#ground reinforcement grids

[marvelstoriesepic]

Whumpcember (day 27)

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Prompt: Hypothermia

Word Count: 3.3k

Warnings: vivid descriptions of hypothermia; desperate!Bucky; Hydra; slight mentions of Bucky’s past

Masterlist | Whumpcember Masterlist

Pang. Pang. Pang.

It’s almost rhythmic, the way Bucky’s metal fist hits the strong, reinforced door of the room you’re trapped in.

You stand off to the side, pressing a finger to your earpiece, trying once more to summon aid.

Only static answers you, sharp and grating, hissing in your ear. You grit your teeth.

Bucky lets out a frustrated grunt and slams his fist harder.

You step forward, intending to tell him to stop, to conserve his strength, to redirect his anger into a better plan since the door doesn’t seem to budge at all.

But then you notice it, the faintest shift in the room.

Your skin tingles at the back of your neck and underneath your tactical suit.

The air is sharper. It’s colder.

You glance up at the small vents near the ceiling and find their slotted mouths releasing thin, ghostly fog that drifts downward.

Your stomach plummets to the ground.

“Bucky,” you say, voice quieter than you intended, eyes still on the vents.

Bucky doesn’t turn, but his hits have stopped. His metal fist rests against the door. You make out his head tilting slightly, acknowledging you.

“Bucky,” you repeat, more insistent, more warningly. “Look!”

He does turn now, his eyes on you before moving up to where you are looking. His gaze narrows as the fog becomes more visible, coiling in haphazard spirals before dissipating.

He doesn’t say anything, but the way his jaw tightens, the way his body turns to solid stone says he understands.

He then takes a step toward the control panel, his metal arm flexing instinctively. “We need to figure out how to shut this down. Fast.”

But you don’t know how fast you can make it.

The room already feels smaller, the walls seeming to close in, their cold presence pressing against you. You rub your arms, trying to ward off the frost spreading in the air.

But your cheeks start to sting and your skin tightens.

You are trapped in the sterile and metallic control room of a Hydra facility.

And if that wasn’t bad enough already, it’s not just a control hub. It’s also a containment chamber, and how it looks like, designed to neutralize intruders by pumping in freezing air when someone attempts to tamper with the control systems.

And since that’s the only reason you are in here, you fell for it.

Surveillance suggested the base holds remnants of sensitive data Hydra has been safeguarding, with a high likelihood that it could detail sleeper agents or hidden cells.

Bucky and you were paired and tasked with accessing the main control room, disabling the security grid, and providing an opening for the rest of the team to neutralize the facility.

And well, that didn’t go as planned.

Hydra has always been cruelly inventive and the freezing protocol seems as effective as inhumane to you.

Bucky immediately started to react the second a low beep emitted from the console, followed by an ominous hiss as the lights overhead flickered and shifted to an emergency red glow.

And he would have made it out before the heavy door slammed shut behind you since he’d been guarding the entrance.

But only without you.

And that didn’t seem to be an option for him.

You tried again and again to call out to the team.

Though it was futile from the start.

The base’s interior is heavily shielded, preventing outside communication.

Your teammates had a backup plan to breach the outer defenses if you two went radio silent, so they wouldn’t immediately realize something was wrong until it was too late.

The frost freezes up the walls, tiny ice particles wandering along the surfaces.

The air you draw into your lungs feels sharp, like shards of ice scraping the back of your throat.

Your muscles contract, huddling inward in a futile attempt to shield themselves.

Stiff and numb fingers try to tap against the slowly freezing metal of the console, but your movements are turning clumsy.

Bucky walks over to you. He seems to hold up better than you, but you see that this situation gnaws at him. His frown is in place, his shoulders are rigid and you don’t want to know the places his mind is traveling.

After all, this is not his first encounter with Hydras frost for him.

He looks over the consoles in front of you, glancing over the wires and frozen circuits.

“I don’t think p-punching it will help.” You try to say it lightly, bringing in some humor in your situation but your voice is shaking as much as your body.

Bucky gives you a sidelong glance. “You’d be surprised how often that works,” he deadpans.

You try to laugh but it falls flat.

The icy mist tumbles through the air so innocently, making it colder and colder, and then pounces on you so piercingly intense, it makes your breaths falter.

Warmth feels so far away. Seconds are stretching.

Bucky doesn’t glance back at the console.

He is watching you with furrowed brows.

His flesh hand brushes over your arm, trying to gauge your condition.

“Hey,” he says, almost sharply, but so full of concern. “You with me?”

You nod, but it’s sluggish. Unconvincing. Your teeth chatter as you try to speak. “I’m- I’m fine.”

Bucky grits his teeth, his jaw working roughly. “Don’t lie to me.” His voice sounds thick.

He pulls you close then. His arms wrap around you with a firmness that feels protective, desperate even.

You don’t resist, wouldn’t even have the strength to, and lean into him. Your body is shaking against him, your muscles seizing violently. It drains you rapidly. You do your best to try and let the warmth of his body temperature battle against the cold settling into your skin and sinking deep and even deeper into your bones.

It crawls into your ears, turning them numb and unresponsive. Sounds seem muted, as if the chill has even frozen the air’s ability to carry them.

The temperature drops and drops so rapidly.

You feel Bucky’s head right beside yours. His breath fanning over your cheek. “Stay upright, sweetheart. Alright? Don’t sit down. Try and move your legs.”

With that order, he brushes a trembling hand against your cheek for a split second before reluctantly letting go of you and storming toward the door again with clenched fists.

Another pang sounds out as Bucky slams his fist against the steel door again, each strike reverberating through the room. His hits are more frantic than before and there is no rhythm at all.

“Come on!” he shouts, his voice cracking.

The door doesn’t budge and he lets out a guttural roar, his fist slamming against the unyielding surface one last time before turning back to you.

You really tried.

You tried to follow his orders and stay upright, perhaps move through the room and keep yourself in motion.

But your knees were so weak and you let them crumble.

With an anguished sound that might have been your name, Bucky rushes back to you, dropping to his knees.

Your head dips forward before jerking back up, fighting to stay conscious.

“No! Y/n! You’re not doing this. Stay with me.”

You try to smile but it’s weak. “I’m just- just tired,” you murmur, voice slurring.

“No,” he snaps, shaking you just enough to make you focus on him. His eyes are wide, frantic. “You don’t get to sleep, you hear me? You sleep, you die!”

He’s pressing you against him, holding you so tightly.

The cold claims your flesh and veins. Your blood feels slowed.

His flesh hand cups your cheek, his thumb brushing against your freezing skin in a way that’s almost tender, though his voice is anything but soft.

“You don’t get to do this to me,” he growls, his lips close to your ear. “You don’t.”

There has been pain. In your toes, your fingers, your ears.

But you feel it fade. And you know you should panic, because this is a terrible sign. But your mind becomes singular in its focus, so obsessed with the absence of heat, the ache of it so intense and pervasive, there is no room for much else.

Exhaustion tries to close your eyes. It weighs you down, trying to make you stop moving at all.

But you fight. You fight against your own body.

Bucky’s flesh hand trembles against you, though whether from the cold or the panic, you’re not sure.

His eyes are jumping across the room, from the control panel, to the vents, to the door, and back to you.

Bucky’s breath comes fast, visible puffs of white in the freezing air. You hear him faintly mutter to himself. Or rather curse.

All you manage is to let out a sigh. The exhale lets a tiny ghost rise before your face. But it fades too quickly. Your breathing began to slow already.

Bucky presses his forehead against yours, rocking you slightly in his lap, tightly cradled against his chest to keep you moving and give you more of his warmth. His stubble brushes against your icy skin.

You meet his eyes, but your gaze is weak.

His gaze is wild. Darting between focus and frenzy. His brows are knit together so tightly, forming deep creases that dig into his forehead like scars of desperation.

“Stick with me, alright? We’ll get outta here,” he breathes. But he barely even managed that. And it sounds more like a plea than a promise.

You nod faintly against him. Your eyes fall shut for a moment.

“No, no, no,” he croaks out, rocking you more forcefully. “Eyes on me, doll! Come on.”

Your eyelids feel frozen together but you manage to break through. Though it takes so much energy.

But looking back at Bucky’s expression might even be harder.

His lips are trembling at the corners. His eyes are glassy and so intense, shimmering with a desperation so vivid, it seems to cry out silently.

“Hold tight, sweetheart.” He swallows. “There’s gotta be somethin’ we can do. Something to stop this.”

His words are fierce, determined, but his gaze says something else entirely as he sweeps his frantic eyes across the room once again.

You’re trying your best to help, scanning the space through the haze clouding your vision, coming from the freezing mist.

You notice something. It’s barely noticeable against the frost-covered wall but the sight of it roots you in place, not from the cold this time.

Since Bucky’s arms are still pressing you to him, he feels you stiffen against his chest. But to be real, he would have noticed if you were across the room. His sharp instincts are always in tune with you, even more so in this freezing hell.

“What is it?” he demands, his voice rough with concern. His flesh fingers brush your face, coaxing your attention back to him. “You got something in mind?”

You don’t meet his eyes. Instead, you shake your head faintly. A weak denial, that falters the second you try to hold onto it.

“Doll,” he warns, his tone low, his desperation edging in. Your silence is unnerving him. “Talk to me. What is it?”

You let out a shallow breath. It’s fragile, just like you, trembling and on the verge of breaking.

Bucky’s grip on you tightens.

“C’mon, sweetheart. I really need you to talk to me.” His voice is strained. “If you’ve got an idea, tell me. Whatever it is, we’ll make it work.”

The frost crackles in the background.

You let out a sigh and nod faintly, reluctantly, toward the corner of the room. Toward the frozen console that glints from the crystals of the ice.

“If we c-can short-circuit that p-panel,” your voice is barely above a whisper, “it might s-stop the c-cold.”

Bucky’s eyes dart to the console the second you mention it, then back to your face, searching it as though he could pull the rest of the plan from your expression alone to spare you the energy to talk.

But your expression falters and his brow is furrowed so tightly it’s hard to look at.

“Okay,” he says slowly. “So what’s the problem?”

You shake your head, your body sagging further into his. He shifts to hold you better but his gaze is fixed on your face. “But-” you struggle, the word escaping you as a faint breath, lips trembling from more than just the cold, “it might fry your arm.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Bucky-”

“No,” he cuts you off, shaking his head firmly, muscles straining in his face. His flesh hand wraps around your shoulders like it could anchor you to him. “I’m bein’ dead serious. I don’t care what happens to me. I don’t care what happens to my arm.”

Those are the words you expected to hear. And you hate them.

His voice is hard, but his gaze softens when he sees your expression. There is something determined there, but also something tender, something so soft, something unshakable that makes you want to bury deep into his chest and never leave it again.

“I’ll be fine, doll. Promise. But I have to do this.” His voice is soft. Gentle. And he lets his lips brush against your cheek.

You try to protest. Try to shake your head. A faint whimper leaves your lips.

“Don’t care what happens to me. Only care about you, doll. And I’ll get you the fuck outta here.”

His hand again cups the side of your face and holds your gaze with so much intensity, blue eyes piercing you more than the cold, it leaves you breathless.

Then, he moves into action, setting you against the wall so carefully, brushing your hair back from your face with a tenderness none of the others had ever seen him with.

“Stay with me,” he murmurs, his voice pleading. So earnest.

You do your best to give him a nod and watch as he strides toward the console.

His broad shoulders block your view for a moment, but you can see the resolution in every movement, the way his metal arm flexes as he tears away the frozen panel with one single tug.

Sparks erupt as he rips at the wires, and the sharp scent of burning metal fills the air.

All you can do is watch with your heart frozen in fear.

The console flickers violently, the room trembling slightly as the system begins to overload.

Bucky grits his teeth. His arm is sparking wildly by forcing the wires together, his entire body braced against the surging energy.

“Come on,” he mutters through clenched teeth, his voice barely audible over the crackling noise. “Come on, shut it down!”

And then, with a resounding hiss, the freezing air stops.

Bucky stumbles back. His metal arm twitches erratically.

“Bucky,” you whisper, fearing for his condition.

He only turns and crosses the room to you in a few strides, pulling you back into his arms.

Your face is pressed against his neck, his lips are by your ear.

“Told you I’ll be fine, doll,” he whispers, his voice a low rasp, thick with relief that feels like it’s been dragged from the depths of his chest. But it’s unsteady. It’s strained. There is a tremor in it that betrays him.

Because you are still so cold.

So cold in fact, it feels no longer like an invader. It becomes everything. It consumes you. It swallows your awareness. Leaving only the faintest sense of resistance. It’s so thin and fragile, you can barely remember why you’re still holding on.

His breath brushes against your temple, warm compared to the chill that has settled into your body. But it’s not enough. Not even close.

Your skin is ice beneath his touch and the tremors that whacked your body before are gone now. It’s quiet. Too quiet.

You can’t tell where your body ends and the cold begins. It’s inside you, crawling through your veins like liquid frost, winding tighter and tighter with every slow beat of your heart.

Your skin doesn’t feel like skin anymore - it feels like glass.

“Hey,” he exclaims a little louder, his flesh hand soothing over your hair in a gesture so gentle it could shatter you into a thousand frozen pieces. “You’re okay. You’re with me. We did it, doll. You did it. The others will know something went wrong. They’ll come looking for us. You just have to hold on a little longer, yeah?”

His breaths are tangled in his words, rushing in too fast or skipping beats entirely. It makes his speech uneven.

But you can’t respond.

You want to reach for him, to speak, to swim in the warmth of his voice. But it’s impossible.

You know he’s holding you. You know he has his arms wrapped around you. You know you are pressed against his chest. The erratic pounding of his heart is by your ear. The weight of your body is resting against him. But it all feels so distant, like trying to recall details of a dream that is already fading from your memory.

Each gasp you try for feels farther apart, each exhale weaker than the last, dissipating into the air like it had never existed at all.

And you know Bucky feels it. Feels the way your body is slipping into a stillness that seems to terrify him enormously.

His breath catches.

“Don’t do this,” he grounds out, voice sharp and urgent. “No. Don’t you dare do this, Y/n!”

His metal arm curls tighter around you, and the steel, usually so cold itself, feels like a furnace compared to the icy skin underneath your suit.

He shifts you in his arms, his movements sluggish and frantic. Your head lolls against his shoulder and his flesh hand is at the back of your neck, fingers threading in your hair.

You feel so heavy. So impossibly heavy. You don’t even know where your hands are. Where your toes are.

“Don’t leave me,” he pleads, his voice cracking.

But your eyelids only flutter. They’re so heavy.

Bucky’s voice is there, somewhere in the muddle of your mind, but the words don’t land right. They sound muffled, like he might speak to you from underwater. Or as though you have fallen too far away to reach him anymore.

Lips press roughly against your temple. His hands try to rub warmth into you.

“No,” he growls, the anger in his tone masking the helplessness that causes him to shake his head and shake your body with it, due to the force, as if sheer denial could change the reality in front of him. “You don’t get to check out on me. Stay with me, Y/n. Fight for me. Come on. I know you can do it. Please! I know you can fight this.”

He gasps between phrases, trying to pull oxygen into lungs that refuse to expand fully, each sound on the verge of dissolving into sobs at any moment.

He buries his face in your hair, squeezing you against him.

“Sweetheart, please,” he cries, his words a single prayer to whoever will listen, so vulnerable and laid bare in a way Bucky Barnes rarely allows himself to be.

It elicits that faint, resilient ember beneath the frost you are succumbing to and you do your best to nurture it. It burns. Just a little. So small. But it’s there. And it burns because of him - because of Bucky.

The hectic rise and fall of his chest against you, the cracks of desperation in his hold on you, the tremble in his voice when he repeats the words stay with me and please, Y/n over and over, as raw and real as the ice in your veins - they make you promise to keep trying to hold on.

And you will. For him.

[wandascrush]

Is it really you?

Pairing: Sharon Carter x f!reader, Avengers x f!reader, Natasha Romanoff x f!reader, HYDRA x f!reader

Part 11 of the DIWK series!

Tag list: @esposadejoyhuerta @kissesfornat @ayrtonwilbury @casquinhaa @womenarehotsstuff @caffeine-pup @seventeen-x @blacatto

Warnings: violence, murder, guns, blood, explosions, fire

It had taken Sharon four months, but she finally found you.

The lead had come from a corrupt Europol contact—one she had to break fingers to get talking.

A flash drive, encrypted with information on something called Project Nightshade. HYDRA had set up an operation deep in the Carpathian Mountains. Remote. Isolated. Off the grid. The kind of place you disappear into and never come out.

It was only when she finished reading that she realized you were the project.

Carter spent weeks monitoring the perimeter, tracking movements, listening to intercepted comms. The base was heavily fortified, tighter than even some old SHIELD black sites. HYDRA wasn't just hiding a prisoner.

They were hiding a prized possession. They were hiding you- Asset Nightshade.

Cold hands tightened around the scope of her sniper rifle, positioned on a high ridge overlooking the facility. She had no backup, no official sanction. Just herself, her weapons, and you at the end of this mission.

She peered through her scope, scanning the compound’s exterior.

Armed patrols at every entrance. Sniper nests on the rooftops.

Security drones circling the perimeter.

Getting in was going to be a nightmare.

Getting out with you?

Even worse.

Her earpiece crackled—an old mercenary contact she had bribed for blueprints.

"Carter, you got about a ten-minute window during shift rotation. After that, they lock it down tight."

Sharon exhaled slowly, lowering her rifle.

Ten minutes. That was all she’d have.

"Ten’s all I need," she muttered, pulling down her mask and slipping down the ridge.

Sharon moved through the forest like a shadow, boots silent against the damp ground. The air was sharp with the scent of pine and rain-soaked earth. She timed her movements with the shifting patrols, slipping between blind spots, ducking beneath sensor towers.

The moment the guard at the back exit turned his head, she struck.

A knife to the throat.

A quiet, clean kill.

She dragged his body into the shadows, stripping him of his access card.

——————-

The facility was a fortress. Deep underground, lined with reinforced steel, the kind of place where things went in and never came out.

But Sharon wasn’t looking for a way in.

She was looking for a way out.

She found you in a cell guarded by two burly men—

The guards fell easily. It was almost disappointing.

You didn’t react when the cell door hissed open.

You should. Your training demands it. But there’s no tension in your shoulders, no shift in posture. Just blankness.

You sit on the metal cot, hands resting on your thighs, still as stone.

Sharon steps in, gun raised, breath tight in her chest.

She barely recognizes you.

Your hair is damp, messy from sweat. Your face thinner. Shadows cling to the hollows of your cheeks, and bruises bloom beneath your skin like wilted roses. But still, Sharon thinks to herself, still beautiful.

“Y/N,” she whispered, her voice tight with urgency.

Your head lifted slightly, eyes unfocused.

Recognition flickered—but not enough.

Sharon’s stomach twisted. They had done something to you.

She knelt beside you, hands gripping your face. “Listen to me. It’s me. It’s Sharon.”

You blinked slowly.

“You’re an intruder.”

Her eyes widened in disbelief.

“No, no, no. Not an intruder, L/N.”

A flicker of softness flashed in your eyes, a moment of recognition from your last name.

Sharon’s voice softens, but only for a second, “Yeah babe, that’s right. It’s me, I’m your friend. And we need to move.”

When you didn’t immediately stand, she pulled you up, throwing your arm over her shoulder.

The moment your legs buckled, she knew—they had weakened you. Drugged you. Rebuilt you.

But they hadn’t taken all of you.

Not yet.

Sharon shoved a gun into your shaking hands. She trusted you wouldn’t hurt her.

“Think you can still shoot?”

Your fingers curled around the grip automatically. Muscle memory. Second nature.

You exhaled shakily.

She watches as your hands flex—calm, methodical—ready for a fight if need be. But there’s no recognition in your face.

No hesitation.

No warmth.

Only the mechanical precision of a weapon awaiting orders.

She swallows hard, her heart breaking in real time.

“Lets get the fuck out of here.”

Your gaze flickers, an almost imperceptible shift, but she catches it

A small crack.

But then, just as quickly, it’s gone.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you say flatly.

Sharon doesn’t hesitate.

She raises her gun and aims it right at your forehead.

“You don’t get a choice.”

Her voice is firm, her grip steady. But inside, she’s terrified.

The alarm blasts through the facility and chaos erupts. The sound of boots running starts to grow close.

They know. Fuck, they’re coming.

Sharon curses under her breath, grabbing your wrist. “Move.”

You don’t resist. Not exactly. But you don’t comply either. Your training demands submission to orders—and right now, there are two voices in your head.

One is Sharon Carter.

The other is the voice of HYDRA. Your maker.

Your steps are too silent, too controlled, moving like a predator as she drags you through the corridors. No fear. No hesitation.

Even in escape, you are efficient.

A beauty designed to obey.

Shots whiz past, bullets pinging off the metal walls as guards flood into the corridors.

Sharon ducks behind cover, returns fire with deadly precision, taking out two men before yanking you down with her. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she snaps. “Help me!”

But you just stare at her.

Your fingers flex—your mind foggy, uncertain. You were always trained to protect, to fight.

And then—

A voice crackles through the HYDRA comms, sharp and authoritative.

“Agent Nightshade. Don’t disobey your makers.”

Your body seizes. Breath hitching.

Another, sickly sweet voice cracks through the comms, “Sister’s Keeper.”

In an instant—your brain goes blank.

Sharon sees it happen. Watches the point of control in your eyes get ripped away.

You strike first.

A kick, inhumanly fast, meant to take her down.

Sharon barely blocks, stumbling backward, disbelief flooding her veins.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N!”

But you’re already moving.

It’s like you can’t even hear her.

Her gun is kicked from her hands before she can react.

The fight is brutal. Precise. You don’t miss.

But neither does she.

You were trained together, years ago. Before the Avengers. Before the lies. Before all of this shit.

Sharon knows your patterns like the back of her hand.

But this dark, grimey, underworld has changed you.

She blocks a blow aimed for her throat—

And makes a split-second decision.

She doesn’t dodge.

Your fist slams into her jaw, and she crumples.

You stand over her, chest heaving, fingers trembling. Your body stills. Your mind flickers. The world slows.

Sharon Carter is on the ground.

You put her there.

The fog in your brain stumbles, just slightly. Something pangs in your chest, not physical pain. But sadness.

Her voice, hoarse, breaks through the static.

“You’re still in there.”

Your vision swims. The alarms blare.

Sharon reaches up, pressing something into your palm. A small silver device.

A trigger.

She gasps, coughing from the impact, but her eyes never leave yours.

“Press it, Y/N.”

Both sides of you are screaming

You press it. And the entire HYDRA facility explodes.

The walls around you shudder, a deep groan echoing through the underground facility as fire licks up the hallways, chasing oxygen like a starving animal.

You’re still standing. Somehow.

Your breath comes out in ragged gasps, and something unfamiliar twists in your chest.

Emotion.

The numbness isn’t gone—but it’s cracking. Fractured.

And Sharon is still there.

She’s coughing, one hand pressed to her ribs, but she’s alive. Alive because you didn’t finish the fight. Alive because you stopped.

She stares at you through the smoke.

“Y/N,” she rasps, voice fraying at the edges. “We have to move.”

You hesitate.

Your body can’t move. The trigger words won’t allow it.

But the base is burning. Second by second, the walls crumble and flame.

And the only voice left in your head now is hers. Samantha’s.

Sharon knows she has little to no time left, and in your frozen state she whips the back of your head with her gun. Your limp body is practically thrown over her shoulder like a rag.

She carries you through the ruins of your prison, her legs are so tired they nearly give out.

You two are so close to an exit tunnel when someone pops out of the smoke and dust.

A slow clap echoes throughout the burning hallways.

“Touching,” Samantha’s voice coos, sickly sweet and venomous. “The rogue little blonde came all this way for the broken one.”

Sharon’s spine goes rigid.

Still holding you in one arm, she slowly reaches into the back of her belt with the other—fingers wrapping around the grip of her sidearm.

Samantha steps through the hallway, firelight dancing along the steel of her knife.

“I should’ve known you’d come for her,” Samantha muses, circling closer. “I always wondered what happened to that little SHIELD rat. The one who didn’t quite belong anywhere. Auntie Peggy must be oh-so disappointed.” She feigns a pout.

“Funny,” Sharon murmurs, rising to her feet and easing your unconscious body gently behind a half-fallen support beam. Her voice is steady. Low. Lethal. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Samantha grins. “She was always going to belong to us. You never stood a chance. Project Nightshade has been years in the making. By coincidence, Y/N came to us, betrayed us, and became our perfect weapon. It was meant to be.”

Sharon lifts her gun.

Samantha lunges.

It’s fast—almost too fast—but Sharon is faster.

The first bullet catches Samantha in the side.

The second one lands in her leg.

She stumbles, but keeps coming, teeth bared, blade flashing. “She’s ours”

Sharon ducks the swing, slams her boot into Samantha’s knee, right as a knife plunges itself into her ribs. A scream rips from her throat but she doesn’t stop, and fires again—this time point-blank.

The bullet tears through her chest.

Samantha staggers, choking on blood.

“I used to tell her about monsters like you,” the blonde slowly walks to look over Samantha’s body.

She tries to speak, but blood is gurgling out of her mouth and nose.

Sharon puts her last bullet between Samantha’s eyes.

She doesn’t look back.

[midnighthazee]

Greenridge ABO Series

Series Masterlist Masterlist

Warnings: Torture, mentions of abuse, mentions of blood, explicit language, name calling, fear, near death experiences....

WC: 1757

Chapter 1

“I have business to handle with the Harlow pack tomorrow. Frankie and Triston are going with me to meet with our allies. I need you here to be in charge of the house while I’m gone.” Alpha Lewis says to Hayes.

“You got it. I will keep you updated.” Hayes nodded his head.

“I know nothing will really be going on around here but I will be gone for a few days. Maids should be here to clean at 9 am… Oh and uh, make sure they feed the omegas. I think they forgot yesterday.” Lewis rolled his eyes as if it was silly for them to have forgotten.

“Surprised I can’t hear their stomachs growling from up here.” Milo chuckled, walking into the room.

“Y’all two stay out of trouble this time. Last time you burned down my shed.” Lewis pointed a finger at Milo.

“Hey…it was old anyways. We built you a nicer one.” Milo said.

“Yeah so I don’t want to lose this one either.” Lewis said, leaving the room.

Lewis is Alpha to the Nyko pack. A pack known for its ruthless leader, large numbers, and murderous ways. Alpha Lewis took over two of the neighboring packs, making them all submit to his rule. Anyone who refused, he slaughtered in front of their family. In doing so, he grew vastly in territory and numbers, now having nearly fifty members loyal to him. No one dares cross him, for a war could break out - most of the surrounding packs don’t even come close to the numbers he has. 

For the most part, any remaining packs that neighbor his territory live in harmony with him. They stay on their land and out of his way and he doesn’t overtake their land.

Alpha Lewis’s immediate pack consists of a lesser alpha, five betas and three omegas. The lesser alpha is his younger brother as well as one of the betas. The rest of the people under his rule live in their own dwellings and not in his house like the immediate pack. A few members of the pack share rooms but the omegas are kept locked up in the basement.

Nightfall was approaching as Hayes and Milo unlocked the padlock on the basement door. Alpha Lewis had left late morning and should be in Harlow territory by now. Which means he’s far away and off-the grid for the rest of the night. He will probably check in tomorrow morning but for now, the boys were home with just the omegas. The two other betas left behind decided to go see a movie in town.

The basement was half finished. The unfinished part had prison looking cells - one for each omega and an extra. Cement walls and flooring with reinforced steel bars in the front. The walls and floors were damp from leaks, the air smelling of piss and mildew. Each cell had a metal cot with a thin mat on a wire frame, a hole in the ground for them to relieve themselves, and a chain embedded into the wall and connected at the ankle of the omega inside.

The omegas were filthy, hair matted, and covered in injuries and bruises both old and new. They cowered into the back corner as the young alpha and beta appeared. They stopped at one of the female’s door. It was their favorite omega - YOU. You whined, pushing yourself further into the back wall, but they just laughed. 

“C’mon bitch….we wanna play.” Milo taunted.

Hayes opened your door and stepped inside. You cowered in the corner, shaking and shying away as he unlocked the cuff on your ankle. Then he snatched you up and guided you out. You winced in pain as he forced you to walk. You knew Alpha Lewis must be gone if they decided to “play” with you. They only took you out to play when he wasn’t home to boss them around and keep them busy. So they use you to stay entertained.

You endured whatever game they came up with, knowing no one would take your side or care what they did to you. Their latest interest is a game of hunting. And it seemed like it would be the same game again tonight as they led you through the living room towards the back door.

Wincing at the bright lights, you looked down and tried not to trip over your own feet as you walked. Your limbs hurt, you were tired and hungry, and you were not in the mood to entertain them. Not that you ever were, but most nights they bring you out, you use it to your advantage and study the terrain. One day you will escape, and when you do, you will know how to get away. But tonight, you didn’t have it in you.

“Alright bitch… run.” Milo commanded with an eager smile.

Your feet were heavy and you felt like doing anything but running. All the walking made you lightheaded honestly and you wanted to just curl up and die. You drop to the floor, sitting as your hands support you from fully laying on the floor.

They both sigh dramatically.

“I think she needs some motivation..” Hayes says.

Milo pulls a gun from the back of his pants. It was a BB gun, modified to have a stronger shot and shoot bigger pellets. He aims it at you, touching the side of your head. Your breath catches in your throat as you slowly turn to see the barrel of the gun aimed at you. Hayes flashed his BB gun too.

“I got new pellets…” Milo wiggles his eyebrows. “They are silver.”

Hayes whips his head to his brother, brows furrowed.

“So… run.” Milo growls.

You scramble to your feet and take off, knowing too much silver will kill you. You hear the pop of the gun and hear the whoosh of a pellet go by your ear. He just missed you. You run into the treeline, heading for cover in the woods.

“Silver?! Are you nuts? We aren’t out here to kill her.” Hayes speaks lowly. 

“Relax… I won't hit her much. I just want to use these special ones here.” Milo holds out a gloved hand with pellets in it.

“Why are they blue?” Hayes reaches for one.

“Don’t touch without gloves. Each one contains a small dose of cobalt.”

Hayes steps back quickly. “What the hell?”

“I have an antidote. I’m not gonna kill her.” Milo rolls his eyes.

“Silver is one thing Milo, but cobalt?” Hayes lectures. “Lewis can’t find out we do this when he’s away…remember?”

“She’s getting away, c’mon.” Milo says, running into the woods after you.

This went on for over an hour. They would get too close when you stopped to catch your breath, which was often, and you would feel the pellets pierce your skin. The pain kept the adrenaline pumping, pushing you to get up from behind whatever tree or bush you were using to hide and keep running. This was the first time they used silver pellets. Most of the time the regular pellets hurt enough to keep you running away, especially when they got too close. But this pain was much worse. 

One of the first times they decided to play their little hunting game with you, you decided that the pain wasn’t worth all the running. You refused to play along and in turn you were badly beaten - worse than the pellets would have been. They threatened to tell Alpha Lewis and when that didn’t scare you enough (because you knew he wasn’t home), they took to beating you. They broke three ribs and your leg. The healing was excruciating and took longer than it should have thanks to the terrible living conditions and lack of food.

They must have explained to Alpha Lewis what happened when he was gone because he didn’t say anything about your injuries and was more irritated with you than usual. He also withheld a few meals from you and kept you locked in the basement and used the other omegas for his fun for a while. From that day forward, she knew not to underestimate the brothers, or the absence of their alpha.

You ran as fast as your legs would go, the ground beneath your bare feet feeling like glass shards with every step. You huffed as you weaved between the trees and bushes.  You could feel the branches slashing at your skin as you ran past but you didn’t let it stop you. Plus the cover of night made it nearly impossible to see anything or where you were going.

As you ran, the world felt as if it began to tilt. You blinked and shook your head trying to focus. It didn’t work and you lost your footing, stumbling forward. You hit the ground with a thud, knocking the air from your lungs. You cough, trying to breathe in air as your heart pounded.

“We can smell your blood.” Hayes taunted.

Forcing yourself to stand, your limbs feel heavy. Wincing as you stand, you stumble as you try to stand straight. What was happening? Was this because you hadn’t eaten in like two days? You heard a branch snap behind you. Whipping your head around, you don’t see anything. They sounded close so you took off again. 

As you run, you begin to slow. It feels as if you're trudging through mud. You push with all your might but you don’t feel right. Looking around, you realize you’re not on your usual path. These trees haven’t been marked by you from the previous nights. There’s no dirt path beneath you either - at least that you can see in the darkness of the woods. Looking around, you were definitely lost. Fear creeped up as your stomach churned.

You run, hoping you can circle back to the path, afraid to run into any neighboring territories. Alpha warned you of the awful things they would do if they found you unwelcomed on their land. Shivering at the thought, your eyes feel heavy. You push through your head as it spins but it’s no use. You stumble over a tree root and tumble forward.

You reach a hill and manage to tumble down the ferns and ivy. Your body hits the ground with a thud and you feel yourself slipping into darkness, your whole body screaming at you in pain. When the brothers do find you, you are definitely going to pay for this.

TAGLIST:

@its-the-solar-system @estella-novella

[torillatavataan]

In collaboration with the Dnistrianskyi Center, Euromaidan Press presents this English-language adaptation of Dariia Cherniavska’s analysis on Finland’s role in Ukraine’s defense, recovery, and pursuit of justice.

Read the full article by Euromaidan Press here! The following is abridged.

Finland’s military assistance to Ukraine has grown significantly in both scale and purpose. Notably, Finland is one of the few countries that allows Ukraine to use its supplied weapons on Russian territory, reinforcing its firm stance on Ukraine’s right to defend itself beyond its borders.

In 2025, Finland launched a procurement program to supply Ukraine with new weapons manufactured domestically. This dual-purpose approach supports Ukraine’s defense needs and bolsters Finland’s own arms sector. These joint projects signal a shift from reactive aid to strategic co-production, building capacity for long-term defense.

Finland is a core participant in EU and UK-led training missions providing over 200 instructors to train Ukrainian troops in combat tactics and command skills.

Finland has been active in enforcing EU sanctions against Russia and finding ways to redirect frozen Russian assets. With European partners, it supported new frameworks to use the interest generated from frozen central bank assets for Ukrainian military and humanitarian purposes.

Modern warfare is digital, and Finland recognizes the threat. Through the IT Coalition, Finland has helped Ukraine reinforce its military communications and cybersecurity infrastructure.

In 2025, Finland also co-founded the Shelter Coalition to help Ukraine build modern bomb shelters, modeled after Finland’s own civil defense network. With 5,500 public shelters in Helsinki alone, Finland is sharing proven expertise in protecting civilians.

Ukraine is now one of the most mined countries on Earth. Finland has backed the Demining Coalition, supporting mine clearance through funding, equipment, and training.

Finland has also played a key role in helping stabilize Ukraine’s energy grid, particularly following Russian attacks on critical infrastructure.

Finland is also co-funding projects to upgrade Ukrainian infrastructure to EU standards, including investments in water safety, soil health, and energy efficiency.

Finland backs the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression and actively supports the International Coalition for the Return of Ukrainian Children. Finland also contributes to broader international efforts to pursue legal redress for war crimes.

In April 2024, Finland signed a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, locking in long-term commitments on defense cooperation, training, and industrial collaboration.

Finland’s support for Ukraine is strategic, sustained, and grounded in action. It reflects a clear understanding: Ukraine’s security is Europe’s security. From weapons deliveries and joint production, to civil protection, legal accountability, and postwar planning, Finland has become more than an ally—it’s a model for modern wartime partnership.

As other countries weigh how far to go in supporting Ukraine, Finland shows what full-spectrum commitment looks like—from battlefield to courtroom, and from frontline defense to long-term rebuilding.

[wachinyeya]

An intuitive piece of hardware is collecting days’ worth of renewable energy from airplane engine exhaust before take-off from a Dallas airport.

“Boarding is completed” is a common refrain heard over the intercom system in the moments before taxiing to the runway.

At that moment, the pilot will begin a series of engine tests and pre-flight checks during which time the turbine engines are idling with their ferocious noise and exhaust fumes.

A company called JetWind has realized that all that idling force is like the strong winds needed to power a wind turbine, and has built a series of pods that can capture it during the 5-10 minutes the aircraft is sitting at the gate waiting for clearance to taxi.

“The main goal of our project is to harness the consistent wind created by jets and convert it into an eco-friendly energy source,” JetWind’s founder and president Dr. T. O. Souryal told Interesting Engineering.

“What was once considered wasted energy can now benefit energy grids, ultimately promoting smarter and more sustainable infrastructure across the globe.”

Three years of testing between 2021 and 2024 have informed the official deployment of JetWind’s flagship product at Dallas Love Field airport. 13 sets of pods will sit beneath the gate hooked up to external batteries that connect to the grid the airport uses. Solar panels add to the energy generation, and the whole set can create about 30 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, enough to power a family home for a few days.

While on its own it isn’t nearly what the average airport will consume during a day of operations, when combined with 12 other systems just like it, it can make a serious difference in reducing the carbon footprint of the building.

“Dallas Love Field has always been a hub of progress, and the introduction of JetWind’s Energy Capturing Pods reinforces its position as a testing ground for innovative technologies,” said former Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert.

“By converting man-made wind into energy, we are highlighting Dallas as a leader in sustainable solutions and proving that cities can take significant steps toward tackling global energy challenges.”

The debut of the JetWind pods at Love Field has attracted attention from around the globe, including companies and governments from Switzerland, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Ecuador, the UK, France, and Australia.

[armpirate]

Until You're Mine || Choi San | Ch. 19

MASTERLIST Previous || Next

Pairings: Mafia!San x fem!reader

Genre: smut, angst, fluff, obsession, mafia love

Warnings: dom!San, sub!reader, explicit language, mention of drug and guns, violence, rough sex.

Summary: San, a notorious and feared mafia boss, has always lived in the shadows of power and violence. When an ambush leaves him wounded and on the run, he finds refuge in an empty event hall. Inside, Y/n, a rising star in the world of event planning, is nursing her own wounds -a career on the line after a confrontation with a powerful client. The last thing she expects is for her night to take a dark turn when San stumbles into her life, bloodied and dangerous.

Despite the fear and uncertainty, Y/n can't turn away. She helps him clean up, binding more than just his wounds in the process. What begins as an intense, chance encounter spirals into a dangerous obsession. San, used to being the hunter, becomes fixated on the one woman who dared to help him, even in his darkest moment. Meanwhile, Y/n, caught in the mystery of that powerful man, finds herself tracking his every move, unable to shake the dangerous allure of his world.

Neither knows that their fascination with each other is mutual. In a city teeming with danger, power, and deceit, their secret obsessions will pull them deeper into a deadly game -one where love, power, and obsession intertwine, and nothing is as it seems.

Chapter duration: 20 minutes

Chapter warnings: Explicit language, teasing, smut, unprotected sex

The metal door hissed shut behind them, locking out the warmth of the apartment and sealing them into something colder, realer.

The underground garage was dimly lit, shadows stretching long across polished concrete. Rows of sleek vehicles sat in still silence, but San didn't hesitate. He moved with unflinching purpose, the click of his boots echoing like a countdown.

Y/n kept pace beside him, her arms folded, eyes sharp. She didn't ask where they were going. Didn't demand answers.

She just followed -silent, steady, unshaken.

And San felt it in his chest, like a second heartbeat.

He reached the matte black car near the far wall, thumbed the remote, and the locks clicked open. The headlights blinked once, a brief flash of light that caught the edge of his profile -jaw clenched, gaze straight ahead.

He opened the door for her, a wordless gesture. Not polite. Possessive.

Y/n slid inside without hesitation, the leather seat cool beneath her. She didn't even glance at him.

San circled to the driver's side and got in, the engine growling to life beneath his palm. No music. No words. Just the low hum of the car and the press of something between them: tension, heat, whatever this thing was becoming.

He glanced at her once before pulling out into the night. She was already watching him, and she didn't look away.

That... that made his knuckles tighten around the steering wheel before he'd even touched it.

The blacked-out car slid to a stop in front of an unmarked building on the outskirts of the city: no signs, no windows, just reinforced steel and silence. The night air was colder here, sharp and biting as San stepped out first, scanning the area with a glance sharp enough to draw blood.

Y/n followed.

She didn't ask where they were. She already knew that wasn't just a warehouse, it was one of his places. Off-grid. Hidden from the city, from the authorities, from the world. The kind of place where secrets were kept and bodies never got found.

As they entered, two men stood by the door. One was tall and broad, clearly armed; the other, leaner, with sharp eyes that flicked from San to Y/n and then quickly away, sensing her weight in the room.

No one questioned her presence. They knew better.

Inside, the warehouse opened into organized chaos: boxes stacked high, tables cluttered with weapons and gear, flickering monitors against the far wall. San didn't hesitate. He walked like he owned the ground, like gravity bent for him, and Y/n stayed close, her heels echoing behind him.

One of the men stepped forward with a grim face and a nod.

—Boss. He's not here.

San stilled. His jaw ticked.

—But we found this.

The man handed him something wrapped in a black cloth. San unfolded it slowly, revealing a single item: a silver ring: twisted and half-burned, the symbol engraved on it warped but still visible. A wolf's head.

Y/n watched from behind him. She didn't speak, but she felt the change in the air. Whatever this was, it wasn't just a clue.

It was a message.

San's thumb brushed over the edge of the ring, eyes narrowing. For a moment, he said nothing. Then, he turned his back to the table and walked away, down the hall behind the warehouse office. Y/n followed without being asked.

The corridor was narrow, dimly lit with humming fluorescents. At the end, he stopped. Leaned against the wall, jaw tight, fingers still wrapped around the ring.

She stood a few feet away, arms crossed, quiet.

He looked at her like he was seeing her again for the first time.

—Most people wouldn't have made it past the front door tonight —he muttered, voice low—. Let alone stood there like it was nothing.

—Should I have screamed? —she tilted her head, her gesture faking innocent, but also radiating a cockiness in her that was new for him— Most people wouldn't have dared to kidnap the boss of the city, but I did —she shrugged.

He let out a quiet scoff, shaking his head. Of course his woman was nothing like he'd expect from anyone else. Despite her gentle and kind exterior, the darkness she kept buried radiated once he looked close enough. Which made her even more dangerous.

—What I meant is... I just... figured you'd at least ask what this means.

—I know what it means —she replied—. It means someone wants to get a reaction from you.

His gaze darkened.

She took a slow step closer.

—But it didn't work —she added.

Another step. Now she was within reach. He looked down at her, the hallway too quiet, too full.

—You're not scared of me? —he asked, voice softer this time, testing, searching for something.

Y/n's lips parted in a slow smirk, her tone dipping into a purr.

—No —she stepped closer, barely inches between them now—. I'm turned on by you.

San didn't breathe. Her fingers slid up the lapel of his coat, smooth and deliberate.

—The guns, the silence, the way your men look at you like you're the only law that matters... yet you look at me that exact same way. Like I'm the only law that matters —her hand curled into his collar—. You think that scares me?

San grabbed her wrist, not to push her away, but to steady himself. His grip was tight. Possessive.

—You don't know what you're playing with —he warned, voice rough.

She leaned up, her breath brushing his mouth.

—I'm not playing.

His head tipped forward like he was going to kiss her -hard, rough, claiming-, but he didn't. Instead, he pulled away just enough to stare at her.

—You're going to be the fucking death of me.

She smiled.

—Then I hope it's slow.

And somehow, in that dark hallway, surrounded by everything dangerous and wrong...

they both knew, this wasn't lust anymore. It was never lust. It was devotion.

Mad, fucked-up, beautiful devotion.

San had disappeared into a back room with two of his men, voices low, sharp, too far for her to make out but close enough to know something had shifted.

Y/n wandered slowly through the open space of the warehouse, part of her cataloging the layout, part of her deliberately letting the quiet settle. She wasn't there to get in the way, but she wasn't going to pretend she wasn't thinking either.

The table she stopped at was cluttered. Papers, files, schematics. Someone had left them in a rush. Maybe assuming she wouldn't understand.

But she did.

Her eyes moved quickly, scanning pages half-folded, highlighted. A name jumped out first.

Isham Mathews.

The logo beneath it, a stylized phoenix curling around a serpent, made her heart stutter for a second. She'd seen that before.

Not here.

Not in San's office.

In her own.

At work.

Two weeks back, a client had come in looking for a full-service package for their luxury brand, at some point they even asked for exclusivity. Her company handled high-profile accounts all the time, and the request hadn't raised alarms then, just like she wasn't surprised by the entitlement to demand her service. It had been pushed through quickly, barely reviewed. She remembered the name now.

Isham Mathews. Charming. Soft-spoken. Clean suits and expensive smiles. He had complimented her obsidian necklace.

Y/n's fingers tightened around the edge of the file.

Because now she was staring at a document that listed Isham Mathews under "person of interest."

Below his name: Suspected intel laundering, arms distribution, unconfirmed connection to The Lisbon Fire. A red circle over his photo.

Enemy.

She straightened.

That wasn't just a coincidence. San hadn't just been watching her for fun. Someone else had been trying to get close to her, too. Trying to use her. Her breath left her in a slow, steady exhale. Not panic. Not fear. Just a new understanding. She was a pawn, and she hadn't even known it.

—Y/n.

She turned sharply at the sound of his voice. San stood a few feet away, his expression unreadable, but his eyes dropped to the paper in her hand, and in that instant, she saw it. The shift. He hadn't meant for her to find that, but he also wasn't surprised.

—You knew —she said, voice calm, almost distant—. You knew he came to me.

—I suspected when Wooyoung caught his men asking around about your company —he said—. Now I know.

She looked down at the file again.

—You didn't stop it.

—No —he said simply.

—Why?

San stepped closer. Slowly.

—Because I wanted to see what he wanted from you.

Her head tilted.

—And what if he got too close?

His eyes darkened.

—He didn't.

—But what if he had? —she insisted, there was silence on his side as an answer. Y/n exhaled through her nose, steady. Her gaze didn't waver— So I'm a liability.

—No —San said—. You're the fucking reason I'm ten steps ahead.

The silence between them pulsed. And for the first time, Y/n realized it wasn't just about obsession, it wasn't about control. It was about war. And somehow, she was already in the middle of it.

Y/n simply sighed, fixing her eyes on him.

—So, to get ten steps ahead, you put me in danger?

San looked up, as if scandalized by what she was saying. His frown deepened the longer he looked into her eyes, noticing the loss of trust for a second.

—You weren't in danger.

—How do you kn...

—Because the second you had been in danger, that fucker would've ended with a bullet in his skull —he interrupted her, not flinching for a second—. The second he had gotten too close, I'd have made him regret ever laying a finger on you. Everyone in this city knows you're off limits, and god pray whoever doesn't follow that —before she could realize it, he was too close. His cologne flooded her nostrils—. You're mine. In every sense of the world. You're mine to worship, mine to adore, mine to fuck, mine to control. But you're also mine to protect and make sure you're safe. You're mine, which means no one looks in your direction until I allow them to.

Looking over her head, San was able to catch the curious glances from some of his men in their direction. He held her hand before continuing, fingers wrapping around her wrist to get her somewhere private.

The room San had led her into was quiet, too quiet. No screens, no voices in her ear. Just the heavy pulse of fluorescent lights overhead and the low buzz of electricity running under the walls. Some kind of office tucked inside the warehouse, stripped bare except for a desk, a few monitors, and the lingering scent of steel and smoke.

Y/n stood near the door. San paced.

His jaw was clenched, one hand buried in his hair, the other balled into a fist that relaxed only to clench again. There was something contained about the way he moved, like if he didn't keep walking, he might explode.

Y/n didn't speak at first. She just watched.

But he did.

—You don't understand what I'm protecting you from —he said finally, not looking at her.

—Maybe I don't want you to protect me —her voice was even—. Stop trying to protect me.

He stopped for a few seconds.

She stepped forward.

—Let me be part of it.

That's what did it. That sharp pivot of his body. The silence that thickened like a storm cell about to split wide open.

—Do you have any idea what you're saying? —San's voice dropped, dark and low.

—I do —she didn't flinch.

He stalked closer, slow but lethal.

—This isn't some game, Y/n. You think you're ready because you handled one file? Because you didn't scream when you saw a gun? —he stopped just in front of her, his presence a wall of heat and fury and restraint.

—So, getting me close to an enemy isn't dangerous all of a sudden? —she cut him off.

—You don't know what I've done to get here. What I've done to stay alive.

—I don't care.

—You should.

She met his eyes without blinking.

—But I don't.

A breath caught in his throat. She saw it: the flicker in his expression, the muscle in his jaw twitching like he was trying not to feel what her words did to him. And then it was there again, the tension that had started in his hidden office, followed them through the garage, into the car, and now pulsed between them like a third presence in the room.

—Y/n —her name came out rough.

She reached for him anyway, fingers grazing the hem of his jacket, sliding up to press flat against his chest. His heart was racing.

—You said you've done terrible things —she whispered, stepping even closer—. So have I. The difference is, I don't have the harsh looks that give them away.

His hand caught her wrist again, but not like before. This time it was harder, desperate. Like if he didn't stop her, he'd break. Their faces were close, too close. His breath hitched when hers touched his lips.

—You keep pushing me —he murmured.

—I want you to break —she whispered.

And then it was almost a kiss. Almost.

His nose brushed hers. His lips hovered, parted. His fingers gripped her like he was at war with himself. And still... they held back. Because they both knew, when that line broke, they wouldn't stop.

Not this time.

So San stepped back. Barely. Breathing hard. His hands were still on her. His voice was raw.

—Not here. Not now.

Y/n's eyes burned into him.

—Then take me somewhere you won't stop.

And that... That nearly undid him.

Their lips met in a furious dance, a collision of desire and devotion, pouring into it every want he had tried to contain as he drove to his place. His hands, now tangled in her hair, pulled her closer, deeper into the kiss. She could taste the cigar on his tongue, the dark, intoxicating flavor of him. She moaned, her body pressing against his, feeling the hard length of him through the thin fabric of her t-shirt. He responded with a groan, his hands moving to her hips, grinding her against him, a silent promise of what was to come. The city below them faded away, the world reduced to the two of them, lost in a storm of passion that threatened to consume them whole.

San's breath ragged from their intense kiss, and he suddenly broke away, his eyes gleaming with a dark promise.

—I need you —she managed to gasp.

—I need you, too —he growled, his voice a raw, primal thing.

He didn't wait for a response, instead, he scooped her up, backing her up against the wall next to the entrance door, his body pressing against hers, pinning her in place. His hands, those powerful, calloused hands, cupped her face, tilting her head up to meet his gaze.

—Look at me, Y/n —he commanded, his voice a low, husky rumble—. I want you to look at me all the time when I'm not kissing you.

His lips crashed down onto hers, his tongue invading her mouth, exploring, tasting, claiming. His hands moved, one tangling in her hair, the other moving down to grip her ass, pulling her flush against him, and immediately causing her to moan out loud during the kiss. She could feel him, hard and ready, pressing against her belly. He grinded against her, a slow, deliberate motion, a silent promise of what was to come.

—You feel that, angel? —he murmured against her lips, his voice laced with a dark satisfaction— That's what you do to me. You make me fucking insane.

San's hands moved to the hem of her pants, his fingers tracing the edge, a soft, teasing touch that sent shivers down her spine.

—I've been dreaming of this, Y/n —he confessed, his voice a low, intimate whisper—. Of you, under me, around me, screaming my name —he pushed his hand down, his fingers brushing against the edge of her panties—. I'm going to make you feel so good, angel —he promised, his voice a dark, seductive purr—. I'm going to make you come so hard, you'll forget your own name—he slipped under her panties, his fingers finding her wet, ready. He groaned, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure—. Fuck, Y/n —he hissed, his fingers moving in a slow, steady rhythm—. You're so ready for me, aren't you?

He captured her mouth in a searing kiss, his tongue mimicking the motion of his fingers, a silent, explicit promise of what was to come.

San, with a growl that was equal parts hunger and reverence, scooped Y/n up into his arms, carrying her towards his bedroom. The penthouse was a symphony of luxury, but his bedroom was a masterpiece, a sanctuary of opulence and desire. The four-poster bed dominated the room, draped in rich, velvet curtains that shimmered in the soft glow of the bedside lamps. The air was filled with the scent of sandalwood and the faintest hint of her perfume, a heady combination that made his heart pound in his chest. He laid her down gently, his eyes never leaving hers, in a way to give her all the comfort she could look for.

He stepped back, his gaze roaming over her body, a slow, deliberate perusal that made her squirm under his intense scrutiny.

—You're beautiful —he murmured, his voice a low, husky rumble.

He reached out, his fingers tracing the neckline of her t-shirt, a soft, tantalizing touch that made her gasp. He leaned down, his lips following the path of his fingers, his tongue darting out to taste her skin. He could feel her heart racing under his touch, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

Slowly, he took it off, with it being followed by her jeans, his fingers brushed against her thighs as he pulled it down, baring her to his hungry gaze. He groaned, a sound of pure, unadulterated pleasure, as he took in the sight of her, her body flushed and ready, her eyes filled with a desire that matched his own. He leaned down, his lips finding hers in a searing kiss, a silent way to try to calm down her nerves, always giving her something else to think about. He broke away, his eyes never leaving hers as he reached for the zipper of his pants, a slow, deliberate motion that made her bite her lip in anticipation. He stepped out of them, and, while still standing, he unbuttoned his shirt to take it off, his body bare and ready, a sight that made her breath hitch in her throat.

Y/n herself could hear the loud gulp in her throat when he moved his boxers down, and never before in her life she had ever felt so attracted to a man.

He crawled onto the bed, his body hovering over hers, his eyes filled with a possessive hunger.

—You're mine —Y/n managed to whisper before he could.

He leaned down, a smirk curving up his lips before finding hers in a kiss that was both tender and fierce, a confession of the passion he had been holding back just for her. He broke away, his lips trailing down her body, a slow, worshipful path that made her arch into his touch, taking off every fabric that could come in between his wish to touch her. He reached her breasts, his hands cupping them, his thumbs brushing against her nipples, a soft, teasing touch that made her moan. He smiled, a slow, predatory curve of his lips. He leaned down, his lips finding her nipple, his tongue darting out to taste her, to tease her, to worship her. He could feel her body responding, her hips arching into his touch, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He smiled, a slow, satisfied curve of his lips, loving every little response he managed to steal from her. He moved down, his lips trailing down her body, his hands following the curve of her hips, her thighs, her calves. He reached her feet, his lips finding the arch, his tongue darting out to taste her, to tease her, to worship her. He could feel her body trembling, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. He moved back up, his body hovering over hers, his eyes filled with a possessive hunger.

He took less than a few seconds to reach out for a condom on the nightstand, wrapping himself with the latex to settle between her legs once more. He reached down, his fingers finding her, stroking her, teasing her, worshiping her. He could feel her body responding, her hips arching into his touch, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. San broke away, resting his forehead against hers just to be able to watch her up close, his eyes never leaving hers as he positioned himself at her entrance, his body ready, his heart pounding in his chest.

—Are you ready? —he murmured, his voice a low, husky rumble.

She could only nod, her voice stolen by the intensity of his gaze, the raw passion that radiated from him like a physical force. He smiled, a slow, predatory curve of his lips, before kissing her back again as he pushed into her, feeling her tightness envelop him.

Y/n's nails dug on his shoulders as she felt a burning pain for a second, managing to let out a silent whine as she tried to let go of the slight pain. He paused, allowing her to adjust, his gaze locked onto hers.

—Breathe, angel —he whispered, his voice a soft caress—. You're doing so well.

Y/n nodded, her eyes never leaving his, as she took a deep breath, feeling a mix of discomfort and pleasure. He took a few seconds more, before he saw the way her body relaxed under his. Only then, San began to move, his strokes slow and steady, his body trembling with the effort to maintain control.

—Talk to me, Y/n —he urged, his voice a low rumble—. Tell me how it feels.

—It's... —Y/n bit her lip, her eyes fluttering closed—. It's... it's intense —she gasped, her fingers digging into his back—. I can feel every inch of you.

San groaned, his hips picking up a slow, steady rhythm.

—Fuck, Y/n —he hissed, his body tensing as he fought to hold back—. You're so tight, so perfect.

Y/n moaned, her body arching into his, her nails raking down his back.

—San, it's... it's too much —she panted, her body trembling.

—Too much? —San immediately slowed down, concern etched on his face.

Y/n shook her head, a small smile playing on her lips.

—No, not too much —she clarified, her voice a soft whisper—. Just... overwhelming. In the best way.

San smiled, relief flooding his features. He leaned down, his lips finding hers in a soft, tender kiss.

—I've got you, angel —he murmured, his voice a low promise—. We'll take this as slow as you need.

He began to move again, his strokes taking an even slower movement, as he waited for her to guide him to move faster. And when she did, when she felt like she'd be going insane if she didn't feel him completely, his body started rocking against hers. Y/n moaned, her body arching into his, her fingers tangling in his hair.

All of her fantasies, everything she had dreamed of weren't a blurry image in her head. They were a reality threatening to consume her whole and make her addicted.

—San, I... I think I'm going to... —she gasped, her body tensing.

San groaned, his hips picking up a steady rhythm, his body tensing as he felt her tighten around him.

—Cum for me, angel —he urged, his voice a low growl—. Let go.

Y/n screamed, her body convulsing as she came, her nails digging into his back. San followed soon after, his body tensing as he emptied himself into her, his lips capturing hers in a searing kiss. They stayed like that, their bodies entwined, their breaths mingling, as they came down from their high. San pulled back, his eyes filled with a soft, tender love.

—Are you okay, baby? —he asked, his voice a soft caress.

Y/n smiled, her eyes shining with unshed tears.

—I'm perfect —she whispered, her voice filled with emotion.

San smiled, his heart swelling with love and pride. He leaned down, his lips finding hers in a soft, tender kiss.

The room was quiet, save for the soft hum of the city bleeding in through the tinted windows.

San lay on his side, head propped up by one hand, his other lazily tracing invisible patterns along the curve of her bare spine. Y/n was curled into him, half-draped across his chest, her fingers resting just above his heart like she was claiming it. Neither of them spoke for a while. There was nothing to say that hadn't already been carved into skin and breath and whispered curses between gasps.

—You're dangerous —she murmured against his collarbone, voice heavy with sleep and satisfaction.

San huffed a quiet laugh, his lips brushing her temple.

—You're the one who bit me.

—You liked it.

—I'm still bleeding.

She smirked without opening her eyes.

—Then don't tempt me next time.

His hand slid up to cradle the back of her head, fingers threading through her hair, gently pulling until she tilted her face toward him. Their eyes met: tired, warm, still burning.

—You wreck me —he said, softer now.

No games. No mask.

—You watched me for months —she replied, just as soft—. You were wrecked before I ever touched you.

San laughed again, but it was quieter this time -fond, raw.

—God, I'm so fucked.

She smiled against his chest.

—Good. Because I won't be the only one fucked up because of you.

For a moment, all the chaos outside -the warnings, the danger, the blood- faded into something distant.

In that room, there were only them. Tangled sheets, tangled hearts, a slow descent into something neither of them could come back from. And neither of them wanted to.

Taglist: @a-tiny-thing , @brown88

[magickkate]

Today, let's delve into the essential practice of shielding—a powerful technique in witchcraft for protecting your energy, maintaining spiritual boundaries, and warding off negative influences. Whether you're new to witchcraft or seeking to deepen your energetic practices, mastering the art of shielding can enhance your magical journey. Join me as we explore the significance, methods, and practical applications of shielding in your spiritual practice.

Understanding Shielding in Witchcraft

Shielding is a technique used to create and maintain a protective barrier around oneself or a specific space. This energetic barrier acts as a shield against unwanted energies, psychic intrusions, and external influences that may drain or harm your energy field. Shielding not only safeguards your personal energy but also fosters a sense of security, clarity, and empowerment in your magical work.

Significance of Shielding

Energy Protection: Shielding creates a barrier that filters and repels negative or intrusive energies, allowing you to maintain a balanced and harmonious energy field.

Spiritual Boundaries: Establishing shields helps define and maintain boundaries between your energy and external influences, promoting a sense of autonomy and spiritual sovereignty.

Empowerment: Shielding enhances your ability to navigate energetic environments, interact with others, and engage in magical practices with confidence and clarity.

Methods of Shielding

Visualization Techniques:

Bubble of Light: Visualize surrounding yourself with a bubble or sphere of protective light. Imagine this light as a barrier that filters out negativity while allowing positive energies to flow freely.

Aura Strengthening:

Aura Awareness: Focus on strengthening your aura—the energy field surrounding your body—by visualizing it expanding and becoming more vibrant and resilient.

Elemental Shields:

Elemental Associations: Invoke elemental energies (earth, air, fire, water, and spirit) to create shields tailored to specific needs. For example, earth shields for grounding and stability, fire shields for courage and protection, and water shields for emotional cleansing and flow.

Crystal Shields:

Crystal Allies: Use crystals such as black tourmaline, amethyst, or obsidian to reinforce your shields. Carry or wear crystals or create grids around your space to amplify protective energies.

Sigils and Symbols:

Energetic Seals: Create sigils or symbols that represent protection and empowerment. Charge these symbols with your intention and visualize them as shields that surround and safeguard you.

Mental Focus:

Mindfulness: Maintain mindfulness and focus on your intention to shield yourself. Cultivate awareness of your energy field and any shifts or intrusions.

Practical Applications of Shielding

Daily Protection: Shield yourself at the beginning of each day to maintain energetic balance and resilience.

Social Interactions: Use shielding techniques before entering crowded or energetically charged environments to shield against absorbing others' energies.

Magical Rituals: Shield during rituals to maintain focus, protect sacred space, and enhance the potency of your magical work.

Emotional Resilience: Shield during times of emotional vulnerability or stress to prevent energy drain and maintain emotional equilibrium.

Spiritual Exploration: Shield when exploring unfamiliar spiritual realms or engaging in astral travel to safeguard your energy and ensure a safe return.

Shielding is a vital skill in witchcraft, offering protection, empowerment, and clarity in your spiritual journey. By mastering shielding techniques and incorporating them into your daily practice, you can navigate the energetic landscapes of life with confidence and resilience.

[zebratoys]

When it comes to placing Merkabah-inspired sacred geometry art, the goal is to amplify its energetic and symbolic resonance while harmonizing the space. 

This item was exclusively designed for: ► Yoga studio sacred art ► Healing & Energy Therapy room décor ► Altar or Sacred Space artwork ► Meditation room wall décor ► Studio workspaces spiritual art ► Study or Journaling Area ► Therapy and Counseling Office ► Living rooms décor ► Office consciousness art ► Entryway or Threshold

Here’s a guide for ideal placements based on intention and environment:

Yoga Studio or Group Gathering Space:

Purpose: Radiates collective energetic elevation, unity, and transformation. Creates a unified energy field for group sessions. It symbolizes the union of body, mind, and spirit—mirroring the essentials of yoga itself to elevate practices of chakra alignment and energy flow

Ideal Placement Tip: Large format at the center stage on the main front and back walls or ceiling, for a 360-degree energy flow.

Healing room décor / Energy Therapy Rooms:

Purpose: Strengthens energy channeling and energetic protection and amplifies healing intentions, vibrational alignment and light body healing for frequency synergy and elevation. 

Ideal Placement Tip: Behind the healer or above the main healing treatment table or directly above it to activate alignment for the client and practitioner. Multiple smaller pieces create a powerful energy grid.

Altar or Sacred Space Artwork:

Purpose: Acts as a symbolic anchor and a sacred symbol of divine protection for ascension, balance, and divine light connection in spiritual rituals and sacred practices. Enhances prayer and manifestation practices.

Ideal Placement Tip: Leaned against or hung directly above your altar table, surrounded by crystals, candles, or Sacred texts.

Meditation room / Zen Corner Space:

Purpose: Enhances focus and spiritual ascension, connection, raises vibration, aids visualization. Guides you into deep states of peace, balance and alignment. Represents the integration of spirit and matter. Creates powerful energy vortex for ritual work. 

Ideal Placement Tip: Hang it at eye level behind or in front of the meditation cushion or seat.

Study or Journaling Area:

Purpose: Inspires deep reflection, clarity, and elevated consciousness for creators, lightworkers, and mystics. Evokes deep soul work and intuitive flow. 

Ideal Placement Tip: Hang it near your desk or writing nook.

Therapy and Counseling Office:

Purpose: In therapeutic spaces, the energy must support calm, trust, and deep inner work. Sacred art symbolizes protection, balance, and spiritual transformation—making it a powerful visual ally in counseling or therapy sessions. It gently reinforces a sense of sacred containment, helping sensitive clients feel supported while encouraging subtle emotional safety, energetic shifts and breakthroughs.

Ideal Placement Tip: Place the artwork behind the practitioner (to energetically anchor the room) or on a side wall visible to the client for mindfulness, reflection, spiritual growth, energy balance, calming and inspiration.

Office consciousness art:

Purpose: When placed in the workspace, the Merkabah acts as a symbol of clarity, focus, and elevated thinking. It supports consciousness-expanding, conscious decision-making, creativity, and alignment with a higher purpose during your daily tasks in a mindful office environment.

Ideal Placement Tip: Above your work table or near a light-filled window, in your line of sight or on the wall behind your chair to subtly reinforce energetic boundaries and awareness.

Studio spiritual art:

Purpose: Creative energy thrives when the space is infused with higher frequency that ignites inspiration, intuitive flow, and spiritual ascension grounding. Sacred art helps channel higher consciousness into creative expression, making it ideal for artists, designers, writers, and visionaries. Promotes astral travel and lucid dreaming.

Ideal Placement Tip: Above your desk, journaling nook, or on a shelf beside your writing tools. Facing your creative workstation or on a central wall that anchors the space with intention and energy and awakens flow and divine guidance in creative workspaces. 

Living rooms décor: 

Purpose: In the heart of the home, sacred art radiates harmony, balance, and high-vibration living spaces that benefits everyone who enters. It becomes a focal point of peace, unity, and spiritual presence.

Ideal Placement Tip: Conversation area, centered above a sofa, fireplace, or main gathering area — or integrated into a gallery wall of meaningful art to create harmonious family dynamics.

Entryway or Threshold:

Purpose: Blesses all who enter. First impression sets the energetic tone. Serves as a guardian symbol for high-vibe home entry, and spiritual filter, welcoming positive vibrations and spiritual protection from lower vibrations at the doorway. 

Ideal Placement Tip: Above, in front or beside the doorframe.

[kaywavy]

transforming soffits reorganizing keys formalizing immersion joints justifying kick extractors advising aggregates managing elbows recasting connectors achieving aluminum trowels officiating disks exhibiting absolute spigots progressing coil hydrants jerry-building reflectors informing casters inventing rubber hoists performing wrenches judging chalk adapters upgrading ignition paths

regrowing flashing recommending ratchets approving barriers sweeping impact fillers sewing mirrors detailing collectors enforcing measures distributing systems presenting plugs interwinding registers piloting ash diffusers gathering cranks supplying eave pockets undertaking scroll stops accelerating straps designing fittings protecting diamond boilers logging downspouts correlating shingles uniting mallets qualifying electrostatic lifts sharing clamps obtaining circular fluids ranking foundation gauges sensing miter brackets originating space networks translating drills regulating guards selecting gable padding utilizing pellet dowels reconciling artifacts altering pulleys shedding space filters determining vents representing mortar remaking flash rakers supporting funnels typecasting rotary chocks expressing junctures resetting auxiliary vises professing strip treads inlaying matter trowels questioning drivers forming edge fittings sketching blanks overshooting spark breakers rewriting controls playing tunnels inventorying buttons enduring joint handles effecting ratchet bibbs unwinding couplings forsaking vapor conduits defining sockets calculating heaters raising grids administering tiles measuring resources installing ignition remotes extracting corners manufacturing ventilators delegating consoles treating mounting stones enacting jig deflectors intensifying alleys improvising cargo pinpointing bobs prescribing arc masonry structuring metal chucks symbolizing lathes activating plumb kits adapting coatings fixing channels expediting cordage planning compressors enlisting hangers restructuring keyhole augers shearing ridge hardware collecting reciprocating bolts maintaining corrugated dimmers whetting hole collars conducting mandrels comparing assets compiling sealants completing paths composing equivocation wheels computing dampers conceiving electrostatic treatment ordering cotter grates organizing ties orienting ladders exceeding materials targeting thermocouples demonstrating emery stock expanding latch bases training wardrobe adhesives overcomming[sic] fasteners streamlining storm anchors navigating springs perfecting turnbuckles verifying gate pegs arbitrating arithmetic lifts negotiating outlets normalizing strips building surface foggers checking key torches knitting grinders mowing planers offsetting stencils acquiring bulbs adopting rivets observing avenues ascertaining coaxial grommets slinging wing winches instituting circuit generators instructing wicks integrating pry shutters interpreting immersion lumber clarifying coils classifying wood bits closing cogs cataloging matter strips charting holders conceptualizing push terminals stimulating supports overthrowing shaft spacers quick-freezing connectors unbinding ground hooks analyzing eyes anticipating gateways controlling proposition rollers converting power angles coordinating staples correcting benders counseling joist gaskets recording gutter pipes recruiting drains rehabilitating rafter tubes reinforcing washers reporting guard valves naming freize sprues nominating rings noting straps doubling nailers drafting circuit hoses dramatizing flanges splitting framing compounds refitting stems interweaving patch unions placing sillcocks sorting slot threads securing mode cutters diverting catharsis plates procuring load thresholds transferring syllogism twine directing switch nuts referring time spools diagnosing knobs discovering locks dispensing hinges displaying hasps resending arc binders retreading grooves retrofitting aesthetics portals seeking stocks shrinking wormholes assembling blocks assessing divers attaining lug boxes auditing nescience passages conserving strikes constructing braces contracting saw catches serving installation irons recognizing fluxes consolidating fuse calipers mapping shims reviewing chop groovers scheduling lag drives simplifying hoists engineering levels enhancing tack hollows establishing finishing blocks

[mjonthetrack]

Ops

Chapter Four: Meat and Mouths

The makeshift mess hall used to be a mechanic’s bay—grease stains still scarred the floor, and the long work tables had scorch marks like tattoos of past missions. But there was food now, hot and fragrant, slapped together from MREs and whatever torque could blackmail out of a supply run.

Titan sat across from Ghost at the head table. Their plates were almost identical—grilled protein, rice, greens. Nothing sweet. No indulgence. Just fuel.

Their utensils moved in sync. One bite, two chews, swallow. They didn’t look at each other, but their timing said everything.

They’d done this a hundred times. Maybe more.

Around them, the rest of the squad ate in varying levels of exhaustion. Torque was mid-rant about someone stealing his energy gels. Phantom was eating with headphones in. Wraith hadn’t touched their tray, watching Pulse and Static instead.

Outside the open bay door, under the glare of strung-up floodlights, the rookies sat at the lone exterior table. Their shoulders slumped. Their pride bruised.

Ghost could hear Pulse whispering. His voice wasn’t low enough.

“…man, I’m just saying. Shit don’t feel right. That’s the fuckin’ leader, and you telling me the Terminator chick just happens to be his girl? Please. He only backs her ‘cause he’s getting it in. Ain’t nobody that scary by accident.”

Static murmured something back. Too quiet to catch.

Titan didn’t flinch.

She chewed, swallowed, licked the salt from her bottom lip.

Then raised a brow and looked at Ghost.

He didn’t move. But his eyes darkened.

Titan reached over, laid a hand on his forearm. Her grip was light, but sure. Firm. The only thing on Earth he let still him.

She shook her head once.

“Let him talk,” she said, voice soft like velvet wrapped around barbed wire. “I think it’s about time we have the team introduce themselves to the new bloods.”

She stabbed a piece of meat, chewed thoughtfully, then added, “And after that... I think it would only be fair for their leader to show what a ‘hard ass’ really looks like. Physically.”

Ghost’s lip curled.

Titan smirked.

“They gone fold on the first day, Joshua. I got a back massage riding on Pulse throwing up the moment shit gets real.”

Ghost chuckled low, finally relaxing into his seat. “You’re cruel.”

“I’m realistic.”

They didn’t need to say it—but both knew what came next.

Break time was over.

Tomorrow, there’d be team introductions. Controlled demonstrations. A reminder that Ghost and Titan weren’t just names—they were legends breathing down your neck.

And Pulse?

He was already marked for public correction.

Chapter Five: Welcome to the Show

The training ground was a gutted stretch of private land surrounded by jungle and silence—ideal for off-grid missions, worse for keeping secrets.

Mid-morning sun cut through the overcast sky. The team assembled with mechanical efficiency, spread across the open field like predators waiting for the signal.

Pulse and Static stood at attention by the rusted supply crate Ghost had turned into a podium. Neither had been told what was coming. The tension hung thick.

Titan leaned against a reinforced ATV, arms crossed, tank dusted in dried clay, a matte black sidearm slung at her hip like it was born there. Ghost was beside her, sunglasses on, silent and still.

“Alright,” Titan said, voice carrying clear across the field. “You two wanna know who we are? Who the fuck you’re working with?”

She jerked her chin toward the rest of the squad.

“Then shut up, and watch.”

One by one, the team moved.

Echo stepped forward first, hood up, sleeves rolled. She set down a portable rig, snapped her fingers once—and within seconds, the area’s radio chatter burst to life. Enemy coordinates, convoy routes, false flag comms looping through like she was weaving a sonic spiderweb.

“No one speaks louder than me in enemy territory,” she said, voice calm. “You’ll die in silence, or live in confusion—but never because I missed a signal.”

Next, Wraith moved with ghostlike grace to a sniper platform, unfolded her kit, and without a single word, took three shots.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

Three targets exploded in succession downrange. One through the eye socket. One through the heart. One clean through a moving drone.

She said nothing. Just looked down at Pulse and Static like they weren’t worth the bullet.

Phantom laughed. “Now it’s my turn.”

He slapped charges onto a mock structure, humming to himself while setting tripwire traps and pressure bombs like it was a cooking show. “You never know how much you love life until I give you ten seconds to run.”

Boom—BOOM—crack!

The structure collapsed in a perfect V. Controlled chaos.

Then came Torque, driving a sand-kissed APC out of nowhere, drifting hard, brake-screeching in just short of a barricade. He stepped out grinning, dusting off his gloves.

“You die before I wreck,” he said.

Titan gave him a chin nod.

“Cute,” she muttered. “But now let’s show them what command looks like.”

She walked forward, picked up a heavy combat dummy—tossed it like a sack of rice—and slammed it against a wall. Her boots were loud, but her body didn’t waver. She dropped to the ground, broke the dummy’s "arm," stood, and threw a knife that landed dead center between Pulse’s boots.

“Lesson one,” she said coolly, “never misjudge someone who could carry your body and weapon back alone.”

Then she walked off. Like she hadn’t just threatened the man’s life with perfect aim.

Silence. Until Ghost stepped forward.

The air shifted.

No theatrics. No announcements.

He set down his rifle. Pulled off his tactical vest. Cracked his neck.

Then he began.

He moved through an advanced combat course like water through broken rock—disarming targets, launching strikes, redirecting force and motion in seamless flow. A knife went from hand to hand. Two dummies went down before they even registered his presence.

One moment he was gone. The next, Pulse blinked—and Ghost was behind him.

No breath. No sound.

Then Ghost grabbed him by the front of the vest and yanked him forward until their faces were an inch apart.

“You think this team runs on favoritism?” Ghost growled. “You think someone survives five years of blood, fire, and betrayal because they’re getting laid?”

Pulse didn’t speak. Couldn’t.

“She held the line while others ran. She dragged three bodies out of a collapsing convoy. She doesn’t need me. You need her.”

Ghost let go. The medic stumbled back like the weight of truth had finally landed.

Titan tossed Ghost a canteen. He caught it without looking, twisted it open, drank once.

She looked at the rookies.

“Now,” she said dryly, “introduce yourselves to the people who will decide if your corpse gets zipped up or not.”

Chapter Six: Say It With Your Chest

The air hadn’t cooled from the demonstrations. The only thing louder than the silence was the weight of judgmentpressing down on the rookies.

Ghost hadn’t said a word since he’d leveled Pulse with the kind of correction that could echo in a man’s spine for weeks. But now, standing in the center of the clearing again, he turned, just enough to let his voice reach them all.

“Introduce yourselves,” he said. No bark. No bite. Just iron.

Static stepped forward first, shoulders tense, hands laced behind her back like she was still reporting to an instructor back in intel school.

“Zoe Kim,” she began. “Callsign Static. Communications specialist. I graduated top tier in signal interception and layered encryption modeling. I’ve done field sims in both urban and rural breakdowns but—” She exhaled, glancing toward Titan, “—I haven’t been tested in live fire zones yet. I know that. I’m here to earn your trust, not assume it.”

Titan didn’t speak, but her chin lifted a touch—acknowledging the honesty.

Wraith tilted her head. “Smart,” she murmured. “Knows she’s green, but she’s not frontin’ like she’s ready for Hell Week.���

Ghost nodded once. “Next.”

Pulse stepped up with the kind of swagger that hadn’t been earned yet—like he’d already forgotten Ghost’s hand on his vest ten minutes ago.

“Name’s Daniel Diaz. Callsign Pulse. Ex–infantry corpsman. Served two deployments with battalion med teams and another year as front-line trauma response. Triage under fire? Done it. Mobile extraction under RPG pressure? Done it. Stitch with one hand, shoot with the other? Bet on it.”

He smiled—flashed it, really—at Wraith first, then let his eyes slide to Titan. “Glad to be part of the crew. Real glad.”

Wraith stared at him like he was a mosquito on her scope.

Phantom blinked once, slowly. “Yo… did this man just wink at a sniper?”

Echo scoffed. “He did. You’re seeing it correctly.”

Torque chuckled from where he was squatting near the vehicle bay. “I give him three days before he flirts with someone mid-firefight.”

Pulse shrugged. “Hey, gotta bring morale where you can.”

Ghost stepped forward, and the ground seemed to quiet beneath him.

Titan leaned against a stack of ammo crates, arms crossed around the weapon slung across her chest. Her expression unreadable—letting Ghost work.

He looked at Pulse. Really looked at him. Not just as a commander, but as someone who’d buried soldiers with better instincts and quieter mouths.

“You’re real proud of your résumé,” Ghost said flatly. “I’ve seen soldiers with longer lists fold the second blood splashes their boots.”

Pulse stiffened slightly. “With respect, I’m not folding.”

“No,” Ghost said. “You’re posing.”

Silence. Heavy. Like thunder without lightning yet.

“Let me explain something, rookie. This team doesn’t run on how pretty your war stories sound. We run on muscle memory and trust. On results. You do not wink at teammates who can put a round in your eye from a thousand yards. You do not grin at women who could carry your body weight in weapons alone.”

He gestured toward Titan, who didn’t move, didn’t even blink—just stood with that quiet readiness that made the back of Pulse’s neck prickle.

“She won’t tell you this. But she doesn’t owe you comfort. She owes this team success. And if your mouth ever moves faster than your skill set again—”

Ghost stepped closer, voice dropping low enough that only Pulse could hear it.

“—I’ll let her handle you next time. And I promise… she’s much less patient than I am.”

He stepped back. Looked to the rest of the squad.

“You’ve met your team,” Ghost said to Static and Pulse. “You’ve seen what you’re trying to become. Now the real question—”

His eyes burned into them.

“Are you here to contribute... or be carried until you’re a liability?”

Pulse didn’t have a smirk this time. Static stood straighter.

Titan finally moved, pushing off the crates and resting her rifle over her shoulder.

She didn’t need to say it, but she did anyway.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter Seven: Baptism by Dirt and Fire

The sun hadn’t risen yet. The world sat in a swampy pre-dawn hush, thick with moisture and silence broken only by the occasional insect click or the low hum of Torque’s engine keeping idle.

The mission was simple on paper: early recon of the convoy path, assess for interference or IED markers, check-in with a local contact. No official engagement.

On paper.

But nothing worth bleeding for ever stuck to paper.

The blacked-out MRAP crawled to a halt just short of the second checkpoint—a crumbling fuel depot overrun with vines and hollowed walls. It smelled like mildew, diesel, and the kind of silence that made soldiers sharpen their instincts.

Ghost sat in the passenger seat, scanning the perimeter. Titan was in the back, next to Pulse and Static, one hand resting lightly on her modified LMG.

Wraith’s voice crackled softly through the comms.

“Eyes on all angles. No movement yet.”

“Copy,” Ghost said. “Team two, on foot. Phantom, Echo, clear the left side. Rookies, with Titan. Move.”

The doors opened in synchronicity, boots hitting the ground like clockwork. Ghost was the last out, scanning behind them as Titan took point.

Pulse was trying not to fidget, but Titan didn’t miss it. Her voice was low.

“Keep your weapon up. Breathe through your nose. You can have a panic attack after we’re not in a blast zone.”

Static held tighter to her comms rig, eyes scanning the rooftops as she walked three paces behind. She was quiet. Focused.

Titan swept the area with cold precision, her movements quiet despite the weight she carried. She paused at the doorway of the station’s office shell.

“Static—mark anything with a signal bounce.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Static muttered, adjusting her scanner.

“Don’t ‘ma’am’ me,” Titan snapped. “Just do it right.”

Pulse followed behind, eyes flicking from corner to corner. Something was off—he could feel it too.

Suddenly—

click.

Titan froze. Her arm shot out in front of Pulse, stopping him just short of stepping over a tripwire.

“The fuck did I say about looking down?” she hissed.

“I didn’t see it,” he whispered.

“No shit.” She crouched, eyes narrowing. “Phantom, we got a pressure rigged—small—corner hallway.”

“On my way,” Phantom radioed, all too cheerfully.

Ghost’s voice came over the comms next.

“Status?”

“Rookie almost lost a leg,” Titan said flatly. “Nothing I couldn’t catch. But we’re not playing anymore.”

By the time Phantom arrived and diffused the trap with a shrug, Ghost was already moving in.

He said nothing until they were all back in the open lot, regrouping. Then his voice cut like a blade.

“Rookies. Front.”

Static and Pulse stepped forward, boots heavy, pulse louder.

“You just got lucky,” Ghost said, staring down Pulse. “Because Titan’s instincts beat your ignorance. That doesn’t make you valuable. That makes her twice as tired for watching your six.”

Titan remained silent, reloading her weapon. Still alert. Still scanning.

“But,” Ghost added, “you both didn’t fold. You kept moving. And Static—”

He turned slightly toward her.

“—you caught the drone tag. The one in the rafters.”

Her eyes widened. “I thought that was just shadow.”

“It wasn’t.”

Titan finally looked up.

“Good instincts,” she said to Static. “Next time, trust them. And you—” her eyes slid to Pulse— “you almost got blown the fuck up.”

He looked away.

“But you didn’t scream. You didn’t freeze. So I’ll give you that. But your next mistake? It might cost someone else.”

Ghost stepped in, adjusting his vest.

“And if that happens…” His eyes narrowed. “You’ll wish it had been you who stepped on the wire.”

The team loaded back into the truck.

The silence now wasn’t empty—it was heavy. Earning space, not being given it.

Titan looked at Ghost as she climbed in, her body brushing close as she passed.

He didn’t say anything. But she caught the smallest twitch of his jaw. Not disapproval.

Just awareness.

They were in sync again.

Like two predators on the same frequency.

[knowlimitations]

The Great Pyramid: A Forgotten Technology Bridging Science and the Ancients

With the recent discoveries of cylindrical structures sparking widespread interest, I’d like to share a collection of images and insights I’ve gathered over the years from a variety of sources. This article aims to shed light on these fascinating structures and the ongoing research surrounding them.

For centuries, the Great Pyramid of Giza has stood as a silent enigma, dismissed by mainstream archaeology as a mere tomb. Yet, when one examines its mathematical precision, alignment to celestial bodies, and energetic properties, a vastly different picture emerges—one that suggests the pyramid was never meant for the dead, but for something far more profound.

A Structure Beyond Its Time

The Great Pyramid's dimensions encode mathematical constants such as pi (π) and phi (φ), numbers deeply embedded in nature and human biology. Edward Grant's work highlights the Vitruvian Man as a model of mathematical perfection, mirroring the proportions of the human body found within the pyramid’s geometry. This precision was not accidental; rather, it suggests an advanced understanding of harmonics, resonance, and energy.

Historical texts like The Emerald Tablets of Thoth, The Kybalion, and Plato’s Timaeus discuss the geometric principles underlying reality, hinting that ancient civilizations possessed knowledge that we are only beginning to rediscover. Even Leonardo da Vinci, inspired by Hermetic traditions, embedded these sacred ratios in his own work, reinforcing the link between human consciousness, mathematics, and the cosmos.

Ancient Technology: A Power Source Hidden in Plain Sight

The pyramid’s original casing stones were made of highly polished white limestone, reflecting sunlight and making it visible for miles. Its now-missing capstone, possibly made of gold or electrum, would have made it an incredibly efficient conductor. Beneath the pyramid, water channels still exist—and when combined with the structure’s quartz and granite materials, they create piezoelectric energy, a phenomenon where mechanical stress generates electrical charge.

Nikola Tesla, whose work on wireless energy transmission mirrored ancient principles, once suggested that the Earth itself could be used as a conductor. If the Great Pyramid was part of a global energy grid, then its function may have extended beyond Egypt, possibly linking other pyramids across the world in a vast, lost technology network.

Suppression of Knowledge: What Are They Hiding?

Dr. J.O. Kinnaman, an early 20th-century Egyptologist, claimed to have found evidence that the pyramid’s true function was far beyond burial practices. He, along with Sir Flinders Petrie, allegedly uncovered technology that was deemed too dangerous for the world to know. Similar suppression exists today—ground-penetrating radar has revealed hidden chambers and tunnels beneath Giza, but access remains restricted by authorities.

Why? Because if the pyramids were a free energy device, this revelation could collapse modern energy industries overnight. Tesla faced similar suppression when he attempted to bring free energy to the world, only to be shut down by financial interests who profited from fossil fuels and centralized power grids.

What Lies Beneath: The Hall of Records and Ancient Knowledge

Edgar Cayce, the "Sleeping Prophet," predicted that the Hall of Records lies beneath the Sphinx, containing the lost history of humanity and the remnants of a forgotten, advanced civilization. Ancient texts, including The Book of Enoch and The Hermetica, suggest that knowledge from pre-diluvian societies was preserved underground, safeguarded for a time when humanity was ready to reclaim it.

Recent discoveries of massive cylindrical columns beneath the pyramids hint at an underlying structure, possibly remnants of an energy system once connected to ley lines. If this technology was fully understood, it could rewrite history and redefine what we know about energy, consciousness, and the very fabric of reality.

The Pyramid Code: A Gateway to the Future

Philosophers such as Manly P. Hall and Walter Russell spoke of knowledge encoded in geometry and frequency, knowledge that only an awakened mind could perceive. If the pyramids were not merely tombs, but part of a grander system designed to harness and elevate consciousness, then their rediscovery may be less about archaeology and more about unlocking the full potential of the human mind.

What happens when we are ready to receive this knowledge? What shifts when we begin to see the pyramid not as a relic of the past, but as a key to the future?

The answers may not lie in what is still buried beneath the sand, but in what is waiting to be reawakened within us.

[thechembow]

LA is a Festering Cesspool

Dec. 20, 2024

We went into LA for a family visit and it was a good reminder of why we left years ago. While we lived there, we gifted a massive amount of towerbusters to the cell towers throughout the whole city over a two year period before moving to the mountains. This disabled the weather control, but the human-generated DOR is still a big problem.

You can see thick "smog," which is ground level DOR, not only in the Valley, but even in West LA. This is the stagnant energy we grew up with in the 80s and 90s, before orgonite was invented. Through orgonite gifting, this smog was mostly abated until recently. In the past couple of years, it has returned, not because the orgonite isn't working, but because humanity has devolved so much during this time and has become more assimilated with the cryptoterrestrial (CT) driven AI, which controls them all.

Humans are inundated by deadly radiation (DOR) from the energy weapons the are addicted to and refuse to stop using (cell phones) and are now effective DOR generators themselves. Through intense selfishness and disregard for the sacredness of life, witnessed most in West LA, their wicked souls generate the stagnant energy of death, amplified and reinforced by their energy weapons. This "smog" is all human-generated DOR, assisted by their tracking devices, which the CTs have programmed to control them through emotional energy algorithms, and run by artificial intelligence.

In the upper atmosphere, we could see that the orgonite was definitely working to neutralize the DOR of the weather control and flight grid arrays (cell towers). The "planes" could not fly successfully and their trails broke up. The transmutation was strongest in the north valley, as we got farther from the center of human activity into slightly lesser populated areas. Clouds formed and spiraled up and away, an indicator of orgone energy (OR) in the atmosphere.

There is no doubt that the human DOR does prevent LA from getting as much rain as the rest of California, but at least we can see that our work is still functioning every day in the city. There is nothing we can do about the humans, who are in a lower state of awareness every day, as they spew DOR and give themselves brain damage and cancer, and gradually go more and more insane, as seen in the psychotic behavior of the motorists.

[saratogaroadwrites]

Tron: Liberation (1/15)

Tron: Liberation | saratogaroad rating: T total wordcount: 106,965 characters: Tron, Beck, Mara, Zed, Paige, Pavel, Tesler, Clu 2, Dyson, Yori, Quorra, Original Siren Character relationships: Tron & Beck, Beck & Mara & Zed, Tron/Yori other tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon Continuation, For Want of A Nail warnings: none

The Game has changed. The Revolution has begun. With Tron healed and once more in the fight for the Grid, the war has begun. But Clu will not give up so easily, and this is a war that will be fought in the streets. But it is a war that Beck and Tron intend to win, so long as they can do one thing first:

Survive.

[AU: Fanmade Season 2]

=

Standing on the rubble high above what had once been the empty Plaza outside of Able’s Garage, Tron took a moment to breathe. To take in the hope building in his processor, and for the first time in a long time, not temper it with caution. Against all odds, they had succeeded. The mobile repurposer lay in pieces across the Plaza, Beck was alive, and the Uprising had truly begun.

And Tron himself felt free for the first time in over a five hundred cycles. Free of pain, of exhaustion that had chased his every binary string, and free of the fear that Clu would have him. His core, the stuttering feeling he’d gotten so very used to, ran smoothly with each stabilizing breath. He felt himself again. Whole again.

And he had Beck to thank for it. Brave, foolhardy, stubborn, strong Beck. Barely out of Beta and with so much potential already. Pride curled in Tron’s core as he looked down the rubble, down into the Plaza. Though some talked amongst themselves, the programs below—all fifty-eight of them—stared up the rubble towards "Tron” and his Renegade cohort. Mara, fists on her hips, stared them down as if trying to will them down through the sheer force of her glare. Since they were too high up to be seen clearly, Tron smiled faintly.

“Remember how I told you she’d still be here when you were ready?” he asked quietly, sensing more than seeing Beck look at him. “Looks like she wants you to be ready.”

As curiosity turned to a severely unimpressed look, Beck rolled his eyes. “Very funny.” He deadpanned. Tron’s smile widened a touch; for all he’d accomplished, Beck was still very much a beta. Young, foolhardy, but braver than most would have thought possible. Except, it seemed, when faced with the reality that he was going to have to lie to all of his coworkers. Again. Rezzing his helmet with a few quiet clicks, Tron gestured down the crowd.

“Come on, Tron. We need to get them out of here before Pavel comes back with reinforcements.”

He stepped forward, hearing Beck’s soft groan and the click of his helmet as his protege made to follow, but had to reach out quickly as the young program stumbled, a peripheral circuit on his leg flickering and almost disappearing into the bright whites of his suit. A clear sign of low energy if he’d ever seen one.

“You alright?” He asked softly, modulated voice echoing in his helmet. Beck nodded.

“Yeah.” Steadying himself on Tron’s arm, he stood and shook out his leg. With another flicker, the circuit’s light stabilized. “Let’s go.”

Behind his visor, Tron narrowed his eyes as Beck began the perilous journey back down to the plaza. It had been a long millicycle for them both, but where he’d been replenished in the repurposing chamber, Beck hadn’t been. And then the crash…his energy levels had to be low. But there was no time to ask after that, and Beck hadn’t come this far to be coddled every time he ran low. He knew his limits. As soon as they could, he’d put down for a sleep cycle and that would be the end of it. Shoving the concern into his low priority queue, Tron followed his apprentice down, remaining a pace behind when they finally reached the ground. Mara, still looking as angry as Yori ever had, stalked towards them. To his credit, Beck held his ground as she opened her mouth to say something, but then stopped as a sudden rumbling began to shake the ground. Everyone looked around, searching for the cause as they battled the instinct to take shelter. Some programs fell, unable to keep their footing, while others cried out in alarm.

“What is that?!” Mara yelled, Beck having reached out to take her arms and keep her on her feet. He couldn’t answer, not knowing, but as Tron looked out to the Sea his core ground to a halt. The rumbling, continuing to get worse, could only be caused by one thing at that moment in time.

The massive fleet approaching Argon from the north.

It was impossible to tell just how many ships there really were, but even from where Tron stood he could count the rows of Recognizers, the Carriers and Rectifiers. The Grid Herself was trembling, that’s what the rumbling was. Programs shouted in alarm, clinging to one another as the first ships cleared the city line and flew overhead, casting the entire Plaza into shadow. Tron glared up at a yellow lined ship, the eyesore a stark difference against Argon’s calm blue landscape, and the anger began to spin his core back up, faster and faster until all that was left was rage. His spine went stiff, fists clenched at his sides.

“Clu,” He breathed, circuits flaring in his anger.

Beck shook his head slowly. “Clu’s army.” He looked away from the fleet and back down to the crowd of programs all backing away from the rubble and towards the Garage that had once been their home. Only now Pavel controlled it. They couldn’t go back and they couldn’t go forward. Tron barely had time to look back down before the roar of engines broke into the plaza, mechanics skittering back and into one another in their haste to get away. The bikes rolled in two lines, numbers adding up until there were enough programs to encircle them and keep them contained.

Keep them surrounded, even as each solder got off his bike with disk in hand. They ignored the fleet passing by overhead as if it was normal, standing as if they were statues. Tron’s eyes narrowed as Beck let go of Mara, drawing his disk as he stood back to back with Tron.

“Ever fight this many?” He asked quietly, barely heard over the rumble as Mara held her ground, fists out in front of her as if that would hold the soldiers back. He had to give her a bit for trying.

“Not at once,” Tron replied, disk glowing in his hand. The soldiers stood tall, a wall around them and any hope of escape. But none of them moved, and Tron frowned. What were they waiting for? They had to know that neither Beck nor Tron would go without a fight, even under odds like this. Behind him, Beck shifted his weight. The mechanics clung to one another, no one daring to twitch as the line of soldiers parted. With a sneer on his face, Pavel took two steps in. For a program that had run the other direction just micros before, he seemed to have recovered his nerve. Mara took a step towards him, but Tron reached out and grabbed her wrist, jerking her to a halt before Beck could react.

“Surrender, programs,” Pavel sneered at them all, hands clasped behind his back. Tron tightened his grip on Mara’s arm as she tensed. “Come quietly and maybe the esteemed General Tesler will—”

He couldn’t finish. With a scream loud enough to make Tron’s audio inputs ring, Mara wrenched against his hold. She wasn’t strong enough to pull herself free, but she didn’t need to. Quick as a flash she grabbed at her disk with her free hand, the edge flaring Portal-bright even as she threw it directly at Pavel’s head. It was a wide, sloppy throw and the Commander ducked, the white streak of light curving above his head. It arced back into Mara’s hand and she glared at him.

“We’ll never surrender to you!” She spat, disk revving hot. Pavel blinked but then looked across the group as, one by one, the other programs drew their disks and flared them to life. Fifty-nine against all the guards would never be a fair fight, but their message was clear.

They would not be going quietly. Pavel’s surprised look fell into a cold stare. He turned to the nearest sentry.

“Destroy them all.”

And then he stepped back, leaving the sentries and soldiers to close ranks around the motley crew. They all held their ground despite shaking hands and knocking knees, standing shoulder to shoulder with their fellows. Tron let go of Mara’s wrist and she stepped aside, closer to her friends, with her disk in hand. She raised it into a defensive stance, the soldiers booted footsteps echoing as they marched closer, one measured step at a time. Tron stepped forward instead, and saw Beck do the same from the corner of his eye. He’d been on site for several fights that had seemed hopeless but had proven winnable in the end. This wasn’t one of them.

This wasn’t going to be a fight. No. It was going to be a massacre. He looked back just enough to catch Beck’s eye through their darkened visors. For half a nano Beck held his stance, didn’t so much as move…but then he nodded, just once.

And then he was gone, rushing forward in a blur of fists and feet, dual-colored disk clashing with a soldier’s in a shower of sparks. Turning away, Tron sprang forward with a growl. Someone shouted in alarm behind him but he paid them no mind as he threw himself between Mara and a soldier, catching the soldier’s disk on his own in a clash of sparks. The program startled, clearly one of the Argon contingent that had grown complacent and sloppy over the cycles of fighting Beck and his more ranged tactics, his refusal to derezz programs. It was clear that they were not prepared for Tron and his more direct approach.

With a wordless cry, Tron shifted his stance and kicked out with one foot, knocking the guard back into his fellows. Tron smirked as several more stared at him, but in the seconds that they didn’t know how to react he had already turned to Mara.

“Get your programs out of here! We’ll cover you!”

And then he turned back, ignoring their shouts of alarm as he raced forward. These programs, willful as they were, couldn’t fight the way he could. He and Beck would have to do it for them. Ahead of him, one guard called out an order—”Halt, Program!”— that died in his throat as Tron’s disk cleaved through the space between them to cut through his torso, breaking the circle that had surrounded them. As the voxels of their fallen fellow tumbled to the ground, the closest four yelled at him to stop, to surrender, but he was in no hurry to do that. He altered his course, skidding on one foot, and ran right at them, leaping to catch his disk as it returned to his hand. Suddenly aware that he wasn’t going to stop, one guard grabbed the staff from his leg and tried to hold off Tron’s advance, but it was no use. He pushed off on the landing, leaping into the air again to land on the staff, and then jumped to cleave his disk straight into the guards head. His fellows stepped back, hesitant. Tron smirked.

Behind him, taking advantage of the distraction and the opening, Mara had made a run for the Garage with three programs right behind her. Their friend—Zed—called after them, but his hands were full with a guard of his own that had pressed in from the other side of the circle. He was already stumbling back, but before he could slip Beck moved between them, catching the guards disk with barely a stumble. Zed heaved a heavy sigh as he wobbled clear, returning to his fellows to usher them out the gap that lingered in the line of soldiers while they were distracted, and Beck made quick work of knocking his target to the ground. The soldier impacted port-first and went still, lines flickering and limbs twitching from the sudden shut down, but Beck was already moving. Tron watched from the corner of his eye as he dove under a guards swing, knocking knees out and slamming another into the ground on his way.

Face hidden, Tron let himself smirk: Beck had the matter well in hand. Without another look back, Tron charged forward with a cry, leaping over the head of one guard he drove his disk into the guards neck, severing it from his body, before turning away. One particularly brave guard swung at Tron with a staff in an attempt to succeed where his comrade had failed, but Tron leaped, using the staff as a launch pad to throw his disk from the air. Four guards, including the one that had swung at him, collapsed into voxels with shouts of alarm and pain. Tron landed among the rubble in a crouch, mindlessly catching his disk as it came back to him. Already so many had fallen, but more still were coming. He could feel them approaching through the Grid, the thunder-rumble of more bikes and the hissing roar of lightjets overhead. Restored as he was, even he couldn’t fight forever. Not defending this many programs. They had to go. Teeth bared in an unseen snarl, Tron shoved himself to his feet and scooped up a red-lined disk from the mess on the ground, feeling the security code make the connection with his old routines like it had always been a part of him. The rim flared bright, blinding in the reflection of the guards helmets as he came at them like a storm. With two disks in his hands, the guards stood no chance. They tried, screaming and yelling to fall back, but he gave them no quarter. They had no chance to react, let alone run, from the two disks he threw to cleave through air and code alike. One fell, followed by another and then another, but for every two that fell there were another three to take their place.

Suddenly, Beck crashed into his back with a grunt. They both stumbled, but Tron quickly shifted his weight to keep them upright. Overhead, lightjets were dropping off their red-lined cargo, dozens upon dozens of soldiers. The only comfort was that the last program from the garage had returned to the building, the emergency shutters dropping with a screech and a clatter. Two soldiers derezzed under it, but Tron’s eyes were on the crowd around them. Stolen disk revving loudly in his hand, he watched the soldiers turn their attention as Beck shook his head.

“This isn’t working. There’s too many!” Beck gasped. Tron could feel him move, feel him look up and knew the number of soldiers he’d find. Beck’s whispered curse was answer enough. Tron narrowed his eyes.

“Where’s the nearest tunnel entrance?” He asked quietly, barely a whisper. Beck turned his head enough, and this close he could make out his frown.

“Under the garage. You don’t think—”

“It’s our best chance to get them back to the Outlands.” Even if he didn’t like it. He knew there was no way to fight these odds. The soldiers stalked closer, footsteps melding into a sound he’d last heard in his nightmares. Fighting to dislodge the memory, Tron shifted his stance. “Go. I’ll cover you.”

Beck was silent. But then he shook his head and stepped away, disk in one hand and a baton in the other.

“No.” He said firmly. Tron could barely look back before he continued, “It’s Tron they’re after. And it’s Tron they’ll get.”

Before Tron could process that, Beck was moving. He raced past Tron, dove right through the line of guards, and took off. He rolled beneath one guards attempt at a grab, pushing himself back to his feet and cracking the baton in the same instant. Code spread wide, knocking guards away as a lightjet rezzed. Beck looked back for one nano, an instant where Tron realized what he was doing.

“Wait—!”

“I’ll take care of this!”

With the whoosh of a pushed engine, Beck took to the sky. Dozens of guards followed right on his tail, rezzing their own jets and taking off in instants. About half of them joined the chase and the pursuit shifted, newly arriving lightjets taking off after Beck instead of dropping their pilots onto Tron’s head, but there were still too many lingering and coming after him! Already he could feel the exhaustion beginning to creep in, the fear that this would be a repeat of the coup so very long ago catching in his core even as he kicked a guard off his disks and flung him into his comrades. Their numbers must have been in the hundreds by now, and they just kept coming!

But then a noise came from the garage: the sound of a tank preparing to fire. Risking a look, he turned his head and stared as a blue-lined tank rumbled from the once again open garage and into the plaza, Mara perched half in the cockpit and half out. Despite her darkened visor she raised her head to glare at the guards, calling out as the tank rolled towards them.

“Get down!”

He had only seconds to react. He ducked, the blast rocketing overhead and impacting the numerous programs still in the plaza. With a burst of light and dozens of screams, they were reduced to nothing more than cubes. But even with that group falling, more came up from behind, angry and ready to derezz in a nano. Cursing, Tron dropped the stolen disk, docking his own as he ran for the tank, leaping up to the cockpit to grab Mara’s arm.

“Time to go!” He yelled, pulling her free. She cried out in alarm, the tank still rolling forward as he leapt back down to the ground. He rolled, forcing her back to her feet and to run as the tank, slow going and easy to dodge, barely slowed the guards down. He had to give her some credit: it didn’t take long for her to get the picture and she ran, boots clicking on the ground as she surged ahead to take the lead, grabbing a baton from a shelf and throwing it at him. Behind them, the tank gave way with a ground-rattling explosion that knocked programs from their feet in the same instant it made Tron’s core lurch. They were too close! Soldiers shouted for them to stop, to halt and submit, but then they went quiet. Tron turned, risking a look over his shoulder, only to find that the soldiers were now bolting in the opposite direction, back the way they’d come.

It made him stop. Mara skidded to a halt just out of reach and looked at him, startled. He didn’t look at her, but instead at the soldiers. Something was wrong, but what—the sound of a recognizer’s thrusters made him look up, just in time to see a single recognizer looming above the garage. Bright blue energy pooled between its thrusters, gathering like a storm cloud. Tron’s core froze for just a moment as he realized what was about to happen. Quickly docking his baton he lunged at Mara, knocking them both behind a repair station that still had a bike on it. She yelled in alarm, but there was no time to explain. Her cry echoed in the last instant before the Recognizer fired its horrible payload directly into the Garage. The skylights shattered, raining melting bits of glass and code around their shoulders. The lines supporting repaired jets and choppers snapped and gave way, code crashing to the ground to shatter into cubes. Mara yelled into his shoulder as he held her down, covering her as best he could. For a nano, the Grid seemed to hang. He knew what was about to happen, and was powerless to stop it. The great ball of blue energy hung above the floor for only a nano, the barest hint of an instant. Everything was clear.

And then it wasn’t. The moment passed and the shot struck home. The heat came first, then a blastwave that rattled the very airspace around it. Everything toppled, walls and personal items and docked transport units in need of repair. Soldiers that hadn’t gotten clear in time shouted in alarm or pain, falling to the ground or just plain knocked silly. With a massive plume of code dust and the screeching sound of shattering glass, Able’s garage began to collapse in on itself. Walls gave way into the now exposed tunnels; what floor that wasn’t immediately destroyed fell away and took programs with it. Lost in the destruction, Tron and Mara fell. Mara clung to his shoulders, desperate and afraid, and he didn’t try to dislodge her. Her scream and the shouts of the soldiers echoed around him, caught in his audio input as errors that he couldn’t fix. They were falling, falling, falling--

Something impacted his port. His system, overloaded, went into emergency shutdown mode.

Everything went mercifully dark.

——

If there was one thing Beck had to say about the guards of Argon City, it was that they were persistent. Three dozen lightjets had followed after him, half the force that had remained in the plaza after the massacre of their forces, and though they’d lost a dozen of their own to his fancy flying and lightwall, they stayed on his tail as best they could. Not that it was working very well for most of them; he knew the skies here, knew the towers and how to use them to his advantage. It wasn’t quite as protective as the canyon walls outside the city, and more than a couple of shots hit into buildings as he flew between them, but it would do.

Or at least, he thought as much. Quick as a flash, they dodged away only to be replaced by a squad of golden-lined jets. Not the yellow of the lead ship, but a warmer shade of yellow marked the jets that immediately opened fire, prompting him to dive and roll away. They were new! Chancing a look back over his shoulder, Beck frowned. It was hard to tell from this distance, and he had no desire to let them get closer, but it looked like all the pilots of those jets wore the same pattern. He’d only ever seen the Sirens share patterns before. So how had—it didn’t matter. Rolling again to avoid a hail of laser fire, Beck pushed on his thrusters as far as the controls would go, a burst of speed sending him out across the city. The golden jets stayed on him, dogging his every move and easily dodging his light wall. Where Argon’s guards would have turned away and gone around, these stayed on his tail, easily flying above or below to avoid crashing whilst keeping him in their sights.

So. They were smarter than Argon’s usual crop of guards. Alright, fine. He could play at that game.

Gritting his teeth, Beck banked hard, turning over a familiar section of the entertainment district. The towers were shorter here, not as easy to lose following jets in between sharp rises and harsh corners, but there was more room to maneuver and—something screamed nearby, a warning if he’d ever heard one. It caught in his audio processes, almost painful, and he jerked back on the controls in response, just in time to catch a blast of energy rocketing past. That hadn’t come from one of the jets, had it? In sheer vertical, he risked a look back. No, not from them, but from the command ship of the convoy! Its Mara-yellow accent lines flared from wingtip to stern as energy gathered at its tip, another screaming blast firing in his direction. With a panicked yell he jerked his control stick to the side, sending his jet into a sharp roll. He could feel the heat of the blast as it singed his wingtips, the four golden-lined guards quickly rolling their jets clear behind him. Though he was vaguely aware of the blast hitting one of the local towers, Beck was a bit too busy trying to level his jet to care. For a corestopping nano, it almost refused to stop spinning, but then it did and he heaved a sigh of relief, taking one quick moment to duck his head and look down.

In the end, that one movement likely saved his skin. It gave him the warning that he was about to be hit from below, and gave him the time he needed to jerk his controls back up, pulling the belly of his jet straight vertical as Pavel blew past him, the crazed program’s cackle echoing back at him. With a curse Beck threw his jet back into horizontal and poured on the speed, ducking through a gap between two buildings. He knew this city. If he could just get to the industrial sector, he could lose Pavel there. Considering how quickly the other program was chasing him, he’d need every second of lead he could get.

Of course, that was if he didn’t crash right into the fleet on his way there! How they’d moved so fast, Beck would never know, but as he came back out of the gap he had to send his jet into a dive to avoid the yellow-lined ship, his light wall cutting a slice into her belly as he flew so close he could have reached up and touched the ship. More light-jets peeled off to follow him, but Pavel was the one right on his tail, guns firing rapidly. Beck rolled, trying to make himself less of a target, but Pavel was smarter than most of the sentries and he knew how to aim.

Credit had to be given where credit was due: the Light Jets were fast, nimble, and maneuverable. They were not, however, durable. Only one of Pavel’s shots hit Beck’s engine, but that one shot was enough that the motor gave way and turned into sparkling cubes. Beck cursed hard, hard enough that Able would have grounded him, as his jet began to bank. Without the power from both wing engines he also slowed, and it was enough that Pavel crashed right into him. In a network of tinkling cubes, their jets became an odd three-winged vehicle. Pavel’s cackle was loud enough to drown out the keening sound in his audio even as he scrambled up from his controls and across, swinging his revving disk wide. Beck ducked with a hissed curse, curling to launch a kick into Pavel’s middle. The commander stumbled back, nearly fell over his cockpit, and Beck took advantage of the reprieve to leap from his controls and bring his disk up. Pavel charged again, and they clashed in the middle of their odd conglomeration of a jet. Sparks fell, lighting up Pavel’s sneering face.

“End of the line, Renegade!” He whispered cruelly. Beck’s eyes narrowed.

“Not for me, it’s not.” He shoved Pavel back as hard as he could manage, sending him stumbling again. The motion rocked the craft, and with a horrible cracking noise, the jets disconnected. With twin yells of alarm, both programs fell from the joined wing and towards the rooftop below. It was only a few seconds before Pavel impacted first, a frame-rattling thud knocking the sense from his processor. Beck barely had time to crouch and roll, every joint screaming in protest. He struggled to his hands and knees, blinking away damage warnings and quickly palming his disk. By the Grid, that had hurt. Everything ached now but there was no time to sit and nurse his wounds. Pavel was somehow getting back to his feet, yelling at the red-lined jets flying overhead.

“Stay out of this!” He shouted, disk a blazing beacon in one hand, “He’s mine!”

Clearly unwilling to risk becoming targets themselves, the red-lined jets peeled off back towards the city. In the same instant, Beck and Pavel stood up on the roof and stared each other down. The moment lasted only a nano, and then they were at each other once more. Orange met white, disks a blur of light and sparks as they clashed, dancing around the roof and barely keeping away from the edge. Flipping back from a strike, Beck barely had time to react. Pavel was just as fast as he remembered, and nearly as strong.

“I turn you in, and just think of the rewards I'll get!" Pavel shrieked, coming after him again and again. They almost danced, pivoting and spinning across the rooftop as if they had all the time in the world. Overhead, dozens of lightjets continued to race across the city, combing the streets for anyone who was still outside. None landed on the rooftop, even as Pavel leapt into the air and spun, both feet impacting Beck’s raised disk in a solid kick. The momentum sent him stumbling backwards, and Pavel lunged at him. There was no time to react: with a shout of alarm, Beck went down hard. He scrambled, getting his disk in both hands just in time to catch Pavel’s attempt at thrusting his own disk through Beck’s chest. The edges ground against one another, but even so Pavel ignored the sparks and leaned in close, almost touching Beck’s visor with his nose as he spoke.

“Your friends aren’t here, Renegade!” Pavel sneered at him, face close enough that he could count the jagged lines around the edges of a gash on Pavel’s cheek. “You’re all alone.”

“That’s good enough to take you down!” Beck retorted, kicking one knee up right into Pavel’s abdomen. The sudden attack made him jolt and stumble back, dislodging his disk and allowing Beck to knock an open-palmed strike into Pavel’s chin. Without his helmet, the Commander had left himself an easier target and stumbled back with a yelp of pain. Beck scrambled to his feet, quickly retaking his stance. Pavel shook himself, smearing a line of internal code off his chin, and raised his disk over his head for another attack. Beck stepped aside, circuits flickering for a moment. He had to end his, and fast. He stepped back in a wide circle, dodging more swipes than he crashed with. Pavel shouted in annoyance, coming after his target faster and faster, with wider and wider strikes, leaving himself open before he could strike again.

Beck didn’t waste his chance. Stepping back to the edge of the roof, he held his disk in a ready stance and waited. Pavel fell right for it, taking his disk in both hands and raising it over his head. He shouted in triumph and lunged forward, but in one smooth motion Beck sidestepped the overhead swing and thrust his elbow right into Pavel’s port. As with all programs, the pain of a port-strike would activate an emergency shut down and quickly disable all motion. It was a cheap move, one Beck hated using, but he didn’t have it in him to drag this fight out any longer.

And really, against a program like Pavel, he wouldn’t let it keep him out of sleep mode for too long. It worked, too, and with a screech Pavel went down like a sack of broken code scraps. Beck caught him by the arm at the last moment, hauling him back onto the roof before dropping him. Sure enough, the red-orange lines that marked him as Occupation had gone dim, his eyes closed and mouth hanging open. It wouldn’t last for long, just a few micros, but that would be enough for Beck to put some distance between him and the rooftop. Beck didn’t waste his chance, quickly docking his disk and running for the stairs that ran alongside the building. He took them two at a time, the metal vibrating beneath his boots and the splash of a puddle on the alley below as he hit the ground and kept running.

The alley, at least, was empty. Argon’s twisting network of alleys could get a program anywhere they needed to go, if they knew where they were going. Beck knew where he was going, being a native of the city and having had time to study Tron’s maps, but he was flagging. As the seconds ticked past, what energy he’d had left from the millis events began to disappear. He slowed, gasping for breath, and leaned against the wall of a building. He needed to find a bike, hit the tunnels, and meet Tron in the Spire. If they’d made it there, then—

The sound of a shot, loud and close, echoed through the alleys. Beck startled, whirled around, but no. There was no one behind him. He hadn’t been fired on. But then what…he turned back around, looked up, and felt his core grind to a halt. From this alley, he could see clear to the Plaza. To the Garage, and the Recognizer perched above it. Even from this distance he could see the energy shot, nearly half the size of the Recognizer, as it roared into the Garage. His core froze as the shot struck home, the explosion audible even halfway across the city as the blast wave rushed into the plaza, and with a massive plume of code dust, the Garage collapsed in on itself. It buckled and swayed, the roof going first, and then the walls. Everything gave way in barely a micro, all of Able’s hard work collapsing into nothing.

If there had been anyone still inside, they were gone now. Beck stared, barely able to process what he was seeing.

“No…” He felt more than heard himself whisper, taking a few shaky steps forward. If they were all gone, then— “No!”

He ran, pulling on every ounce of energy he had left to spare. The alleys blurred around him, the only thing he could see the plume of dust and smoke in the distance. Mara’s last words to him echoed, her barbed truth even more true now. He should have stayed, should have fought! He should have been there and—

A program stepped out from around a corner, red-lines bright in the dark blue of the alleys. Beck barely managed to stop before crashing into them, and his core screeched back into working order as the helmet derezzed to reveal a smiling male-designate face.

“Hello, Tron.”

Dyson.

Beck scrambled back, trying to hurry out of reach, but it was too late. Dyson sprang forward, pressing his hand to Beck’s chest, a black stain on the once clean white render. When he pulled away, a shock grenade ticked down the final beats before blast. Two nanos. Beck looked up. One nano. Dyson smirked.

The charge went off, blurring everything into white agony. Beck crumbled to the ground.

—

Standing at attention in the update room, Paige did her level best not to look at Tesler. Ever since the fleet had broken Argon airspace, her commanding officer had been touchy. Even more on edge than usual. Not that she could really blame him, what with Clu at the helm for this one, but it was putting her on edge and it was putting every single sentry, guard, and blackguard likewise on edge. The hundreds of highest ranking sentries were milling about the room behind her, watching their General and speaking soft, hushed tones.

No one knew what was going on, and while they were used to following orders without question, none of them liked being in the dark. Not about something this big, not after a fleet that massive had taken roost in the city and was still flying circuits over Argon’s main districts. A hundred thousand troops added to their number in less than a quarter milli, none of them really listening to General Tesler’s authority. And where was Pavel? Paige cast another look around the room, but just like the other two times she’d looked, he wasn’t there. There was only Tesler, standing with his back to her and his hands clenched into tight fists at the base of his spine. He was watching Argon, watching the light jets that had flown in with the fleet as they canvassed the entire city. What they were looking for, she just didn’t know.

Maybe she didn’t want to know. Whatever—whoever—they were hunting for likely had something to do with the mess at the Plaza. A program capable of something like that, loose in her city? While not entirely content to leave it to Clu, she wasn’t going to mind them being the ones to go after it first. At least like this she’d know what she was dealing with.

She just hoped Beck was alright. If her memory was right, he’d worked at the Garage that was bordered by that Plaza. The building that was now just plain gone, the few soldiers that had been able to return wounded as if caught in a blast. Paige had been able to speak to none of them, every last one whisked away by Clu’s soldiers that now outnumbered them five to one. Something was off about that, and it made her core lurch. Whatever had happened, whatever had caused the garage to become nothing more than a smoking heap of code and dust, it wasn’t good. The idea that Beck, soft cored and so very sweet, could have been caught up in something like that, made her processor want to stop. She’d have to try and find him later, see if he was alright. Make sure he wasn’t a part of all this. Filing the thought away in her task list, Paige drew a breath and held her position. None of them liked waiting for orders like this, Paige least of all.

But she didn’t have to wait much longer. Past all the soldiers, the door into the room swung open as Clu, clothed in a long black robe broken only by golden lines, stepped into the room.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” He said casually as he walked between the two rows of programs. A slight hum entered the room as he rolled two small spheres between his hand, helmet retracted into his armor as he stopped in front of Tesler. Her General had already turned around, and though he looked down at Clu it was obvious who the stronger program was. Clu cut an imposing image, shorter than General Tesler but much more feared. General Tesler’s jaw worked, and Paige swore she could hear every joint in his frame creak as he kneeled, putting himself onto his hands and knees before Clu. A murmur of alarm went up amongst the soldiers as he said,

“There is a terrorist loose in Argon. A renegade…and I bear the blame.” He went silent, but Clu shook his head.

“Don’t beat yourself up, Tesler. You’ve given your best; I know it.” Clu said as he began to circle the prone General, spheres still humming while Tesler tracked his movements. “What I’ve asked of you is no less than…perfection. And that’s no easy thing to achieve, my friend.” He smiled, letting the spheres rise from his hand. Paige grimaced faintly as the hum increased in volume, wedging its way into her audio input. It was an…odd sound. Almost hypnotizing were it not for the jarring pitch. They hovered in the air before Clu’s face, spinning as he gestured to them.

“Behold, the spheres. Their curvature, their shape. So endlessly…” He trailed off as if unsure, but Paige shook her head.

“Perfect,” She breathed. And it was the truth; there were no jagged edges, no hitches or catches. They were beautiful. Clu smiled at her. It made her core stutter, ice down her spine. She blinked—perfect? They were just spheres!--but he paid no heed as he said,

“Yes. Very good, Commander. They are perfect.” He turned back to the spheres, cupping them in his hand before he dropped it to let them float on their own. “But were they always this way? Did they emerge perfect, or was their perfection seized violently, from the torrents of disorder? From chaos itself?” He asked, snapping his fingers. The spheres dropped, and with a sound far too loud for their small size, shattered across the floor in front of Tesler. Paige flinched as several Blackguard gasped in alarm, but Clu’s face remained stoically friendly as he waved a hand at General Tesler.

“Pick those up, will you?” He asked, almost casual. Paige’s core gave another hitch, watching her commanding officer lean forward and begin to scrape voxels off the ground. No one moved to help him, to step back once more. Everyone watched, waiting for the other disk to drop.

“So I ask you,” Clu suddenly spoke, breaking the tense silence, “How do you take something so clearly broken…” He raised a hand back, palming his disk. Instantly, Paige had to stifle threat warnings; this was Clu. Fighting him would be useless even if he’d come to kill them all. He’d killed Tron himself! What chance did they have? Tesler didn’t seem to think they had much of one, and stared up with wide eyes.

“And make it perfect?” Clu finished, striking downwards. Someone cut off a shout as Tesler fell back, a painful gash down his nose and across both his thumbs. Clu’s disk hummed a toxic yellow in the floor, splitting the voxel remains of the spheres. It hadn’t been a kill move, but rather a display of power. Boots crunching across the remains, Clu crouched to pick his disk up, voice now icily cold.

“By changing the hands of leadership.”

Tesler stared up at him, eyes wide. Clu stood back up, eyes cold. Paige’s core spun up in her fear, faster and faster until she was sure every program in the hall could hear it. From the corner of her eye, she could see the soldiers backing up, closing ranks as they attempted to protect themselves without fleeing the room, trying to keep Clu’s anger off of them. Clu’s disk still spun a violent, toxic yellow, teeth gleaming in the light as he opened his mouth to speak, to condemn Tesler to the games or immediate deresolution

But then he stopped and looked up. Cautiously, Paige flicked her eyes to her side as a Blackguard strode past her, gold-tinted lines of Clu’s honor guard orange in the red light of the ship. Without a word or look to anyone else, he stopped at Clu’s side and leaned up to whisper in his leader’s ear, his voice inaudible in the open hall. Clu blinked at what he heard, looking to his messenger, but when the program gave a silent nod he inclined his head.

“I see.” His voice echoed through the room, and with another nod he dismissed the messenger. As quickly as he’d come, the program left the hall, leaving them with Clu once more staring Tesler down. Eyes still wide, Tesler didn’t look away as Clu docked his disk, the click harsh in the heavy silence. For a moment, Clu simply looked down at his General, face blank and eyes cold.

But then he smiled and reached down to take Tesler by the arm, pulling him from the ground.

“But it seems I won’t have to do that right away after all. Come, come—you too, Commander.”

Letting go of Tesler’s arm, Clu strode from the room at a fast clip, his cloak billowing out behind him. Quickly taking General Tesler’s disk from him, Paige ran through the health coding as they jogged after their leader through empty tunnels. Too many rushed patch jobs from the cycles before gave her all the practice she needed to quickly patch the injuries and she handed him his disk as they headed back into the bowels of the ship. They kept dangerous prisoners here, programs that needed some persuasion to finally talk.

She hated it down here.

Clu lead them to a doorway where two of his more golden-lined sentries waited, saluting him as he came to stand in front of the door. For a moment he stopped, cocking his head as if listening, before he smiled again. Standing a pace behind her General, Paige swallowed her fear and asked,

“Sir?”

He looked from the door to her, that smile still on his face.

“It’s nothing, Commander. Just an old friend saying hello.”

And then he opened the door, gesturing for them to follow him in. Though Tesler had to duck through the doorway to fit, they both made it into the small interrogation slash containment chamber. A pillar of lit red code served as both weapon and shackle, glowing energy lines connected to two cuffs that would keep any program they brought here tied to the pillar. It was also the only light in the room after the door shut, the shadowy alcove where a disk would be locked away to taunt the captive program dim without the disk inside it. It was a good method of containment, Paige had to admit, but it had always seemed cruel to her.

She shoved the thought away as she stepped around Tesler for a better look. Pavel was already in the room, standing with a smug expression on his face as Dyson stood in front of the program that was tied to the pillar. Once her visual system had adjusted to the light, Paige had to stop herself from audibly gasping.

It was the Renegade. They’d captured the Renegade.

And apparently had struggled to do so, a small part of her processor chimed in. He was covered in blue gashes, wounds to his frame and dim circuits speaking of a long battle. His helmet was cracked and scraped, head hung low over his chest as he sat slumped on his knees with his hands shackled behind him. Pavel didn’t look much better now that she could get a good look at him, but Dyson was unharmed. Handing a disk to Clu, the foreign General looked to Tesler.

“You should know, Tesler, that Commander Pavel was instrumental in capturing the Renegade,” Dyson said with a smile. “You really ought to promote him.”

Tesler looked like he wanted to hit something, but he nodded anyway. Pavel just smiled even wider, looking crueler by the moment. Tesler looked to Clu.

“Sir,” he said quietly, “Is there a reason we’re here?”

“Consider it a…goodwill present. He was captured by one of your own, in your city,” Clu said with a casual shrug, the Renegade’s dual colored disk flipping in his hands. “You may as well see which one of your citizens has been causing you all this trouble.”

“…Yes, sir,” Tesler replied with a narrow eyed look at the Renegade, who hadn’t once raised his head or even twitched. “Thank you, sir.”

Clu smiled. Without further delay, he activated the Renegade’s disk and scrolled through the protocols. Paige’s core twisted at the violation of privacy and space, but she said nothing as Clu finally reached the helmet removal protocol. With a single press and a handful of soft clicks, the white-suited program’s helmet came off. Pavel stared, stunned silent. Clu and Dyson exchanged a confused look. Tesler frowned.

Paige had to struggle to restart her core.

Sitting there under the spotlight, head hung low and frame covered in gashes that spoke of injuries beyond the blue stain of impact across his forehead, was Beck.

[newstfionline]

Sunday, June 2, 2024

UN refugee chief says 114 million have fled homes because nations fail to tackle causes of conflict (AP) The number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law, the U.N. refugee chief said Thursday. In a hard-hitting speech, Filippo Grandi criticized the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for failing to use its voice to try to resolve conflicts from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan to Congo, Myanmar and many other places. He also accused unnamed countries of making “short-sighted foreign policy decisions, often founded on double standards, with lip service paid to compliance with the law, but little muscle flexed from the council to actually uphold it and—with it—peace and security.” Grandi said non-compliance with international humanitarian law means that “parties to conflicts—increasingly everywhere, almost all of them—have stopped respecting the laws of war,” though some pretend to do so.

After Trump’s Conviction, a Wary World Waits for the Fallout (NYT) The world does not vote in American presidential elections. Nor do its jurors play a part in the American judicial system. Nevertheless, the conviction of Donald J. Trump on all 34 felony counts in a hush-money trial in a New York court on Thursday has again made clear how consequential what happens in the United States is for the rest of the planet. Many America-watchers are grappling with the same questions posed by people in the United States: Can Mr. Trump still run for president? (Yes.) And if so, will the guilty verdicts cut into the support from his political base? (Unclear.) Foreign observers also began wondering if Mr. Trump, already a volatile force, would become even less likely to stay within the guardrails of normal politics and diplomacy if he won the presidency again in November.

Mexican candidate assassinations hit grim record ahead of Sunday’s election (Reuters) Mexico’s election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central Puebla state was murdered on Friday at a political rally, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote. Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a candidate who was running for a council seat in the town of Izucar de Matamoros, was gunned down in the attack, according to the state prosecutor’s office. The killing takes the number of assassinated candidates in the 2024 election season to 37, one more than during the 2021 midterm election.

Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels (AP) On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground. The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades. Gardi Sugdub is only about 400 yards (366 meters) long and 150 yards (137 meters) wide. Every year, especially when the strong winds whip up the sea in November and December, water fills the streets and enters the homes. The Gunas have tried to reinforce the island’s edge with rocks, pilings and coral, but seawater keeps coming. Residents will move to the new site on the mainland that the government developed at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a grid of paved streets carved out of the lush tropical jungle just over a mile from the port, where an eight-minute boat ride carries them to Gardi Sugdub.

Cuba laments collapse of iconic sugar industry (BBC) Cutting cane is all Miguel Guzmán has ever known. He comes from a family of farm hands and started the tough, thankless work as a teenager. For hundreds of years, sugar was the mainstay of the Cuban economy. It was not just the island’s main export but also the cornerstone of another national industry, rum. Older Cubans remember when the island was essentially built on the backs of families like Mr Guzmán’s. Today, though, he readily admits he has never seen the sugar industry as broken and depressed as it is now—not even when the Soviet Union’s lucrative sugar quotas dried up after the Cold War. Spiralling inflation, shortages of basic goods and the decades-long US economic embargo have made for a dire economic outlook across the board in Cuba. But things are particularly bleak in the sugar trade. Last season, Cuba’s production fell to just 350,000 tonnes of raw sugar, an all-time low for the country, and well below the 1.3 million tonnes recorded in 2019. “It’s a disaster. Today the sugar industry in Cuba almost doesn’t exist,” says Juan Triana of the Centre for Studies of the Cuban Economy in Havana. “We’re producing the same quantity of sugar Cuba produced in the middle of the 19th Century.”

NATO ministers meet in Prague as allies ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of their weapons (AP) NATO foreign ministers were meeting in the Czech capital Friday to prepare for this summer’s leaders’ summit as the alliance boosts support for Ukraine and countries one-by-one remove restrictions on how Kyiv can use western-supplied weaponry to combat Russia’s invasion. A day after U.S. President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use American munitions to strike inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, numerous ministers, including those from the Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Germany, expressed approval of the decision, saying that Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself from attacks originating on Russian soil.

The Kremlin is all-in on war in Ukraine (CSM) Amid its grinding war of attrition and economic mobilization against Ukraine, Russia is changing fast. As the Defense Ministry spends ever-increasing amounts of money to procure the equipment it needs and to recruit more soldiers, the country’s business environment and economic geography are being reshaped. And the military-industrial complex, which was vastly downsized in post-Soviet years, is reviving quickly. Confounding observers in many ways, Russia’s war economy, despite Western sanctions, is now back at a level that outproduces the entire West in some key military goods. And the Kremlin appears to be committed to a war economy approach for the long haul, as suggested by the recent reshuffling of Defense Ministry leadership. Whether such an economic policy is viable is in debate. Optimists say the rapid economic development is economically positive on balance, or at least that Russia can sustain high levels of military spending for the foreseeable future. Pessimists argue that the Kremlin is building a permanent war economy, much like the one that strangled the Soviet Union, and that hopes of building a prosperous consumer economy are fast vanishing. But for the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears all in.

Voting begins in the last round of India’s election (AP) A six-week-long national election in India that is a referendum on Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power neared its end Saturday as the last phase of voting began. The election is considered one of the most consequential in India’s history. If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister. The seventh round of polls covers 57 constituencies across seven states and one union territory. It will complete a national election to fill all 543 seats in the powerful lower house of parliament. Nearly 970 million voters—more than 10% of the world’s population—were eligible to elect a new parliament for five years. More than 8,300 candidates ran for the office. Most polls show Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party leading over the broad opposition alliance that’s challenging them, led by the Congress party. The votes will be counted Tuesday, with results expected by the end of the day.

Israeli views of the Israel-Hamas war (Pew Research Center) Some 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far, according to a survey conducted March 3-April 4. But Israelis see the war in vastly different ways depending on their political ideology, religion and other factors, including stark divides between Jews and Arabs. According to the survey, conducted in March and early April, roughly two-thirds of Israelis are also confident that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals in the war against Hamas.

Israel confirms its forces are in central Rafah in expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city (AP) The Israeli military confirmed Friday that its forces are operating in central parts of Rafah in its expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city. Israel launched its ground assault into the city on May 6, triggering an exodus of around 1 million Palestinians out of the city and throwing U.N. humanitarian operations based in the area into turmoil. Still, it has yet to amount to a “major operation” in the eyes of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, according to the State Department. Up to around 300,000 people are believed to remain in the Rafah area, with an unknown number still in the city itself. Most have flocked to rural areas on the Mediterranean coastline west of the city, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group that operates in the area. That area has seen deadly Israeli strikes the past week. Palestinians who fled the city have scattered around southern and central Gaza, most of them living in squalid tent camps.

Israel maintains a shadowy hospital in the desert for Gaza detainees. Critics allege mistreatment (AP) Patients lying shackled and blindfolded on more than a dozen beds inside a white tent in the desert. Surgeries performed without adequate painkillers. Doctors who remain anonymous. These are some of the conditions at Israel’s only hospital dedicated to treating Palestinians detained by the military in the Gaza Strip, three people who have worked there told The Associated Press, confirming similar accounts from human rights groups. While Israel says it detains only suspected militants, many patients have turned out to be non-combatants taken during raids, held without trial and eventually returned to war-torn Gaza. Eight months into the Israel-Hamas war, accusations of inhumane treatment at the Sde Teiman military field hospital are on the rise, and the Israeli government is under growing pressure to shut it down. Rights groups and other critics say what began as a temporary place to hold and treat militants after Oct. 7 has morphed into a harsh detention center with too little accountability.

Google scales back AI search answers after it told users to eat glue (Washington Post) Google said it was scaling down the use of AI-generated answers in some search results, after the tech made high-profile errors including telling users to put glue on their pizza and saying Barack Obama was Muslim. The change is the latest example of Google launching an AI product with fanfare and then rolling it back after it goes awry. The tech industry is in the throes of an AI revolution, with start-ups and Big Tech giants alike trying to find new ways to put the tech into their products and make money from it. Many of the tools have been launched before they’re ready for prime time, as companies jostle to be the first to market their products and cast themselves as cutting-edge. One answer, which Google has since fixed, told people to drink plenty of urine to help pass a kidney stone. Another said John F. Kennedy graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in six different years, three of which were after his death.

[nvraln-etsy]

Pattern: Spiral

Focus Stone: Red Jasper

Desire Stones: Chevron Amethyst, Bloodstone, Blue Kyanite

I may use this grid while meditating for the purpose of a variety of dreamwork methods. I may choose it due to uncertainty about what support I need or because of the overwhelming emotion involved.

Another option would be to place the grid on my nightstand and attend to it daily, particularly during periods of increased nightmares or stressful life situations. This helps to create a calming and supportive environment.

For this grid, I've chosen a red jasper point as the focal stone for its grounding properties and endurance. Bloodstone and chevron amethyst serve as way stones, enhancing energy flow with patience and clarity. Blue kyanite acts as the desire stone, reinforcing the grid's purpose to facilitate truthful communication and absorb negative energy.