking for me! I need someway to distract them…//

Yugi then looked at the deck in his duel disk, and something finally clicked in his mind and his smile widened.

//…A Game! 'Hide and Seek' huh?// Yugi chuckled to himself as he slipped out from under his hiding spot getting up and making himself visible to all three of them.

“Ah! There you are!” Valon pointed before walking over to him. “Come on kid we gotta get back to Dartz.”

Yugi lowered his head “I'll go with you guys…only if you beat me at a game.” he grinned folding his arms.

Raphael and Alister followed Valon and surrounded Yugi, they all had the same confused look on their face when they heard him speak.

“Game? We don't have time for games, Yugi!” Alister shouted.

Raphael decided to humour Yugi and asked “What kind of game?”

“Like Valon said 'Hide and Seek' If you catch me then I'll go with you no questions asked. But if I win you let me go free.”

“Kid we a'nt got time for this…” Valon sighed annoyed rolling his eyes.

“Alright, one quick game.” To both the swordsmen's shock this came from Raphael.

Both Alister and Valon glared at Raphael before pulling him into a small huddle together, turning away from Yugi.

Alister leaning in and whispered.

“Have you lost it? Dartz wants him back asap!”

“The only reason he gave up is because he knows he can't escape all three of us. Just give him what he wants, then take him back to Dartz.” Raphael whispered back.

“Besides do you want a repeat of what happened with the Bug and Dino pests when they pissed him off?”

In the back of their minds they knew Yugi held some kind of great power that was activated by his negative emotions. They needed to keep him happy so hopefully he wouldn't use his powers on them.

“Ohhh gotcha…” Valon winked as they all un-huddled and turned back to Yugi.

With a smug smile Valon said

“Okay Yugi hide and seek it is!”

Yugi smiled again

“Great! All you have to do is catch me and you win!”

“If that's all we got to do, then we got this is the bag right boys?”

Valon looked to his fellow swordsmen not noticing Yugi pull out a card from his deck and hold it up.

“It's game time!”

He shouted out as the card started to glow in a bright flash that caught all three men off guard, what once stood as a single person now stood dozens of Yugi's. All looking exactly the same and now surrounding them all sporting the same sinister smile on their faces.

In one unified voice they all yelled out

“Game…START!”

#yugi mutou #breaking the seal #au #yugioh #waking the dragons #fanart #fanfic

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