#Maria still alive and hacking GUN???

[semi-sketchy]

Okay I 100% legally watched Sonic 3.

6/10, overhyped.

I think I enjoyed the second movie more actually, but let me walk through this.

As a brief summary, basically Gerald was imprisoned for 50 years and designed the Eclipse Cannon (it's just a flying saucer laser) in return for his freedom. GUN built it, but it needs two keys to activate. So it's kinda a race to see who can get both keys and either destroy the world or save it. Gerald was also the one who hacked into the system and disabled Shadow's stasis as well as stole Eggman's tech to lure him to the research facility for a team-up. That's the basis of the plot.

Firstly, the beginning is...a million miles a minute. I thought the trailers were hypercut, but no the scenes really are just that fast. (At least until we get to Carrey. Animating hedgehogs is too expensive.) Sonic's having a party, GUN shows up like "we need Team Sonic" and Sonic is literally just like "I like the name, let's go!" that's it. No briefing, no convincing from the organization that tased and captured him, just go.

I did find the little "What did you do, Sonic?" "I don't know, I do a lot of things" line to be funny, though.

Also before they jump out of the chopper, Sonic does the "talk about low budget flights" but it is...so forced. Like the entire idea behind that line in SA2 is Sonic is being a cheeky bastard because they captured him, here he just randomly says it for no reason.

NOW THE ACTUAL BEST PART OF THE MOVIE, Shadow and Maria. God they were SO CUTE. Like this is the stuff I wanted out of Dark Beginnings. Maria on roller skates while Shadow pulls her around the base, just getting into kid mischief, watching movies, slipping keycards to go sit out and watch the stars... Oh my god AND THE BUNNY FACE SHE DRAWS ON HIS TUBE. These scenes? 10/10.

Actually, when Commander Walters finally briefs Sonic, the way it was edited really made me think "oh shit did...did Shadow accidentally kill Maria in this movie?" that's obviously not what happened, but I was interested to see what angle they took.

Oh yeah and Maria didn't get shot. She died from an explosion CAUSED by a gunshot. The solider was trying to shoot her though, just Walters knocked the gun because "that's a child!" So there's that. (Not allowed to hate the GUN commander here, after all, he's on Sonic's side! He can't be for child murder!)

It was also...not as dramatic as I thought it would be. It's like 30 seconds. Gerald runs up, says "We have to go, they wanna take Shadow from us!" Then 10 seconds later, boom. I'm not paraphrasing, by the way.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention Gerald. He's 110 and still alive. I was not opposed to this, I like to think I'm receptive to changes in AUs and I was curious what they could do with Gerald actively manipulating Shadow. Here's what they do: Jim Carrey. It's just double the Jim Carrey shenanigans and yes, it is tiring. Shadow has a moment like "I don't know if this is what Maria would have wanted..." and Gerald just goes "it's not about what she wanted, it's about what they deserve" and that's...basically it. YOU COULD'VE DONE MORE WITH THIS, BRO.

On top of that, Shadow was not created: he was found inside a meteor that looks A LOT like the Black Comet. Considering this is meant to be modern day Earth and not a huge fictional universe like the games where there's advanced space stations and such in the 50s (oh yeah the ARK ain't real here) I'm fine with this. Keeps his alien origins while aligning to the movie universe.

And I was kinda surprised but I THINK there's a reference to the fandub?? Sonic calls Shadow "Hot Topic" nooo my secret!!! so that was interesting. Could also just be some of their famous product placement, but this movie is also less...commercial than the others. No Olive Garden mentioned. Guess they used all the ad space on Knuckles.

Anyways, while getting the second key, Shadow punches Tom because he has the key and is currently disguised as Commander Walters, the one who sealed Shadow away. This is important, this is like the basis for the entire end of the movie because apparently one punch to the chest is enough to knock Tom out and put him in the hospital.

Now Sonic ALSO wants revenge, so he gets the Master Emerald to go super and...I just gotta point out, Knuckles left it with Wade. The way EVERYONE IN THE THEATER GROANED WHEN WADE POPPED UP ON SCREEN it was beautiful. Nice to know we all hate the Knuckles show.

This all leads to Shadow's reform which was...ech? After Sonic is like "no I won't kill you, that's not who I am, revenge doesn't make things better" Shadow is like "I didn't have a choice in who I became" and Sonic says "you always have a choice", Live and Learn plays and they go to stop the cannon firing on Earth. It felt so...shallow for a character like Shadow. Nothing about how Maria loved the world, so he should protect the world to honor her memory, it's just "revenge is bad". I guess it's to be more relatable to Sonic because they lean more into them being two sides of the same coin, but it's just so rushed and hollow.

Meanwhile Eggman kills his grandfather in a really drawn out unfunny sequence because he wants to rule the world, not destroy it, but the canon is already set to fire so they instead turn it away from the Earth while Super Sonic and Shadow block the ray. (The moon getting hit is an accident.)

Also you have no idea how much I wanted them to show Sonic trying to save Shadow, but only getting his inhibitor ring, THOUGH SONIC IS THE ONE WHOSE SUPER FORM FAILS. In this universe, I guess it makes sense because Sonic isn't the absolute powerhouse his game version is. But does Shadow show his growth and try to save him? No, it takes Tails and Knuckles awhile to address that.

Anyways, the reactor is unstable so Eggman tries to buy time while Shadow pushes the weapon away from Earth and then it blows up, killing both of them. ...Well Shadow shows up in the post-credits alive so I guess just Eggman is dead...maybe. Because the other scene shows a shit ton of Metal Sonics a la Shadow Android and Amy shows up to save him as the 4th teaser.

Overall, my issue isn't that it changed SA2's story, I wanted something different because I literally have SA2 at home. It's just these changes have all their potential completely squandered in favor of a lot and I mean a LOT of Jim Carrey nonsense. He's like half this movie.

With the writing quality of these films, I shouldn't be surprised, but I really thought after the second movie, they were on a good track. After seeing everyone else love it, it's kinda disappointing to find it rather mid.

Oh yeah and nothing from the bowling tournament teaser line in the Knuckles series, either. After making us sit through that hell, I WANTED to see Shadow bowl. We truly were robbed.

[msn-04iinightingale]

"S-Savannah?!" Anya coughs, trying to see clearly again. She reaches and grabs the controls of her mech, ignoring the ache and pain in her head. Her Thunderbolt responds, pushing up and into a sitting position, then onto its knees, and finally upright with a swaying stagger.

"Thank god you're here, there's an Omega, it's-" she trails off, her mech staggering slightly. Concussed, or my gyro is off.

"...it's killing us... you have to h-" That's when she sees it. Another Archangel, down the street and behind Savannah, a dual Heavy PPC variant. It's not aiming at her but...

She moves without thinking, throwing her damaged Thunderbolt between it and Savannah. By the time her mind catches up with her body, the Archangel has already fired.

"LOOK OU-"

Both blue bolts of man made lighting slam into her mech, the first punching through her already weakened center torso, causing the mech to shudder and jerk to the side almost like it was in pain. The other...

...almost moves in slow motion. She can almost see the individual arcs of energy coming off the ball of particles as it speeds towards her. It's beautiful, in a way.

The second bolt impacts, the cockpit glass in front of her exploding in a blizzard of fragments and lightning, the last thing she sees befreo her world falls out from under her and into a black void is the bracelet around her wrist as she throws it infront of her face.

---

Owen doesn't see her fall, but he hears the scream over the comms.

"Somebody check on her!" He shouts over the comms.

The other Barghest Mechs, those that can move, and fallen back to try to flank the Omega, or engage the Word mechs with the help of the Fusiliers mechs. Billy's Archer has been gutted by the retractable blade of the Grigori he was fighting, but not before he planted his last remaining fist into its cockpit, the two mechs locked together in a distressingly intimate manner. The stream of curses over the comms indicates that Billy himself is at least alive, at the moment.

Owen, however, is dueling the beast. Heat warnings blaring, and damage indicators flashing a concerning amount of red, he trades volley after volley of PPC, AC and Laser fire with Gauss Slugs and LBX shots with the Omega, circling each other like two wild dogs.

"Come on meat!" He screams over the external speakers at the enemy mech, before doing something the enemy mech pilot does not expect...he charges it. His Marauder II leans forward into a run, presenting its less mangled left side. Gauss slugs and autocannon shells slam into his mech, but he pushes forward, past the pain, the damage, and into the rage.

"That the best you can do?!"

The impact is like a dozen trains crashing together, the 100 ton assault mech going full tilt managing to push the 150 ton machine backward and to the side. The Omega swings one of its gun arms, pummeling the lighter mech ineffectively due to the angle the two combatants are at. The blows are still tooth rattling, and Owen is sure he's bitten through part of his lip. Owen swings his mech's arms like fists, crumpling armor and damaging structure as the two titans engage in an all out knockdown drag-out fight.

Victoria is uttering a string of names as she hacks away at any enemy mech she can reach, each blow punctuated by a new name of someone lost, adding Maria, Vance, and now Anya to the list.

Kei and Elenor are together, lasers stabbing out to keep Word mechs back or to aid Fusiliers mechs in fighting. Kei's stalker is missing one of its arm pods, sparks showering down onto Elenor's smaller mech in her shadow.

Hel

Drop: -10:00:00

The Seraph died, torso armor and cockpit ravaged by PPC blasts and LB 10-X auto cannon rounds. Owen switched targets, raking a Deva with his ER Medium Lasers. The enemy mech responds with a Gauss rifle slug which slams into the left leg of Owen’s mech. He grunts with the neural feedback of the damage dealt. Quickly checking his armor, he was relieved to see that the round hadn’t penetrated the armor. 

“Atta girl, Katherine, gonna take more than that to take you out.” He grins at the chime indicating his ER PPCs are recharged. “My turn!”

The twin PPC bolts snap out with thunder cracks, blasting into the Deva’s right arm, tearing away armor and hopefully, damaging the Gauss Rifle there.

Seconds later, the arm explodes, the Gauss rifle evidently having been damaged enough to overload. The Deva staggers, allowing Anya to light the other mech up with her Clan Pulse Laser, and Clan Medium Lasers, green and blue beams cutting into its armor in multiple places. It swings, and fires its Light PPCs at the Thunderbolt, two missing and one blasting into Anya’s torso armor. Owen hears the small sharp intake of breath over the comms. It pays for this damage by catching a LB 10-X slug to the cockpit fired by Owen. The enemy mech shudders, and then slumps over into the side of a nearby building.

“You ok Major?” He asks.

“Yeah…fuck that hurt…” Anya replies. “But I’ve still got armor, I’m good.” She sounds tired.

“Christ we all are.” Owen thought. The fighting had been fierce, and nearly constant since they landed. The city, a small place named L’Anerie, had turned into a near constant running battle between Barghest Company and Fursona's Fusiliers, and the Word of Blake. The city was a maze of buildings just tall enough to obscure sight lines more than a few blocks, and it seemed like it was filled to the brim with enemy mechs, weapon emplacements and ambushes. They had lost several Fusiliers to Heavy Level II’s lying in wait, and several of his own mechs are badly mauled. Billy’s Archer is missing an arm and the LRM launcher in one side torso, and Vance’s Thug’s damaged leg is now almost locked up. Not to mention all of his mechs have had their armor savaged. And the ammo situation…

Owen sighed a bit. He always knew it would be a bad one. 

Still.

In the next street over, Victoria and Vance have brought down an Archangel with Kei providing large laser and missile fire. Victoria wrenches her mech’s hatchet from the enemy mech’s side, as well as pulling the retractable blade, and the arm attached to it, from her left torso armor.

“Ugh…don’t know how much longer we can do this, boss…” she says, over comms. “Got a hole in my left torso armor.”

“Yeah, Envy’s pretty banged up too.” Kei added. “Also I’m soooooooo hoooooooot….uuuuuuuugh….”

“Understood.” Owen replied, checking the mini map. The forest of red dots had been reduced significantly, leaving only several small pockets and one decent sized one left.

“We good to move forward, sir?” Maria asks, ever professional. Her Mad Cat had lost a good chunk of it’s armor, and was down top a quarter of its missile load, but still functional.

“Hell, I’m ready to pack it in, few more scraps like this and I got is a fucking pair of medium lasers left, might as well spit at em at that point” The gruff voice of Billy adds, ever the blunt one.

Owen considered, they were banged up, but still largely functional.

“Sir….I have found something” The soft voice of Elenor appears over the comms.

“Report Lt, what’ve you got?” Owen asks.

“Civilians, sir…a lot of them…” She replies.

Owen feels a familiar weight in his chest at what might come next. The Word was never kind to the civilian population of the worlds the conquered.

“…report status of the civilians, Lt.” He asks.

“… scared, sir.”

Owen lets out a sigh. Great…just great…

He pushes several buttons and keys up Savannah’s frequency.

“This is Garm 1 to Fursona, we’ve got a situation here. A civilian situation, over.”

@is-the-battlemech-cool-or-not

[youtwitinmyface]

Superior Spider-Man #6

Written by Dan Slott Drawn by Humberto Ramos Published by Marvel Comics

Here's a retro review of a comic book that was published by in 2013. The premise of this series is that Doctor Octopus had managed to take over Spider-Man's body.

That's right, through some sort of supervillain shenanigans (I wasn't reading that storyline, so I still don't know the exact details, but for the purposes of this review it's irrelevant), he was now in Spider-Man's brain and had all of his memories. And the plot twist is that once this happened, Doc Ock's massive ego made him decide that he was going to prove that he could live Spider-Man's life, both as a superhero and a civilian, better than Spider-Man ever could. And thus this new series was launched as Doc Ock set out to be a superior Spider-Man, get it?

This is #6 of the new ongoing series and part of a longer overall story arc but, thankfully, Dan Slott writes it as a self-contained story that any reader can follow even if they hadn't read the previous issues, which I hadn't done. I don't recall exactly how I found out about this issue in the first place but I picked it up because I'd somehow heard of the villains who appear in it, and I thought they sounded intriguing. The characters you see on the cover are the duo of Screwball and Jester, a couple of costumed criminals armed with various joke-related weapons like paintball balloons, slingshots, and squirt guns Their modus operandi is that they go around filming themselves "pranking" people in public and uploading the videos online to get hits. But with their software they're able to secretly phish the accounts of everyone who subscribes to their website, and hack all of their credit card and bank info.

I thought that was a clever idea for modern supervillains, as technology advances you'd think more supervillains would be engaging in cybercrime instead of just robbing banks or whatever. In this issue, J. Jonah James, who was the Mayor of New York at the time, is Screwball and Jester's latest victim as they throw a pie in his face and pull his pants down in the middle of a press conference. Jameson is outraged and contacts Spider-Man to track down and apprehend the criminals. So that's the main plot of the issue. There are a couple of subplots. We see that the real Spider-Man is still "alive" sort of. His mind and personality is trapped inside his body, he's unable to control anything, but he can see everything Doc Ock is doing, and can also access Ock's memories, including one flashback of Ock being picked on by a bully when he was a young boy, which is something we see motivates Ock's hatred of people like Screwball and Jester who like to humiliate other people.

Also at this time, Spider-Man was still serving as a member of the Avengers, and in several scenes we see his teammates, Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Woman, Thor, Black Widow, and Spider-Woman, having a private meeting at Avengers HQ as they discuss Spider-Man's behavior. In recent weeks he's gotten more violent in his treatment of villains, even killing one of them. They don't know about Doc Ock, so they just think Spider-Man is getting out of control. Only Wolverine, no stranger to violence and killing himself, ever speaks to Spider-Man's defense. But they vow to keep a close eye on him.

In his private life, we see that as Peter Parker, Ock has re-enrolled in college to get his PhD. He's also struck up a close friendship, possibly more, with a woman named Anna Maria Marconi, a fellow college student. I can't tell if she's meant to be a Little Person, or just is just really short. But we see her getting made fun of by some other students because of her size, which enrages Ock but Anna Maria takes it in stride. Doc Ock manages to track Screwball and Jester, but when they get the upper hand and mock Spider-Man (all while broadcasting the encounter on their website), Ock snaps and proceeds to brutally beat the crap of both of them, to the horror of the real Spider-Man who can do nothing but watch. I really enjoyed this issue, the characterizations were all spot-on, J. Jonah Jameson is as insufferable as ever, and through captions of Doc Ock's private thoughts, we can see that even as he's trying to be a hero he's still an arrogant egomaniac. And I've also been a fan of Huberto Ramos' artwork and think that Spider-Man is a character that's perfect for his style. Re-reading this issue again after these years makes me think I should probably track down the rest of this series to see what happened next... SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN #6

[beevean]

*knocks on your door* hello i hope you don't mind if i share a very specific Shadow The Hedgehog (2005) thought because this game has been living rent free in my brain since sometime in 2010 when teenme started to dissect and analyze story and plot threads to try and consider how certain story sets would work.

anyway the thought in question is, feel free to disagree- i am of the opinion that library path 173, Steel Ruler, is the one that would lead to the Last Story.

my main thought process behind this is that 173 (and technically also 79, 207, 267, and 301, but 173 is my favorite of them) fulfills a number of Criteria that are also true in the Last Story:

Eggman is still alive, so he can't be our boss unless we're in Cosmic Fall. a line during the Devil Doom fight indicates we must hit Iron Jungle as mission 5 for the 'android Shadow' twist. the Last Story cutscene and level takes place in the Black Comet and we see no teleportation or travel, meaning our mission 6 is either Final Haunt or Black Comet. since Black Doom isn't face down on the floor he cannot be our final boss. and, Charmy kicks the computer square in an emulation of Shadow's hacking job in Mad Matrix, so we should hit that too. i like to put Prison Island into the mix also because it gives another link to the Chaotix + the data disks from the stage itself, but it's not STRICTLY necessary. but regardless, i think this is a solid candidate for the closest thing we can get to a Last Story prologue we can get with this wonderful mess of a game.

that's all have a good day!!

~

Hello there, is this some honest to goodness ShTH talk so close to the year of our lord 2023? Christmas came early <3

So, Steel Ruler, hm? NNHDD(D). Interesting morality here. Shadow kept himself neutral, but he helped Charmy, but then he destroyed Eggman's database, but then he helped Eggman get rid of the GUN robots in his base, and then he helped Black Doom doing the same thing on the Black Comet lmao. (funnily enough, this is one of those Semi Dark paths whose names for some reason hint at Shadow being an android, I wonder what's up with that)

In short, you propose that Prison Island - Mad Matrix - Iron Jungle - Black Comet is the canon progression? Your reasoning makes sense! In my opinion, Prison Island is more important than Mad Matrix because it's implied that the secret disks were Gerald's message, but good point about Charmy emulating Shadow fhaskjhfkas. Also yeah, Shadow should probably learn about the Shadow Androids for Eggman's confession to make sense.

Another likely canon path is 153, Together With Maria (NNDHH(D)):

Yes, it ends in Cosmic Fall, but from there it's not a stretch to think that Sonic and Tails might have flown on the ARK, and Shadow agreed to go with them on the Black Comet. Or maybe he teleported himself because he was called by Black Doom (it's the Semi Hero-Dark ending, so the two are somewhat in good terms). Also, I just really like the idea of Shadow deciding to exile himself on the ARK to protect it and to atone :)

(if we go for your theory, I also think I prefer path 79, Deep Black. One, I like the idea of Shadow starting to give in to his revenge impulses, but being stopped in time by his friendship with Rouge. Two, the name is cool :P)

Have a good day yourself and thanks for the opportunity to gush about the most entertaining Sonic game for me 💖

[marvelsdc22]

The Bloody Proposal

Intro: Hello, lovelies!! I hope you guys are having a good day/night!! This was requested by an anon!! I hope you enjoy!! :)

Note: Y/N had planned to go home early for the night, intruders ended that plan, things only get crazier from there.

Word Count: 1565

Hi! I love how you write for Maria! Can you write a Maria x fem!reader where they’re both agents and have been dating for years and reader does something that could’ve gotten her killed but ends up fine and Maria goes off on her about not thinking things through. They argue until Maria spills that she was going to propose to her and things cool down and Maria proposes, they’re both in tears and happy ending! Lmao I know this is all over the place so do what you think is best! Thank you!!

Heading out of Fury’s office, you went straight to your office and started getting everything you would need, planning on calling it an early night for once, not even hearing the door open and jumping when you felt arms wrap around you from behind, smiling some when you smelled her perfume, cinnamon and gunpowder, turning to look at your girlfriend of nine years, you guys had met when you were still in college “Hey” you said, giving her a small smile as you kissed her head after she rested her chin on your shoulder.

“Hi” she muttered, burying her face in your shoulder as she gave you a squeeze “You getting ready to go home?” She asked, peeking up and looking at you “I am, been here all day… I think they can handle it without me for one night” you chuckled, zipping up your backpack before unwillingly pulling away from her so you could throw it over your shoulder “Are you-“ getting cut off by the alarms going off “Guess not” you sighed, setting your bag down and heading out of the office with Maria right on your heels.

When you guys got to the conference room, Fury was already there with the security cameras already up “What’s going on?” Maria asked, taking her place next to Fury while you stuck by the door “Intruders… We think it’s Hydra” Fury said, scanning the screens until they all shut down “They’ve hacked the security cameras” your security technician said, typing away at his computer to try to regain control of them “I’ll go see what I can do” you said, you being head of the security part of everything and you seeing Maria’s disproval as soon as she turned towards you.

“It’s my job… I’ll bring Seth” you negotiated, knowing it may make her feel better if you weren’t alone “Go” Fury said, nodding his head towards the door and you nodded, but before you could head out, Maria walked over to you and took your hand “Y/N, don’t do anything stupid” she said sternly, earning a laugh from you “I won’t” you promised, kissing her cheek quickly since you knew she wasn’t big on PDA and giving her hand a squeeze before you took off with Seth.

After a few moments of no success of finding the intruders, you looked at Seth, the two of you with your backs pressed against the wall and two sets of stairs in front of you “You go upstairs, I’ll go down” you said, looking at him and watching him nod before the two of you split up “Anything?” You asked Seth in the comms, hearing him saying no before you continued down the stairs and stopping when you heard voices.

“We don’t have all day, we need to get the data” one Hydra agent said, keeping an eye on the surroundings while the other worked on the main computer “Calm down, would ya?” The other said, shaking his head as he worked on getting into the system, how they got past your security, you weren’t sure, but you’d worry about that later, right now you had to Hydra agents to take care of and the only way you could was risky, but it had to be done, you’d deal with Maria’s anger later.

xxxxx

Maria watched the screens, hoping that they’d come on, starting to get worried since she hadn’t heard anything from you of Seth in the comms for a hot minute “What’s your guys status?” She finally asked, waiting for a response and her panic going up when neither of you answered “Got it!” the technician exclaimed, her and Fury watching as the screens came back to life, seeing several other of their agents doing their own investigation of what was happening, she scanning every screen until her eyes met the one that you were on, your back was pressed against the wall as you snuck down the stairs, only to stop when you saw the two Hydra agents at the computer “Y/N, don’t you dare” she said, watching as you stared at them before you sprang into action.

She watched as you popped out and shot the one standing watch, watching as the other Hydra agent turned around with their weapon drawn, the two of you exchanging some words before two gunshots rang out, Maria didn’t stick around to see who as she ran out of the room and practically ran the whole way to where you were.

xxxxx

You watched as the second Hydra agent fell to the ground until you heard the other gunshot and felt it pierce through your shoulder, looking to the left and seeing the one you had shot first was still kicking, so you shot him once more, ensuring he was dead that time before you holstered your gun and clutched your fresh gunshot wound “Shit” you muttered through gritted teeth, moving back until you could lean back against a table, pulling your hand away and seeing all the blood on your hand, looking over when you heard rushed footsteps coming down the stairs.

“You idiot” Maria said when she saw you still standing and very much alive “Your idiot” you joked, but you realized quickly that she was not in the mood as she stormed over towards you “I told you to do nothing stupid and what do you do? Something stupid!” She said, sounding infuriated as she went over to you and saw you clutching your arm which was now bloody “Maria, it’s my job-“ you said, not liking that she was lecturing you right now “What? It’s your job to do something reckless and to nearly get yourself killed!” Maria snapped, that being the breaking point for you as well as you glared at her “Oh I’m reckless? Who’s the one that jumped off a building last week? A fucking building, Maria!” you snapped back, glaring at her as the fight between you two got more and more heated.

You watched as Maria paced in front of you, hearing more footsteps coming down the stairs and knowing it was Fury and probably people from medical “Dammit, Y/N! I could’ve lost you! I would’ve never been able to spend the rest of my life with you-“ “Wait-“ you interrupted “Maria, were you going to propose to me?” You asked, glancing over when Fury and one of the doctors stopped at the bottom of the stairs, feeling like you two were the stars of some drama television series, watching as Maria stopped pacing, the entire mood between you two shifting as she turned to look at you “I-“ she said, stopping herself before she reached into her pocket and walked over to you.

“Y/N” she said, stopping in front of you and fiddling with something in her left hand “You are a major pain in my ass, you’re annoying, you’re stubborn-“ “Oh, thanks” you said sarcastically, rolling your eyes before looking at her when she lightly smacked your uninjured arm “Will you shut up and let me finish?” She asked, looking at you and continuing when you gave her a nod “You may be all those things, but you’re mine… You’re my annoying, stubborn pain in the ass and I love you so much, we’ve been through so much and there’s no one else I’d rather spend the rest of my life with” she said, getting down on one knee and looking up at you “Y/N Y/L/N, will you be my wife?” She asked, tears actually slipping down her cheeks which was not common for your girlfriend.

You looked at her and gave her a teary smile “Of course I will, you knucklehead” you said, watching as her smile grew and she carefully slipped the ring onto your finger, careful to not jostle your hand too much as she did before she pulled you into a careful hug and a quick kiss before she pulled back and looked at the doctor “Now, can you please fix up my fiancée?” She asked, hearing you chuckle before the doctor headed over to you guys, getting the bleeding to slow before they helped you upstairs to medbay.

xxxxx

Fury stepped out of the way when you and the doctor went up the stairs before he walked with Maria up the stairs as she followed “I’m proud of you” he said, causing Maria to stop and look at him with a shocked expression “What?” She asked, looking at him and watching as he gave her a smile before patting her shoulder “You did well, she’s a good kid… Take care of each other” he said, watching as Maria gave him a smile “We will, this has been a long time coming” she said, looking at him and Fury nodded “I thought you guys would’ve married years ago, made me lose a bet, you know?” He asked, earning a laugh from Maria before he nodded his head in the direction that you headed “Go check on your girl” he said, watching Maria nod before she started heading your way “Oh, Hill?” Fury called, watching as Maria turned towards him “I better be invited to the wedding” he said, hearing Maria laugh and nod “I’ll do you one better, you’ll be in the wedding” she promised before rushing off to get to you, ready to spend the rest of her life with you.

Permanent Taglist: @rianncreates​ / @natasha-danvers​ / @youngandwildx7​ / @hopingforbarnes​ / @xxxtwilightaxelxxx​ / @venablemayfairgoode​

Marvel Taglist: @thanossexual​

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End Note: I hope you guys enjoyed!! If you’d like to be added to a Taglist, shoot me a DM or an Ask!! Have a good day/night!! :)

Requests Open

[name-me-regret]

If The World Was Ending 13/?

If The World Was Ending Chapter Thirteen: Silent Running

Read on AO3.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

“Take the children and yourself And hide out in the cellar By now the fighting will be close at hand Don't believe the church and state And everything they tell you Believe in me, I'm with the high command

Can you hear me, can you hear me running? Can you hear me running, can you hear me calling you?

There's a gun and ammunition Just inside the doorway Use it only in emergency Better you should pray to God The Father and the Spirit Will guide you and protect from up here

Can you hear me, can you hear me running?”

~Silent Running - Mike & The Mechanics

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Buck wasn’t at all surprised when he got back from the zoo to find that Tony had left. Honestly, he’d stayed longer than he thought he would have. Although, he was a bit hurt that he hadn’t even left a note, or even sent him a text message. They hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk much. Buck knew the man led a very busy and exciting life, but he had wanted him to know a bit about his own life.

The truth was that he had decided to stop moping and do light duty, at least until the department cleared him to return to regular duties. If Buck was being honest with himself, the Fire Marshall position, while it paid more, wasn’t something he wanted. He knew he’d excel at it, because he loved random trivia. So, learning and remembering the many rules and fire regulations would be a piece of cake. Math wasn’t his strongest subject, but he knew enough to be able to do his job and do it well.

So, he was confident that he’d be a great Fire Marshall, but it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to be on a fire engine, be the one in the harness rescuing people that couldn’t save themselves. It didn’t have anything to do with the praise he might receive, but about feeling like he had a purpose in life. Buck was certain that being a firefighter was that purpose, and he would endure anything to get back to that. Even if that was doing light duty as a Fire Marshall.

He had wanted Tony to know all this, since it felt like there was a sudden distance between Eddie and him. The trip to the zoo hadn’t been like their other outings. Eddie had seem —not cold— but there had certainly not been the same relaxed, almost intimate feeling Buck always felt. Whenever they were together, Buck could almost lie to himself and say he was a family with Eddie and Chris.

However, today it hadn’t felt like that. It hadn’t felt like BuckEddie with Chris. That day it had been Eddie and Chris, and Buck just tagging along. He couldn’t explain the reason for this, but it had seem to come from Eddie.

Buck had asked if everything was alright, but the man had reassured him that everything was fine. Although, the smile hadn’t been his usual ones, but he couldn’t really argue. Buck didn’t know what the problem was, so he was at a loss.

And now Tony was gone as well, and Buck felt even more lost.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Tony could feel the cold sweat on his back as he hacked more and more into SHIELD’s mainframe and kept coming back with one thing: HYDRA was very alive, and it was living inside of SHIELD. He was horrified how much of the organization had a hold of SHIELD, where Tony couldn’t see where one ended and the other began.

He had contacted Fury on a secure line (even more secure than the phone lines at the White House) and he had told him about his suspicions on something not being right as well. Tony didn’t know if he was bullshitting and trying to cover up the fact that HYDRA had pulled one over on him. At this point he didn’t really give a shit. Tony just wanted to fix this, and now.

Now he knew why there was a backdoor in the LAFD. Because Stark Industries donated a lot to several Fire Departments, but none more than the LAFD. He had started this when he learned that Buck was a firefighter, and HYDRA was interested in whatever caught Tony’s interest. As soon as he’d realized that and that they might be tracking him, he’d gotten the fuck out of Buck’s apartment.

He knew they might be able to track him easily if the hellicarriers managed to link to the spy satellites, and he was working furiously to make sure they hadn’t found his connection to Buck. If they had, then he would be very pissed at himself.

Tony knew he had a dangerous job, that he had enemies that could and would target those he cared about. One would think he’d learned his lesson after the Mandarin debacle where not only had Happy been hurt, but Pepper had been kidnapped, and even Rhodey had been in danger. He’d gotten sloppy. It was as simple as that.

The breakup with Pepper had weakened him emotionally and he had allowed himself to be near Buck, spend time with him without making sure he wasn’t being tracked. And it wasn’t only Buck; it was also Bobby and Athena and her kids. Tony had stayed in their house and they could be a target. While he was near, all of the 118 could become a target.

That had been three days ago now. The last he had heard, Fury was going to meet with Alexander Pierce about not only delaying Project Insight, but also about HYDRA’s infiltration of SHIELD. Tony had yet to hear from him, and he was very worried. Nick was a tough son of a bitch, but even he wasn’t invincible. Tony knew that he had gotten Steve involved and that Natasha had already been on covert missions within missions to find out about some inconsistencies.

Tony might need to contact one of them, but there was no way of knowing if they had a secure line.

‘Sir, I’m getting reports that Director Fury has been killed,’ JARVIS suddenly piped up.

“Fuck!” Tony cursed. He paused a moment as he breathed heavily, wincing as his hand went to the side. The superhero had managed to get some antibiotics and been changing the bandages as best as he could, but not as well as he should. So, he was still in pain. It’s a miracle he hadn’t pulled any of the stitches if he was honest.

“Get me confirmation on that J,” he told his AI. He wouldn’t believe the man was dead without seeing a body. Nick was a slippery SOB and wouldn’t be taken out so easily. “Also, try to get in contact with Maria Hill.” He was well aware that the more modern communicators were likely to be compromised, but he had his ways. HYDRA was right to have him on their kill list, because he was the only one that could stop them. And he would.

“They’re going to regret using my technology to power the hellicarriers,” he said. He wouldn’t be able to disable the satellites, since there wasn’t really time for it. However, disabling three targets would be a piece of cake, especially when they were using his tech. “Let’s take away control from HYDRA.”

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

The ladder truck and fire engine as well as the ambulance pulled alongside the building in the fire lane. Eddie followed by Lena, Bobby, Jensen and the rest of the crew all jumped from the trucks. Lena and Jensen were working as a team, since while Eddie worked well with her, not so much with Jensen. It wasn’t that he wasn’t a good fire fighter, because he was. Eddie just didn’t have the same communication he had with Buck, and so when he could work alone, he did. When he had to work with someone, he worked with Lena. He’d made this clear with Bobby, who hadn’t seen a problem with it.

While he’d have preferred Buck to Lena, the woman was the second best choice.

“Everyone, please keep moving to the designated area,” one of the firefighters from the other station was telling the people that were evacuating the building. The back of his turncoat read ‘Towne’.

“My God, that’s the biggest damn fire I’ve never seen,” Chimney said sarcastically.

Eddie rolled his eyes as he continued walking, and went to where Hen was next to a fire hydrant. “I hate fire drills,” she groaned as she crouched beside it.

He grunted as he connected the hose to the hydrant. “City mandates we do ‘em every three years. Can’t fight City Hall.”

“First alarm was triggered at 12:20 pm. Call came in 30 seconds later. Boots down, hoses out by 12:43pm,” Bobby informed them.

“That’s what?” Eddie asked as he stood after he finished.

“Four minutes over our allotted response time.”

Chim glanced over as he had been lifting a hose. “Ouch, that’s gonna cost us some points.”

Hen stood with an eye roll. “Somebody’s gonna have to explain that to the new Fire Marshal.” They looked at one another and then all three of them looked pointedly at Bobby.

If he could, Bobby would groan loudly, but he only gave a small sigh. It was times like these he regretted having accepted the Captain position. He guessed there was no choice, and went to find Buck. It only lifted his spirits a little that Buck hadn’t completely thrown his career away over a little set-back, but it wasn’t much.

Bobby just hoped that when he told Buck the truth, he’d understand his reasoning. He hoped.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

Buck was pleasantly surprised when he was invited to dinner at Athena and Bobby’s house. He’d never say it out loud, but he regarded the two in a parental role than he had ever seen his parents. Bobby certainly saw Bobby as more of a father-figure than his own abusive father.

As they sat around the table, he felt a warm feeling at the fact that it was only him with the couple instead of it being the rest of the 118. Although, he would admit that he wouldn’t have minded if they had been there. The distance that had grown between him and Eddie hadn’t changed, and the feeling of dread that he was being replaced had only grown when he had seen Lean Bosko in his place at Eddie’s side.

It had felt like they were all moving on without him. So, now he was feeling desperate to get back to full duty with his team, besides Eddie. After telling Bobby and Athena about the lawyer trying to get him to sign an affidavit against the 118 to blame them for the logjam on the stairwell during the fire drill.

“Hey, that- that lawyer got me thinking. There’s strength in numbers, right? Maybe I could get everyone to sign a statement of support or something.” The more the idea got into his head, the more he wanted to do it.

“Buck-” Bobby started, but Buck cut him off.

“Show the higher ups that- that you guys don’t think I’m a liability.

“Buck-”

“They’d have to listen, right?” He felt hopeful the more he spoke of it, of getting back to his team, to the only family besides Maddie he had ever known.

“I want you to listen to me,” Bobby tried again.

“I mean, you told them I was ready,” he cut him off again. He was starting to feel desperate, not being able to get back. Buck wanted to come back to where he belonged. “I mean, these- these dumb asses- they would, they would have no right to keep me-!”

“I’m the dumb ass!”

“Uh-what?” Buck asked, trying to smile past the shock. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, but he didn’t want to believe it; refused to believe it. Now, he looked at Bobby, silently pleading for the man to say anything than what he was sure he was about to say.

“You’re not ready. That’s what I told them when they asked.”

When Buck left the Grant-Nash house, he wondered where he was supposed to go now. He had thought that Bobby had his back, since the man had told him the department thought he was a liability to come back because of the blood thinners. It had all turned out to be a lie. Bobby had been lying to him, and he was deeply hurt by this more than anything.

Now, he had no one to turn to, since he was sure that they would all agree with Bobby. As he got into his Jeep, slamming the door violently as he did, he glanced at the console where Chase Mackey’s business card was. He glanced at the time on his phone, seeing that it was a bit late, but even then he unlocked his phone and dialed the number.

- ~ - ~ - ~ - ~

‘There’s too many, sir. We won’t be able to save them all.’

“We’ll save as many as we can,” Tony snarled, hands moving over the keys.

Every single SHIELD agent had been compromised when Rogers and Romanoff had uploaded all those files onto the internet. He’d already grounded the hellicarriers, so he hadn’t had to worry about that. But now not only were all the agents that weren’t HYDRA in danger, but so were their families.

He hadn’t slept more than six hours in the last three days, but he couldn’t rest. There were still so many of them. So many already dead that shouldn’t have had to die if only they had thought about what they had been risking. While HYDRA had indeed infiltrated SHIELD, that was mostly positions of power, or liaisons such as to the FBI and CIA. However, lower level positions and a lot of regular agents were not HYDRA.

‘Sir, I have an incoming call from Clint Barton.’

“Not now,” he snapped, trying to maneuver a suit in sneaking into Pakistani without being seen. There was an agent embedded in deep cover there and time was running out to get him out.

‘He says it’s urgent, sir.’

“Fuck,” he growled. “Take over this, J.”

He went to the holoscreen and the waiting call. “This better be life and death, Barton! I’m busy cleaning up your buddy’s fuckup before everyone dies!”

The man looked to have seen better days, one eye swollen shut and a cut along his cheek and when he spoke there was blood in his teeth. “I was compromised... I got out in time... but my kids... I haven’t been able to get in contact with my wife.” He was wheezing and he was clearly more injured than what Tony could see, perhaps fluid in his chest cavity and would need immediate medical help.

Tony was shocked at learning that Barton had a wife and kids, then again he hadn’t really gotten to know the man. So, he guessed him having a family wasn’t that weird. “Give me their location and I’ll send a jet for them.” He didn’t even ask him to explain or anything, knowing that time was of the essence. Tony hoped they weren’t already dead. “You better get your ass to the nearest hospital, Barton,” he also told him.

“Thank you, Tony,” the man sighed in relief.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said with a grim expression. He was being stretched thin but he had to at least try. Tony would not have any regrets over not having done everything he could in saving the compromised agents, but especially their innocent families.

He’d pulled FRIDAY from the Ten Rings and she was helping JARVIS use every suit, jet, plane, helicopter, or vehicle at their disposal to get out as many SHIELD personnel alive as he could. There had been too many times that he had arrived too late, finding a dead agent, or their murdered family.

Tony was teetering on the edge of a breakdown, but he didn’t have time. He had to hold himself together, somehow.

“Alright Fri, give me control of a jet near these coordinates,” he told his newly awakened AI. He was so proud at how quickly she’d adapted to working with Tony and JARVIS, and it was like she’d always been there.

‘There is a jet 23 miles from that location, but there is not enough fuel to get to one of the safe houses,’ FRIDAY explained.

Tony shook off his fatigue as he felt lightheaded all of a sudden, taking a few deep breaths before he lifted his face. “Give it everything she’d got, baby girl. The objective is to get Barton’s family away from their current location.”

‘Sir, we’ve got incoming,’ JARVIS said suddenly, sounding worried.

“Bring up security feed,” he told him. The holoscreen appeared with the feed of outside the bunker. He was where his Malibu mansion had once been, which no one knew about. Although, judging by the man in black leather with the cybernetic arm that had just now shot out his camera, someone knew he was here. It was most likely HYDRA, and he had wondered when they would send someone for him.

However, he might be in trouble, since he currently only had just a basic armor with no weapons; it couldn’t even fly, having sent every other armor out to help in extracting the agents. Tony could fix it to at least get it to fly, but nothing else with the little time he had.

He hurried over to the armor, attaching everything needed to get it to fly. The man wasn’t even halfway through doing this when he paused and looked up as he heard the scream of metal being bent. Tony inhaled deeply to stay calm. He was in trouble.

“J, initiate Rescue Protocol.”-

[el-gilliath]

I Will Survive

Well damn, who would've thought something like this could happen at 4am (Norwegian time). So beware of any spelling errors, please and thank you.

As always, dedicated to my lovely @lsobelevans. I’m sorry it took me so damn long lol

BE AWARE of violence in this chapter. None graphic, but you do see aftermath

Ao3

He hasn’t stopped thinking about the kiss. Of Cowboy’s lips on his. Of his hands on his skin. Of the gorgeous hazel of his eyes. Of the face he can’t remember.

He realized quickly that Influence is probably the reason he can’t remember, it seems like something that is within her abilities. A part of him is glad, he doesn’t want to remember Cowboy’s face until he knows his name, and he does remember the feel of his gorgeous curls between his fingers. It felt good to run his hands through them, it’ll feel good when he gets to do it again.

After getting Cowboy out of the hands of the Russians, the bond, the connection, between them felt more profound. Kissing him made it even more so. Alex can feel it, in a way, the connection underneath his skin.

He also knows how dangerous it is, how many people who would love to use him as bait for Cowboy, should their tentative thing be known. Everyone and their mother has warned him about it, including Liz (who is very publicly dating Detective Max Evans and not Electrobuzz), Maria (who knows all the shit that happens in the vigilante world), and Kyle (that did not go over well). Even Arturo has given him the worried face and soft spanish proverbs, even though he doesn’t need them. None of them understands that being Jesse Manes’ youngest child has put him in the spotlight and kept him there for years.

No matter how much Jesse hates his son, he wouldn’t stand for anyone giving him the dishonor of taking his son. It’s the one thing he can count on more than anything when it comes to his dad, he doesn’t like dishonor. If nothing else, Alex will appreciate that about his dad, no matter how much shit he gets for it. It also means that he knows Jesse will come for him, even if it’s only for the glory of having rescued his son and not because of Alex himself.

Which is why he’s not afraid when he finds himself being dragged into a car as he leaves the Post on a Wednesday afternoon, Rosa screaming “No!” as his eyes meet hers when they take a hold of his arms and kick his legs out from under him so he can’t really resist. He just lets himself be dragged into the van, giving Rosa as much of a reassuring look as he can. He doesn’t want her to be afraid for him, even if he knows she probably will be.

He’s fairly sure he knows exactly where they’re taking him anyway.

The kidnappers throw him into the back of the way, screaming at him in broken english to sit down and shut up. They scream that if he makes any trouble they’ll kill him. Alex knows that they won’t, but he still nods, curling together like he’s frightened, like he’s cowering. He’s not, fear isn’t something he feels lightly anymore but he has to protect his leg. If they take that then he’s gonna have one hell of a harder time with everything. Thankfully the men only scowl at him behind ski-masks as they drive off. He closes his eyes, counting seconds and minutes to try to find out where they’re going, listening out for the murmuring that’s happening in the van with him.

He knows he’s right when the driver starts talking louder in russian, when they slow down after about 20minutes. They’re in the Russian compound. And he’s probably gonna meet Mr. Serkoff again, after getting the diamonds off of his hands. The diamonds he decidedly did not give his father.

He’s about to be in a bigger heap of trouble than he’s been in a while.

He’s roughly pulled from the car a few minutes after they stop, pushed ahead so quickly he barely has time to put his feet under him. His leg pulls in the wrong side of comfortable and he bites the inside of his cheek not to cry out. Instead he straightens himself, stands tall and walks into the lion's den. He ignores the pushing, he ignores the yelling. He’ll face this on his own terms, not on theirs.

He’s taken to a back office in the Diamond Storage and roughly shoved into a chair in front of a huge oak desk, where Serkoff is sitting watching his men’s rough handling with a bored look on his face. Anyone not good at reading faces wouldn’t see the underlying anger, the fury.

Alex Manes grew up with Jesse Manes. He’s seen more anger than he ever wants too.

“Mr. Manes.”

“Mr. Serkoff,” Alex replies. He makes sure his voice is calm, collected. He needs to stay strong. “I don’t think taking me right outside the Post was the smartest idea you ever had.”

“Perhaps not. But I doubt you are surprised to find yourself back here again.” The anger turns obvious, a snarl on the russians face. “You took my diamonds, Mr. Manes. And you did not deliver them to your father. He was not… pleased. And as a result, I am not pleased.”

Alex just looks at him. He hitches a brow slightly as if to say ‘get on with it’. He might not be the good little cop boy his father wants him to be, but that doesn’t mean he’s not capable. And right now he needs to be a Manes.

“He told me he never sent you to get the diamonds. That he would never.” The chilling grin is the first sign. “He told me to do whatever I wanted to you. He would rather find your corpse, than to find you alive.”

It breaks his heart, just a little, to hear that. But he also knows it’s not true.

“If you hadn’t taken me very publicly that would be true. But you did. My father might hate me, Mr. Serkoff, but he won’t stand for slights on his honor.” Alex’s top lip curls upwards in a parody of a smile. “Taking his son like that? His disabled son which the public thinks he loves? You can’t imagine the outrage.”

Something flickers in the burly Russians eyes. Almost like compassion. Almost like understanding. It disappears fast behind the mask of indifference.

“Give me my diamonds.”

“I don’t have them.”

Serkoff visibly bites his tongue, hard, most likely to stop himself from speaking too early. Alex understands him better than he wants to at that moment.

“Exactly how much does my father have on you, Mr. Serkoff,” Alex asks. The snort in response wasn’t what he expected.

“Your father has nothing on me, Mr. Manes. I deal with him because I want to, not because I have to.” Well shit. “And if you do not have my diamonds, I have no need of you.”

The knowledge that he means exactly what he’s saying churns inside Alex’s stomach. He has nothing to stop this, unless he gives up the diamonds. The problem is that he’s not lying, he doesn’t have them. But he does know where they are.

He also knows that giving them up would be the end.

“What if I could make you a deal?” Alex asks. Giving up the diamonds would be the end, but he can give him something different, something that might be worth more.

“And what kind of a deal would that be?”

“In exchange for me walking out of here, I could give you information. Information my dad probably doesn't want you to have.”

“And how would that benefit me?”

“When I take him down, I’ll keep your name out of it.” Alex takes a deep breath. “And in the end you’ll have your diamonds back.”

Serkoff looks at him in a way Alex is intimately familiar with, having grown up in the Manes household, like he’s a bug he wants to squash. But there’s also interest, a curiosity that Alex can’t help but feel hopeful about. If he can convince this burly russian that he can give him valuable information he might have a chance. It also means that his rig at the Pony will be brushing off the dust in a way he promised he wouldn’t do any more.

“Your offer is interesting,” Serkoff replies. “But you stole my diamonds, Mr. Manes. For that I cannot just let you leave.”

It’s the last thing he remembers as he’s hit in the head with a gun.

———

Pain. Harsh spoken russian words. The glint of a knife. Pain.

------

He wakes up, doesn’t know how much later, alone in a room. He’s on a bed, prosthetic still on. His head is pounding, his stomach is on fire, his hands filled with tiny cuts. It hurts, but he knew this was a possibility. It’s not like he hasn’t suffered worse before.

“Mr. Manes.”

He jumps, his heart hammering in his chest. His spatial awareness comes rushing back, recognizing the fact that the door’s been opened and that Serkoff is now in the room with him. He’s thankfully standing by the door, making no moves to come closer. It makes Alex’s heart settle a litte.

“Mr. Serkoff. Done beating me up?”

“Yes,” the russian replies, simple as that. Maybe it is. “Now tell me about the information you can give me.”

Alex swallows. “Will you let me go if I do?”

“I will. I could not let you go without some retaliation. My own people would think me weak if I did, but now I can. If you give me the information. From what my sources tell me, the youngest Manes is a very good hacker.” Serkoff grimaces. “I was also told hacking was how you lost your leg.”

“Yeah. It was. Doesn’t mean I’m not good at it.”

“On the contrary Mr. Manes, for you to have lost your leg you must have been very good, for someone to want to hurt you that much.”

“My dad is the reason I lost my leg, Mr. Serkoff.” Alex sighs, worn and tired. “Maybe now you understand why I want to stop him.”

Serkoff doesn’t say anything, but Alex recognizes the look in his eyes. It’s the look of someone who does understand, it makes the look in his eyes earlier make all the more sense. He knows exactly what Alex is talking about, probably better than Alex thinks he does.

“And you will keep me and my men out of it.”

“I will. I can’t keep the russian mob out of it completely, but I’ll try.”

“And I will get my diamonds?” Serkoff asks, and Alex just nods. His body is starting to shut down, in pain and aching. Talking is starting to become too much. “Good. I will get you a scapegoat, someone who should be taken down with your father. Now rest, your friend will be here soon.”

Alex opens his mouth to ask who said friend is, but he doesn’t have the chance before Serkoff nods sternly and walks out of the room, closing the door behind him and leaving Alex to his own thoughts. Alone, deep in the diamond storage with the russian mob. A friend coming soon.

He really hopes Cowboy or Influence didn’t get themselves involved.

Still he lays back down and rests. He probably doesn’t have to fight his way out but he still wants to get some strength back. Even if that strength is skin deep, allowing himself to rest so he can walk out on his own is enough. Serkoff and his men are not someone you want to appear weak in front of. Especially if he’s going to have somewhat of a working relationship with them.

He doesn’t know how much time passes as he rests, lost in his own thoughts of where he needs to move his rig (he can’t keep it at the Pony just in case someone traces it back to him), how he’s going to keep Arturo from finding out (he already knows how mad Arturo would be, after how frightened he was the last time) and who’s coming to get him (he’s going to kill whoever it is for walking voluntarily into the compound).

Which is why he startles (spatial awareness, come on) when the door bangs open.

“Hermano, you better be alive on that bed so that I can kill you myself.”

He huffs a laugh, of course it’s Rosa. A spitfire latina would be the only one crazy enough to come get him in the middle of the russian mob and threaten murder.

“I’m fine, Rosa. Just resting,” he answers, smiling in amusement as her glowering only increases. He’s still thankful for the way she stalks over and throws herself down on him, hugging him tightly.

“I was so scared when they took you,” she whispers as he hugs her back, mindful of his aches. “I even called Maria and you know I prefer when she comes to me.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice,” he whispers back. Even though they both know that Rosa’s burgeoning interest in Maria means they’ve called upon each other half a dozen times (if not more) since the night at the Pony. Though he’s pretty sure Rosa actually prefers it when Maria does come to her. And when she doesn’t have to call her to find someone else.

“You better. I’m in Maria’s debt now, I don’t like being in anyone's debt.”

“I know. But you can get a date out of it?”

“Vato, don’t you even-

“Okay! Okay” Alex interrupts her with a laugh that turns into a cough. “Thanks for coming.”

“When the Russian mob calls and tells you to come to their secret base to pick up your best friend, who they just kidnapped you kinda go,” Rosa answers, grumbling into his chest. Alex just holds her tighter, squeezing her in his version of a thanks. Something he knows she understands, none of them are big on talking about their feelings in high strung environments. “Speaking of the Russian mob…”

“Yeah, no, I’m not telling you here. Later, okay?

“Si,” Rosa replies. “But you better tell me.”

“I will. But we need to get going.”

Rosa nods and gets up, pulling Alex with her. Standing is painful, but he can put pressure on the prosthetic without problems, meaning Serkoss left it well enough alone. It helps him move out of his own power. He's grateful for that much at least.

They walk out of the compound easily after that. All the Russian men are gone, vanished from their vicinity. Alex knows, he uses all the tricks in his books to look for them, as they move out to where Rosa’s car is parked. He looks back one more time before he gets in, and catches Serkoff watching them. He nods, a gesture of respect Alex didn’t expect. Still, he nods back and gets into the car.

“Where too?”

He looks over at Rosa. “The Pony. I have some business to take care of.”

He’s never felt more relaxed putting his back to the bad man than he does when they drive out of the parking lot and set course for the Pony.

The car ride is quiet, something Alex is grateful for. It gives him a chance to rest some more, leaning back into the comfy seat of Rosa’s car and closing his eyes. He breathes deeply and evenly as he listens to Rosa’s ever present grumblings about traffic.

He nods off, just a little, waking again as he hears Rosa call Maria and tell them they’re coming. Good, he doesn’t need the hassle of scared Super’s today.

Which proves to be his famous last thought as they walk into the Pony and Cowboy is there. Frantic with worry. Alex watches him with a surprised look as he walks back and forth over the Pony floor, rambling to himself with his mask on, but hat off, not listening to a word Maria says. Maria meets his gaze with an exasperated look on her face, tilting her head slightly to where Influence, Electrobuzz and Kyle are arguing loudly amongst themselves. He watches them with an artificial detachment he wills into being. He can’t afford to care. Especially now that he has a job to do.

“Cowboy.” He speaks the word clearly, a bit louder than he usually would. He needs his attention.

He’s not expecting to get the attention of everyone. Even Liz appears from the back room, cursing up a storm when she sees his bruised face. And Liz cursing starts the rest of them, besides Maria who just watches him and Kyle who walks over to Alex and silently asks permission to check him out. Alex looks at him and Kyle backs away, knowing that it’ll have to wait. Their friendship might not be all good, but their communication still works perfectly.

“Stop!” Maria yells. Miraculously it works. “This is my bar, and this is Alex’s safe space. Let him fucking breathe.”

“DeLuca-”

“No,” Maria interrupts, sending a vicious look Cowboy’s way. Alex can’t help that a tiny particle of him appreciates the way she makes him flinch. “Alex, please let Kyle take you in the back and make sure you’re okay. Please.”

Alex watches her, the way they listen to her speak even as they shoot him glances and he’s so proud. So proud of her and the woman she’s become since her mother died, since she took over the Pony and started protecting the people that might need it the most and the least at the same time. Maria DeLuca is a savior, though he really hopes that one day she will let someone Rosa save her right back. No one deserves it more than her.

He nods at her, shooting Kyle a look as well before he walks towards the backroom. He can feel Cowboy watching him as he moves but he’ll worry about that later. Right now he needs to focus on something else.

“Does it hurt anywhere?” Kyle asks as he closes the door. Alex just shoots him a look. “I mean worse than anywhere else.”

“No.”

“How about your stomach?”

“No.”

“Your leg?”

“No.”

“Damnit, Alex!” Kyle yells, startling both of them. “Just… Just please answer me properly.”

Alex runs a hand through his hair, sighing deeply as he does. Time to treat Kyle like a doctor, and not an enemy. “My leg is fine, they didn’t touch it. Stomach is sore but seems fine. My head is killing me and my face is probably starting to get a real nice shiner. I’m fine, Kyle.”

“Only you would be kidnapped and beat up and say you’re fine,” Kyle mutters angrily and Alex can’t help but huff out a laugh. He has a point.

“You want me to apologize instead?”

“No. I just want you to stay safe.” Kyles gives him a look. “Within the range of safe at least.”

Alex rolls his eyes but doesn’t answer. Kyle knows him well enough to know that the Manes range of safety isn’t the same as everyone else's. Kyle snorts in derision at the eye roll but doesn’t say anything else either, preferring to finish looking Alex over in silence. Alex finds himself grateful for the familiarity and that they don’t need to talk. He might not have completely forgiven Kyle yet, but Kyle knowing what he needs and when to shut up helps. Maybe more than he thought it would, since it was Kyle opening his mouth that destroyed them the first time.

“Thank, Kyle,” he says, as Kyle moves back with a satisfied nod some minutes later.

“Any time,” Kyle replies as he packs away the nicely stocked first aid kit Maria has in the back room. “Want me to send in Cowboy?”

“No. I need to talk to Maria first.”

Kyle gives him a look of slight surprise, but nods before he goes through the door to the front of the pub. Alex waits until Maria joins him a minute later.

“You okay?” She asks, walking over to him and gently cupping his face in her hands. Her eyes are alight with worry, her frame tense in a way she usually isn’t.

“I’m fine, Maria. That was a necessary meeting.”

“Meeting? Alex, they kidnapped you!”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “But now I have an ally against my father.”

“Is that what this is about, your dad?” Maria asks.

“No. It’s about keeping them safe,” he answers, nodding towards the front of the bar. “Kyle, Liz, Rosa. Cowboy, your siblings. You.”

Maria huffs. “My secret siblings out there can take care of themselves, as can Cowboy, the rest of them and me. I’ve been the unofficial Super bar for years Alex, the police can’t take me down for shit.”

“They can if my rig is here. Especially if it’s in use.”

He sees it happen the second it dawns on her, the second she understands just why he’s calling it a meeting.

“You can’t do that. The last time you hacked you lost your leg,” she says with frightening calm. “If you do and your father finds out again you’ll lose your life!”

“I will. But this time I have the Russian mob at my back.”

She just stares at him, eyes wide and wild with indignation and a fair bit of the classical ‘are you crazy’ look. But there’s no question, she knows that he’s serious. She also knows she can’t talk him out of it, like she couldn’t the last time.

“You better be careful,” she says through clenched teeth when she finally does speak, marching over and laying a hard kiss on his forehead before she walks out without a word. Probably best, so neither of them starts to cry. Matia saw him at his worst after he lost his leg, he knows she has a right to be scared but he’ll be more careful this time. He has to be.

“Alex?” Cowboy asks as he walks through the door. He looks worried, scared even. “Can I come on?”

“Yeah, come in,” Alex replies. Cowboy comes in slowly. His hat and mask is on, but Alex doesn’t mind. He never minds, especially now that he has to do what he does.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he replies. “The Russians are pretty pissed, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.

“Is this because-“

“No. It’s got nothing to do with you.”

Cowboy clearly doesn’t believe him, if the way he purses his lips is any indication. “Sure, I get stuck in their compound, you go in and use your name, and not two weeks later you get kidnapped and beaten up!”

“That was because-“

“And now you want to work with them? And hack for them when you lost your leg because of it the first time? How can you be so st-“

“Hey!” Alex interrupts. “You do not get to call me stupid, Cowboy. I got into trouble because of my dad, not because of you. It's my choice, not yours.”

He watches Cowboy bite his tongue, clenching his fists tightly in obvious annoyance. But he doesn’t say anything, breathing deeply for a few minutes before he relaxes his fists, his jaw following. Alex understands how he feels, he does, but Cowboy isn’t his keeper of any kind. He makes his own decisions.

“You don’t get to decide when you run around New York as a vigilante, protecting people left and right with no regards to yourself. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

He doesn’t expect Cowboy to kiss him. He just walks over, takes Alex’s face in his hands and kisses him. It’s sloppy, this side of too hard and feral, just a little bit painful to Alex’s bruised face. It’s perfect.

“Shit, I’m sorry. You’re hurt,” Cowboy says, pulling away.

Alex shakes his head, keeping him in place. “It’s perfect, please don't stop.”

Cowboy seems sceptical, but Alex doesn’t care. He pulls him back in, though he softens the kiss so it won’t hurt. Instead of hard it’s soft, instead of hurried it’s languid, instead of feral it’s tender. Painful turns way to heat, lazily curling up his spine and settling everywhere from his neck to his stomach. He sighs softly into the kiss, pulling Cowboy infinitely closer.

“Alex. As much as I love having your lips on mine, you’re hurt,” Cowboy says as he pulls back again. “And we both know Maria will kill us if we do anything in this backroom.”

Alex groans. “You pick now to be sensible?”

“I pick now to be scared of your best friend. I’m just… breaking. Not saying no.”

Alex sighs, nodding because he knows Cowboy is right. He also does have to remember that he doesn’t actually know who Cowboy is, yet.

“I need help, moving my rig back home. Will you help me?”

Cowboy gives him a long, hard look. It feels soul searching in many ways, but Alex endures it. For him. He’s admittedly surprised when Cowboy nods, but grateful.

———

He find another piece of paper hidden under his keyboard the next day, with the letter A.

[banditthewriter]

Electric Love - Billy Russo - 6

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this part written and posted! Moving has kicked my ass.

I know some people didn’t get notifications for part 5, so be sure to read that one first if you haven’t already!

Tags are at the bottom. Let me know if you would like to be added to one of my tag lists!

*gif is mine*

Enjoy!

*****

Electricity skimmed across your arms as you stared at the computer screens. You could almost taste the information you could pull off of them, but you didn't need to. Everything was displayed in front of you. 

And Frank's buddy might not appreciate you hacking into his stuff.

"Does it hurt?"

You looked away from where David Lieberman was typing a mile a minute. Frank was nearby, a frown on his face as he looked at you. Quietly you stood up and made your way towards him, but not too close.

He'd kept his distance so you did as well. 

"Does what hurt?"

He motioned to your arm where there was a barely visible crackle of electricity running down the slope of your shoulder. It had been acting up with all of these computers around.

"The spark? It doesn't hurt me, but it hurts other people." You thought about Billy and how your power seemed to change with him. "Well, it can hurt other people. I think I have some control over it, but I don't understand it completely."

Frank reached out with one steady hand. It hovered uncertainly around your arm until you have him a nod. With your permission, he let his fingers rest against where the spark was zipping across your skin.

The electricity connected with him–you could feel it–but he didn't even flinch.

"What does it feel like to you?" you asked quietly as you watched the spark flick at his fingers.

"You know when your foot or your hand goes to sleep? When the feeling comes back and it's almost like pain but it's not? It kinda feels like that."

You knew the feeling because it felt like that with you too sometimes.

If you didn't want the spark to hurt the person, it wouldn't. Of course sometimes you lost control, like accidentally burning Billy during your nightmare, but you had control when you were aware.

Frank dropped his hand to his side and looked over at Lieberman who was still typing away.

"You died from a gunshot wound, right?"

Your hand went to your chest where the bullet had come out. Sometimes you thought it still hurt, but there wasn't even a mark to show that it had happened. The only reminder of your death was the memory that came up sometimes when you were half asleep. 

And the way Billy sometimes looked at you as if he couldn’t believe you were there.

"Yeah," you whispered as you tucked your hands into your pockets, "shot in the chest."

Frank nodded but didn't look back at you. You could see the look in his eyes, a haunted look that tugged at your heart. 

He was thinking about Maria and the kids. Their deaths were violent, abrupt, and undeserved. You were going against criminals so the violence against you was expected and accepted. The Castles were innocent. And you had to wonder if Frank was asking the same question you were.

Why did you get to come back when they were lost for good?

Frank's phone rang in his pocket. As he pulled it out, you crooked your finger and felt the information zip through you. 

Someone named Karen.

You moved away and let Frank have some privacy. Lieberman gave you an odd look as you settled into a chair near him. 

"You're the lightning bug, right?"

You raised an eyebrow and then laughed at the term. 

"I've been called worse, but yeah, that's me. And you're the ex-NSA hacker."

He shrugged his shoulder and went back to his screens. The information looked foreign, languages you didn't understand flashing up on the screen. You waved a hand and pulled the information into you.

"Rawlins was attacked in Afghanistan by a Marine?"

Lieberman looked surprised at your ability. He tossed a look over his shoulder and then back to the computers.

"By Frank, actually. He broke his orbital bone and is the reason Rawlins only has one functioning eye," Lieberman explained quietly. Then he motioned to you, "How do you do that?"

You didn't have an in depth answer for him about that.

"It's just something I'm able to do," you said as you flexed your fingers, sparks emitting as you did. "I don't know how it works. I can pull the information the same way I can pull electricity into me, it just… works differently."

Instead of building electricity in your body for a blast, it gives you access to information. You had tried unsuccessfully to figure out how information to worked.

You didn't bother mentioning that you could in theory manipulate someone's brain. That didn't feel like the kind of information Lieberman would appreciate. 

Frank came up between the two of you, his hand resting against the back of your chair. 

"What do you got Lieberman?"

As the two of them talked, you looked at your hands. It didn't feel the same with Frank that it did with Billy. First was the fact that you couldn't feel Frank the way you could feel Billy. And secondly was the actual feeling of your gift with the two of them. With Frank, it felt almost the same as it did when you used your powers normally. With Billy?

With Billy it felt like your powers were absorbed into him. You half expected him to be able to shock you sometimes. 

It didn't make sense and with the creator dead, you may never get an answer as to why. 

------

Dinner was almost ready. You had decided to treat Billy to a nice meal before you told him what you discovered that morning with Frank.

You could touch people. You had control over your power. 

It meant that you and Billy didn't have to continue to practice hands off. You could consummate your newfound relationship. You could be together.

Part of you craved that intimacy. It felt like it'd been decades since you had been with him. You needed to feel that connection again. 

And you were certain you wouldn't hurt him.

As you finished checking the meal you had cooked, you felt something slam into your head. Not physically, but a mental weight that drove you to your knees.

It was worse than any headache you'd ever had. It felt like someone had poured concrete into your skull and it had hardened instantly. The pain radiated outward and you tried to find something to hold onto but there was only tile under your fingers. 

And then you were engulfed in warmth as someone wrapped their arms around you. The pain ebbed enough for you to recognize Billy wrapped around you, his voice far away as he called your name over and over.

You curled your fingers into his jacket and tugged him closer. As your face pressed into his neck, the pain inched away even more. The next touch was the same. His hand went to your neck and you were soothed even more than that.

Finally the pain was gone and you were able to lean back away from him, carefully in case the pain came back. He brushed his hand against your cheek, his dark eyes roaming your face carefully.

"What in the hell happened?"

Your hand raised to his face before it dropped back to your lap.

"It's the creator. He's alive. And he's pissed."

------

The creator was alive. The realization had shaken you to the core. And Billy was the beyond angry at himself. 

"I put him in Rawlins's hands. I gave that bastard a weapon."

Not just any weapon. The creator held power over life and death, sure, but he could create metas. And you were proof that metas were dangerous.

In your fear of the creator being brought back to life, you grabbed hold of Billy and dragged him to the car. He drove because your hands hadn't stopped shaking, but you directed him. The destination was the warehouse you had practiced in before.

"Why’re we here?" Billy looked confused, but alert. His gun was in his hand, but it wasn't held aloft. 

Although you had a feeling your next statement was going to cause a problem. 

"This is where Gregory found me," you explained as you moved to the center of the warehouse. "Stay back, I don't want to fry your phone."

Billy raised an eyebrow but he did as you told him. With him a good ten feet away, you raised your hands in front of you and pulled. 

Nothing except the electricity in the walls.

You turned a little to the right and tried again. Nothing at all. Then again again after you turned another few inches to the right. Nothing. 

Another turn. This time when you pulled, you felt something else. You moved over to the wall and dragged a nearby barrel over to climb onto. Tucked into a little dip in the wall near the ceiling was a cell phone.

As you jumped down, Billy came over to your side.

"What's that?"

You tapped the phone against your hand.

"I had a hunch that Gregory would have left a way for me to contact him. This was a method we agreed on back when we worked together."

Back when the two of you were together, you didn't say, but Billy obviously knew what you meant. 

"And why do you need to contact your ex?"

You shook your head as you flipped open the phone. It was a burner. And the battery was low, but not dead. You gave it a quick charge with one finger, giving it another bar in the battery icon. 

It was a handy trick, but you always ended up frying smartphones when you tried it. It only worked on flip phones.

"I don't need to contact Gregory, not really. Remember I said there was a meta who could track other metas? I need him."

Billy's eyes widened as he quickly made the connection.

"He can track the creator. And where the creator is, Rawlins most likely is."

You nodded and knocked your shoulder into his.

"You think you can curb your jealousy long enough for me to give him a call or do I need to do this alone?"

He tipped your chin up so that he could lean in to give you a kiss. You smiled against his lips as your power seemed to surge towards him. 

"Call him," he mumbled against your lips, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

You pushed away from him enough to pull the phone up. You went into the contacts and found the only contact. It was listed under just the letter G. After a deep breath, you hit the key and then put the phone on speaker.

It rang twice before Gregory answered.

"I hoped you'd call."

"This isn't a social call. I need to talk to Clive. Do you have his number?"

There was a rustling on the other side of the line before you heard a sigh. 

"Why do you need Clive? Who are you looking for?"

You glanced at Billy, unsure how much information you wanted to give. He gave a short nod to you, letting you know it was your choice. 

"I'm looking for the creator."

Silence. And then you heard a soft swear. 

"Shit Y/N, you don't need to do that. Keep your blocks up like Clive taught you and he won't find you.” And then with a little reluctance he added, “I guess you're still with Russo."

You met Billy's eyes. There wasn't pride or smugness there, just Billy watching you. He didn't look like he was rubbing it in at all.

"I'm looking for the creator because we're going to kill him." Again.

Gregory let out a whistle.

"I don't think it's that easy," he offered quietly. 

"Don't I know it. Billy already killed him once, but he's back."

"You sure he did it right?" 

There was a snide humor in his voice that you didn't particularly appreciate. Before you could snap at him, Billy stepped a little closer to you. 

"I know how to kill someone. Most people don't walk away from a bullet through the middle of their forehead."

Gregory was silent at that, not expecting Billy to be on the call. You almost felt bad for Gregory. It was obvious he still cared about you, but that was the least of your worries. If it hadn't been revealed that he had seduced you under the creator's demand, maybe you would have felt differently. 

But you didn't care anymore.

"If his power was able to bring him back, do you really want to try again?"

You stood up a little straighter even though he couldn't see you. 

"This time we won't make the mistake of leaving him whole," or giving him to a deranged ex-CIA asshole. "We'll cut him up and burn the pieces. Or we'll bury him in cement. He doesn't get to stay alive."

Billy nodded his approval of your declaration. It was the only way to be sure that he couldn't pull another Lazarus miracle.

"I'll get Clive to give you a call."

And then, without waiting for you to reply, Gregory hung up. You huffed out a sigh and closed the phone, tucking it into your pocket.

"I think I handled that okay," Billy teased as he put his hand on the small of your back and began guiding you towards the door.

Now you just had to wait to hear from Clive and find the creator.

------

"I might have found something," Lieberman stated as he tapped his finger against the screen with a frown, "but I don't consider it good news."

Frank moved over behind Lieberman to check it out. Billy stayed near the wall, but his attention was on the computers. You were tempted to tug on the information to check it out yourself, but you'd wait for it. 

As they talked it over, the first real connection to Rawlins, you closed your eyes and tried to relax your mind. The barrier Clive had taught you to raise was shoddy at best, but it had kept the creator from causing you pain again. He wasn't tracking you at least; you'd feel it if he was. 

A knock at the door startled you. Not just you. Frankie and Billy turned immediately and aimed their guns at the door. Frank gestured for Billy to move forward.

You stepped back a bit, your hands raised and waiting. Of course you kept your spark inside just in case it was someone who was just looking for a different house. Didn’t want to freak out some innocent person.

But you were ready if it was someone dangerous. 

Billy kept his gun drawn, but lowered. He unlocked the door and yanked it open. Whoever it was, since you couldn't see them from where you stood, Billy didn't greet them. He merely stared and waited.

"Is Y/N here?"

That voice. You swore and stepped forward, tugging the door open even more. On the porch was Gregory, Clive, and a girl you vaguely recognized but whose name escaped you. 

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

Gregory held his hands up a bit, enough for you to see the slight shimmer there. He was holding on to his powers, but you knew he could cover himself in an instant. Him showing up without it already activated was supposed to be a truce you guessed.

"You want to kill the creator. We want to help."

Impenetrable skin, able to sense metas, and… the girl had a venom that she could shoot out that paralyzed people. You remembered her power but still not her name. 

Billy brought his gun into view, as did Frank as he stepped up beside him. He moved so that you were still in sight, but protected by his bulk. It put you in a position between him and Billy. 

Lieberman was in the background quietly complaining about people just showing up uninvited. And you were pretty sure that was a gun in his hand...

"You want to give us a reason we don't shoot every one of you?"

Because the bullet would bounce off of Gregory and probably strike one of you. You put your hand on Billy's wrist, pressing it down an inch in a way to show him to lower the gun. 

Gregory's eyes caught the touch. His jaw clenched before he looked up and met your eyes.

"You could use more metas if you're taking down the creator. Especially since it seems like he's making more."

Shit. That was your biggest fear. And the look Billy shot you told you that it was his as well. 

"How do you know that?"

Frank raised his gun higher, aiming right at Gregory's face. In an instant the impenetrable sheen went over his entire body. The girl raised a hand, the hole opening up in the middle of her palm where the venom would shoot from.

"Because I can sense metas," Clive said as he put his hand on the girl's wrist like you had done with Billy. "I can sense the creator although he was gone for a few days. And there's more metas being created where he's located."

He wasn't gone, he was dead. Temporarily at least. 

You gave a nod and then pushed Frank's wrist down as well. Billy watched as Frank gave in, lowering his gun, so he did the same. 

No longer under threat, the girl lowered her hand. You wondered if she had closed the hole or if she was still on alert. Gregory sighed as the sheen of his power went away. 

"We want to get rid of him. As long as he's alive, we're in danger. And if he's making more metas, he's making more killers."

You could feel Billy's suspicion of the three of them, although it was more aimed at Gregory. You turned towards Billy, giving Gregory your back. You weren't worried about being in danger. If the guys didn't pull their guns first, your power sometimes reacted without your demand to protect you. 

"We could use some more metas," you said as you grabbed Billy's hand, your power climbing up his wrist, "because I don't think me going up against an army of metas alone is a good idea."

That was all it took for Billy to agree with you. 

"They can help, but that doesn't mean I trust them."

Because they all abandoned you to the creator when Gregory told them to. You knew that's what Billy was thinking about. Not just that Gregory was your ex, but that he had played you and then he had left you when you refused his proposal.

Frank tucked his gun in his jeans and headed back over to the computers. You and Billy stepped back so that the three of them could walk in. Clive and the girl stepped through first, but Billy pressed his palm to Gregory's chest to keep him on the porch. 

You reached out for Billy's elbow, but you didn't pull him away. 

"You stay away from her," Billy threatened lowly as he leaned in towards Gregory. 

"You worried she might remember how good I treated her?"

You opened your mouth to respond, but you didn't need to. Billy had that one on lock.

"Nah, not worried ‘bout that at all, because you'll always be the guy that used her on the creator's demand and then abandoned her when she turned you down. That’s why I don't want you near her."

Gregory's eyes flashed from Billy's face to your hand on his elbow. This time you saw what he was looking at. Not just your hand on his skin, but the ring on your finger. 

"I get it," he promised.

Billy stepped away, but he didn't go far. He moved into your space and tugged you away with him, over to where Frank and Lieberman were pretending not to stare. 

You almost expected Billy to–

His mouth crashed down against yours, the kiss very much for show. You didn't even mind his pettiness. Instead you kissed back for all you were worth. 

You didn't want to hurt Gregory but you didn't mind reminding him that things weren't going to be the same.

X

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[calliecat93]

It’s been a long and chaotic hiatus period folks, but at least we’re here. RWBY Volume 7. There’s been a lot of hype in the leadup to this. New outfits. New setting. New characters. Old characters making long-awaited comebacks. There is so much to be excited about this season, and the absolutely insane opening only added more fuel to the fire. I’ve done a review/analysis on the opening already, which if you’d like to check that out, you can find it here. 

But for now, after nearly ten months of waiting, it’s finally time. Review season is in full swing. So why wait any more than we already have? Let’s kick the Volume 7 Reviews off with Chapter One, The Greatest Kingdom. Because of course, that would be the title of an Atlas-centric chapter. Of course.

Overview

We begin exactly where we left off before. RWBYJNRQOM have reached Atlas… but Ironwood’s fleet is armed and ready as though expecting an attack. Everyone is taken aback by this, especially Weiss. This causes complications. With Atlas this high alert, if they dock in an unauthorized ship, they’re going to be in a lot of trouble. Weiss also worries that if that happens, they may very well return her to her family, and to her father. But she then remembers that since they’re now back in Atlas’ range, she can contact Winter. Thus, Maria steers the ship downward, towards the city of Mantle.

We get our first glimpse of the former capital, and it’s telling. The location has a New York kind of vibe. It’s big and industrial but also run down. One reason for that may be because of the number of troops and drones in the city. They’re making people afraid or rebellious, even children as we see two throw a rock at a drone. But even more telling is that the holo-screens have Ironwood talking, claiming that this is all for their own safety. Everyone is unnerved by this, and worst? Winter is also spewing out the propaganda, shocking Weiss. Due to this, the plan is to ditch the ship and join the masses in Mantle.

Thus, the ship is parked… somewhere. We never see where. But the gang walks through the city, and get an even better look at how rundown that it is. Thre’s political posters around, namely featuring some kind of pale blonde-haired figure. We also see some headlines highlighting events like the Embargo, the discovery of a dead journalist, and damage to the border. Drones are going all around and take photos of Yang, which earns a kick from her and then it gets run over. Oops. We even see graffiti that says “Show Your Teeth”. Best guess is that that’s the White Fang’s doing. Life looks awful in Mantle, and Blake expresses this out loud. This earns her getting told off by two drunkards, who go off about Atlas being great and all that kind of stuff that we’ve heard before. But when one starts to make racist Faunus remarks at Blake, Weiss responds by gravity Glyphing into a dumpster. This attracts security attention, but it was worth it.

Maria knows where they can go, and she takes them to some kind of clinic. This is where she had intended to go in order to get her eyes adjusted. We, therefore, meet the man who runs the place. An elderly, wheel-chair bound man named Pietro. He is a well-known scientist who has made various advances for Atlas and Ironwood, but he volunteers in Mantle to get away from the stuffy atmosphere and to help the people below. The gang has questions about Atlas, so Pietro explains how Ironwood’s paranoia has gone into overload. Not just because of the Fall, but because of how badly his forces were hacked and made Atlas look like both terrorists and buffoons. But we do find out that they still don’t know who hacked their systems, but they /do/ suspect that it may very well be one of their own. With everyone blaming Atlas for the Fall of Beacon, the council is so scared that they’re just doing what Ironwood says. So needless to say, Atlas is in utter chaos and isn’t as safe as our heroes previously thought.

Pietro begins to talk about Mantle’s representatives taking action… until he recognizes Weiss. Yang tries to get things back on topic, only for Pietro to recognize her arm. He sounds… kind of offended that she painted it, haha! But he soon recognizes Team RWBY, having heard of them from his daughter. Who is his daughter? Well before Ruby can find out, a warning siren goes off. A group of wolf-like Grimm that I believe are called Sabers are attacking, so our heroes fight back. It’s a pretty good action sequence, full of a lot of high-paced energy and an awesome guitar riff in the background. Poor Blake’s sword is still broken, so she’s forced to stick to the gun mode. Fortunately, our heroes are ripping the Grimm apart with ease… but they ultimately don’t defeat the Grimm themselves.

A series of lasers blast away the remaining Grimm. We see a figure flying up above. A very… familiar looking person. Green color-scheme… red hair… a pink bow… freckles… wait… the figure lands, and we get to see them in full. Ruby’s eyes widen in shock as, for the first time since the Fall of Beacon, she sees Penny Polendina. 

You read right folks, Penny is back! Pietro tells her to say hi to her friends and… she recognizes them! She recognizes Ruby! She flies right into Ruby to hug her! That probably gave Ruby a concussion, but eh she’ll live. But only one thing matters right now: PENNY! PENNY IS BACK!!! SHE’S ALIVE!!! WHOO~!!!

As it turns out, Pietro is Penny’s father/creator. After Amity Arena was brought back to Atlas, they were able to recover Penny’s core and Pietro was able to rebuild her and even better. She is now the official protector of Mantle. Penny is excited to catch back up with Ruby… but another siren goes off, and she has to go off. Everyone has questions, but fortunately, Pietro is more than happy to answer them. So successful Grimm fight, they made it to Mantle, and they found a friendly face. Two friendly faces! Sure we had the rough patch with Ironwood’s forces and his propaganda, but hey! So far things are going pretty well!

Well, let’s ruin that!

The gang is suddenly captured and bound down by a group of blue and white-clad soldiers. This is a security force known as Ace-Ops. Qrow argues that he’s a licensed Huntsman and was doing his job, but Ace-Ops take their weapons and, even worst, the lamp. Pietro questions the meaning of this, and their leader named Clover Ebi reveals the list of charges. The unauthorized ship, disobeying commands from Control, and fighting Grimm despite all but one of them being unlicensed. As such, they’re being arrested and taken to Atlas. The episode ends with everyone loaded up into the back of a police van with Qrow hating himself for jinxing everything up. Stupid Bad Luck Semblance.

Review

So this was a bit shorter than the previous couple of premieres, but really? That’s not a problem whatsoever. This premiere was really good! Not the best, but certianly does its job and does it well. We get to see Mantle after so many years, get to finally meet Professor Polendina, and we get a big surprise in the return of Penny. We get a fun action scene as well, which is always nice. And it has a solid ending in everyone getting arrested… well okay, that sucks for them, but it was an appropriate place to end.

Before we go into more detailed stuff though… let’s talk about the elephant in the room first. That being Qrow’s new voice. For those unaware, Vic Mignogna was fired and I don’t feel like going into it any more than I’ve already had to. But long story short; Vic did a lot of gross, horrible stuff and he deserved to be kicked out. As such, voice actor Jason Liebrecht was cast to take over, and so far… I think that he’s good! It was a tad bit spotty, but he’s still new so I’m not expecting perfection. But it still feels like Qrow and the voice honestly sounds like a cleaner, healthier version of Vic’s Qrow. Which if Qrow starts to sober himself up, it will fit very well. So yeah, I am perfectly happy with Jason’s rendition and I am looking forward to hearing more of him going forward~

Okay, got that out of the way. So let talk about good stuff now!

Mantle looks amazing. IIRC, Miles and Kerry said that Mantle and Atlas are based on different periods of America’s evolution. Mantle represents the Industrial Era, in particular New York, and it certianly feels that way. It’s a big city, but it’s not happy. The place looks run-down and dirty, there’s tons of unrest, and they have to watch as Atlas stands above them in all of its glory. It was meant to be a symbol of hope, but now? It just represents the oppression of Mantle and how Atlas stands superior to them. One of the most telling scenes is when we see a wagon of miners pass by. All of them are covered in soot and just look sick and miserable. It paints a very harsh picture, and it’s only going to become all the harsher as we learn more in the future.

But there is a bright spot. We FINALLY get to meet Pietro. He’s as I expected, a kind old-man, if a bit scatter-brained and forgetful. He very much fits the image of a Gepetto-inspired character. Though him being wheelchair-bound and his frequent coughing certianly has me concerned for him… and I have a very bad idea about his final fate by the time that this arc is over. Still, we get a very clear image of his character and there’s a lot of Easter Eggs in his office. Like the whale statue on his shelf, another allusion to Pinocchio. It’s that attention to detail that makes me appreciate CRWBY so much. Also fun fact, his voice actor is David Fennoy. Which this isn’t his first time working on RWBY. The other time? As Dr. Merlot, the antagonist of RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. Who, if you don’t know, was a mad scientist… so great casting gag there CRWBY!

But speaking of Pinocchio… 

Well everyone, we knew that it was coming, but we weren’t ready. Yes, indeed, Penny is back. So… there’s been some debate over her re-introduction. While everyone is happy to have her back, some have questioned the under-whelming execution and lack of reaction from Ruby. Now I will admit that it is more subdued than I was expecting, but Ruby? I don’t at all get her so-called ‘lack of reaction’. You can see how wide her eyes are and how stunned she is, but it quickly evolves into over-whelming joy. Not every reaction has to be tearfully breaking down, guys. Ruby processed it quickly and was just overjoyed. Then after the tackle-glomp, you can hear her struggling to find the words to say as she starts to ask what happened since she thought that Penny was dead for at least a year. So no, Ruby’s reaction was perfectly IC for her and he DID have a reaction.

But yeah, Penny is back! But unlike what we all assumed, she has her memory! I was confused on how since we saw the Nevermore stomp on her remains… but considering that the area was sent back to Atlas, I can buy that they dug around enough to find the core and repair any damage that it had. I admit her return is a lot less dramatic than I thought it would be… but I really have no issue with it. For one, there’s plenty of things with her that can be touched on later. How she felt about dying. Her status as Mantle’s protector. What’s happened with her since the Fall. Plus after everything that’s happened, I think that we deserved this one break regarding Penny and her having her memory still. So yeah, maybe the execution could have had a bit more substance, but I really have no problem with it. Penny is back, and that’s all that matters.

Thre is a lot of good setup here. We have Ironwood’s paranoia on full display as well as the results towards Mantle due to it. We get a look at the mindsets of people like the kids throwing rocks at drones and the drunkards shitting on Blake for her comments about Mantle. But we also have Weiss Glyphing the one guy, which while it was oh so deserved, she did cause a fuss due to it when Blake was trying to deal with the matter peacefully and had even previously stopped Ruby when she was about to argue back. It’s good to see Weiss not dealing with any racist garbage thrown at Blake, but it was not the best way to deal with it when Blake had it under control, and that may very well be something that we see touched on more and more with the plot as a whole. Not just regarding Faunus racism, but regarding the conflict of Mantle vs Atlas.

We have the propaganda being spewed in Mantle not just by Ironwood but also from WInter. Something that Weiss is clearly unhappy about, and something that may cause friction down the line. We have the Ace-Ops, who going by the opening is going to play a major part in the volume. Which funny how they showed up to arrest the gang… but none of the vast amounts of security forces were around to stop the Grimm. Sure Penny was there and she is officially Mantles protector, but a good chunk of the Grimm were stopped by our heroes. So much for looking out for Mantle’s safety, huh Ironwood? Clover doesn’t even listen to Qrow or ask to see his license for proof of it… okay yeah, Qrow would still be arrested for the unauthorized ship, but still. There are so many small things that show us exactly how oppressed the people of Mantle are, and we’re probably going to see even more of that unrest and protest as we go on. Especially with this Robyn Hill character that we see is running for Council, and against an Atlesian tycoon. And I have a good guess at who that tycoon may be…

Chapter Two Predictions

Introducing a new section to the reviews! Which I will also add to the Red vs Blue reviews when that starts up again (2020, hurry the heck up!). But yeah, I’m gonna start doing predictions and see how well I do… or more likely, how badly I do. It’s all for fun though, so keep that in mind.

So the gang has been arrested and is going up to Atlas. So we’ll probably get to see that and get to compare it to the worn-down Mantle. We see in the trailer that Ruby and Ironwood are talking, so chances are Ironwood will recognize them and hear them out. If we’re lucky, he may have gotten the letter that Qrow sent as well. Now whether hell license the kids or not I’m not sure, but he clearly is going to allow them to work with Ace-Ops (likely under his strict rules) so it could be that or he’ll mark it as Community Service to make up for the charges against them. I can also see him deciding to take Oscar under his wing both for his own safety due to Ozpin, and/or to properly train the kid since even with Oz’s muscle memory, he needs all that he can get. After that, the gang is able to get their new gear, get some haircuts, etc. Only one IDK what’s going to happen to is Qrow… but he’s likely gonna do whatever the Hell he wants or Ironwood’s gonna give him the harder jobs. But we’ll find out soon enough.

Episode Stats

Favorite Character: Pietro and Penny Polendina Favorite Scene: RWBYJNORQ vs The Grimm Least Favorite Scene: The intro before they went into Mantle since it was just re-establishment exposition. Favorite Voice Actor: Taylor McNee (Penny Polendina) Favorite Animation: Either the Weis and Ren combo on the Grim or Ruby slaying the Grimm. Final Ranking: 8.5/10

Final Thoughts

We are off to a very good start! We get to see Mantle and understand exactly the state that it, as well as Atlas, are in. We get a nice action sequence. We get a lot of setup for things later, like the propaganda and introduction fo the Ace-Ops. But most of all, we have Pietro finally appearing and, of course, the return of Penny. Not my favorite premiere, but it did its job and was a very satisfying watch. So I say job well-done CRWBY! It sure as Hell makes me excited for what’s ahead!

[kattimariias]

some ideas for updated sonic rereleases, in a similar vein to p4g/p5r ;o;

(this is part 1 bc i kinda lost ideas for now orz)

sonic adventure relics

i dont know much abt the original sonic adventure so im going off of memory

obviously there’d be a big graphical overhaul, but nothing like sa1dx. since all of these will be on modern consoles theyre on that level. but hey least this means the cutscene animation would look better!!!

new playable character. her name is oridal and she has something to do with chaos, and that’s all ive got for now. idk about her species or gameplay style yet

new stages added which are related to oridal’s storyline

online multiplayer where u get to fuck around in twinkle park

dlc content included

sonic adventure 2 (idk about the subtitle for this one?)

neutral story which features three new playable characters, which i dont have any ideas for yet (yall can help with this in general)

free dlc side stories for amy, chaos, and tikal. all three are generally more involved with the main plot but these give more of their perspective (i think amy’s is more about her wanting respect from the others, chaos redeems himself, and tikal becomes in touch with modern reality)

a bunch of new stages obviously

an explanation as to how the fuck gerald managed to record that journal, why theres a pyramid outside of san francisco zone (spoiler: its bc its sonic the fucking hedgehog nothing makes geographical sense here), and a tie into shadow the hedgehog with mentions of the black arms

i dont know what the issues with the mech and treasure hunting stages are at this point so i guess those are fixed

more multiplayer characters + online multiplayer option

intelligence and luck bars added onto chao garden, alongside a new garden, more character chao, and online features

two player green hill zone

all of the cut dialogue + fixed sound and better animation

shadow, knuckles, and rouge get their melanin back

comic sans nerfed

this

sonic heroes: reunion

team hooligans + team retrux added

fang is speed and he rides his motorcycle, bean is flight and uses his small feathers to fly, and bark is muscular enough to crush watermelons

mighty and ray are speed and flight obviously, and play similarly to how they are in mania plus. power is a new character that i again have barely anything on

all characters have different stages so you dont have to go through them over and over again

they also have unique abilities that allow access to hidden areas

less slippery controls

the overall artstyle looks like an updated version of the cgi cutscenes

story isnt drastically different outside of the new teams, and people are shocked to see shadow being alive

shadow the hedgehog: bloodstained (bc of course this needed an edgy subtitle)

this is the least likely out of all these but i’m doing it anyway

rated T like it initially was, and does include some gore and onscreen death

rouge and omega are playable. rouge’s gameplay is like mgs while omega is more akin to shadow’s

also rouge now has a gun

and of course theres another new character who is probably in cahoots with the black arms, or maybe even a metaphor for the player themselves?

the story gets pretty fucking meta with the more routes there are, and the characters become aware of things repeating itself. which eventually leads to them discovering they are being controlled

gun upgrade system

you can now target enemies

shadow occasionally has flashbacks that reveal some parts of his backstory, from early days to spending time with maria. these are saved as tapes ingame, which you can access via the menu

sonic the hedgehog: rebirth (aka sonic 06 2.0)

ohherewego.png

the story’s reworked to have sonic be more involved in it and well...more understandable i guess?

silver and blaze meet later in the game, silver’s alone at the start (and blaze is still from another dimension, she’s called upon to help sonic)

all amigo characters get dlc stories

metal sonic, marine, and cream are also in

elise gets kidnapped less often and learns how to defend herself. shes got like sun powers which she uses to her advantage

new playable hedgehog character that changes things up in someway (leaving it vague for yall to help out)

day/night cycle

rainbow gem

chao garden as an optional chill out place

obviously the glitches are fixed

artstyle is more semi realistic

sonic unleashed: roar within

an idea ive had for the werehog for awhile is changing his gameplay to be more hack n slash. so i guess that for this?

new character is also a werehog who got turned into one for reasons you’ll find out

chip follows you around during gameplay, and helps you out via like...combinations of attacks n shit? idk i suddenly thought of this and it sounds cool/cute to me

night gaia sometimes turns into a chiplike form and attempts to fucking murder the guy. yknow like in mario sunshine when shadow mario takes away fludd?

shadow and knuckles are relevant to the plot bc yknow. chaos emeralds.

rouge, omega, tikal, and chaos too. also some of the newer characters bc continuity

not ALL of them would be super important to the plot but yknow

new locations added. im thinkin like...a mexico inspired one?

no more sun/moon medals

new shorts

night of the werehog 2

[ironstrange-is-the-endgame]

Kidnapped

Whumptober, day 7

tw: canon-typical violence, graphic description of violence, blood

The last thing in the world Stephen expected was a phone call from Peter Parker. Not because he didn’t get along with the kid, quite the opposite, but because usually Spider-Man swung in with a happy smile on his face and spoke with Stephen about his day, school, and Aunt May every couple of days, when he was not interning at the Stark Industries.

Since Strange started to date Tony, the kid and his aunt started to be steady presences in his life too. May was more delicate, never stepping boundaries and always showing up with some threat - and even if whatever she cooked was absolutely terrible, Stephen noted that Wong seemed to enjoy it, maybe it was that famous Sorcerers’ diet Stephen’s body didn’t need still, or maybe the very same reason why May didn’t seem so sad the last time Stephen had to leave the Sanctum, not that he cared, though; while Peter was a little hurricane eager to know new things and do it by touching them. Which was the reason why, at the end of the day, a call from him was weird as fuck.

“It’s Stephen,” He answered, instead of the formal ‘Doctor Stephen Strange’, but, again, it was the kid so no need to be formal. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr Doctor, sir,” Peter’s voice has something wrong, though Stephen decided to let him speak before questioning him about that: if he knew the teen week enough, he would explain himself soon. “I was wondering… Doesn’t happen that Mr Stark maybe is at the Sanctum?”

“No, I’ll meet with Tony after your lab session,” It was a weird question, truth to be told, but maybe Peter was in dire of help. “There’s something I can do for you?”

“It’s just… Happy didn’t hear from him since last night and Friday told me he didn’t come back, so…”

Stephen would have paid for every other answer from him. Even a stupid one about how he would look great in the Cloak and how cool the name Spider Supreme was. Everything was better than those words: “Tony didn’t come back.”

They were together, the previous night. They had a nice dinner and a very, very nice dessert at the Sanctum and them Stephen suggested to portal him to the Tower but Tony insisted to drive. “Did you try to call Nat or Rhodey?”

“Yes, and yes,” Peter’s voice was worried, even more now that he knew Tony wasn’t at Stephen’s. “Mrs Romanoff told me she last saw him yesterday for the afternoon at the meeting, while Colonel Rhodes is on a mission with Captain Danvers. I also called Doctor Banner but…”

“He and Christine are out of the country, I know,” Stephen said, trying to think who he could call. “I could track him but you know…”

Tony still loathed magic. It didn’t matter that he dated a sorcerer, he couldn’t stand the idea of magic and location spells were more invasive than people were willing to admit. Stephen loved Stark too much to do something like that. “What if - I don’t even know.”

Peter was panicking, and Stephen couldn’t blame him. But Tony was a grown man, and he could do whatever he wanted to. “He probably had to go abroad and forgot to tell it to anyone, Pete.”

Stephen didn’t really believe that, though it was better than any other option which crossed his mind.

—

Tony Stark was declared missed one week later, and by now not even Stephen could keep his darkest fears away. At first, it thought that Tony decided he needed a little bit of peace but when he used to do that, he sent something from whatever he was to let them know he was ok. Not that happened frequently since they started to date, but it did after some bad arguments. And, usually, it lasted for a couple of days before Tony texted Stephen to reach him, and the did a lot of make-up sex.

That time was different, Stephen could feel it. And despite hating to voice it, when Wong suggested him to go to the police, Strange took the advice immediately. Actually, the policeman who found himself facing Doctor Strange and a teen telling him Tony Stark went missing looked like someone made him the worst joke ever. It didn’t matter, that wasn’t their only way to look for him they had but was more.

—

Friday went off-line one week and two days after any of them had last seen Tony. Rhodey was the one who awknowdeleged it. He was running through Tony’s last fly paths both with the suit and with his jet when the AI simply stopped to work and any attempt to restart her went in the blue.

Even Shuri tried to re-upload her from remote but there were few things she could do, she said to them.

“Whatever Tony is doing, is bigger than we all thought,” She said, looking almost defeated from her own holographic projection. The problem was that Stephen wasn’t sure there was Tony behind all of this. Whatever it was.

—

The world knew about it three weeks after Stark’s disappearing, when Steve and Bucky rescheduled their wedding. Captain America said that he wasn’t going to getting married until all his family was back, and Tony Stark was part of the said family.

Maybe he hoped that would have brought him back, though Stephen knew better. By now, he was sure that if his boyfriend could go back he would have done that long time ago.

—

The day after they went public with Tony being missing, Peter called him again. By now, there was no news: the kid called him to be updated about Stark or just vent when he needed it, and Stephen was there to help him as far as he could.

“Hey, kiddo,” He answered, trying to sound casual. In the end, he gave up and used magic to track Tony down, with the only conclusion of facing the dread truth: either Tony wasn’t on Earth, or he shielded himself from magic. “How are you?”

“Stephen…” If he didn’t call him ‘Mr Doctor’ or ‘Doctor Dad’ it meant it was serious. “Can you please portal there?”

“Sure, where are you?” Stephen asked he could sense the urgency in Peter’s voice.

“Home, please, hurry up.”

Stephen took his sliding ring and started to open a portal. “Is May all right? Do you need medical assistance?”

“Yes, and no, just… It’s easier if…” The moment Stephen stepped outside from the portal, he found himself facing both the Parkers and he slightly calmed down seeing that May was, indeed, fine. Just very, very pale and visibly shocked. Peter looked the same but he was holding something in his hands apart from his mobile. When he saw him, the boy stood up and hugged the sorcerer. “Stephen… You are here… I… Someone… Mr Stark.”

Stephen caressed Spider-Man’s brown hair looking at him a moment later. “Yes, of course, I’m here, you called me,” He said, receiving a small smile from May. He knew she tried all she could to help Peter with the superhero thing, but she was glad he had Tony in his life for that, and she told him she was glad that Stephen was looking after her boy as well. “What’s wrong?”

“I found this in the daily mails,” May answered. Peter frozen in the hug, and was now holding Stephen’s as if his own life depended on that, the sorcerer didn’t care. He entangled his hand from Peter’s curly hair and took the sheet May was handling at him. It was blank, with just a website printed on it and two words: Tony Stark.

“Did you…?” Stephen asked, and Peter showed him his mobile phone. Thanking a god in which Stephen didn’t believe, the quality of the video was crappy because the man bonded in chains to the chair in the middle of an empty dim lighted room was Tony Stark.

Around him, there were men with dark military gears and dark masks on their faces. One was keeping a gun pressed against Tony’s temple, the other was in front of the genius, asking him something - the video didn’t have audio and they were too far from Stephen to read Tony’s labial while the man’s lips were covered by the mask - and hitting him everytime no answer came from Stark. Stephen’s hands were shaking so violently that he was afraid he would let the phone fall. Though he couldn’t help himself to watch, hoping to find some detail that may suggest him where Tony was.

He had no idea how long it went, but the man with the gun at some point turned to the camera and said something to his companion. By now, Tony was more passed away than conscious. The man with the gun did something because then audio came from Peter’s mobile.

“Doctor Strange, I suppose, or maybe young Peter,” The man said and Stephen shivered. They could see if someone was online. Which meant it was really a live stream. And, somehow, that was good news at least because it meant that Tony was still alive. “We will release Tony Stark once we will have the SHIELD secrets he kept from himself.”

Both Peter and May dumbfounded and Stephen was sure the wear a matching expression. He had no idea about what the man was speaking. He knew of the downfall of the SHIELD, of course, like everyone else, probably, but he couldn’t see why Tony should keep something from himself. Stephen wanted to look at Tony but the man’s silhouette was covering everything else and he wanted just to throw up right there and now. The man didn’t add anything and covered the camera. Stephen looked at Peter and knew he was as pale as the kid.

“Call Nat, she can help us hacking the site and we may know from where they are streaming,” Stephen said tracing runes with the point of his hands on the sheet. Maybe there was a track of it as well.

—

It was Afghanistan all over again, that was what Rhodey told him, looking at the screen of his own StarkPad. With the only difference that back in the day they knew what the kidnappers wanted.

Stephen has always been the best working under pressure but he couldn’t think right now. Not with the image of Tony in front of his eyes even if he wasn’t looking at the screen.

Natasha was trying to track the signal, but whoever those people were, were fairly equipped to protect themselves and the fact that magic couldn’t help was another proof of that.

“They took down Karen too,” Peter said, walking into the room. Nat was speaking with Maria Hill, trying to understand if she knew something about those files. Steve and Bucky were looming in the corner, more men of action, Sam was trying to find some background sound from the video, but without Friday it was all pointless.

“Probably because if Tony can use her to track you, it works both ways,” Rhodey suggested.

Stephen was trying to think about what he could do, though the room was too loud and everything that came in his mind every time he dared to think about Tony was his bloody face. Rhodey closed the video after one of the men kicked the genius on the floor but in Strange’s mind that scene evolved and grew worse.

He almost punched Captain America when Steve approached him.

“We will find Tony,” He said. The two of them had never spoken, not for things which didn’t concern missions or Wanda’s well being in Kamar-Taj, so everything Stephen did was nodding at the man who tried a smile before going back at his fiancé’s side.

—

It took them four days of no-stop searching before some progress had been made. Stephen was physically exhausted and more than once Peter and May tried to force him to sleep until Wong grew annoyed and dared to drug his tea if he didn’t get some rest.

And he was kind of sleeping, or better his body was resting while his astral projection was trying to find Tony’s aura which was still shining in all those wonderful colours - the thing calmed him only slightly: it just meant that Tony was alive -, when Peter’s mask went on and Karen’s voice filled the Compound. Apparently, Ned and Shuri successfully hacked into Spider-Man’s AI and bring her back online.

Stephen didn’t even care to go back in his physical body and all but rushed in the Tower main room. At some point, during one of their numerous brainstorming, Pepper suggested running through Stark Industries employers because the only way someone could hack Friday was being in touch with the AI and Tony kept her running also for the R&D teams. Stephen didn’t lose a second to look at the information which appeared on the screen connected to Karen. He rushed back in his body and opened a portal to the closest location he knew from the man’s address.

Stephen has sworn an oath. That was what he was repeating to himself while he climbed two steps at the time of the building where the suspect lived. He swore not to take lives. He never killed, just once and it was because his own life depended on it, and the sorcerer still felt guilty about that. He sworn not to cause pain in others, he sworn to do everything in his power to protect lives.

He swore those very same things when he became Sorcerer Supreme, though he wasn’t protecting just lives but the entire multiverse. He has sworn those things to Tony too, holding the man between his arms. And he kept swearing that every night Tony woke up after a nightmare.

But he broke those oaths. He choose between lives when he was a surgeon, he harmed nobody but he could have taken more risks, save more people, he broke the laws of nature, back in Hong Kong, and now he let someone take Tony. He wasn’t able to protect him. So, now, all that Stephen Strange wanted was revenge. What he didn’t expect reaching the seventh floor of the building, though, was facing Peter, Rhodey and Clint outside the suspect’s apartment. “What?” He asked.

“I heard Karen’s message too, and she called Peter probably. Nat, Steve and Bucky are on the main entrance, Wanda, Shuri and Bruce on the back,” Clint explained to him, a cocky smile on his face. “We are a team, Doc, we do not avenge by our owns. Now, if you mind, we should knock the door.”

Which meant shooting an explosive arrow without warning, apparently. The point was, Stephen couldn’t think straight or he would have waited for back-ups. According to Karen, whoever the man was, he was a made up identity and he was probably a former Hydra agent went in the dark after Natasha exposure of SHIELD’s files.

How he passed Stark Industries background controls what a mystery, but he most definitely didn’t work on his own.

The apartment was empty and after having checked with the outside teams who reached them inside, it was clear that the man didn’t leave the building after their arrival. “He probably left when they took Tony, but it was worth a shot,” Nat said searching for something between the man’s stuff.

“Wait, that’s Tony’s, isn’t it?” Clint came out from the bedroom with a SarkPhone. “It must be his at least our friend hacked into Tony’s private server.”

Tony’s screensaver was, indeed, a very private picture the genius saved from one of the multiples videos he had Friday recorder. In that one, a six-armed Stephen was stripping Tony off of his clothes holding his hands above his head. None of them was naked, though it was clear how it would have ended. Stephen had no idea that photo even existed and he would have been more flattered in any other occasion.

“We couldn’t track his mobile, which means whatever they are using to shield both tech and magic must be close,” The sorcerer said, taking the mobile from Clint’s hands.

“We can search in the other buildings around there,” Bucky suggested. “Rhodey and Pete can use the thermal view, to shield that is harder.”

They divided again. The area wasn’t so close but, at least, it was smaller than the entire world, or space as he feared at first. Though, what was driving him crazy was that he had seen how Tony had been tortured. They couldn’t fail. If the man went back in the apartment and realized the phone was missing before they found Tony, he was gone, for good.

Searching for Tony’s aura, Stephen could almost say how close he was to his beloved boyfriend. It wasn’t as precise as a location spell or a GPS position but it could work as in he was on the right path. Which was how he found himself rushing the moment Peter’s voice reached him from the roofs: “Doc, six different sources of heat in the building in front of you.”

Too few for being an apartment complex, too many for being a casualty. He nodded. “Get it, alert the others.”

And before Peter could say something, the Cloak lifted him and Stephen was on the building roof.

—

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. That had been the last time Stephen had seen Tony. And all that time he had been in New York, in the hands of some psycho former Hydra agent. And Stephen thought the man just wanted to broke up with him and didn’t know how to say it. He had been terribly stupid, and if Tony would have broken up with him after that, he could understand.

But Stephen didn’t care. He only wanted to see the love of his life breathing. That was the only thing that mattered.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And Stephen was rushing down the stairs, entering from the emergency stair into what looked like an abandoned factory, the Cloak on his shoulders flipping to a nonexistent wind.

Peter told him there were six heat sources inside the building. Five enemies, between him and Tony. He didn’t even care about being silent, at this point, while he rapidly summoned two orange shields shining in the otherwise pitch-black building. The first bullet melted against them, the Cloak was on the man in an eyebeat, dragging him down from his sniper position. Stephen didn’t even stop when he heard the deaf sound of a body against the concrete.

Other two men were on him the moment he walked in the dim-lighted room. It was probably the one from the videos, and Stephen tried not to think about the fact that the floor was bloody red. The sorcerer knocked one of the men out and used his magical ropes to tie the other. His hands were shaking and hurting, but Stephen didn’t care.

One month, three weeks, four days and ten hours. And only two other men between him and Tony. Without thinking about the amount of blood Tony had possibly lost and about the other men who might have reached the building - he doubted that if they were Hydra there were just five agents guarding Tony Stark, it didn’t matter how advanced their technology seemed to be - he followed the bloody footsteps into another room. This was larger, but Stephen didn’t mind to look at it because Tony was there, probably passed out seeing how he was lying on the floor, and no, Stephen refused either to believe or think that he might have been dead, also because it was clear that they wanted him alive.

“Tony,” He said, rushing toward the unresponsive body. He was breathing, though, and that helped Stephen to control his own respiration. “I’m here, I’m here…” He whispered, holding his boyfriend’s body between his arms. He could hear footsteps at his back and he imagined those belonged to the kidnappers who wanted to attack him while he couldn’t protect himself but he didn’t care. He was there, with Tony, and he was alive, the other Avengers were arriving so he just had to protect him, didn’t matter if they try to kill Stephen instead. And then, a red shield rose in front of his eyes and he was sure that it belonged to Wanda.

“We have this under control, Doctor,” Steve said, and Stephen didn’t even notice they entered the building. “Bring him home.”

Stephen didn’t wait for them to have second thoughts and portalled Tony to the Sanctum.

—

Stephen took care of Tony thanks both to his own magic and his studies. He didn’t want anyone to get close to the genius without him being in the room but for Peter and Rhodey and didn’t sleep in the two days Tony slept.

When he woke, Stephen wasn’t in the room, but he could hear the fretted breathing of his boyfriend. It took some minutes for Tony to realize he was safe in the Sanctum and he stopped to shake only when he saw Stephen walking inside the room. “Steph…” He let out, and Stephen’s lips curled in a smile.

“I’m sorry,” Stephen whispered his hands softly on Tony’s face still marked with bruises. “I should have realized before you didn’t run away, I should have…”

“It’s not your fault, babe,” Tony’s voice was weak, raw because of his sore throat. Stephen let a glass of water appeared in his hands, placing it on the duvet between them because he knew Tony hated when people handled things at him. Tony drank without opposing. “I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Stephen pushed softly his lips against Tony’s, and they stayed like this for some minutes before the genius tried to stand up. Only to meet Stephen’s stoniest expression. “You are not going to leave anytime soon, Mr Stark, you are officially my prisoner until you will have rest and all those bruises will have fade.”

And maybe it was too soon to joke about Stephen kidnapping him, but Tony laughed anyways.

[nohhh]

Classified Mission: Eastern Europe  Romanogers fanfic

Word Count: 2012

Genre: Fluff

Authors note: Sorry for the inactivity! 

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steve struggled to keep pace with Natasha without running.

“Natasha, can you slow down?”

“No.”

“Nat, I know what happened was horrendous, but it wasn’t your fault.”

“Yes, Steve, yes it was, don’t you understand? If I hadn’t shown up she would still be alive.”

Steve thought back to the scene in the lobby less than two minutes ago. It was a mess. Maria’s body was slumped against the counter top, the gun hadn’t even been touched. There was a spray of blood against the faded yellow wallpaper. Her body, riddled with bullet holes-

“She didn’t even have time to react, but why was she the only one in the room? Why did I not see anyone enter the building? Who else was in the building at the time? Wait, Steve I have an idea. Go back to the hotel.”

Steve was trying to process all the information. It was clear to him that Maria had been one of the few that was kind to Natasha years ago. A different life. A few years ago he was still frozen, Natasha had been the most feared assassin.

Once they came back to the hotel Natasha ducked behind the counter where she had carried Maria to a back room, no one used. For what Steve had no idea. She heaved a large book with yellowing pages onto the counter. Upon closer inspection Steve realized that it was a ledger of all the guests that had stayed, for the last two years.

Natasha went to the most recent pages where the last person entered was an ‘Alex Svoboda’ Natasha and Steve racked their brains for any news story involving that name. Natasha glanced at Steve.

“This hotel is a safe house. This hotel is where I am still Natalia Alianova Romanova. Criminals come here without fake names. Police don’t sniff up this far.”

“Jesus Nat, I can’t think of any Alex-“

Natasha tackled Steve, effectively shutting him up.

“Don’t say that name.” She said quietly. “You’ll get yourself killed.”

Steve nodded.

“We’ll go to the computer café,” she decided “I think I have some catching up to do.”

The pair made their way down the alley, the man from earlier was still knocked unconscious. Nat sighed, checking his pulse she realized she’d knocked him into a coma.

“That’s him taken care of, for now.”

Steve couldn’t help the shiver that crept down his spine. This Natasha was brutal, this was her before Clint brought her to SHIELD. She hadn’t been Natasha then: Natalia, notorious, undefeated. A place where women would seem to be in danger. All women here were strong in a way. Mental or physical. A place where Bucky was in danger. This obviously wasn’t the Prague Sam and Bucky lived. A place where Sam was in danger. The hotel doors opened. A place where Steve was in danger. Natasha vaulted over the counter flinging the ledger at the largest of the three women that entered the building. She threw Steve to the counter where he promptly hid behind it. He hated himself for feeling so weak.

Peeking over the counter he saw the largest of the three clutching her head. The two others had drawn gun, which Nat promptly threw out of their hands. Natalia had two guns in her hands aimed at the women. Her finger was curled around the trigger. The large woman was on the ground clutching something else in her hand. Her own poison. If she pressed that button, they’d be dead in seconds. Natalia was aware of the bomb. The guns were shot and simultaneously her leg swiped out catching the woman off guard. The bomb fell out of her hand and Natasha shot her as well. Catching the bomb in her hand she turned to Steve and made a movement. Steve understood that. The shield. Natasha had stashed it under the countertop. Steve flung it at her. She pulled the pin and covered the bomb with the shield. Sliding it under an airtight container and closing it, green tendrils of smoke curled against the jar. Natasha turned to Steve who was staring at the three bodies slumped on the floor. He had been worrying about Nat all the plane trip, barely able to sleep. He was certain the baddies would be large males. Who knew women ruled the underground? Natasha hoisted the largest woman over her shoulders.

“Open that door, Steve and grab the two others. There’s a river throw the bodies in.”

The captain turned pale. This was Natalia. He was terrified, no, no he wasn’t, there was a reason Fury had put her into the Avengers. This was it. He respected that. Natasha was stronger mentally and physically than the other Avengers. He admired her more than ever. Outside, the putrid smell of the canal was choking, chucking the bodies in they coughed at the stench. Inside Steve raised his eyebrows.

“Are we ever going to make it to the café?”

Natasha grinned.

“Things like that tend to be put on hold when people are trying to murder you.”

“You are brilliant at protecting me.”

“Someone’s got to do it. We better get to the café.”

They went down the alley keeping a careful eye out for both each other and murderous people. Upon reaching the café, Steve realized he was the only person here that had never been to Prague previously. Twisting the door knob they were greeted with rows of computers and a loud air conditioner. Going over to a corner Natasha typed poslední zprávy into the search engine. The results reported a massive crime wave taking over the city and how the government was doing nothing to stop it. Several stories were central to the mafia. Natasha decided to dig a little deeper. Steve was impressed at how quickly she managed to hack into the Mafia’s files revealing a list of thugs.

“Keep an eye out for the name.” Natasha whispered.

“There, look.” Steve responded. Natasha clicked onto the name, revealing his file.

Several minutes later, Natasha came to the part that declared him

Zemřel

“Well, there goes that lead.” Natasha said. Two figures came up behind them. Something glinted in the light, metal.

“Find anything?” Bucky asked and Steve and Natasha brought them up to date.

“This side of the city is full of fucking Yael’s.” Bucky exclaimed.

“Shush, you idiot.” Sam hushed him.

“How did the neighbourhood scouting go?” Steve asked them.

“We are surrounded by criminals.” Sam replied.

“I could have told you that.” Natasha cut in. “Will we go back and get dinner?”

“Great idea.” Sam answered.

The four made their way to a Chinese restaurant, where Bucky and Sam’s cover became obvious. The pair who were grumbling about having to hold hands. Steve couldn’t help the laugh that escaped and for Natasha the same.

“Fury told our neighbours that a gay couple was moving into the apartment, so we had to go with that.” Steve bit his lip. Natasha let out a loud laugh in the empty street.

“Here we are anyway.” Bucky gestured to a sign saying: CHINESE OPEN ALL NIGHT.

They went inside and were greeted by a woman who led them upstairs to a cosy corner. Steve and Natasha sat on the inside while Bucky and Sam sat on the outside. They ordered their food and once they waitress went away they began to confer their next move.

“I may have killed some potential leads.” Natasha admitted.

“We may have found one.” Sam replied.

“Natasha, you’re fucking dangerous, thank God you’re on our side.” Bucky said at the same time.

Natasha and Steve laughed. “Who did you find?”

Just then the waitress came back with their food, steaming. The four thanked her. She set down the food and left. There appeared to be something on the underside of Steve’s plate: a voice recorder.

Natasha detached it and excused herself to the bathroom. Seeing a handbag on the sink she placed it inside that and made her way back to the table where the three men were wolfing down their food.

Natasha still finished before them.

“Anyway, Sam, who’s your lead.” She asked while they stared at Natasha’s empty plate.

“Am, Alzbeta Dvorbak.” He responded.

“She owns the supermarket down the block from our hotel.” Bucky added.

Steve and Natasha nodded thoughtfully for a moment.

“That’s what we’ll do tomorrow then. We’ve done enough in one night.” Natasha decided.

The others nodded.

Sam and Bucky made excuses to go to the toilet and the waitress came back to retrieve the dishes.

“Dezert?” She asked.

“Ne, díky.” Steve responded.

She nodded and left. Natasha looked at Steve.

“I didn’t know you spoke Czech.”

“I don’t. That’s all the Czech I know.” He laughed.

“Nat, how do you do it? All this, noticing things no one else would. Saving my butt.”

“I was trained to.”

“Well, thank God for that.”

“It does come in helpful, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I need to save you from some explosion or something now, can’t have you hogging the glory.” Natasha laughed. Steve loved that laugh. Natasha looked at his smile. She loved that smile. Sam and Bucky came back holding green tablets and a note.

“Cyanide tablets, for our esteemed guests, AD” Bucky read out.

“Found outside the kitchen door. The esteemed guests could have been anyone.” Sam explained.

“Well that cements tomorrow’s plans.” Steve spoke up. “We work together tomorrow, no splitting up.”

Natasha had sat back deep in thought. “I have an idea.”

The three others glanced at each other.

“Continue?” Bucky questioned.

“If I could the strawberry delight with sweet coffee I would be very happy.” She stated.

“How are you thinking about your stomach at a time like this?” Sam sighed.

Bucky elbowed him in the ribs.

“Owww, ohhhhh.” Sam exclaimed in realization. Nat shook her head.

“I think we’re done here. Let’s go back to the hotel.”

Steve nodded. “I’ll pay.”

“We’re splitting the bill.” Natasha and Bucky said simultaneously.

“But I’m broke.” Sam whined.

“I’ll pay for myself and Sam.” Steve said shaking his head.

“Yeah, here‘s my part.” Natasha handed him the money. Bucky did the same.

Once they had paid, Bucky and Sam resumed their cover and Steve and Natasha discussed what would happen the next day.

“Nat, this isn’t what I think it is.” Steve referring to Prague.

“Just because evil has a face, doesn’t mean it’s a mask.” She answered.

They walked in silence for a few minutes until they got to the alleyway. The man was still slumped.

“Is he dead?” Bucky inquired.

“NO.” Natasha declared. “Oh shit that was loud.”

Steve chuckled under his breath. Th four made it to the hotel without being ambushed. They had kept their guard up through the walk there. A new woman was behind the counter. A feral smile entered Natasha’s – Natalia’s face.

“Kellie! Мария ушла и не вернется. Будьте осторожны, или вы будете рядом.”

Kellie’s eyes widened

“Это был ты” Not a request.

“Почему, черт возьми, я убью одного человека, который проявил уважение ко мне?”

“Наталья, я многое видел, и внезапный отъезд Марии был неожиданностью.”

“Ты услышишь меня, Келли, Мария ушла, и ты можешь быть следующей. Итак, убирайся отсюда.”

“Я обидел в этой жизни Наталию, я этого не забуду.”

The women nodded at each other. \Kellie stood up and left. Through the front door. She didn’t come back.

Bucky whistled. “That was one of the most terrifying conversations I have ever heard.”

Steve and Sam couldn’t understand it obviously and had moved to the room where Maria was lying on the table. The four obviously couldn’t do anything fancy. None of them were very religious and so did what they had to and left. Maria was gone. They went up to their rooms and entered their respective ones.

Steve and Natasha sat on the bed. “Steve, I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

“Natasha, you truly are the strongest person I know. I – I am extremely fond of you.”

“Fond?”

“Don’t people say that anymore?”

“When?”

“When they want to kiss someone.”

[cdc1345711]

Cartoon-Force Scene-Extreme Cartoon-Force Invades The GSD

(To make their escape plan work the team needed to find the others at the secret prison they’ve been keeping them locked up at-so Lucas and a team consisting of Eric,Tokoyami,Dark Shadow,Eric’s little brother Barry,Grim,Skips,004,Cain,Thunderman,Elecman,Greg the Ice Cream head guy,Hot Dog Person,Orly,Black Dynamite,Patrick,Ozzy,Hell-Ozzy,Scott the Devil Llama and Devil Rhino plan to break in to GSD headquarters to hack their systems and know the location of the secret prison-they have just arrived)

Lucas:Okay-I don’t to tell you how important this mission is-we succeed we safe our brothers,fail,we’ll be joining them-so I want a teams of two-Eric,and Barry,Tokoyami and Dark Shadow,Grim and Black Dynamite,Thunderman and Elecman,Ozzy and Hell-Ozzy,Greg and Hot Dog Person,004 and Cain with Patrick,Scott and Devil Rhino and Skips and Orly will accompany me to the control room-while the rest of you go to your designated locations or search the perimeter-let’s go”

(Lucas,Skips and Orly head to the control room while Eric,Barry,Tokoyami,Dark Shadow,Greg,Hot Dog Person,Ozzy,Hell-Ozzy and the Devil boys scout the building while Thunderman and Elecman guard the power and Patrick,Cain and 004 raid the armory while Grim and BD secure their way out-not knowing there are agents still here)

Jack:Did you hear something outside Walker”

Cynthia:Yes I did”

Jack:(To Zac and Stella)We’ll check it out while you two stay here”

Zac:But Chief we can-----”

Jack:That’s an order”

Zac:(Disappointed)Fine(wraps his arms around himself)”

(Lucas and the others reach the control room)

Lucas:Okay-let’s find our leader and compatriots(as soon as his suit is inside the system the alarm rings)dammit”

AWOOGA AWOOGA AWOOGA

Jack/Cynthia:THE CONTROL ROOM”

(They run till they see Eric,Barry,Tokoyami and Dark Shadow)

Tokoyami:Dammit the’re agents here”

Eric:Orders are to stun not kill”

Barry:Not my forte”

Eric:Don’t argue with me Barry just shoot-gotta buy Lucas sometime(they shoot at Jack and Cynthia-while he tells the others to help or retreat if they’re near the roof)”

Cynthia:(To Stella)We got invader-Cartoon-Forcers by the looks of it-how many are here Stella?”

Stella:(Using her laptop to see schematics of the building)There are 20 assailants-4 of them are with you-2 in the 3rd floor-5 in the armory,2 on the roof,2 about to conjoin with your assailants on the opposite side of you and Agent Savage,2 in the 1st floor and 3 are in the control room”

Cynthia:Okay-remember Savage,we need them alive for questioning,no killing”

Jack:I know the drill Walker(Jack hits Dark Shadow but with no affect)okay apparently one is a shadow creature-kinda reminds me of an old scary story my mom told me when I was a child-”

Cynthia:(Continues shooting)NOT THE TIME”

(Greg,Hot Dog Person,Ozzy and Hell-Ozzy help Eric and the others)

Ozzy:Me and Hell-Ozzy are gonna help Luke and the others”

Hell-Ozzy:You guys got this?”

Greg:Hell Yeah”

Hot Dog Person:We got this-go help them”

(Ozzy and Hell-Ozzy head to the control room-while Zac and Stella help on the sidelines)

Stella:2 of them are heading to the control room Miss Cynthia”

Zac:This is BULL CRAP-we should be out there helping Chief and Miss Cynthia not cooped up in a meeting room”

Stella:Our orders were to stay here and keep tabs on our enemy Zachary(sees the screen)the ones on the 3rd floor and raided the Armory are on the roof”

Zac:(Mad)UUUUh”

(On the roof)

Grim:(Hearing the shooting)What de Hell is going on there mon?”

Scott:We’ve been spotted-Eric told us telepathically to get to the roof if we’re near it”

004:Here’s the weapons we’re going back to help the others”

(Inside)

Eric:Barry-go to the roof”

Barry:What? like Hell-i’m not leaving you to be captured”

Eric:DAMMIT BARRY I’M YOUR BROTHER-YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME AND GET THE FUCK UP TO THE ROOF BECAUSE I LOVE YOU AND I WANT YOU SAFE”

Barry:(Seeing the worried tone in his voice having no choice but to obey it)Okay”

Eric:You guys too(gets out a stun grenade)I got this(throws it)”

Jack:(Seeing the grenade)GRENADE(it explodes)Walker-are you okay”

Cynthia:I’m blind as a bat but otherwise I’m fine”

(Greg and Hot Dog Person move in while a mysterious assailant knocks them out)

????:Been vacationing in Rio for a week and already shit goes to Hell”

Jack/Cynthia:(Knowing that voice and foulness)O’Connor?”

Maria:One and only-what’s up-why are these freaks attacking us?”

Jack:We’ll explain later-gotta get to the control room”

(Ozzy and Hell-Ozzy walk past the meeting room and Zac decides to be a hero)

Zac:[Okay Zac-you got this-Jack has taught you all that he knows-you can take these guys]”

Stella:(Noticing Zac leaving)Goldenwheat what are you doing?”

Zac:[Here it goes]Hey blokes(Ozzy and Hell-Ozzy turn around and Zac managed to tranquilize Hell-Ozzy)”

Ozzy:RED!!!!(Ozzy blasts Zac back causing him to return to the room)You okay Red?”

Hell-Ozzy:Yeah-just a tranq-but not a strong one”

(Eric manages to meet up with 004,Cain and Patrick)

Patrick:We dropped off the weapons-now what?”

Eric:We help Lucas”

(In the Control room-Lucas is uploading the schematic and location of the prison and fully downloads it into a usb)

Lucas:I got it-let’s-”

Jack:Surrender(Jack,Cynthia,Maria,Zac and Stella arrive in the control room)”

Lucas:Not likely(he opens his suits weapons and begins firing at them)”

Maria:What is it with these guys and guns?”

(Thunderman and Elecman come out of the corner and send electric shocks to the GSD agents)

Zac:I think we got lightning guys-and their pals(Eric,the cyborgs and Patrick arrive)got a plan(to Elecman)hey pretty right here(Elecman attacks and Zac dodges it hitting 004 instead)

Cain:ALBERT”

Elecman:Oh God”

Thunderman:(Seeing Maria aim her tranquilizer at Elecman)NOOOOO(pushes him out of the way and get hit with it instead)”

Elecman:THUNDERMAN!!!!!(angry)I’LL FRY YOU FURRY FREAKS”

(Elecman’s outburst of energy drains him and causes Lucas’ suit to malfunction and lose power)

Lucas:Dammit”

Eric:Grim we need you to teleport us out of here”

Grim:I can’t teleport you all-”

Eric:JUST DO IT!!!!”

Skips:Go get the guys out of here-I’ll handle the agents”

Eric:No dice-in the words of the greatest G I Joe ever-’we all go home or nobody goes home-”

Skips:And in the words of the late great science fiction icon-’The needs of the many out way the needs of the few’-”

Eric:(Realizing Skips spoke the truth-as Orly is tranquilized)Dammit-okay just be careful”

(Skips distracts the agents-While Eric tries to save his teammates-but as Skips was about to knock out Jack-Stella tried to save him)

Stella:SAVAGE LOOK OUT”

(Stella shoots Skips with a tranq but the impact landed Skips near a broken electrical console)

Skips:AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”

(After the screaming stops Skips falls face first on the ground)

Eric:SKIPS NOOOOOOOOO(Eric and a few of his teammates are back at the base)OOOOOO”

Grim:What happened”

Eric:Just looks at Grim)”

Zac:(Looking at Skips)is is he...............?”

Maria:(Checking a pulse and nods her head)”

Stella:(Putting her paws on her mouth)Oh God(she lays down on her knees in horror as she has done something she’d never thought she’d do-kill someone)

Zac:(Comforting the crying Stella)I got you Stella-it’s gonna be okay,it’s gonna be okay”

(Eric breaks the news to the team about Skips death while Jack announces it to the prisoners-allowing them to pay their respects to Skips)

THE END

[blessuswithblogs]

Top Ten Videocons of Twenty Seventeen, More or Less

2017 has, by all accounts, been a fantastic year for Video Games. Unfortunately for me, it has been a not so fantastic year in Having Money. So while in a perfect world my now annual game of the year list would have been a terribly contested and dramatic affair of cutting games I thought were good but just didn't make it, in actuality, I had to scramble and cheat a little to just find 10 games to slot in and talk about. I did at least manage to find them. Mostly.

10. Destiny 2

Destiny is a franchise with a troubled history, which feels weird to say about something that came out in late 2014. Nevertheless, Destiny 2's shooty looty gameplay loop finds its way on to my list. The story is tepid and the characters, with a few exceptions, are scarcely worthy of memory, but the visuals are good and the core mechanics of shooting and using abilities are a solid foundation to build upon in the inevitable flurry of DLC packages and expacs. It's all quite reminiscent of Borderlands, except without the unmistakable caustic ooze of Randy Pitchford's involvement. That in and of itself is praiseworthy.

9. Gravity Rush 2/Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

Okay so I maybe didn't actually play this one myself. I usually try to exclude stuff that I watched and enjoyed but in this case I was sitting on the couch with other people playing it so that's basically the same thing as playing it myself right? I think I held the controller for a little bit. Anyway this game is super weird and charming and a little nauseating in parts because you sort of go flying off into the stratosphere randomly? But the aesthetic and Mood the game goes for is very unique and fun, it even has its own cute little made up language I mistook for French at first until I heard some Japanese and Spanish sounding words in there as well. The main characters Kat and Raven are dating I think? They're happy and alive girlfriends. Raven is a little broody I guess but they're definitely not the Sad, Dead Lesbians I have grown to detest. Raven is not Velvet. Just reminding myself. Tropical Freeze is just really good and while it maybe came out like years ago I only got to play it very recently on my friend's Wii U. The music is super good fuck you Jeff Gerstmann I will fucking fight you and your shitty opinions about video games you god damned grumpy old man.

8. The Surge

My Thoughts on the Surge are well documented on this very website. It's flawed and frustrating in a lot of ways, nonsensical in others, and the story never quite commits to its original conceit which is a real shame. All that said, I respect the game for what it was unabashedly trying to do: be Dark Souls but with cyborg powerloaders and robots. Like, you gotta live your bliss, right? Lords of the Fallen was utterly miserable and the improvements that The Surge demonstrates gives me cause for optimism in future games from the developer. Anything that gives me cause for optimism in 2017 has to be worth something. That said, the inevitable The Surge 2 is probably going to be kind of by the numbers and unnecessary but that's just how you make games in the 21st century.

7. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

To begin with, BotW would be much higher on this list if I had not only come into owning it and a Switch yesterday. It is by all counts extremely good, an open world game that's actually pleasant and charming and has meritorious mechanics outside of Todd Howard style "you can go fuck that mountain" nonsense. I mean don't get me wrong you can fuck plenty of mountains in this game. Link is fucking Spider-man in this game, the only surfaces he can't mysteriously latch on to are inside the puzzle shrines so you can't just cheese them. Weapon degradation is maybe a little excessive? I feel sort of like Bayonetta in the first cutscene where she keeps yelling "Guns!" when she runs out of ammo except I'm yelling "shitty wooden sticks!" when the one I'm using breaks into a million tiny pieces. I understand the reasoning behind it, I do. It establishes a certain rhythm to the game of exploring, fighting, stocking up on shitty wooden sticks, and repeating. When you find like, an actual sword or spear it feels like an occasion to celebrate, and the whole thing demands that you use a variety of different weapons and weapon-like objects. I'm not nearly far in enough to give an honest, comprehensive picture of the game. I just really like what I've played so far so I'm just compromising by putting BotW relatively low on the list.

6. Cuphead

It's Cuphead! Everybody knows Cuphead by now. It's gorgeous, the soundtrack is great if somewhat lacking in variety, King Dice is really cool but has extremely unfortunate racial undertones, the game is pretty hard (not that hard?) and Cala Maria is a babe. It's a singular game that is extremely worthwhile and hopefully paves the way for future games in a similar style of aping specific styles and eras of animation. I really want a game that goes hard on the 1950s Looney Tunes aesthetic where you just drop anvils on people forever. Cuphead isn't perfect, as a lot of the game's difficulty and length comes from bad checkpointing. It's a necessary evil, because if the game did not blatantly disrespect your time in a lot of the later fights, the game would be like, two hours long. I'm not a proponent of the "git gud" philosophy but I can't help but feel like I really want to say that to the various bad-at-games journos who got bent out of shape about Cuphead being hard. This is your damn job. You can suck it up for one game, especially when it's really very good and unique like Cuphead. Also my mom came in while I was playing it and thought I was watching a popeye cartoon so that was kind of cute I guess.

5. Civilization 6 (CHEATING AGAIN)

YEAH I KNOW THIS GAME CAME OUT LAST YEAR AND IM A HUGE IDIOT FUCKER but hear me out Civ6 is really fucking good because of the fact that Wonders take up physical space on the map and districting does the same thing. Like just this single mechanical change basically doubles the amount of thought and planning you need to put into playing the game even on low difficulties to optimize your output and production. Like it's a civilization game so there's not really anything too groundbreaking here but I fucking adore this game. Really looking forward to Rise and Fall, which will be early 2018. With the initial release being late 2016 I feel like this is like, an honorary 2017 game. Don't @ me.

4. Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is another game I wrote about previously on the blog, but unlike The Surge I had basically nothing but good things to say about it. Hollow Knight has gorgeous hand drawn graphics and environments not entirely unlike Cuphead, but obviously goes for a much more reserved mood. Hollow Knight is a rock solid Metroidvania game with strong aesthetic and musical chops to back it up, as well as some Dark Souls-esque flourishes to give the game a bit of bite and a haunting narrative arc. A fantastic indie game and I can't wait to see what Team Cherry does next. I need to get around to doing the Halloween DLC, come to think of it. Did you know Zote actually has as many precepts as he says he does? I listened to them all. Some of them aren't too bad.

3. Nioh

Geralt the Witcher's moonlighting adventure as a samurai came out quite early in 2017, but remains one of the best games of the year due to its complex and rewarding combat system, beautiful Warring Kingdoms era Japanese architecture inspirations, fun mythological monster designs, and genuinely well done historical fiction backdrop. Coming into it, I fully expected "Dark Souls except the bosses are like Tengus and Nues and shit", but that description does the game a pretty big disservice. It's much more than that, both from a narrative standpoint, which is a fantastically tinged retelling of the Warring Kingdoms period, and from a gameplay one. The combat in Nioh is much more technical than in Dark Souls, with more pretensions of a combo based character action game than the deliberate, heavily customizable experience of the Souls games. Nioh is still quite hard and has the whole death-recovery mechanic, but it makes sense diegetically due to Guardian Spirit system and remains distinct. There are times when it tries to have the best of both worlds and just kind of ends up feeling like it doesn't do a good job at either, but for the most part, Nioh is tremendously fun, and at times infuriatingly difficult, especially in some of the post game optional battles that pit you against multiple bosses at once. Also, finding Kodamas is extremely rewarding because they are so damn cute. I love them. Find them at all costs.

2. Nier: Automata

Nier: Automata, Yoko Taro's latest brainchild, is, well, what it is. It's a hauntingly weird story about what it means to be human, and if that definition is really even adequate. It's a game with a lot to say, which is why I regard it so highly. The core gameplay is fun and serviceable, which is much more than I can say for its predecessor, the first Nier, which was memorable and affecting but played kind of like butts. 2B's android adventures are much more fluid and stylish, and you have a surprising amount of customization options available (though some arguably make the game a little too easy at points, like regenerating health) and there's enough variety in the little Machine Life form enemies (and the big ones, too) that fighting never felt like a chore to me. Of course, others have disagreed, but I think that the tedium really only sets in when you play as 9S, who has a much reduced arsenal of fighting moves in favor of his hacking skills. I liked the little shmup minigames that hacking entailed, so even 9S's story never felt too dull in the actual mechanical execution of it. People tend to have a misunderstanding of how the game works, that you need to complete it 4 times to get the whole experience, but that's not actually true. The 4 endings separate the game into acts more than anything. While 9S's story has a lot of overlap with 2B's story, endings C and D are just entirely new content where you play as A2, who has some tricks of her own distinct from 2B and 9S. It's not perfect, but it's not like you have to play the same game 4 times. It's a very story focused game, so much so that I would say experiencing the narrative is the main draw, but it has the decency to also be varied and fun to play. I love the parts where you get in the transforming flying robot and shoot the dudes. Especially the big dude. You know the one.

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood

The latest Final Fantasy XIV expansion, Stormblood, is super good. I wrote a bit about it earlier, and how it has improved upon Heavensward in almost all respects. Stormblood is a superlative MMO expac, with well designed and amazingly presented raids, dungeons, and trials. It's full of "holy shit that's dope" moments, like when you get into a blade struggle against the primal Susano's gigantic Ame-no-Murakumo in an active time event or storm the fortress city of Ala Mhigo. Ultimately, though, what really makes me evaluate Stormblood as my game of the year is how surprisingly thoughtful it is. FFXIV has, since the relaunch of 2.0, been a game that has not shied away from complexity in its narrative conflicts. The juxtaposition of the mythically strong Warrior of Light and the surprisingly mundane issues even she cannot seem to fix has always been the game's most interesting element to me, and as you spearhead revolutions against the Garlean Empire in two different countries, you learn a lot about how imperial colonialism has made things too complicated to be fixed simply driving out the oppressors. You do, eventually, of course, but the story is quick to remind you that this is only the beginning, and a lot of key issues remain unsolved, both in the newly liberated provinces and back at home. Also the Dark Knight questline from 60-70 is basically the best the game has to offer. It feels to me like that Dark Knight is the unofficial Job of Stormblood, despite the promo material and opening movie having you believe it to be about Monks. Monks, as usual, are boring. The themes explored in the Dark Knight questline, about regret, about shades of gray, about self-destruction, all align perfectly with some of the subtler narrative arcs of the main story. It's just really good and I love it. I still really want to write a piece about it on its own. I probably will soon. But for now, I name Stormblood my game of the year, for reminding us that we are still heroes. That we are still good people.

[notyourq-blog]

Backstory

This is the fuller version of Q’s backstory, I took it off their main page because it’s dark and it can be rather off putting whilst largely irrelevant.

Marcus History

Marcus Thompson was born to Maria and Joseph Thompson on an unknown date in March. As his father was somewhat of a crimelord with a large number of fingers in a huge variety of pies including human trafficking, drugs, weapons, etc the birth was never recorded so that, once Marcus got older, his father would have a completely obedient assistant who would never exist on the grid.

Marcus grew up surrounded by his parents and a small handful of his father’s men to raise him. It was noticed by his mother at a very young age that he was intelligent, she encouraged this by teaching him to play piano and chess but did her best to keep this from Joseph.

The young boy’s intelligence became obvious when he started to beat several of his guardians at chess by the age of six, upon discovering this his father hired an ex-Oxford Profession by the name of George to teach his son.

Marcus flourished under George’s instruction and, having no real idea the damage his father’s work did, he began to work to help plan and organise accounts for his father’s ‘business’. The 10 year old was thrilled to be so such use to his father and couldn’t understand his mother’s constant worry.

As he grew he got more and more responsibility, learning how to use a variety of weapons as well as different languages. This was also when he first began to use a computer (under careful supervision to keep him from learning too much about the ‘real world’) which he excelled at, soon able to hack into almost every system his father asked of him.

The morning of his 16th birthday found Marcus meeting all of his father’s business partners for the first time, at least he was pleased to be so well received by the men but, after their lunch, he was requested to truly become a man.

As the only softness in his life was his mother a gun was placed into his hand, she was forced to kneel before him, and his father ordered the boy to kill her. Marcus refused, leading him to be beaten until he was sobbing and bleeding, until his mother begged for him just to do it.

After his mother’s death Marcus continued on doing the work for his father, only for the man he had worshipped all his life to turn out to be more of a monster than any of the organisations he hacked.

George noticed this and slowly began to teach Marcus small things about the outside world. Just before the boy turned 17, George sent him away with train tickets to a small town in Scotland with enough money to see him through a few months. As Marcus left he knew the man would be killed for this but all he could do was thank him for everything before stealing away into the night.

After 2 days Marcus found himself in a small town, surrounded by more people than he’d never send in his life he decided to get food and hide away for a bit. Upon leaving the cafe later in the evening he quickly found that, as smart as he was, he needed male than intelligence to survive in the real world.

Thankfully a man called Jack, on the way to meet his friends at a bar, helped him and took him to his parent’s B&B where Marcus was able to shower and sleep properly. The next day Jack showed him around the town and the two began to bond.

Jack introduced Marcus to music and art that the boy had never even been aware of, teaching him about Scotland and trying to figure out how the teenager had ended up out here with nothing but a few bits of clothes and money.

Soon enough Marcus was working at a bar run by Jack’s friend, getting on well in the big wide world and slowly beginning to fall for the man who had been so kind to him.

Jack asked Marcus on a date during his second month in the town, not needing to do much more than just spend time together for both of them to be having fun and for Marcus to feel safe.

Months carried on like this, Marcus falling deeply in love with Jack and vice versa, even to the point where Jack’s mother would often tease them that they should be getting married in the spring.

Marcus was too relaxed and happy to notice the day one of his father’s men appeared in the town, feigning holiday with his wife and young daughter as he scouted out Marcus’ new life. Marcus was too relaxed until he came home from work and found his father sat next to Jack with a steel rod through his neck.

His father gave him the choice to come home by choice and he would put Jack out of his misery, or to argue and try to stay (with the full understanding he would be forced home anyway) while Jack slowly drowned in his own blood. Marcus broke down, sobbing for his father to stop and that he would go home. But Jack couldn’t be saved and the bullet was in his skull before Marcus could even ask why.

When they returned home, Marcus was kept constantly drugged to keel him reasonably docile. He lost a large amount of weight but was still able to complete the work required of him. His 18th birthday came and went without any kind words exchanged between father and son.

Marcus’ dosage was changed, feeding him drugs that led to anxiety and fear which were only able to be expressed violently. When the teen got particularly bad his father brought him people to kill - men, women, and children. In the full awareness that Marcus had barely any control over himself and didn’t really know what was going on directly after his shots.

After over a year of chemical torture Marcus successfully left a message with their location in MI6’s system, this allowed his father and many of his men to be captured or killed and left Marcus’ future down to a council of several spy agencies.

It was quickly decided that Marcus could not be left to roam the world due to his inability to cope with human interactions and expansive knowledge of hacking and other ‘detrimental’ activities. Officially Marcus Thompson was sentenced to death but Dr Jonas Port had a better idea.

Q History

Subject 16’s early memories were only full of pain and the confusion caused by drugs that were working hard to keep their brain completely empty. Dr Port would tell them how he was going to fix them, how he was going to keep them from being a monster and let their amazing brain be used for good.

As the pain faded S16 began to learn, not taking very long at all to relearn how to walk and talk and begin to question how the body they had been gifted works, touching their barely-there muscles to understood how they worked. Soon they learned onto harder material - mathematics, basic science, language and general information processing.

For the first few months of their existence they were told they couldn’t go outside. ‘It will make you sick. Undo all of my good work. Do not ask me again!’ Dr Port would yell in frustration as S16 queried where their human guards would go at night. So they kept quiet in the white room with white bed and white clothes and white mush that didn’t take of anything but that kept them alive.

One of their teachers, ‘you can just call me Nicole, sweetie’, was the first to take them outside. She was fired soon after, lost everything, but (if anyone had ever bothered to ask her) the smile on S16’s face as they touched the grass and watched the birds in the sky and realised there was more to life than learning for the first time had made it worth it.

Soon after that S16 met a man from MI6 who called himself Q. He was older than most of the humans S16 knew but he was kind and smart and reminded S16 of things they wasn’t supposed to remember. The man taught them what it meant to be the Quartermaster, how precious all innocent humans were and how S16 would work together with their agents to protect them.

Slowly, S16 (nicknamed Ben) came to learn the outside world in a way that felt uncomfortably familiar but they continued to push down any fragments of a life that wasn’t possible since they’d been no one before this. The old Quartermaster taught them everything they needed and then helped them to get a home in London.

There was a bracelet at first, attached around their wrist that told higher-ups everywhere they went. The galleries and theaters weren’t alarming though, they were still learning - trying to blend in with the humans they were going to be entrusted to protect.

After a few more months of no concerns Ben got another new name… Q. They replaced the man who had been so kind to them and set to work with MI6. Now the bracelet was gone they had no reason to take the medication that made their head spin… or so they thought.

Within a week there were nightmares. Stray, violent thoughts that could not be their own. A voice in their head that was almost their own, but not quite, asking what was going in and ‘why aren’t I dead?’ and other unsettling things.

Q did their best to suppress Marcus but, after the first horrible withdrawal, was unwilling to begin to take the drugs again. For weeks the two argued and fought for control for this body that had never truly belonged to either of them. First it had belonged to Joseph… then Marcus had given it to Jack willingly. And now Q refused to see them as anything but the property of Dr Port and MI6.

When a nighttime stroll would have gotten them killed, if not for Marcus’ own violent nature, Q decided that the man was perhaps so bad. And Marcus decided that nine of this was Q’s fault - they were little more than a child who had been forced to grow up and be exactly what they had been told. But maybe the future could change that.

[tuesdaydnd]

Pirate’s Creed part two

Pirate’s Creed

02- The Flying Gang

           Everyone feels much better after their last adventure, in fact they seem to have developed new skills and have more life. Reynaud uses the crystal skull to contact their mentor. When he describes the page of parchment and the strange vision he saw, Mentor recognizes it at once.

The Eye of Thoth uses pages from an ancient Atlantean book to gain their special powers, but Atlantis wasn’t the only power in the prehistoric world. There was another island on the other side of the world in the Pacific called Lemuria. The Lemurians were brutal dictators who used their power to enslave people. Atlantis defeated them in a great war, but apparently some of them survived and fragments from Lemuria occasionally surface. These Lemurian writings served as the basis for the Ophidean Order.

The page is very important and Mentor promises to send someone to translate it as soon as possible. Reynaud also mentions that the Sunderland was ordered to kill Captain Hornigold and his crew, but to spare Jennings and his people. Mentor doesn’t know for certain why these orders were issued, but obviously they should keep an eye on Jennings.

In New Providence, the pirates are delighted to see them and Hornigold wants to hear all about their raid on Havana. Although it’s true they only brought back a fraction of the gold that was there, just the fact they were able to strike at the heart of Spanish power and escape gives the pirates hope.

There is a meeting of all the pirates. Hornigold proposes a pirate republic, but Reynaud suggests a council of captains to make decisions. Every pirate gets a vote, and the council is overwhelmingly approved.

Jennings isn’t satisfied with one island. He wants to use it as a base of operations to expand their power, taking over more territory. No one thinks this is a bad plan, but they must start small before they can expand. Reynaud lays out his plan to take the Spanish Treasure fleet. He will need every man and every ship to pull this off, but if they succeed it will be something that will go down in the history books.

Attacking the ships at sea will not be easy. First, they have to find them. Ships are sent out on a reconnaissance mission to locate the fleet. They know the fleet can’t sail until they repair the damage done when the Santa Maria’s gunpowder blew up. The only advantage they have is that the fleet will be relatively easy for them to catch once they sail past New Providence and enter the straights of Florida.

The last time they went up against a Man O’War most of the crew was on the shore. Now they’ll be facing a full crew who are ready for trouble since both the Santa Maria and the Conception have been attacked. When the fleet leaves Havana their scouts give them word of how the fleet is formed. The two Man O’Wars are at the front and back of the fleet with five treasure galleons between them. The ships are far enough apart that they won’t collide, but close enough that if one ship is attacked other ships will be able to see it. At night the flash of cannons will be visible for miles.

The decision is made for the two Eye of Thoth ships to attack the Spanish Man O’Wars and put them out of action while the rest of the pirate fleet sweeps in to take out the galleons. They have thirty ships altogether, with Jennings and his Bathsheba and Hornigold in his Ranger leading the rest of the ships. Reynaud and Xi are on the Basilisk, the Doctor and Max are on the Kraken.

They approach the treasure fleet under the cover of night. The Kraken and the Basilisk separate and approach the Conception and the Santa Maria. The plan is to hit both of them at the same time in the dead of night. As the two ships near their targets, the wind shifts and the sky grows dark. The sea swells, making navigation difficult.

The Kraken heads for the most northern ship which turns out to be the Santa Maria, the Basilisk goes for the last ship in the fleet, the Conception.

The wind and rain reduce visibility so badly that they have no trouble approaching their target. Swinging the Basilisk around they attach it to the stern of the Conception with grappling hooks. Reynaud and Xi lead the men on board. They move quietly at first and only wound rather than kill. Soon they are spotted and the Spanish open fire.

Xi uses his powers of suggestion to take control of one of the sailors, but the sound of gunfire snaps him out of his trance. As the crew swarms him, Xi has to fight to the death as waves crash over the side of the ship.

Reynaud cuts his way across the deck. He tries to go below deck and is stopped by gunfire. At the bottom of the ladder he sees Captain Diaz, who he last spoke to in Tortuga.

Meanwhile the Doctor and Max manage to get the Kraken into position and fight their way onto the deck of the Santa Maria. The ship is rocking violently and when the Doctor throws his knives the wind simply whisks them away. He is forced to fight with his hand axes. Fortunately the wind and rain make it impossible for any of the guns to be of use.

Max finds his uncanny sense of balance is the only thing keeping him upright as the violently rocking ship tosses the Spanish sailors to the deck. A powerful wave washes several of the Spanish over the railings of the ship to their doom. From his position Max sees the treasure ship behind them wildly waving a red lantern. It is the well known signal for a ship in distress.

On the Conception Reynaud is speaking with the captain as one gentleman to another.

“If you do not disengage you ship neither of us will survive,” Diaz warns.

“Surrender and join our republic,” Reynaud counter offers.

“I serve my king.”

At that moment the Conception lurches violently to one side. Reynaud loses his balance and falls part way down the ladder before catching himself. Fortunately the Spanish soldiers were tossed about by the movement of the ship and couldn’t shoot. All around him he hears the wood creaking as the full power of the storm strikes them.

On the deck of the Santa Maria Barnaby uses his whips to clear the deck of sailors. As the Doctor, Klydell and Max fight alongside him they hear a terrible sound as their ship the Kraken suddenly tears free, pulling off part of the railing on the stern of the ship. Trapped on the Spanish vessel they continue to hold off the crew, the only thing saving their lives is that the storm is too bad for guns to fire.

Looking back over the railing Klydell sees a black ship with torn and tattered sails sweeping back and forth between the ships. It seems to have no trouble maneuvering despite the storm. There are nets draped over the side, dragging the water.

“It’s the Black Freighter!” one of the sailors calls out. “He’s come to take the drowned men to crew his ship.”

It seems like a good many people are about to drown when the call comes up from below that the Santa Maria is taking on water.

On the Conception Reynaud makes a deal with Captain Diaz. They will agree to a truce until the storm ends if Reynaud will disengage his ship to keep both ships from being smashed to pieces. Reynaud orders the Basilisk cut away, leaving him and his boarding party on the Spanish Man O’War.

On the Santa Maria Barnaby heads below decks and finds that the Spanish crew is far too busy trying to pump out the water to fight. Although he is trapped on a sinking ship, Barnaby decides to take the chance to destroy it. He goes to the powder room and begins to set it to explode.

Meanwhile the Doctor has become obsessed with the Black Freighter. He manages to get a grapple onto the ghost ship as it glides by and swings on board. On the rain swept deck he confronts undead sailors. The captain is a sinister skull faced figure wreathed in lighting. The captain orders the Doctor to be killed.

When the undead sailors attack the Doctor defends himself only to find that the men have sea water instead of blood. When he hacks at a limb he finds his sword stuck fast, for the bones are as hard as iron.

Before he is overwhelmed the Doctor dives into the hold through a gaping hole in the deck. There in the space where the nets are emptied he picks his way through the drowned men to find the ones that are still alive. He tries to arm them and get them to fight back, but they are too overwhelmed with terror to be much good. When the crew moves in on his the Doctor descends a ladder to the next deck.

This turns out to be the gun deck, where strange brass cannons are watched over by the undead crew. The master of the gun deck hurls fire at him, forcing him to climb out a gun port. Outside he sees another net being drawn up. Handing his knife to a man to cut himself free,  he encourages the still living men to fight back against their fate.

On the deck of the ship the sailors make a stand, but the undead crew make short work of them. Grabbing another rope the Doctor plans to swing down to the gun deck with his grenados and hope that he can do some damage.

On the nearby Santa Maria Barnaby has planted his charges and he emerges on deck to find the Doctor gone. On the Kraken Archibald lowers a few of the sails and manages to regain control of the ship to bring it around. Barnaby, Max and Klydell quickly attach ropes and swing across.

As they do so there is an explosion from below decks. The Doctor is in the process of trying to use his grenados when the sudden explosion causes him to lose his grip in the rope and he falls into the churning sea.

The Black Freighter vanishes into the storm. The Santa Maria burns. The crew of the Kraken spots the Doctor in the water and pull him on deck. Even though he is safe, the Doctor has become obsessed with the Black Freighter. He wants to go after it. Finally, Barnaby has no choice but to lock him in the brig.

The next morning there is little sign that the Spanish Treasure Fleet ever existed. Every ship has gone down and one of them has been smashed into the beach where it has become the meeting place of the Spanish survivors.

The pirates and the crew of the Conception put to shore where Reynaud and Captain Diaz will fight a duel over the ship. It is a contest between gentlemen. When Diaz unexpectedly loses his sword early in the fight Reynaud graciously allows him to pick up the blade and continue. Both men are wounded in the duel, but finally the Frenchman has the upper hand and Diaz is forced to surrender.

As per the terms of the duel Diaz and his men are given longboats and enough provisions to reach the nearest Spanish outpost. Diaz tells Reynaud that the ship has recently been careened and the barnacles scraped from the hull, but the mast is cracked and it only survived the storm because a metal brace.

Renaud decides to rename the Man O’War the Waterheart. Max is given command of the Basilisk.

On the Kraken Barnaby has to decide what to do with the Doctor. Even in the light of day with the ghost ship vanished he continues to talk about it and wants to go after it. He begins babbling about glowing eyes and crystal skulls and shows his captain a notebook full of gibberish.

When given a chance to rejoin the crew the Doctor refuses to stop talking about the Black Freighter. Finally Barnaby allows the crew to vote. The Doctor is put to death. He struggles to the end and tries to break free, but there is no saving him, the contact with the ghost ship has driven him mad. Perhaps this is the fate of anyone who dares to challenge the Black Freighter.

Meanwhile Xi takes Clydell and a few of the other men into the woods to cut a tree for a new mast. After they’ve gathered most of the wood they need they are attacked by Natives. A Seminole warrior goes after Xi with a club that is spiked with alligator teeth.

Most of the men take cover when a rain of arrows falls on them. Clydell goes after them with his knife and hatchet. He calls to them in the language of the tribe that raised him, the Nez Perce. At first, he gets no response, but one of the warriors finally answers him in a heavily accented voice.

When the warrior tells them that this is their land, the pirate replies “Not anymore.” This enrages the warrior who calls out for the rest of the tribe to kill the intruders. Clydell drops from a tree onto the warrior and kills him with a hidden blade. Before he can scramble to safety, he is hit with two arrows.

He manages to make it back up the tree, but he is trapped in the branches by the natives. Some of the pirates were sent back to get help from the beach, but will it arrive in time?

On the beach Reynaud hears the gunshots and heads into the woods with Hans and Zahara and some of the crew.

Barnaby takes Max and the rest of the crew to attack the beached ship where the Spanish soldiers are starting to gather.

In the woods Klydell tries to leap from one tree to another, but falls and is at the mercy of the Indians. He decides to play dead.

Reynaud arrives with his men and begins to cut into the Indians. Xi and his people come out from cover and join the battle. Zahara and Afia flank the natives and attack them from behind.

During the battle Klydell tries to make a break for it. He wounds one of the Indians with a thrown knife, but is stabbed with a spear before he can get away. Xi rushes in to save him. They manage to escape, but both are hit by arrows.

The tide of battle turns, and the Seminoles retreat. Once they are no longer under attack Xi shares his healing salve with Klydell which saves him from bleeding out.

As Barnaby leads his men onto the beach they have to attack under the rifle fire of the Spanish. Several men ar struck down until they get close enough to use their pistols. Finally they are able to take on the Spanish in hand to hand. Max stabs one soldier and lifts him into the air, filing the rest of the soldiers with terror. Barnaby is using his twin whips and grenades are being thrown.

The Spanish retreat to the remains of their ship and continue shooting under cover. Realizing it would be suicide to attack their position, Barnaby orders his men to grab the longboats and turn them upside down. By carrying the boat over their heads they can attack the Spanish ship with some cover of their own. The wood of the boat isn’t thick enough to stop the bullets, but the Spanish are shooting blind and most of their shots are harmless.

Throwing the boat into the mass of soldiers, the pirates strike with swords, hidden blades and whips. The soldiers are overwhelmed and have no choice but to surrender.

The pirates patch up their wounded and mourn their dead. The wrecked ship is searched for treasure. Meanwhile the timber is finally brought out of the forest and Xi goes to work on the new mast. Once he is done with that he and Klydell still want to go into the swamps to try and catch a baby alligator.

As the wrecked ship is being searched a figure suddenly appears and attacks them. He seems to have come from nowhere. The man spits venom into Zahara’s eyes, blinding her. Reynaud and Barnaby immediately attack and a furious battle is engaged with a foe who clearly has supernatural powers.

Meanwhile Xi, Klydell and the new Doctor go into the Everglades to try and find an alligator. After nearly sinking into quicksand they encounter Seminole Indians. This time, instead of attacking, they seem amused by their quest. Since they don’t feel threatened by the three pirates the Indians agree to help them.

They find a full sized alligator basking in the sun. They try to kill the animal, but it proves to be tricky, rolling over and nearly drowning Klydell before Xi is able to stab its soft underside.

Back at the shipwreck healing salve restores Zahara’s eyesight. The attacker appears to be subdued, but almost escapes. “I work for the masters of the world,” he declares under interrogation.

After getting rid of the leeches that clung to Klydell the three pirates bring the alligator carcass back to the beach. They also find alligator eggs and bring three of them.

Just as it begins to get dark a cannon ball suddenly hits the beach. One of the pirate ships salvaging the Spanish wreck has unexpectedly fired on them. As the cannon fire tears up the beach and destroys the wrecked ship, everyone returns to the Waterheart. The prisoner tries to dive overboard and drown himself, but he is caught. They find a strange black cube in his pocket. It is made from some unnaturally smooth substance and has tiny gold filament no thicker than a human hair running through it.

Max, on board the Basilisk moves to intercept the attacking ship befoe they lose it in the dark. When the other ship opens fire on them, the red hot cannon balls start a fire on the Basilisk. As the crew is fight8ing the fire, the shifting currents pull him away from the other ship.

On the Waterheart Reynaud and Barnaby continue questioning the prisoner. Meanwhile Xi is taking the skin off the alligator and cutting it up. Zahara is stunned to see the bones of the alligator start to reform, coming together to form a whole alligator skeleton which rises up on its hind legs and approaches her.

Apparently the voodoo training with the Baron is paying off. The alligator spirit warns Zahara to beware the man of fire who is laying in wait. “He works for the snakes,” Zahara is told. “Soon you will burn.”

When the message has been delivered the bones fly apart again and return to their original positions. No one else in the room saw anything unusual happen.

The fire on the Basilisk has been put out, but they have lost the attacking ship in the darkness. Since Barnaby and Reynaud are still interrogating the prisoner the rest of the pirates decide to get a ride from another of the pirate fleet to pursue the attacking ship. They still don’t know why one member of the fleet would turn on them.

In the interrogation room Reynaud and Barnaby continue to question their prisoner. He admits he doesn’t know what the cube is. All he knows is that he was supposed to take it back to Spain and deliver it to Von Hellinger. Reynaud gets a chill down his spine when he hears the name. Von Hellinger is his arch enemy, a Dutch mercenary he fought during the War of Spanish Succession. He thought that he killed Hellinger, but not only is the man alive, he is working with the Ophidian Order.

The pirates on their borrowed ship follow the ship that attacked them all through the night and into the next day. When the sun rises they see that the ship is the Asp, a nimble sloop with cannons on her open deck. Zahara tries to communicate with the other ship, but the pirates are warned to stay back or they will be killed.

“I am your death!” the captain roars before opening fire. The two ships exchange cannon shots, with the Asp’s heated shot starting fires. Xi climbs overboard to sneak onto the enemy ship, but before he can reach it, the Asp rams the pirate ship.

Xi climbs on board and begins to fight. Most of the rest of the pirates swing over on ropes. During the furious battle they don’t notice that the captain leaps onto their own ship where he faces Zahara and Afia. The captain is swinging two red hot cannonballs on a chain over his head as he storms the ship.

The cannon balls smash down and sear anyone who gets in his way. The fires on the ship are growing even as the pirates start to take the other vessel. Afia manges to shoot him in the leg, but the powerful captain keeps fighting. Zahara is forced to take him on with only a pair of hand axes. During the course of the battle it seems as if the red hot cannon balls will tear through her.

Zahara mutters a silent prayer to the Baron. From Zahara’s point of view it seems as if everything freezes. Into the strange frozen deck the Baron suddenly appears. He tells Zahara that he will save her life if she does something for him. He wants the medallion that Captain Jonas of the Black Freighter wears around his neck. Zahara agrees to get it, although he knows nothing about the Black Freighter, and the one pirate who was on board went mad and had to be hung.

Instantly everything starts moving again. The chains holding the cannon balls snaps, sending them rolling across the deck. Zahara cuts the captain very deeply, and brings him down to the deck. Driven by an almost supernatural frenzy the captain continues to fight, until Zahara has no choice but to finish him off.

On the Asp the pirates are victorious. The ship is theirs. The surviving pirates are more than hapy to have a new captain. They feared and hated their old captain. His name was Fiera, and he seemed immune to fire. He used to take hot coals from the fire and juggle them. There is a forge on the deck so he could heat up cannon balls anytime he wanted. In addition he talked to people in his sleep who somehow gave him orders.

Captain Fiera’s worse offense in the eyes of his crew was that he refused to let them pillage the wrecks like the rest of the pirate ships were doing. After finding a single object he insisted that they stop, and then ordered them to attack the beach for no apparent reason.

Doctor Hans Grubermeisterberg gets a chance to dissect the corpse. He discovers that Fiera had bones and muscles that were much denser than normal. It’s possible that this is what happens to anyone who unlocks the hidden powers of the human body, such as they have with their training.

In the captain’s quarters Xi finds the object that the crew described. It is a large gold plate, probably used by natives for cocoa. On the back has been scratched a map of South America with a strange star shape and a line coming out of it.

After repairing the damaged bow, they sail back to New Providence to meet up with the rest of their team. They find the once shanty town is now buzzing with activity. There are numerous new buildings and new docks have been built for the arriving ships. Jennings has exchanged cannon fire with the Spanish and warns the rest of the pirates that the wrecks won’t be easy pickings anymore.

Hornigold has big plans for New Providence. To make it a proper pirate city they will have to be defended from attack. Fort Nassau has started to collapse since it was abandoned and the rusting cannons should be replaced. It would also be a good idea to have an old ship serve as a gun platform in the harbor. Hog Island mostly blocks the entrance to the harbor, allowing just two places where ships can sail in. With the fort operational and a gun platform, they can effectively hold off attacks.

At a meeting of all the pirate captains it is decided that they will take gold off the top to cover defenses and then split up the rest of the spoils. Although there is some debate, Reynaud is able to sway some people over to his side and the vote passes.

When the gold is divided up everyone is still very wealthy. This is fortunate since everything in town is very expensive. The merchants know that the pirates are flush with gold and are taking every advantage of it. On top of that the island has so few resources that everything has to be imported, which drives the prices up.

The largest trading post on the island belongs to Kaitlin Rowe, an elegant, sophisticated woman who buys and sells almost anything. As a member of the Rowe shipping family she can place stolen goods in stores in Boston or London with no questions asked. Of course she makes a very good profit.

When she asks Reynaud for the Lemurian fragment he realizes that she also is a member of the Eye of Thoth. She is able to translate the writing on the shard and says that it contains the secret to becoming invisible. She can have the translation ready for him in three days.

Outside on the streets of New Providence there is a commotion. Captain Cazalla announces that the captains have held back the best spoils from the wrecked Spanish ships. He specifically mentions a gold plate that wasn’t put with the spoils to be divided.

Barnaby sees the riot brewing and knows that Reynaud has the gold plate with the mysterious map and is going to sell it to Kaitlin Rowe. Barnaby goes and gets the plate. After making sure the map has been scratched off the back he shows the plate to the crowd.

Barnaby demands to know why Cazalla is stirring up trouble over the plate. Under intense questioning by Pierre, Cazalla admits that Vane told him about the plate.

Meanwhile in the bar known as the Old Avery a new recruit named Bobbob makes the acquaintance of Anne Bonny a pretty but tough new barmaid. When someone is too forward with her Anne decks him. One of the other men tries to bash Anne’s head in with a bottle, but Bobbob stops him. One of the pirates pulls out a sword, but Bobbob shoots it from her hand, earning a free drink from Anne.

Barnaby and Pierre arrive in the Old Avery looking for Charles Vane. They find him at a table with Calico Jack and some of the crew from the Bathsheba. Barnaby demands to know why Vane nearly started a riot. Calico Jack tries to calm everyone down, but is ignored.

Reluctantly Vane admits that he saw the plate in a dream. He sent Cazalla out after it because he knew Cazalla had the biggest mouth.

Barnaby decides to take it up with Jennnings, Vane’s captain. As they leave they see Calico Jack flirting with Anne Bonny. On the Bathsheba Barnaby demands that Jennings do something.

“If you don’t get your crew under control, I will,” Barnaby threatens.

Jennings is unfazed. He declares that his crew is his responsibility, and there aren’t any laws against what Vane and Cazalla did. On impulse Barnaby touches his eye, making the sign of the Eye of Thoth. Jennings gives a start and reaches for his sword.

When Reynaud hears what has happened he calls for a meeting of all the captains. They need to decide on the rules for their pirate republic. There is much raucous debate, with Jennings arguing that the more rules they have the more they will be like England or Spain. Most of the captains think that there have to be rules of some sort. After spirited discussion they settle on:

1.      No murder.

2.      No riots

3.      No raiding other pirates

The punishments are death for violating the first two. Death by guillotine is voted as the most popular form of execution. For the lesser offenses there is to be punishment by the stocks, flogging or having to clean all the ships in harbor. The offenders are to be judged by three captains who are impartial. The accused can have someone speak for them, which will undoubtedly lead to pirate lawyers.    

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