#Can someone get me something to crush and destroy and bite and maim and kill and disembowl and scratch and tear and stomp and devour and rip

[vaniliens]

Wanna do that assthetic ship Chart again with diff ocs but idk it might just piss me off more

[celestiamour]

‧₊˚✧ ❛[ pocket powerhouse ]❜

━━━ .°˖✧ requested by @klerns-birdie ˚₊ ⊹

ft. logan howlett x f! reader x wade wilson — xmen, marvel

╰₊✧ entering the void with their tiny, mighty companion┊1.4k words

setting: deadpool & wolverine (2024) worst! logan contains: canon typical blood & violence (and murder lol), reader is described as short & cute, super strength mutation, reader is the one who kills sabertooth in this one, fourth-wall break

➤ author's note: this was funnier in my head

they had you surrounded on all fronts, some standing before you and others on armored vehicles, holding their weapons and fists up ready to strike at any moment. if they didn’t clearly have bad intentions, then you would have been flattered at this little welcome party gathering together after only a few minutes of being sent into the void. they probably heard the ruckus wade and logan were making since they simply couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

meaning, they couldn’t stop beating each other up and using any means necessary to shed blood or break bones despite it all being healed within the span of seconds.

you find the only successful way to get them to stop trying to kill each other is by threatening to kill them first, throwing a punch into the ground to destroy it under you as a means to grab their attention while shouting that you’ll decapitate them if they continue.

they listen to you most of the time and drop the mini battles, not because they believe you would actually do it, but because they believe they are humoring you by doing so (and because they know to sit down and shut up when a pretty woman tells them to). with super-strength as your mutation, you could do it with ease, they know you can— it’s just so difficult to think that such a cute little thing who pouts when ignored and is frequently used as an armrest due to short stature would ever do anything of the sort. you still have yet to act on your warnings, only depending on bloodlust-filled glares to settle them down much like a teacher waiting for her noisy class to be quiet.

logan thinks you all bark and no bite, wade compares you to an angry bunny, it’s safe to say they take what you say with a grain of salt, exchanging amused looks and admiring how cute you are when yelling profanities and gory details of how you’re going to maim them. (blah, blah, blah, proper name, place name— backstory stuff)

the three of you cringed at the failure of johnny storm, grimacing when his balls probably got crushed on a metal pole and every time he hit his head before getting captured. his end goal was clearly to escape, but you didn’t quite know how he was planning to get there when he set himself alight and started flying.

“i know you!” a large man with flowing blonde hair jumped off the tank, landing with a heavy thud on the compacted sand.

“oh my god, that’s sabertooth, peanut’s brother,” wade explained.

“brother? they don’t really look anything alike aside from being… uh… feral?”

“well you see, apparently there are some discrepancies about that. the author isn’t sure about anything because her bitch-ass still hasn’t watched any of the x-men movies or done her research. something about ‘being too busy with real life,’ can you believe that?”

“okay, you lost me when you started talking about ‘an author,’ but lay off her!”

sabertooth growled at logan, “ready to die?” 

“hey, don’t threaten him! i don’t care if he’s your brother, he’s my friend!” you interrupted, walking up to him, acting nonchalantly like he was a teddy bear when he was truly a grizzly. he was much taller than you too, towering over you and leaving you in his shadow.

“get outta my way, girlie” he barked, extending his claws, prepared to sink them into your flesh. “you’re lucky you’re cute, or else i already would have killed you.”

“aww, thank you! but i can’t accept compliments from someone who wants to kill my friend, so to that, i say ‘fuck off!’”

before he could let out a roar about how you should know who you’re talking to or swipe his claws at your face, you lifted your hand and slapped him across the face. it was much like a dramatic slap from television shows where the girl finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her or something, except his head went flying off into the distance and sprayed blood everywhere. it happened so quickly that his body stood there for a second before flopping over.

“oh my god!” wade exclaimed, cupping his face in his hands from surprise before excitedly clapping them together, “oh my god, that’s my girl— that’s our girl! see, that’s what happens when you enlist a y/n on your team, i told you that it was a good idea to take her with us!” he picked up the decapitated head and waved his arms around, paying no mind to the dripping red iron spilling on his costume, “you bitches saw that? she’s cute ‘n tiny but mighty, and she’ll absolutely fuck you up!”

the victory was short-lived as they took advantage of logan’s adamantium skeleton and other large pieces to scrap to trap all of you to a magnet. normally, this would be a breeze for you to get yourself out of, but you got hit in the head and quickly fell unconscious for them to ship you all away to cassandra.

when you finally woke up, you’re tied back-to-back with johnny and find your two companions in a similar position. “are you guys okay?”

“they’re asleep, but i’m okay,” logan answered, voice uncharacteristically amiable. despite being just as annoying as deadpool, he liked you a whole lot more and never spoke to you as roughly as he did to him. you were sweeter, more empathetic and understanding that he needed his own space, and, he isn’t going to lie, very easy on the eyes. “and you?”

“i’m okay! my head really hurts though…” you winced and shook your head a few times, trying to get the pounding sensation out. “god, this place is crazy. first we get teleported to this junkyard and then—”

“did you really mean what you said back there?”

“what did i say?”

“well… you…” god, he felt stupid, he was about to back out and say ‘nevermind,’ but he knows that you wouldn’t have let him go so easily. “you said that i was your friend…”

“yeah! you are! i mean, i killed your brother for you even though you could have done it yourself, putting myself in danger just so that you didn’t have to— you better consider me a friend too!”

he should tell you that you shouldn’t call him that nor think of him that way since nothing good ever comes out associating with him, but he can’t bring himself to say the words he’s routinely told others to successfully push them away. something about the look in your eyes, the way they sparkled when you looked at him. something about your smile, toothy and full of hope for the future to make up for his lack of. something about you makes him keep his mouth shut.

instead, he looks away, muttering a quiet word of thanks.

you tilt your head in slight confusion, not understanding the depth of your statement yet and how it managed to pull a word of gratitude out of a man who was in a constant state of irritation, but it made you irrationally happy and giddy inside.

wade was murmuring a few unintelligible sentences before coming to, and despite wearing a mask that covered his entire face, you could envision the mild look of disgust behind the leather as clear as day. “ew, why are you smiling like that??” he took a glance at you and then back at him, repeating the process a few times. “what the fuck? you guys can’t have a love story and leave me out of it! i’m the reason you two even met—” he finally seemed to process the situation from the close proximity with logan, looking him in the eyes through the white fabric of his mask and trying to find a way to loosen it to no avail. “how long have i been asleep?”

“not all of you was asleep.”

johnny seemed to wake up as well, beginning to tell a whole bunch of exposition about this place you were trapped in, something about a monster that would swallow you up and a “her” who runs this entire place. he laughed at the notion of evading this woman’s grasp, but wade thought otherwise.

“nah, we can take her! i have a pocket powerhouse and the wolverine on my side, i’m not scared of anything!”

no one quite believes him, but it’s nice to see that your optimism has rubbed off on him.

[gold-eyes-vengeful-heart]

Silvarre

((An aside of a fic, about the remnants of the IXth Legion.

Contains spoilers for 5.5′s MSQ! Also contains a (villain) Garlean being quite canon-typically imperialist if you’re not down for reading that kinda thing which: understandable, have a nice night))

===

Tiberius mal Cassius--or Tiberius van Cassius, as far as he was concerned--settled more easily into his Weapon’s cockpit, and just sighed in resignation over her comms-link.

“Repeat that again for me, Tesserarius Venatio.” With a simple impulse of thought, he sent his Weapon inching closer to the port side of his airship, her aetherial wingtips getting within yalms of it. (But it was far from the greatest show of precision he had ever done; in Silvarre’s cockpit, they were one, and they were capable of much together.)

{yes}

{together}

The thoughts strayed into his own and he mentally embraced them with a smile. “I had been hoping you would see things my way.” It had been glorious, watching her rip straight through her containment as if it hadn’t even been there, in a shower of metal and glass and torn cabling. It had been significantly less glorious to see the other Weapons escape into the wild, but...no matter. He would find them and either destroy them or tame them with Silvarre.

“S-Sir?”

The tesserarius’ voice made him realize that he seemingly had been talking to himself, and so he just raised a brow and replied. “I’m waiting, Venatio. You have me talking to my child, you’re taking so long.”

(He couldn’t have them thinking he was too much of a madman.)

“Y-Yes...As I was saying, the Eorzean Butcher came back, and she killed your entire squad of spies when she did.” An image came up in the corner of the main viewing screen, and Tiberius’ eye flicked lazily to it.

A bunch of corpses impaled on a tree. It might have just seemed like pure savagery to the uninformed eye--and it was, really, even then--it also told Tiberius that even biting that bloody savage in half hadn’t been enough to really kill her. He really should have assumed, when he found no body or anything other than the massive spray of dark blood from the initial bite; then again, there were very few things aside from some particular species of slime monsters that came back from such a life-ending blow.

Until her. Of course.

“None of us know how,” the tesserarius continued with an audible gulp, “or perhaps it’s just someone imitating her, to keep the savages’ morale up--”

“Oh, no, no.” Tiberius casually cut him off. “I’m quite certain that’s her again. I’m beginning to think that the rumors of her in particular being near unkillable have merit.” He sent Silvarre into a gentle ascent, with a single thought and a twitch of the controls. “It would hardly be the strangest thing I’ve seen in the savages’ lands.”

“Then how do we overcome--?”

He, yet again, cut the increasingly-panicked tesserarius off. More firmly this time. “If you believe the only way to subdue a savage is to kill them, then you have a distinct lack of imagination. Even if she’s one of those that can’t have their minds and their wills broken enough to submit--and I quite believe that, given what I’ve heard of her and her tribe--there are more ways of getting an immortal out of the way than one of you might think. If you bury anything deep enough, out of reach of even the strongest savage enough...”

He trailed off meaningfully, and his underling sighed shakily.

“Well, yes,” the tesserarius admitted, if reluctantly. “You and your...daughter...”

He clearly thought the title strange, but he of course didn’t have the spine to contradict his Legatus.

“...did manage to get her out of the way for quite some number of weeks, doing what you did. I can’t speak for the others, but...I’m certain you’ll find a way, even if no one else has.”

Tiberius immediately picked up on the odd tone of the last bit. “But?”

“It’s nothing, Legatus Cassius.”

“Oh, come on. It’s something.”

“How many of us are going to die in the process?” The scared little remark almost squeaked out of the other man, and the silence that stretched on between them over the comms-link grew to what was probably an unbearable level on Venatio’s end.

But, finally, Tiberius just chuckled, though a hard edge laced his voice as he responded.

“I’m not fond of sacrificing my own men for no reason. You know this, Tesserarius Venatio. Of course I’m going to do my best to avoid doing it. But...” His voice lowered, and though Venatio wouldn’t see it, a strange glint came to his eyes. “When dealing with savages, sometimes it’s the only way, or they’re going to kill and maim all of us in the name of their backwards ‘justice’. It’s no dishonor to lose one’s life in the noble pursuit of saving one’s men from the enemy...and saving one’s country.”

The nerves came right back to the tesserarius’ voice. “Our country is on fire, Legatius Cassius. The Prince has just blithely allowed a civil war that is tearing us apart--”

“So it’s up to us to take the reins. To crush those other Legions and their inferior Legatus leaders under heel. To rebuild it, in our image.” Tiberius sighed, rolling his neck for a moment. “And if we can trap that particularly obnoxious savage, I’m certain we can do the same to the rogue Prince. If they don’t actually wipe one another out, that is.” That was always a possibility, and one that he inwardly was...sort of hoping for. If just because it would be the perfect time to stab whoever the victor was in the back.

It was as good a plan as he could come up with at the moment, anyway. Unlike the other Legions, they still had the benefit of their engineers and medics not being brainwashed by...whatever that horrible tower in the Garlean homeland was, gorging itself on the minds of the best Garleans and turning them into little better than mindless ants, all working towards some obscure dark purpose.

{don’t like it no}

{evil}

{badbadbadbad}

The discordance washed over his thoughts and Silvarre briefly banked left and then right in a silvery-armored arc, as if to shake off the memory of that thing they had seen before. He wasn’t any more thrilled to think about it than she was, and even lightly patted the console. “Ah, my apologies, dear. It is unpleasant--”

“Sir?”

Tiberius blinked, briefly. Here he thought he had turned that off first. “Yes, yes. At any rate, we still have our Legion’s engineers together and away from whatever the Prince is building out there that makes a mockery of our Empire.” He had heard himself about the bizarre actions of those exposed too closely or too long to the towers, their beastman-like praising of the Empire as if the Empire was a mere eikon to be worshipped. Disgusting. The thought of it curled his lip, even. “We’ll just have to ensure that that Roegadyn is shoved back out of the way whenever she decides to interfere with us--and we now know of a fairly sure-fire way to do so. And in the meantime, continue to establish our Legion’s own base outside of Garlemald, lest the Prince and his irritating lackey do something immensely foolish and lethal to the whole continent.”

They would likely not be so lucky as to have the two simply off themselves with their own plotting. But he could hope.

“And then we can put all our heads together and figure out how to put all of them down forever, and continue the work the true Empire started. And we can get my Weapons back...that one the test subject stole most certainly included.” A vein of unnatural light pulsed lightly at the corner of his eye, driven by a flash of anger, and he just lightly rubbed that painful spot until it went back down. Weapon-blood was inconvenient at times, wasn’t it? “These so-called gods of theirs will continue to ravage the planet until they leave it a dead rock in space. If they won’t take proper care of their own damned lands, and doom the rest of us in doing it, I’ll make them at the point of a gunblade.”

He finally cut the connection, sending Silvarre back into a dive to follow the airship. It didn’t matter to him if his foes were Garlean, Eorzean, or any of the other savages--even if they were eikons, he would see them all crushed out of his way, and he would finish the noble goal the Empire had started.

It was the only way to save a world that was falling apart at the seams, as far as he was concerned. And he wouldn’t stand by and watch while it happened.

[journeysintowebcomics]

Worm Liveblog #113

UPDATE 113: Takeover

Last time Skitter had reunited with Grue, Heckpuppy and Imp, and a brief fight ensued because they thought she had betrayed them again. Thankfully, the record has been set straight, so now they can talk and decide their course of action. Let’s continue.

So, the first part of this chapter is Skitter explaining what happened, Grue being the only one who seems to be listening without any hesitation. The other two are still full of doubts. Can’t blame them, really. This is also where we find out how the switcheroo happened. The moment the highbeams were turned on, the strong lighting was the cover they used to bring in the fake Skitter. Nobody noticed anything. So yeah, as if everything so far hadn’t indicated it, this is another proof Calvert planned this betrayal carefully. I wonder since when he had been arranging all this – it must have been at least a few days, to give his hired tinker the time to make that swarm box.

Grue nodded slowly.  “Looked like you, sounded like you.”

“I don’t know how.  Genesis?”

“Didn’t strike me as much of an actor.”

On the other hand, the place was teleported to was Genesis’ territory. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. But that’s something to keep in mind.

Apparently Skitter isn’t a hundred percent Calvert was trying to kill her, and although I understand that’s Skitter trying to be cautious, just in case things turn out to be strange and unexpected, there’s really no room for doubt Calvert was trying to kill her. Just because he didn’t have a guaranteed method right away doesn’t mean he wasn’t attempting to get her out of his way. I thought you yourself had said using grenades would lessen the odds he could get away with a convenient explanation for what happened, Skitter, why do you think a bomb would be any better?

I agree that Calvert hadn’t planned for Skitter to escape and come be framed, he most likely intended the fake Skitter to vanish into the ether. Why else would he have soldiers ready to make them explode, unless he was trying to avoid her coming in contact with them? No, he intended to kill Skitter in that house, and then make things look like she betrayed them and...just vanished with Dinah to parts unknown.

Heckpuppy still doesn’t seem very sure about all this, and judging by her snappy responses, she doesn’t want to talk about it anyway. Even when Skitter tries to convince her to be at the ready in case of betrayal – if she wasn’t convinced by the explanation, I mean – she just refuses to listen for long. She just wants to focus on the present and make her dog bite whoever is responsible for this mess.

Bitch made a low, grunting noise in her throat that fell somewhere between a huff of anger, a belch and a grunt. “The way you acted before, the way that person acted when she shot me and the way you’re acting now, none of it makes sense, and maybe that’s ’cause I’m stupid.  But I’m going to handle this my way.  Next time someone shoots at me, I kill them.  Or I have Bastard eat their hands and feet.”

I mean, it’s not too bad of a response, as long as she makes sure whoever’s shooting isn’t one of the Undersiders! Then she should stop and listen. Thankfully, I doubt any of the Undersiders will be shooting around anytime soon.

“You shouldn’t maim people,” I said.

“Says the person who just emptied a gun clip at us,” Imp said.  When Grue and I turned her way, she raised her hands, “Kidding.  I’m just kidding.”

...I’m pretty sure it’ll be a couple weeks, at the very least, before Imp decides Skitter was telling the truth.

So, since there isn’t really anything else to be said about the false Skitter and the mess that ensued ten minutes ago, they have to focus on what’s immediately important: rescue Tattletale, Regent, and also Dinah, who undoubtedly still is in Calvert’s clutches. Oh boy, this is going to be difficult. Something like that can easily fill one arc. If it wasn’t because otherwise it’d be a really short chapter, I’d think the chapter is going to end in like three paragraphs.

The big obstacle is that Calvert knows way too much about how their powers work and what they can do, but it’s not an unsurmountable obstacle. Skitter herself proved that by using her wits and information Calvert didn’t have to escape the burning house. What doesn’t he know of everyone, hmm...

...strategies, mostly. You can’t know for sure what your enemy’s strategies are. Those are mutable, can change.

What they decide to do isn’t a strategy, but they did realize Calvert has no way to know how this all turned out. The soldiers retreated, the fake Skitter left. Maybe they can use that to their advantage? Pretend Skitter died, and shunt her into hiding? I mean, I’m pretty certain she won’t be able to approach Calvert in any manner. He’s way too clever and careful, he’ll have a way to know Skitter is nearby.

Just telling Calvert Skitter is dead isn’t going to be enough, and knowing him, the act of destroying the box may have sent a signal of some sort that informed of its destruction. Grue is mulling a few things, asking for information such as what exactly happened, how did the fake Skitter teleport, how much does Calvert know. Hm, this is great! Grue gets to be the one thinking of the plan, instead of Skitter. I know it isn’t the time to be thinking or saying such things, but if he had concerns about Skitter taking over the team, this should help calm them down.

Looks like he got an idea. He’s calling Calvert now, everyone else has to stay silent. As soon as Calvert answers, Grue is already demanding explanations and growling, demanding to know what’s going on and why Skitter attacked them by using Calvert’s technology.

“Grue,” Calvert’s voice was hard, firm, “Slow down.  It doesn’t make sense that I’d arrange things that way.  Why go through the motions of giving my pet to Skitter, only to… you haven’t fully explained what happened.  You said she attacked you?  Are you sure?”

“Pretty fucking sure, Coil.  She shot Rachel and then turned on me.  Imp disarmed her.  Then she teleported away using the same device you described to us an hour ago.”

Aha, nice! That seems to fit what I read. I’m not sure if Imp disarmed the fake Skitter, but that’s a minor detail. So far, so good. Gotta make that outrage believable. Calvert expresses some concern for everyone – as if he’s really concerned, the snake – and Grue drops the big bomb: Skitter is dead. Oh, great! Guess they really will make her be in the low down while they think of a good plan to rescue their teammates.

Of course Coil demands proof Skitter really is dead, he wants a photo. Skitter was already getting ready, preparing herself for playing dead.

I shifted position so I lay in the depression that Bastard’s front paws had made in the swarm box.  It was a scene I had to stage in seconds, using dragonflies and wasps to carry hairs across my mask, moving my hand so my wrist bent at an awkward angle where the metal folded.  The final touch was bringing all the bugs from around the swarm box to carpet me and the floor.

Not a half second after I finished, I heard the digitized camera sound.

...okay, so, um...personally I have never been crushed by a giant dog while I’m fiddling with a box covered with bugs, and I haven’t witnessed such a thing happening in front of me either, but I imagine if Skitter had been slammed against the box by a giant dog, she’d be kind of...

...

...broken. Let’s put it that way. I don’t think that’s going to be very easy to fake. If only they had a little more time to arrange the scene, but then again, if they had taken their sweet time, Calvert would suspect something was wrong. The longer this call came through, the more suspicious it’d be.

I’m not sure if Calvert believed it or not, let’s hope he did. He asks where Dinah is because he has to keep appearances, and Grue brushes that aside because Skitter was the one who cared a lot about Dinah, not him. To make things a bit more troublesome for Calvert, Grue fibs about how light and darkness don’t affect him the same way everyone else is affected, and that’s how he saw Skitter presumably teleporting away with Calvert’s technology.

Calvert says he’ll check how Skitter may have access to the controls, and hangs up, much to Grue’s chagrin. He tries to call again, but is stopped by Skitter. Grue wants to pressure him, give him less time to think by constantly battering him with accusations. That’s much easier when you’re face to face, the problem is that Calvert can hang up whenever he wants instead of listening to Grue. Hmmmm...maybe they can demand a meeting. Make a big show, spit in rage, perhaps make a few threats...make this look authentic.

The only problem I can think of right now is that they don’t have a place to meet Calvert at. I imagine he’ll want to meet them right where everyone is at right now – to see Skitter’s body in person, and he’ll arrive in three seconds flat thanks to the teleportation, no? And they can’t just go to one of Calvert’s lair or the PRT, those being the only other options I imagine could be good for a meeting. If you enter your enemy’s turf, you’re automatically at a disadvantage.

...let’s just hope Calvert won’t want a meeting. Go on, Grue, yell at him through the phone, call again.

I frowned.  I was thinking back to the meeting I’d had with the school, when my dad had been with me and we’d accused the trio of bullying.  Both Emma’s dad and the school had played their little power games.

“It’s a tactic,” I said.  “He regains control of the situation by being the one who can call back, and it helps establish the idea of him being an authority figure.”

“Damn,” he said.  “Sorry.  It made sense in my head, but I didn’t think it through, I’m tired.  Didn’t sleep last night.  I figured it was better to call sooner than later.”

I’ll reiterate for the record: I don’t think Grue was in the wrong on calling him as soon as possible. Either way, I really don’t think Calvert needed to go check anything, since he knows what happened with the fake Skitter. I bet right now he’s sitting wherever he is, using his power to make the two timelines and deciding to use a different argument in each one, increasing the odds everything will go nice and neat in one of the timelines.

Just like Skitter said, Calvert seems to be making himself look like an authority, by calling back. Here we go!

I heard the beep as he switched it to speaker phone.  Calvert was already talking.  “- have sequestered Regent in my custody, out of concern that he controlled Victor to have the young man hack into my systems.”

Wow. I don’t think keeping one of the Undersiders captive without even talking to the others before doing so is a bright move, but it sure makes him look imposing. Grue has some objections, like for example that they didn’t know about the teleporting technology until an hour ago, and Calvert replies he fears Skitter found out beforehand. Hm...wait, is he preparing everything for keeping Tattletale captive as well? By arguing she was the one who told Skitter about the technology, perhaps? Even if Skitter was really dead and this call was authentic, I’m sure the rest of the Undersiders would be very suspicious if Regent and Tattletale were kept in who knows where and Skitter was dead.

Calvert invites the Undersiders to his headquarters, and Grue demands they meet somewhere else, somewhere open where he can’t set any traps or make things get real bad as soon as they arrive. Skitter’s the one who gives an idea, a closed market at the north of the city. Grue demands Calvert comes only with a small squad of soldiers, Tattletale, and Regent, and hangs up to show Coil it ain’t nice when you do that to someone. Well then! Meeting set. Now what?

“I’ll wait in the wings.  In the meantime, we should see if we can get our hands on something that we could have Bastard maul to the point that it looks like my mutilated remains.”

“There a butcher still in service anywhere?” Grue asked.

“We’ll figure something out,” I replied.

Hmmmm...I’m not very sure about that. Calvert saw a photo of Skitter intact and without any blood, if he’s presented with a mutilated facsimile he’s going to ask questions, no? Then again, it’s not like they can just make Skitter play dead in front of Calvert, he’s going to want to find out right then and there if she truly is dead, and I doubt there’s a conveniently similar lookalike dead body nearby to dress as Skitter. Fooling Calvert is going to be real difficult...

Well it won’t be for lack of trying, that’s for sure. They’re trying something. Skitter sacrificed her costume to disguise a mannequin they caked with entrails and blood from a raccoon. Hm. I suppose they’re going to use the dogs as an excuse? Like, they were coming with the dead body, but the dogs are dogs and their teeth caused quite the mess? In the meantime, Skitter hides in the grass with a small legion of bugs. Now it’s waiting time.

Adrenaline kept me awake, despite the fatigue that I was experiencing.  It had been an intense few days, an intense few weeks, with minimal chance to rest.  My body was probably struggling to heal, and draining what little reserves I had remaining.

Sssssoooo...business as usual. There hasn’t been 24 hours of rest in a loooong while. I’m pretty sure it has happened, like, once. It has been sixteen arcs.

Calvert arrives with only four soldiers, and sees the fake dead body right away. He seems to be convinced, not even trying to get one of the soldiers to take a look. Alright, maybe pretending it was torn apart was a good idea after all!

...nevermind, the gig is up. The gig didn’t last not even one minute. Well, they tried.

To show he’s the one who has the upper hand here, Calvert summons pretty much everything shady he has. A whole lot of soldiers, the supervillains in his payroll...everyone is here, and there’s dozens of guns pointing at everyone. Skitter is found, and also has many guns trained on her. Whoooops. I had a feeling things would go badly, because this is Calvert and surely he had a plan, but I didn’t think it’d happen this quickly!

So, Regent and Tattletale are locked up, presumably not in the same place Dinah is at. Calvert laments the loss of the Undersiders, as that sets him back in his plans for a while. Really? Well I thought it’d make the plans easier, but if he says so! At least if they die, they can know they were inconvenient for Calvert one last time.

Before Calvert can give the final order, Skitter claims there’s a dead man’s switch. Oh, golly, this is going to be good. Not having any other option, there’ll be a conversation now!

Calvert sighed.  “Ah.  You are irritating, you know?  On more than one occasion, I know, you’ve argued for the sake of the greater good. I’ve viewed the recordings the PRT has of your appearances at major events and I’ve come to know you fairly well. It’s rather hypocritical that you’re now working so hard to fight against the greater good.”

That’s a tad...hypocritical. I cannot believe what he has planned is the greater good. If he was really interested in the greater good, he really would have found another way of fulfilling his goals without keeping Dinah chained to him. Not that there was any doubts at any point he had any motives that weren’t selfish. I don’t know, ever since it was revealed Coil is Calvert I keep thinking back to that interlude with Piggot. I already knew Coil was a nasty piece of work, but boy does that interlude in hindsight color my opinion of him even more.

“Essentially so.  If you simply would have died quietly, the Undersiders wouldn’t have been stirred to rebellion, I could have established a peace we haven’t seen since the day Scion arrived and everyone involved here could have walked away happier and healthier.  Your friends included.”

“Tattletale excepted,” I responded.

“Tattletale excepted, I admit. Too dangerous to be left unchecked. A shame.  Now, you were saying?”

Ah, so he was planning to get rid of Tattletale too. How did he plan to cover up her death? It’s not like she had any betrayal attempts in the past, and although she’s largely a shady person with a shady past, it’s not like the rest don’t know some of that. Hmmm...maybe he planned to get rid of her once the Undersiders were told to leave the city and go settle somewhere else. Once everyone was separated, it’d be much easier to catch her, and since he already proved he can kind of be in a blind spot of Tattletale’s power...yeah, maybe he’d get away with this.

“I arranged a dead man’s switch. Kind of.  Unless one of my subordinates receives a message from me every twenty minutes, she’ll mass-send emails to everyone important and even a few unimportant people.”

“Detailing the true nature of Thomas Calvert, I suspect?”

“Yeah.”

“I hate to break it to you, dear Skitter, but this isn’t enough leverage for me to let you walk away.”

I can imagine Calvert feels confident about burying this imaginary dead man’s switch because, well, any email with information like this isn’t going to get taken as gospel right away. Before any important and damaging information gets out to the public, it may be a few days, maybe a few weeks. Plenty of time for Calvert to deal with it. I’m surprised he’ll listen to a couple of requests, though. Guess he doesn’t want the hassle of having to stamp out PR fires. Once again PR gets in the PRT’s way, haha!

First request is to let Dinah go once he’s done with her and his plans. That’s not happening. She’s so dead once he’s done, I’m growing sure of that. Second request is not to bother Dad Hebert, and he says he won’t. That I’m a little more inclined to believe, with Skitter dead he wouldn’t have a reason to hurt her family. Third request is to take care of Heckpuppy’s dogs. Not happening, they’re so dead too, or he’ll let an underling do whatever they want to them. Why’d Calvert agree to take care of the dogs? At this point he’s just humoring Skitter, really.

“You do what you can to stop Jack from doing what he can to end the world.  If you have capes at your disposal, you give them some job related to that.  To stopping it.”

Alright, that’s reasonable. Although I don’t think he commands Dragon directly or anything, he does have maaaany ties to her thanks to his new position. He can make her focus completely on that, and doing that he’ll have one opponent less. I’m sure given some time Dragon would realize Calvert is a dangerous villain masquerading as the director of the PRT, though, so it’s matter of time before she does something about it.

The last of Skitter’s many demands is to let Tattletale live, and Calvert agrees. Not believing that. Honestly, none of Calvert’s reassurances are to be taken at face value. He already proved to be untrustworthy, his word is worth jack.

Thankfully, Skitter isn’t taking this at face value, she demands to see Tattletale and confirm she’s okay, which he agrees to, making Chariot transport her. Not satisfied at just seeing her, Skitter reasons it could be a fake Tattletale. Hey, if it’s a fake Tattletale then Calvert saw this particular demand coming. He really can be a few steps ahead, haha. But yeah, since he knows how the Undersiders’ code works, any fake Undersider would be able to use it. That’s not going to prove it really is Tattletale – and part of me is wondering if Calvert would manage to replicate Tattletale’s power somehow. I’m curious!

I’m not sure I understand what Skitter is trying to do. She’s trying to get to talk to Tattletale and says something about how if this Tattletale doesn’t know the code, then he can shoot them all. Uh, no, that doesn’t sound right, I’m sure I missed something.

“I could kill your liaison, you realize. She’s a loose end.”

I thought of Charlotte, hoped I wouldn’t regret getting her involved.

Ah, yeah, about that: you may want to never mention this to Charlotte. She’ll never forgive you. She sure didn’t sign up to possibly be a person of interest for Coil.

Skitter mentions how betraying them will make Calvert look a little worse in the eyes of those who work for him, and nobody seems to particularly care about that. Whooops.

“As Skitter knows about my power and ever so kindly revealed the broad strokes of it to everyone in earshot, I suppose there’s no loss in explaining.  I tortured one member of the Undersiders for information, in another world, days ago.  They revealed that you were plotting to turn on me if I refused to release Dinah.  I cannot afford to release her, so my hand was forced.”

“So it’s our fault?” Imp asked.

“Ultimately, yes.”

Oho, now that’s something I didn’t see coming. Alright, let’s take a moment and go one for one to try to narrow this down. So, Skitter is out of the picture because she’d never reveal this to Calvert’s face and she sure would be dead already if she had said a word. Grue...hm. Would Calvert risk Grue taking his power? Unless he had a way of countering Grue’s power, that’s a no. Tattletale...that’s a tad trickier. She’d undoubtedly be able to be subdued, it’s just that I can’t imagine her betraying Skitter’s plans after being Skitter’s main ally even in the hardest times. Heckpuppy is a no, I don’t think she’d say something that’d put everyone else in danger, not even Skitter nowadays – unless she doesn’t realize it’s dangerous. Also, I can imagine her being very defiant even in the face of torture. Regent...knowing what he can do, would Calvert risk being in the same room than him for a while? Risk being controlled, or having his movements played with during a torture session? I don’t think he’s particularly prone to betrayal, since he seems to have some degree of appreciation for everyone despite everything, so even if he doesn’t care for Dinah or Skitter’s plan, I don’t think he’d betray.

That only leaves Imp. Easy to catch and keep restrained as long as you’re aware she’s there, and I really, really doubt she’s interested in saving Dinah. If Calvert threatened to hurt Grue, that’d be another incentive to get her to talk. So yeah, in my opinion, there’s only one option of who’d be the one who was tortured.

Then again, the other possibility is that nobody was tortured and Calvert is just lying about it to make himself look better and try to sow some discord into the Undersiders’ last moments. So yeah, I lean towards thinking Imp was the unfortunate victim, or that he’s lying.

Turns out the fake Skitter is a child soldier instead of a clone, thank goodness. Hey, clones are a perfectly reasonable possibility, given this canon! Anything can happen when all sorts of powers exist.

Calvert has been gathering information to use against Skitter when she betrays, he admits, straight from when they assaulted the PRT offices to get information. During the home invasion where they intimidated the mayor, Trickster had devices that recorded how her power works. So yeah, that pretty much tells the Travelers knew from days ago Skitter, at the very least, was being targeted.

“Why didn’t you drop me on top of a bomb?”

“An unfortunate side effect of Leet’s power.  Leet believes it was the proximity to the bomb or the particular signature of the vat of acid that made it so likely to occur, but with my power I observed that it wasn’t merely a chance that the teleportation would fail and your well-trained body double would be caught instead, but a surety.  No less than twelve tries with the variables changed slightly.  Leet’s power sabotages him, it seems.”

Ah, there really was a reason to not use grenades nor a more certain way of killing Skitter. The author was interfering with Leet’s power, hahaha! But yeah, it had to be this way or else Skitter would 100% survive. Alright, I see.

Skitter keeps insisting she wants to talk to Tattletale, confirm the girl in front of her is really Tattletale, and Calvert keeps refusing. Yeeeah, then that’s not Tattletale. He’s even willing to let the dead man’s switch activate. Welp! Now what? He even tries to say he has no reason to arrange a body double, and Skitter points out that yeah, he sure has! He even admitted Tattletale is a huge threat and he planned to get her out of the way.

Calvert shook his head and touched fingers to his forehead, as if exasperated.  “Your underling and Tattletale can live.  That’s all I’m willing to offer.  You’ll have to take my word on both points”

“Your word is worth nothing,” Bitch spat the words.

Calvert reacted as if he’d been slapped.

He reels because he knows it’s true and didn’t expect somebody to outright say it. See, this is why I don’t think Heckpuppy would cave under torture. Maaaaaybe if the dogs are threatened, I suppose, but yeah.

Apparently Heckpuppy’s rebuttals get under Calvert’s skin, as he orders her to shut up and threatens to get her dogs shot if she keeps going on.

Proving they were right, Calvert orders the real Tattletale to be teleported, and makes her be able to hear and respond to Skitter’s code, gagging her immediately. This still doesn’t prove it’s the real Tattletale, in my opinion. Calvert already said he’s familiar with the Undersiders’ codes, he could train a fake to use them too. But the condition Skitter had is now fulfilled, she has to do the same.

“It’s amusing,” Calvert said, “That you keep asking me for things I was already prepared to do.  You wanted me to improve the city, to restore it to a working state.  Already planned.  And this? Killing Tattletale was never in the cards.  I intend to keep her like I do my pet.  Her power will be invaluable.  Rest assured, I will offer every bit of assistance I can when the end of the world approaches.”

“I suppose it was too much to expect that you’d let her go,” I said.

Ah, so she’s going to be drugged and stashed away for when Calvert needs her. I have the impression having Tattletale’s power to his beck and call will be harder if she’s captive, since she’d need as much information as possible to be accurate, and it seems to me she’d work better if she’s right then and there when she’s needed. But her power really can come useful, that’s for sure.

Since she can’t stall for any longer, Skitter talks about her underling, even mentioning her name. Somewhere else in the city, Charlotte feels very upset and doesn’t know why.

Having obtained the information, Calvert orders them to get shot, and the bullets fly. Grue is hit, the dog is hit, Skitter herself is hit – as if she hadn’t suffered enough injuries and bruises in the last hour and half, she’s going to be so sore during the next crisis – but nobody seems to be dying. When they have a moment to look around, they notice half of the soldiers was holding the other half hostage. Oh, golly! That was unexpected.

The Travelers almost move, Grue tells them to not, and asks someone to remove the bindings from Tattletale.

“Glad to see the stringbean plan worked out in the end,” she said.  “Those of you I haven’t been in contact with, please hear me out.  I’m paying twice what Calvert is for a year’s salary, and I’m paying it all upfront.  Look to the other team captains if you don’t believe me.  Fish, Minor, Richards, Meck, I’ve talked to them, and they’ve agreed.”

Ah, so that’s why Skitter was so insistent in making Tattletale speak. She needed to say ‘stringbean’, I suppose. It doesn’t seem like any of the Undersiders is surprised, so this was something they arranged earlier, without the readers being privy to it. Good thing this also wasn’t something whatever Undersider was tortured – if any – talked about. Excellent! Calvert isn’t going to get away with what he just tried to do.

Turns out Tattletale is richer than Calvert is, and by a lot. During the jobs she has managed to get small fortunes every time, without anyone noticing, thanks to her power letting her know what she can get away with, and I suppose it also told her how to do it without Calvert noticing she was slowly getting ridiculously wealthy. Soon she was able to pay the soldiers the amount she mentioned, and when Calvert tries to make a bigger offer, she says he can’t do such a thing. Well, I’m sure given some time he could, but mercenaries don’t work with 60 days receipts.

Seems to me like Tattletale intentionally made Calvert spend a tad too much money buying information from the Dragonslayers. Good! I wonder if that made the difference or not. I don’t remember it being mentioned it had been a terribly exorbitant sum of money. Six million, if I recall correctly. Given the amount of soldiers he has – I always had the impression he had quite the squad – six million isn’t bound to be that much, no?

So yeah, the gist of this all is that Tattletale is the one with the full wallet. They’re safe from the soldiers, but what about the other parahumans? I’m concerned they’ll act soon, even though Grue told them not to.

“Undersiders,” Trickster said. “This goes no further.  Call it a stalemate, but we need his assistance.”

You know, if he hadn’t been such a big jerkass I’d feel bad for him, but no. He made sure to say very well how indifferent he was about the Undersiders and actively cooperated to lead to the betrayal. Can’t say I feel bad for him. Noelle, though...for her I do feel bad. What’s going to happen to her if Calvert is defeated and taken away?

Tattletale informs them Calvert has been lying all along, that nothing he can do can help Noelle and that he just wanted someone with a lot of firepower. So he planned to send the Travelers away and keep Noelle? Is she drugged too, perhaps? And what exactly is her power, what’s so important he’d want to keep her around and be equal to all the supervillains he has? And then they tell the Travelers to stop, and join them if they’re tired of wandering around and all.

A long pause stretched out, then Ballistic stepped forward.

“Hey, man,” Trickster said.  “No.”

“I’m done.  This was a doomed quest from the start,” Ballistic said. He stopped at Grue’s side, turned around to face his teammates.

Ah, Ballistic is here! Are you joining the Undersiders officially? He had mentioned he wanted to stay and work for Calvert, and although that work opportunity is now impossible, maybe he’ll find something to do with the Undersiders. Great. Nobody else from the Travelers defects, though. I had expected Sundancer too – and seems to me Taylor did too – but she didn’t. I guess she’s more attached to the group than Ballistic was.

Genesis doesn’t want to leave the group either.

She was in the form of a girl, but wore a simple mask.  “Someone’s got to stay and be a real leader to this team.  No.  I’m standing by Trickster.”

I’m fairly convinced she’s throwing shade at Trickster. Sucks to be him.

Since it’s pretty clear nobody else is going to join them, the Travelers are taken out of commission by joint effort by Imp and Ballistic, and the rest of the villains are forced to do nothing. Say, I notice there’s no mention of Circus. I suppose Circus left the town.

Tattletale will take over Coil’s operations, spearhead the rebuilding of the city, make a truce with the heroes...overall make things go smoothly. I doubt she’ll position herself as a benevolent ruler or even make the heroes know she’s the big leader, but I imagine she’ll tell them Coil is a threat no more. I’m not sure how she’ll handle this, but hey, if the city is rebuilt, then it’ll be all worth it. He’s so cornered he yells he’ll give a million dollars to whoever shoots any of the Undersiders, and nothing happens. I suppose the double year salary is far more than one million dollars, then.

Apparently this all had been planned since long ago, back when Skitter was still in bad terms with everyone, and Tattletale had done some minor annoyances that piled up and made Calvert more stressed and more likely to screw up. Kind of impressive she managed to do that to a man who can make two timelines. If he really tortured someone then I’m sure the stress made it even worse for the unfortunate victim, then.

“Then send me to the Birdcage and be done with it,” Calvert said.

Does he think the Undersiders will reveal to everybody he’s Coil, and then make the heroes drag him to the Birdcage? It’s not like the Undersiders have any authority to send people to jail. No, something else will happen: Calvert will die.

Say, if Piggot was ineffective because a villain went and stabbed her in the middle of a town hall, where does Calvert rank in the ineffectiveness range by getting killed by villains less than 24 hours after he was hired?

Skitter wants to be the one making the killing shot, she even will use her gun. Slowly, she walks forward, thinking of all the lives she put in danger directly or indirectly. Hmmm...personally I think the moments like the ABB destroying the city don’t fit here, but you do you, Skitter.

“You’re not a killer,” Calvert said.

“No…” I replied.  I couldn’t see, so I screwed my eyes closed, felt the moisture of tears threatening to spill forth.  I took in a deep breath.

“…But I suppose, in a roundabout way, you made me into one,” I finished.  I aimed the gun and fired.

Well then! Here it is. This is the moment where Skitter has crossed the boundary she had refused to cross. Iiiii’m not sure I like this move, for a couple reasons.

So, the first one is that we already have a character who crossed self-imposed boundaries and ended pretty badly. I know it was partly due to Panacea’s personality, but I fear the same thing happening to Skitter. One boundary is crossed, then another, and another, and another. It’d be quite the pity if that happened.

The other reason – and far more important for myself, honestly – is that I’m not sure where Skitter’s development will go now that this happened. Part of the reason why I thought Skitter is an interesting character was that she tried her best to keep a certain modicum of morality, thanks to her self-imposed rules. Now that what may have been the biggest one has been broken, who knows what else will happen. What other self-imposed rules will she break? What other self-imposed rules does she even have? Honestly, I feel Skitter has lost part of what made her an interesting character.

Still, I can see how things led to this point, and how slowly Skitter escalated more and more until she reached the capacity of killing someone, so I can’t say it came out of the blue. So...now what? Where will Skitter’s character development go? I thought she breaking so much she’d kill somebody would be the very end of her character development, but we have reached this point by halfway into Worm.

I fear she’s going to slip more and more into stuff the Taylor Hebert from a few arcs ago would disapprove. There’s still plenty of Worm left...plenty of time for Skitter to do more and more unsavory stuff. I don’t want her turning out that way, I don’t feel that kind of character would work for what the story’s trying to convey. A protagonist that’s villainous cannot be too villainous, as rooting for them would require a degree of justification from the reader. ‘Villain Protagonist may do bad things, but it’s all for X reason!’, and the such. At some point, the weight and consequences of such actions can reach such a point you just can’t root for that protagonist anymore. That’s what I fear may happen with Skitter, now that such a significant boundary has been crossed. I hope my concerns are unfounded, and that this is as bad as it’ll get. I like Skitter a lot, I hope my liking of her won’t fade.

So yeah, Skitter has killed Coil. This arc sure had a lot! It had both Coil’s success, and then his defeat. That was pretty good!

“The Travelers will be pissed.  I can’t- we can’t kill them,” I said.

“We won’t.  They’ll move on.  They have no more reason to stay.”

So, that means the Travelers except Ballistic will now leave the story? Go somewhere else? Hmmmm...well, Ballistic is staying in Brockton Bay, that’s for sure, but what about Noelle? Will she leave alongside everyone else? Or will she stay? Well, what’s for sure is that I don’t think everything related to Noelle is done. This has received so much build-up and focus I think it’s impossible this will stop here.

Now they leave the scene of the crime. Heckpuppy is the one who sits beside Skitter and even holds her hand fiercely. Ah, excellent! There we go, Heckpuppy showing support. She must know this can’t have been easy for Skitter. I appreciate she’s taking the time to do this.

Since they now have taken over the city takeover successfully, the first thing they do is go to Calvert’s underground base – say, where’s Regent? Where did Calvert stash him? Don’t forget about him, guys.

“You okay?” Grue asked.

“More bothered by the fact that I’m not bothered,” I said.  I knew how little sense I was making, but I didn’t feel like elaborating.

Hmmm...that’s kind of dangerous. This could be a slippery slope, I don’t want to see Skitter slide down it. At least she still can recognize not feeling anything about what she did – understandable as it is, really – is something to be bothered about, so things aren’t as bad as they could be.

Since Dinah is here in the underground base, I suppose Regent may be as well, and Tattletale does seem to think that. While she goes to get him, Skitter finally gets to talk to Dinah, who says she has been waiting for the moment of her freedom for so very long. Not surprised there, this must have been hell. I wonder if the knowledge there was a chance she’d be rescued was the only thing keeping her sane all this time. Dinah has gone through so much at such a young age, seriously...

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “I’m sorry it took so long.”

She shook her head, “I’m the one who’s sorry, you were trying hard and I set you up, so you’d go the way where your friends tried to kill you.  I shouldn’t have-“

“Hey, it’s okay.  It offered us the best chances in the end, right?”

She bobbed her head in a nod.

I’m so curious how good those chances were. So curious...

Now that things are over and maybe they’ll get an hour or two of respite, they’re planning to go get Skitter and Dinah some medical attention. They all step to the walkway, where they find Regent but Tattletale isn’t with him. Instead she’s hurrying towards the depths of the base, to where Noelle is sealed. Was sealed. The vaults are wide open and broken.

Whooops.

Things may not be pretty. I’m surprised this is the only thing that’s destroyed. If Noelle managed to bend one of the vault door, I’m kind of surprised she didn’t wreck more things along the way. What if...she’s still here in the base? What if she’s going to attack before the chapter ends? I’m worried, this already looks like they’ll need strength to deal with Noelle, and right now Skitter is not in a state to really do much fighting.

Tattletale says Calvert made sure Noelle heard the conversation somehow. So...Noelle must be rather upset Calvert never knew how to help her, and was just stringing the Travelers along. This doesn’t have to be bad for the Undersiders. It depends on what Noelle heard, pretty much, but if she heard from the start, then she should be aware Calvert wasn’t going to help her.

“On a scale of one to ten,” I asked, “Just how bad is this?”

“Let me answer your question with another question,” Tattletale said.  “You think we could convince the PRT to turn on the air raid sirens?”

Oh. That bad.

...

Brockton Bay doesn’t ever get a break, does it. Living in that city must be hell.

So that’s the end of the chapter. Doesn’t seem like the arc is ending yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next chapter is them starting to deal with the situation and trying to find out if the city will get obliterated again. Too bad talking with the Travelers to find out what’s wrong with Noelle isn’t an option. Either way, this update is getting longer than usual, so may as well end here!

Next time: in two updates

[empresskatariah]

unfinished Thalmor Arth thing

(I tried to finish this but it didn’t work out so I’m just posting what I have, whee)

“Do I look like the sort of man who does anything for free?”

He regretted saying the words as soon as they left his mouth. The look of panic on the Nord woman’s face only intensified, her blue eyes widening as more color seemed to drain from her skin. “I-I’ll pay,” she insisted, clasping her hands together in supplication. “I’ll get you payment somehow, I swear it. It’s just… all I have now is enough to buy food for my daughter… ever since Sigvard was arrested we’ve had no income…”

Arthion groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose between a thumb and forefinger, eyes squinted shut as his headache worsened at the sound of her begging. He wanted to find whoever had told her that a certain Thalmor archivist was open to taking bribes and strangle them with his own hands. This sort of thing endangered his position, besides being annoying in the first place… his actions were anything but cheap. Only the finest wine, the richest food and the fattest bags of septims could buy his tiny acts of treachery against his masters.

“Please,” the Nord continued, her voice thick with emotion. “Please, if you could just find that missive… destroy it… they might let my Sigvard go. My daughter just wants her papa back. For him to die over an amulet…”

“An amulet of /Talos/,” Arthion interjected, turning his back on the woman and taking a seat at his desk. Already his candles were starting to burn low; the sun had finished setting outside, leaving his study in shadow. His fingers itched for the tiny vial of ground moon sugar in the top left drawer and he prayed to whoever might be listening, Divine or Daedric Prince, that this peasant would leave him be so he could eat it. “The Thalmor position on Talos worship has been quite clear for years now. This is Haafingar, where the Thalmor have been given free reign by the Empire to enforce said position. And yet you people still can’t grasp the price of heresy.”

“My husband wanted to be a priest when he came back from the war. A priest of Talos! And then even that wish was taken from him.” The woman was tearful now, her wet eyes shining in the candlelight. “You ask us to cast aside our very selves. Why can’t you understand what it means to give up something like that?!”

“Because I don’t care.”

The woman’s expression shifted from anguish to what might have been shock. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I don’t give a shit about Talos. Or the Concordat. Or any of that high and mighty nonsense. Don’t take me for a Justiciar; I only look out for myself. I just can’t fathom why you’re all so willing to throw your lives away over a dead Emperor.” Arthion leaned forward, elbows propped on his desk and hands supporting his chin. “I don’t want your husband to die, but I’m not risking myself over sentiment. I need incentive. The kind I can touch.”

The woman was silent for nearly a full minute, biting her lip as she pondered. For a brief moment Arthion thought he detected a waver in her resolve, an urge to flee. But then…

… then she started unbuttoning her tunic, only stopping once her cleavage was in full view.

“Would milord be open to another sort of payment, then?” Her tone was steely, a contrast to the tortured look on her face. She was trying desperately not to start sobbing. “I can… I can do anything… as long as it saves my husband…”

“Put that back!” Arthion yelped, nearly falling out of his chair as he scrambled to get up. “Put it back, no need for that, don’t do that.” Before he even realized what he was doing, he had gone around his desk and was fumbling to button her shirt back up while she just stared at him, frozen. “Divines’ sakes, lass, you can’t just go around flashing your tits at people–”

His voice caught in his throat when she placed her hands on his own. She had small hands, pale skin rough and reddened from hardship on fingers and palms, soft despite the calluses. Normally he wore gloves but tonight he had already taken them off, unaware he would have a visitor; he didn’t quite understand the feeling that created a lump in his throat at her touch, and part of him didn’t want to.

“I’m not…” Arthion looked away, suddenly flustered. “I don’t fancy women. Sorry.”

How long had it been since someone voluntarily touched him, skin on skin? Months? Years? He honestly couldn’t remember. Couldn’t recall anything beyond the not-too-distant memory of gloved hands bruising him, cutting him, breaking his bones…

“Look,” he began, backing away and pulling out of her grasp. He felt violated somehow, terribly skittish, and he hated it. “You’re obviously a selfless person and I admire that, I really do. But I can’t accept what you’re trying to offer. I don’t want your promises and I don’t want your body. And unless you can come up with something more reasonable to give me, I can’t do anything for you.”

Everything has its price, he reminded himself. Including information. /Especially/ information. He had learned that during the last year of the war, when Imperial mages tortured him for his knowledge of the Aldmeri Dominion’s intentions. Giving what they wanted brought rest, relief. Withholding it brought only pain. And the hunger, the damnable maddening hunger…

As if to spite him, his stomach – which had already been fed for the evening, and most certainly did not lack for padding – emitted a barely audible growl.

“You’re cruel,” the woman told him through her tears, hands balled into fists. “Cruel and greedy. How do you live with yourself?”

Arthion wanted to retort, had a good comeback on the tip of his tongue and a scowl forming to match it, but then his shoulders slumped and he just… deflated, his anger fizzling out as a heavy feeling took its place. He let out a sigh and looked down at the Nord through half-lidded eyes, wondering how he could possibly feel so small when he towered a full head over most people.

How do I live with myself?

“I drink until I can’t remember what was bothering me,” he answered. “I eat until I don’t remember how it felt to starve. And then I pretend I don’t care about anything, because it’s how cowards like me feel strong. Satisfied?”

His own frankness surprised him, as did the fact that he raised his voice at all. He felt fury at himself for blurting out the truth but also inexplicable relief, as if a dam had finally burst wide open. Words he would not, could not say to his own colleagues, spoken willingly to a stranger… he wondered if he had finally started to go mad.

The Nord didn’t answer him. She just stared up at him with eyes the color of a stormy sky, her jaw tense as she studied him, and then she reached for the pouch on her belt. Pulled it off. Held it up as if it was something sacred, then plunked it down onto Arthion’s desk. It clinked as it landed, the unmistakable sound of septims rattling against each other.

“This is all I have,” she told him. “All we have at home is stale bread. If Sigvard doesn’t come back… I don’t know what we’ll do. But here it is. Twenty septims. And my mother’s necklace.”

Twenty measly septims. Enough to buy basic food, but nowhere near the quality he preferred. At a glance the necklace looked valuable, a blue stone nestled in silver, but it could just be a bauble. Compared to his usual standards for bribes… it might as well be trash.

Trash to him, but everything to this woman.

Arthion went back to his seat. He leaned forward, picking up the necklace and eyeing it dubiously. On the back of the pendant someone had carved in runes, initials of some sort. The silver was worn and tarnished, old and well-loved.

He closed his fist around it and remembered how it had felt to watch his tormentors hold the few personal belongings he carried with him over flames, insisting they would spare his mother’s last letter to him if only he gave up one more secret. Remembered watching the parchment ignite even after he started babbling about supply lines.

Cruel and greedy, he thought. That’s what I am.

“I can’t accept this,” he said quietly.

“But it’s all I have!” the woman cried. “You can come search my home if you like, I promise that’s it. I have no hidden jewels, no inheritance. We’re paupers, always have been… but we were happy, because we had each other… so please…”

“I said no.”

Arthion gathered up the septims and put them back in the bag, along with the necklace. He pushed the bag toward the woman, shaking his head.

Her face was twisted between sorrow and rage, her entire posture one of barely-restrained hatred. “How could you,” she hissed. “How could you?”

Arthion shrugged. “It would be more trouble to get that thing appraised than it’s worth to me. And twenty septims is what I could find in the gutter if I went digging around. Frankly, your offer has no value to me.” He leaned back in his seat, hands folded in his lap. “So I’ve decided to contradict myself, for once.”

That last bit stopped the woman in her tracks as she stepped forward. “Wha?”

“If it means you’ll get out of my office and leave me in peace,” Arthion grumbled, “I’ll find that bloody scrap of paper and send it to Oblivion. I can’t promise it will fix anything, but… perhaps it will exonerate your husband. These things are tricky, mind.”

“You’ll actually do it?” The woman was really staring at him now, bewildered. “You… you’ll destroy that evidence? For free? But if there’s no guarantee he’ll be released, I… how can I trust you?”

“You can’t,” Arthion replied. “But… imagine, if you will, that even a coward who gets by trying his hardest to feel nothing… has to feel something once in a while. Even if it hurts.”

He gazed down at his own hands, hands that had maimed and killed in the name of the Aldmeri Dominion, fingers that would never quite be as straight as they were before the Imperials broke them one by one. And then he looked back up at the Nord woman, at the person whose dearest wish he could crush or fulfill with those hands.

“Just don’t tell anyone I did anything for free, for the love of Magnus,” he groused, “or I’ll never be rid of these things. I’m a glorified librarian, not a questing hero.”