#(compared to humans who I would consider more rectangular

[talesofsonicasura]

Not A Plaything

Prologue: Unfriendly Meeting

Somethings aren't meant to be toys. A line that one should always respect. To cross it is to break those involved and leave the innocent picking up the pieces.

Can be read gender neutral or preferred gender.

'Toys make the world go around.' A phrase that those who craft goodies for children of all ages would probably agree on. Whether it was for the smiles or money, toys were made to bring enjoyment to these youthful bundles.

Dolls, plastic cars, playing cards, building blocks were just some of many flavors they came in. Size doesn't really matter compared to the quality. And there were some lines people would cross if they want the perfect toy. Yet, perfection has a price. One that can be seen as morally forbidden depending on how far a toy maker will go.

It can develop into a growing nightmare if more than a single crafter choose to dance with the devil. One company would soon become a hidden workshop of horrors, crafting monsters in exchange for blood. Products made from stolen lives and broken morals.

The thing about commiting taboo is that one day it will all come down. Play with the Devil then you better prepare to pay the price. Cause all dues shall be collected at some point. It was a single incident that led to the massive downfall of this dark company. The Devil's due paid in blood and death as nothing remain except for their sins.

Although, not everything would become forgotten. One tortured soul was given salvation in the form of a determined child. The Devil within the factory knew what these two meant to each other. And let both leave together as they were proof that hope still exists.

Something which expanded far beyond what anyone could imagine.

"Yo, I'm back!" It was a freezing cold day despite being spring season. A lone house sat peacefully deep in the forest, it's roof peppered by the sunlight piercing through the green canopy. It held a comfy aura to it from the two small gardens on each side, soft peach walls and multiple wild cats napping in a homemade shelter.

The two floor home did have oddities for the door frames alongside the hallways were strangely wider. Almost if to accommodate the needs of something large. It could be considered strange to even ominous for many people.

Well, maybe not for you as this been your home for at least a decade. Every wooden board, brick, and piece of plaster renovated by just four hands than a single crew. The wider frames were made to accommodate your housemate. Well, housemate was a loose term as the soft yet rapid thumps echoed through the home.

Enough warning to quickly put up the eggs alongside any other fragile thing. Why? You can thank the large colorful blur that knocked the air out of you for the seventh time this week. "I HAVEN'T BEEN GONE FOR MORE THAN A FEW HOURS!"

Holding you in a hug made of spring-like arms was a vibrantly colored giant jack-in-the-box creature. A large 15' toy whose body was mainly a light blue box that has the classic wind up handle on the back, golden shaped compartments on each side in the form of two stars, two rings, and a heart. Hidden spaces where the five blood red springs which serve as the giant's limbs came out.

Its rectangular feet alongside its large four finger furry paws were equipped with sharp yellow claws. Although they weren't as bad as the cubed head bearing large razor sharp teeth and slightly dilated eyes. Only 90s folk or crazy toy collectors would recognize the giant toy as Playtime Co's Boxy Boo.

Well, if it was a monster that looked ready to eat some poor person whole and not the cuddle bug here. You however knew him under a different title as the large beast gently continues to nuzzle you. "I only been gone for a few hours, Dad."

Yes, the giant toy was just called dad. The Boxy Boo churring up a storm as he hugged you is actually your biological father. Something that would seem impossible if he hadn't been a human made former lab rat by a mad doctor's toy company.

A shit show neither of you wanted to get caught in again. "Let me guess a nightmare about the factory?" He rapidly shook his head. "That Mayfair Watcher's Society podcast we listened to the other night?" He let out an amused snort at that one. "It's that strange reoccurring dream, ain't it?" Dear ol' Boxy Pops gave a small thumbs up.

For the past two weeks, your dad had been plagued with a weird dream. Piercing red eyes that lurk in the forest shadows. A bloody silver blade shone under a crimson moon as you and him were fleeing from something. It always ended the same way. Blurry figures of shadow and light destroying everything as they collide.

The dream scared him shitless every time despite how mild it was to the hell he gone through. You were obviously concerned for Boxy Pops as the nightmare sounds more like a warning. Anyone else would wave this off too if they were unaware that the toy victims of Playtime Co. were telepathically linked to something WAY BIGGER.

Your dad was still connected to 'him' by a tiny thread so whether these dreams were 'his' doing is up in the air. But it was enough to tell that this was a storm is on the horizon. You softly caressed the large toy's cheek trying to ease him.

"Don't worry dad. Whatever is going to happen, we'll get through it together. No matter if it's those bastards or something else entirely... They're gonna get steamrolled." You made his favorite snack, devil eggs, and the both of you watch Shazam together to help him calm down.

Boxy Pops' mind had been damaged ever since Playtime Co made him into a toy. At the start, your dad was closer to an actual father bear than the 'soft shy geek' from what your mother once quoted. Ready to strike anything that got near his cub and bring back questionable food. You helped him recover as many lost memories by reintroducing his favorite things.

Games, food, movies, music, comics to even his favorite animals like the wild cats. You taught your dad sign language so communication was much easier. Could he still talk? Sorta sadly. The bastards had twisted his kind soft voice to a heavily static radio that rumble like a car engine. It hurt for your dad to talk and it hurt your heart just seeing how cruel people could be.

For now, it was best for Boxy Pops to recover by lounging with the cats or help solve puzzles for his favorite videogames. You were going to gather as much info on Playtime Co. and make whatever is left burned to the ground. They hadn't paid enough in blood yet...

Let this be known that Boxy Pops is someone who has difficulty sleeping by himself. You or one of the cats stay next to him as he wouldn't rest with no physical reassurance. The factory fucked him up pretty bad and completely ruin Boxy Pops' previous life.

If he feels something is wrong then your father is quick to alert you. This includes light shaking, poking and licking if it's really urgent. Thus the large scratchy cat like tongue that ran across your face at 3 in the morning was enough to wake up in a sputtering mess.

Boxy Pops was on edge as his eyes were more dilated and arm springs hung back a bit for a quick launch. Something had him ready to slip into attack mode, not good. You immediately got dressed, packed emergency provisions, grab the travel pack, then load up both your shotgun and hand pistol.

The people who experimented on him were a relentless bunch. Folk who wouldn't stop until they get what they want or die. Five years on the move, faking your death, barely getting overseas illegally, making a new identity and build a hidden home by hand sums up just how bad they were.

The forest stood eeriely silent as even the wild cats were on edge. Every mother kept close to their kittens while the males look ready to fight off anything that got too close. Boxy Pops had a unique hand in this peculiar nature as all were hostile enough to attack any trespassers like an organized army. You seen wolves get taken out in minutes at how vicious and calculated the cats were.

Whatever been part of his transition into a toy gave Boxy Pops the ability to communicate with animals to an insane degree, especially felines. You stayed on guard as your dad follow stealthily behind. From where the cats were facing, the disturbance was somewhere up north which is boar territory.

Using his spring limbs, your father had leapt into the trees and kept watch from above. Despite his huge size, all of Playtime Co's experiments were extremely stealthy that even someone as big as him wouldn't make a sound. Traits that would make the most advanced ambush predators blush.

You kept your shotgun steady and night vision goggles on to look through the forest's darkness. It was too empty as nothing made a sound to the lack of fireflies that constantly hang out in these parts. You couldn't help notice the woods slightly shift the deeper you tread inside.

The birch trees somehow bled into dark oak, the ground brush now held thorns alongside foreign berries, and even the area's cool air felt more humid. A small snap of a twig was enough warning to aim your gun at the brush as an armed figure stood there.

It's peculiar inhuman shape and animalistic traits didn't spare it from a buck shot to the head. The body part exploding into bloody chunks as the headless figure hit the ground dead. You carefully approach the slain creature, not missing what looked like black blood stains on the flora.

The possibility of it not being a bear was obvious but this monster is unmistakable to any avid gamer. A Red Bokobolin specifically the Skyward Sword variant. It was easily recognizable from the thorn covered club, open fur vest, crude fur skirt covering tiger print underwear and worn brown boots. Since the Bokobolin's sad eggplant head was currently in smithereens, it had to be around 3'9 as Skyward Sword Link stood around 5'1.

"Holy fuck." You immediately raised your shotgun as Bokobolins were pack monsters. If there's one here then a squad has to be nearby. Legend of Zelda was something you played for your dad as it been his favorite series since childhood. Sadly large furry paws can't work a controller well unless it's a custom made one.

Your instincts were right as your night vision goggles caught even in more of them coming this way. "Did Playtime Co. decide to break trademark claims and bring videogame monsters to life? Or did I get bloody Isekai'd?"

You would ponder more once these monsters were dead. The second Bokobolin jumped from the brush had its heart blown apart by another buckshot. Your finger never leaving the trigger as you fired shot after shot. None of them were the archer variety so the only threat was crude clubs and boom...

You managed to duck in time to avoid the Ice Arrow from above and froze the spot where your head would've been. The one responsible was a Lizalfos but it's the Breath of the Wild variant! Large humanoid horned chameleons both in their wiggly lithe appearance and natural camouflage ability wearing metal armor unlike the more eel-like bandit desert lizards.

It was a silver coat, obvious white scales to blue stripes, which meant this son of a bitch is more dangerous than the others. You quickly shot the bastard down before it could let loose another elemental arrow. This allowed the sheer size of the Bokobolin army to charge in, 50 to at least 100, and show how bad the situation really was.

You would run out of ammo alongside room to fire long before even half these bastards were killed. Boxy Pops needed to show up NOW. Immediately dug into the emergency bag until you pull out the flare gun and fired a red shot high into the air. It's burning hot smokey stream made the horde pause in confusion.

An opening you were gonna use as you began to fire once more. Head, chest, legs, any way to slow them down until help could arrive. If the barrel went out, then it was quickly reloaded. The recoil of the countless buckshot from the shotgun had your arm practically screaming in pain as shells litter the ground alongside monster gore.

It was only a matter of time before the worst horror cliche happened...the damn trip. You fell on your ass as a shotgun shell had rolled under your feet like a sick joke. A big misfortune cause one of the Bokobolins took that moment to charge with its club raise high for a good smack.

You ready to intercept the strike using your shotgun when... "HYAAH!" An eeriely familiar howl of a young man had you quickly duck as a large steel boomerang brutally collided with attacking Bokobolin's face. Perfect opportunity to get a good distance from the monster and watch two blonde swordsmen run towards the horde.

A hand gently touch your shoulder was enough to pull up your goggles so making out the impossible sight wouldn't be hindered. What stood there with the steel boomerang in is the one and only BotW Link. A more accurate version from your opinion as the left side of his lean soft tannish 4'11 frame was marred by severe old burns.

The soft blue hue of his Champion's tunic, long soft blonde hair in a blue ponytail, light beige pants, brown travel boots, the soft blueish glow from the dark metal Sheikah Slate and those ocean blue eyes were realer in person. You kept your cool since you weren't the 'fangirl' stereotype, plus Zelda is more of your dad's thing.

That meant the blonde with the long blue scarf had to be Hyrule Warriors Link and the one wearing the multicolor tunic must be Minish Cap/Four Swords. "Is this a fucking Isekai???" Wild Link look at you like an alien in a conga line with martini in hand. "Kufryh Ryiko?" Oh no. No. No. No. NO. A BLOODY LANGUAGE BARRIER ON TOP OF THIS?!

"Fuck my luck!" You went to reload your shotgun and put the night vision goggles back on. Wild Link been distracted at the peculiar weapon before him that he didn't notice the blue Lizalfos emerging from the tree. That is until you pulled him aside and shot the bastard out it's hiding spot.

"Pay attention!" A loud very familiar roar tore through the fighting forces like shrapnel to a wall. Everyone but you froze as no one could see the source of the sound. They weren't looking above for Boxy Pops fell from the trees and crushed two poor Bokobolins flat under his large frame.

With a vicious roar he bit down on another monster, the beastie was so small that only its feets peek outta the toy's mouth. Your father swallowed the Bokobolin whole in seconds, much to its comrades' horror, and lunge at the rest. "Don't hit my dad."

The blast from your shotgun had shaken the three Links out of their daze as they quickly rejoined the fight. In seconds, the Bokobolin squadron shrunk to miniscule numbers. Your father's spring limbs were a three bladed halberd, every monster in range was gonna get hit either by his claws or springs.

Wild Link had swap his boomerang for a long sword as the boomerang didn't mesh well in close quarters. You blast off heads of any Lizalfos that showed up or Bokobolins who went to sneak attack the Links. The last low budget goblin met its fate gruesomely torn in half by Boxy Pops' jaws as this fight finally came to an end.

It wasn't over though for six more Links had joined the other three. The ones who are still adjusting to the absolute monstrous toy before them and the armed stranger who stood protectively in front of the beast. You moved your weapon to the side but never took a finger off the trigger. The moment felt perfect to test something. With your free hand, you sign to the group a single sentence.

"Care for a ceasefire?"

Yep, you ain't imagining what ya just read. I like to make bizarre, insane or crack crossovers sometimes. Shits n giggles that boggle the mind. Poppy Playtime with Legend of Zelda/Linked Universe felt perfect this time. This takes place at least two weeks after Twilight recovers in LU.

Yes, I'm also trying an actual hand at language barriers. Wild's line is gibberish but he was basically saying 'Weird foreign language.' I went with Boxy Boo for the form Reader's dad is trapped. One is because I like goofy jack-in-the-boxes, two I can make dad pun level nicknames such as Boxy Pops and three Huggy Wuggy or Mommy Legs didn't have what I was looking for in surprises.

Boxy Boo literally hides in his box body to sneak attack. I can write the killer jack-in-the-box trope on a Yiga or something as equally funny. As for the cats, since the toys never left Playtime Co's except when Huggy Wuggy escaped in that one ARG vid, there's no way to tell what else they can do inside a different environment.

Thus talking to animals alongside lethal common felines was made for Boxy Boo. Expect Time and every other responsible Link being so done with the bullshit I'm about to drop on 'em. Also I don't know which Link (not Wind obviously) would be the closest to Reader in a platonic or romantic way so it's up in the air.

That's it for now! Until next time folks, I'll see you back in Hyrule! Here's Boxy Boo, both monster and toy art alongside his wiki page.

[heylinfanclub]

I can put my NARSTY sketches on my personal blog. Only the best of the best to put on my art blog proper. Working on hand with optional opposable of one finger, proper opposability of the other (technically have super flexible wrists too)….. and hand prints for em. Trying to ride the line between ‘biological viability’ and ‘wish fulfillment for aliens’. Kinda like the handprint having a sort of heart shape innit,,,, cause Heart is a common shape in their leaves tooo,,,,

[tres-spades-hotel]

Can I request a kbtbb x SCM crossover where Leon falls for Eisuke's MC. Leon is just the same as he was in his S1 but he slowly starts developing feelings for MC. However, she is completely loyal to Eisuke. Can we get some twist and turns and a happy ending for Eisuke. I will be grateful if you could do it. By the way, Thanks for other beautiful stories that you have written.

KBTBB x SCM

A Lion’s Attempt at Love

LEON’S POV, PALACE IN THE HEAVENS, THE THRONE ROOM

I can’t believe this is happening.

‘And, therefore, the six of you will be sharing the mansion with these humans for three days. I’m sure you will have plenty of fun,’ he says, with that annoyingly knowing smile of his.

‘This is ridiculous, we’ve already opened up that place for the goddess, and now we have to open it up for an entire cluster of goldfish? Absolutely not,’ I retaliate but the trickster on the throne stares at me; the corners of his lips turn up into an even more annoying smirk.

‘It won’t kill you. Run along now, they’re waiting for you all,’ he says, and a bright light envelopes us. The warmth of it doesn’t reach my heart, it just irritates me further.

Opening my eyes, five men sit at the luxury couches of the main room. One in particular, with brown hair, sits in my spot in the middle. His arms outstretch against the top of the couch while a young woman sits beside him, fidgeting nervously with her thumbs.

Karno turns around as we appear, and he smiles at me.

‘Hey, did the King tell you?’ he asks. The heads of the goldfish look up with curiosity.

‘Yeah, he did that bastard-hey! Don’t touch that!’ the scorpion marches over to a blonde-haired goldfish holding a Punishments document.

‘Oops, guess the work is off limits,’ he says as Scorpio snatches back the piece.

‘Um, let’s all just calm down and talk. My name is Mitsunari Baba! You may call me ‘Baba’, ‘Mitchy’, or ‘Mitsunari’ if you want,’ the man in the black hat says with such joy it almost makes me want to actually turn him into a goldfish.

‘How about I call you ‘idiot’ instead?’ Scorpio says, huffing away to the chair in the corner.

I step forward further into the room, amused. ‘I didn’t realise you were in the habit of calling yourself out like that. I wouldn’t be trying so hard to annoy you if I knew,’ I respond, and with some sort of sick delight, watch the fumes rush out his ears in anger.

‘You stupid lion, shut up!’ he shouts back.

I sit down and cross my legs. ‘He’s a scorpion so he’s all bark and poison with no bite,’ I reply.

‘Why you-‘ he attempts to pounce but Dui and the fish hold him back.

‘Scorpio, stop!’ Dui says.

‘Um, let’s sit down. Vega, Altair, will you both provide us with some tea?’ Hue says, lightly pushing them out the door.

‘Here, I’ll introduce the others. Next to me is Ota Kisaki. The sleepy looking one is Mamoru Kishi, the scary looking one is Soryu Oh and the pretentious looking one is Eisuke Ichinomiya. The lovely lady sitting next to Eisuke is Vivian Grier, Eisuke’s fiancée.’

‘It’s nice to meet you all and we apologise for our King’s disturbance in your lives,’ Hue says. The six goldfish look at each other with wary looks.

‘It’s fine. Our lives were becoming boring anyway. At least we can pass the time with this,’ the man named Eisuke says. There’s a powerful glint in his eyes which I recognise in myself.

‘So no harm done! And all of you?’ the red suit goldfish says.

‘Well, I’ve already introduced myself. The one shouting murder and terror is Scorpio, the god of Scorpio, he’s the Vice Minister of the Department of Punishments; next to him is Dui, the god of Gemini and that is Ichthys, the god of Pisces. They are part of the Department of Punishments in the Heavens.’

The scorpion huffs away in distaste while Dui and Ichthys smile and wave.

‘This is gonna be fun!’ the fish says.

‘Ichy! You can’t do anything while they’re here,’ Dui frowns at him.

‘What does that mean?’ the older looking goldfish asks. His sleepy demeanor reminds me of Aigo.

‘Nothing!’

‘He’s a prankster,’ Scorpio answers with a scowl. Three out of six frown in disapproval while the other three seem to accept this fact.

‘How much harm can you do, pranking people?’ the blonde one asks.

‘He blew up the palace once,’ Hue answered indifferently. Their eyes widen.

‘By the way, who names their child, Scorpio?’ he asks again.

‘The King,’ the six of us reply, causing Scorpio to crinkle his face in disgust.

‘All I suggest is that you be careful. The one who answered is Huedhaut, the god of Aquarius; over there is Teorus, the god of Taurus and this,’ he points to me, ‘is Leon, the god of Leo, the Chief Minister of the Department of Wishes,’ Karno says it with such pride it nearly makes me smile.

‘It’s nice to meet you all,’ Hue says.

‘Hello!’ Teo also says.

Everyone turns towards me as I look up. I somehow lock eyes with the woman, but she quickly averts her gaze with a faint blush on her cheeks.

‘Leo,’ Karno whispers.

‘You want me to introduce myself? They’re just goldfish,’ I say, continuing to stare at her.

‘Goldfish?’

‘All humans are the same to us, just as all goldfish look the same and flock to beings more powerful than they are,’ I answer.

‘What nonsense. What about variability? Individuality?’ the dark-haired ‘scary looking one’ says with a frown.

‘Doesn’t matter. You’re all the same,’ I repeat, and he scowls at me as if I’m the only one who believes it. Everyone in the Heavens does.

‘I don’t care what happens during this week,’ the man sitting next to her suddenly begins, ‘there’s only one rule you will abide by,’

‘Oh ho, giving gods orders? You must be special,’ I say.

‘Yes, I am,’ he smirks and crosses his arms. ‘And you will follow this rule until we leave: my fiancée is off limits.’

‘Eisuke!’ she exclaims, for the first time she has been here.

‘You should listen to him, Eisuke always has his way, with gods or humans,’ the dark-haired man says. All the other humans nod furiously in agreement.

‘I believe that rule applies to the sex fiends in the room,’ Hue points out, looking at Teo and I specifically.

‘Me? I haven’t done anything yet!’ Teo protests.

‘As if I would bother pursuing a human, let alone a woman like her,’ I say. Her face scrunches at my insult.

‘Good, then we’ll have no problems living together,’ he says, taking out a rectangular piece of technology and begins tapping away at it.

Vega and Altair finally return with tea. The woman stands up and hurries over to them, taking the tray of teacups out of Altair’s hands.

‘Oh, thank you, but I can-‘ Altair begins.

‘No, it’s okay. It’s my job to provide refreshments,’ she says, placing the tray onto the coffee table.

‘Really?’ Vega asks. The god children look up at the woman with sparkles in their eyes.

‘Yes, I work at the hotel my fiancé owns as a maid,’ she answers, smiling with pride.

‘Wow, that’s so cool! What kind of things do you do?’ Vega asks with excitement. The woman casually talks and pours the tea as if she had been doing it for years.

‘Well, I work with other maids to tend to our guests who stay at the hotel. I clean the rooms they stay in by changing the bed sheets, dusting, and replenishing amenities,’ she takes the teacups and starts handing them out, ‘that means I replace all the empty bottles and towels and other things the guests use which we supply.’

She hands me a cup and our fingers touch briefly.

‘I also have an extra job as a maid, which is to clean the penthouse where us six live in the hotel,’ she continues, handing a cup to Karno who smiles a ‘thank you’ to her which she returns.

‘That’s a ‘very important people’ area for those who pay enough money to live in luxury,’ she says.

‘Oh, so you consider yourself a ‘very important people’?’ I interrupt with a question. She briefly looks at me but then shrugs her shoulders.

‘Not really. I’m pretty normal actually.’

‘Don’t be so modest, Vivian. You’re the only one who managed to squeeze herself into Boss’ little heart,’ the man named ‘Baba’ says. His knowing smile reminds me of a certain trickster King.

‘And you’re the only one who can manage being around this lot,’ the sleepy one named ‘Mamoru’ adds. He suddenly yawns. ‘Hey, there any beds to sleep in? I’m tired.’

‘You’re always tired,’ the dark-haired man, Soryu, says.

‘Shut up, it’s been a busy day!’

‘No it hasn’t. We’ve been to see the King and that’s it,’ Soryu argues.

‘You think any of this is normal?’

‘That’s enough.’ Eisuke orders.

‘Haha, they sort of remind me of you and Scorpio, Leo,’ Karno laughs, and I scowl at him.

‘Don’t you compare me to a pair of clownfish,’ I reply. I watch the woman sit next to her fiancé, smiling.

‘Hey!’

‘Pair of clownfish? Please, don’t group me in with them,’ Soryu says with frowning eyebrows.

‘We actually like to call these four the peanut gallery,’ Eisuke tells us.

‘Makes sense,’ Scorpio says, pushing a stack of documents onto Ichthys. ‘Will you hurry up and finish these already? Zig has been waiting for these!’

‘I’m sorry, I was going to do them but then the King called us to see him!’ Ichthys protests but is dragged away by Scorpio.

‘It’s nice to meet you all,’ Dui quickly says before rushing out to follow.

‘Hue, show the humans the guest rooms in the mansion,’ I order, and he nods in response. ‘But first,’

Everyone looks at me as I stand up and saunter over to the woman. She looks up and slowly stands up to face me.

‘You will work in this mansion as my maidservant.’

*

THE NEXT DAY

LEON’S POV, THE GOD’S MANSION, HIS CHAMBERS, 9AM

A knock at the door wakes me from my daze. I snap my fingers and the doors open.

‘Um, hello?’ Vivian asks, slowly walking into my room.

‘Open the curtains,’ I order her and lie back down.

‘Okay,’ I hear her respond. She shuffles across the room and soon the sunlight fills my bedroom, dispelling the darkness. I sit up and watch as she does the same to the other set of windows.

‘Do gods sleep?’ she asks.

‘Recreationally we can, but it’s not a requirement. What’s that?’ I ask, seeing a tray of tea and biscuits on the table.

‘Well, it’s morning. I figured you would order me to get you breakfast,’ she answers, pouring tea into the cup.

‘Gods don’t eat either,’ I say.

‘But you can, recreationally, right?’ she answers, looking back at me with a smile. She places the cup down as I stand behind her.

‘Do you need anything else?’ she asks. When she turns around, she jumps back but the back of her legs hit the chair. My finger lifts her chin up so that I can take a look at her face. A faint blush graces her skin. For a moment, she’s completely dazzled by my presence but that fades quick. Her small hand wraps around my wrist and pushes it away.

‘Oh? Don’t want to be touched by a god?’ I ask.

‘No. I only want to be touched by the man I love most in this world,’ she responds and pushes past me to leave.

‘Love doesn’t mean anything. You’ll come back to me begging for pleasure,’ I say with a smirk on my face, but it fades when I see pity in her eyes as she turns around.

‘How does a god who grants wishes to humans not understand how important love is? I really feel sorry for you if you don’t believe love means anything.’ Vivian walks away, leaving me with cooling tea and annoyance.

I continued working with Karno looking over my shoulder, but I couldn’t concentrate. Her words echoed in my mind and the way she looked at me didn’t fade. Love is based off of nothing but need. And I don’t need it. I’ve seen love destroy many gods in my life: my mother and father, Hue and Clotho and then Aigo with that goddess Phione. Men like Teo and Tauxolouve, even that sex fiend Partheno, play games and have as many goddess’ as they want because they don’t see love romantically either. Love has messed all of us up in some ways.

*

VIVIAN’S POV, THE MANSION COURTYARD, 13PM

I don’t know why Eisuke agreed to my being a maidservant to Leon. I guess he’ll tell me eventually. As soon as I left his room, I leaned against the wall to take a breath. He stood so close to me, and I could feel his warmth and powerful aura. But it didn’t make me feel the same way Eisuke does when he’s beside me. Eisuke makes me feel safe and loved, Leon makes me feel cornered, like prey.

‘Vivian, hand me that document,’ Eisuke asks, holding out his hand while staring at his laptop. The outside breeze cools me down as I pick up the piece of paper.

‘Here you go,’ I say. Eisuke looks up at me and narrows his eyes.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I was just thinking about how beautiful the courtyard is,’ I answer, sitting down opposite him. Eisuke continues to stare at me. I sigh, knowing that I can’t hide anything from him.

‘Okay, Leon came onto me and failed in the morning, that’s it,’ I answer.

Eisuke scowls at my answer but then he leans back into the chair and folds his arms across his broad chest and raises an eyebrow. ‘He failed?’

‘I told him that I love you and only want to be touched by you,’ I respond, but I feel my face heat up in embarrassment.

‘Good, but you still need to be careful around him,’ he orders which I nod in agreement. He leans in again and rests his elbows on the table.

‘Eisuke, can I say something?’

‘What?’

‘He sort of reminds me of you. Now hear me out,’ I begin, holding out my hands to stop him from interrupting. ‘I know that we’ve only been here for a day but from this one interaction I’ve had with him, Leon is as confident and sexy as you are. You are both so sure of yourselves and in your abilities.’

‘But? There’s more,’ Eisuke presses on, leaning over the table.

‘He said that love isn’t important. I guess it reminded me of back when we first met,’ I finish, running my fingers over the grooves in the table.

‘He’s wrong, you taught me that.’ Eisuke takes my hand in his and runs his thumb over my engagement rings. His touch fills me with warmth, so I place my hand over his and smile. Eisuke takes my other hand and pulls me to sit on his lap.

*

LEON’S POV, THE MANSION COURTYARD, 13:30PM

Instead of snapping my fingers to cause the sound of bells in her head, I decided to go out looking for her in a vain attempt to avoid Karno and Hue. As I open the doors to the garden, I hear faint giggling. Walking further into the yard, I see her sitting on his lap, with his back to me. She gives him fleeting, playful kisses and her sweet voice echoes in the empty space.

Why did I just think ‘sweet’ voice?

I shake my head and saunter into the middle of the garden.

‘You two are quite a shameless pair of goldfish,’ I begin, but I feel myself raising an eyebrow when neither attempt to move from their position.

‘Pfft, then you don’t know me very well,’ he answers.

‘I don’t “get to know” goldfish of any kind.’

‘You wouldn’t because you don’t bother yourself in knowing about us as humans, but you do care about our particular brand of entertainment,’ he argues which makes me huff in response.

‘Your fiancée is my maidservant,’ I point out which causes her to stand up. Vivian folds her hands over each other and smiles at me with a business-like expression, different to the lovable-wife I watched a few moments ago.

‘Did you need anything? I didn’t hear any bells ringing,’ she asks.

‘That’s because I didn’t.’ I turn around and leave them to their ‘love’. As soon as I walk back into the foyer, Karno comes out of the dining room.

‘There you are, I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ he says. ‘You need to read and sign these otherwise we can’t file our year’s work in the department.’

I feel my face crinkle at the thought of paperwork and turn around to the main doors.

‘Leo, you can’t run away from me, not unless you want to make me cry, which would be terribly wrong of you,’ Karno continues, putting a firm hold on my right shoulder. ‘Come on. Humans have this saying you know, it’s called-‘

‘Work first, play later,’ I finish for him. We head up the staircase into the hallway.

‘Exactly! Look, I know lions sleep for 20 hours a day, but you can’t blow off your work when they need your particular signature,’ Karno says, handing me a folder.

‘Okay, I get, I understand your point. Can you stop talking now?’ I tell him, turning the corner.

‘I saw you outside talking to the humans, Eisuke and Vivian. What were you telling them?’ he asks.

‘Nothing, I caught them kissing and decided to embarrass them,’ I answer.

‘And?’

‘They weren’t.’

‘Many humans of their stature aren’t embarrassed to be physically intimate in public. You know the gods aren’t any different in that regard,’ Karno says.

‘I know. I wanted to see what her reaction was. She seemed like the nervous, wouldn’t-want-to-be-exposed-in-public type but she hardly reacted when I called them shameless,’ I say.

‘Wow. I guess she must be used to it,’ Karno says. He pats me on the back and continues walking down the hall. I stand outside my bedroom doors, thinking about her face when she was laughing and smiling, happy. It made me feel, something.

*

THE DAY AFTER THAT

LEON’S POV, HIS BEDROOM, 4PM

When my power to give pleasure came about when I was young, my mother hid me away from the heavens to prevent any ‘accidents’ but they always brought me out to parties and social gatherings to show off how powerful they’re only son was becoming. She didn’t even raise me, the servants of our household did. They couldn’t love me because-

‘Leon? I brought you some tea,’ Vivian’s voice pushes through my closed doors. The images of my childhood fade as I sit up on my bed.

‘Um, Leon?’ her voice pushes through again, hesitating. I rub away my past off my face and snap my fingers. The doors creek open, revealing her standing with a tray. The evening sun’s rays holds her figure in a basking glow of gold. She smiles at me and walks in. The shadows on the floor creep up towards her, threatening to plunge her into darkness. For some reason, I nearly jump out of bed.

‘Are you okay? What happened?’ she asks, slightly disturbed at my behaviour. Like I am.

‘I’m fine.’ I sit down at the small table. ‘Join me,’ I order, and she looks at me briefly. Her eyes seem to search mine for a clue of my motives. Hers are a normal shade of brown. No stars, no flecks in the pupil, Vivian has regular human eyes but somehow, I see something other than love and pity and excitement as she looks at me.

She finally shrugs her shoulders and sits down opposite me, pouring herself and I, a cup of tea.

‘Are you always comfortable being intimate with him?’ I ask suddenly, after taking a sip.

‘We’ve been together for years. I wasn’t at first, but that’s only because I had never been with a man like Eisuke before. I got used to it and now I enjoy it,’ she answers.

‘Only with him?’ I ask again. She smirks at me before drinking a sip of tea.

‘Yes, only with Eisuke. I guess you’re the type to take what you want and leave straight after?’ she asks in return. Vivian places the tea down and leans back into the chair, crossing her legs in the process.

‘Goddesses throw themselves at me because of my powers,’ I say in response.

‘The ability to give pleasure, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why you asked about me in the morning? About giving me pleasure?’ she asks.

‘I was curious. Human’s act based on needs.’

‘My needs are being met, there’s no doubt about that,’ she says, laughing.

‘Oh?’

‘Believe me. You know, Eisuke was like you when I first met him,’ she says, changing the subject. Her finger slowly traces the curve of the lip of the cup.

‘A god?’

‘Ha, very funny. No, a man who had everything he could ever want in his life, but no one to love him. He didn’t think love was necessary either,’ she continues. Her eyes glaze over in reminiscence.

‘Until he met you?’

‘I suppose so. By the way, is it okay if I use the kitchen here to cook for dinner?’

‘You really like to jump, don’t you? Fine, I assume it’s because the others like to eat ‘cooked’ meals rather than magically appearing ones,’ I say.

‘That is true actually. Thanks! Anything in particular you want?’ she asks.

‘I’m a god,’ I reply.

‘Yeah, yeah. That doesn’t mean you don’t eat, ever,’ she says, waving her hands in dismissal.

‘Meatballs,’ I mumble.

‘You like meatballs? Beef scrunched up into a ball and cooked in sauce?’

‘Don’t mock me. I said what I said. Now go away, I have work to do,’ I say.

‘Work being, laying in your bed?’ she asks, her lips slowly curve up into a familiar smile.

‘Ha, ha, very funny.’

*

LEON’S POV, HALLWAYS OF THE MANSION, 7PM

The smell of cooking fills the entire mansion. As I walk down the hallway to the main room, I turn the corner to see the others standing outside the dining room. Hue notices me and waves me over.

‘What’s going on?’

‘It smells so good. Do you think they’ll share the food?’ Ichyths asks.

‘We could ask,’ Dui suggests.

‘Do they look like the kind of humans who share?’ the scorpion walks up to us.

‘They seemed pretty nice,’ Teo says.

‘You’re probably better off asking the woman who’s cooking the meals,’ Hue says.

‘That’s right,’ her voice echoes out of the room. When I open the doors, Vivian is laying the table with plates. She looks at us as she places a fork down.

‘I think I made enough for everyone,’ she says.

‘Ah, I was wondering why we had to wait so long. You made some for the gods as well?’ Eisuke’s voice suddenly sounds from behind us.

The rest of the humans arrive and begin sitting down as if they have lived here for years. Before her fiancé can sit down at the head of the table, I take his spot. I look up to see him scowling at me.

‘You live in our building, you live here by our rules.’

His eyebrows furrow but he doesn’t respond. Instead, Eisuke walks to the other end of the table and sits directly opposite me.

‘Vivian,’ he says, and she picks up a spoon.

‘Vivian,’ I say, and she turns around. ‘Before you are his fiancé, you’re my maidservant.’ I gesture to the plate of meatballs by me with my chin. I lean back casually as I watch the wrinkles in his face deepen. In my peripheral view, everyone’s eyes switch back and forth between Eisuke and I, but I don’t look away from his gaze. After a few moments of silence, she places the spoon down slowly and speaks up.

‘Everyone can sit down and serve themselves with whatever they like.’

As soon as she walks past me, I open my mouth. ‘Choosing the middle ground doesn’t make you a saint.’

‘Being a god doesn’t make you all powerful,’ she fires back. ‘I control my own actions, regardless of my “employment” anywhere.’ Vivian heads into the kitchen.

‘Is it just me, or did it get really hot in here all of a sudden?’

‘Shut up!’

*

THE NIGHT BEFORE

LEON’S POV, HIS SECRET GARDEN, 8PM

Since the dinner, I’ve been doing all I can to annoy Vivian and Eisuke. But it seems all I’ve done is bring them together even more. He seems to trust her to protect herself from me.

As I walk downstairs, she comes out from a doorway at the bottom of the foyer. We make eye contact, and she looks at me curiously. I simply pass her and open the door revealing a black darkness.

‘Um, Leon?’ she asks, hesitating.

‘Follow me if you’re up for it,’ I say, and walk through. The scene changes to a field on Earth. Similar to the one in the Heavens, its calming nature lets me breath. A rustling of petals and grass tell me she did follow.

‘Curiosity kills the cat, you know?’ I speak. Gentle footsteps creep up towards me.

‘Good thing I’m not a cat then,’ she replies, standing beside me.

‘No, you’re a goldfish,’ I answer back and turn my head to face her. I see her smile and look down. Vivian slowly lowers herself to sit down on the ground and she tugs on the hem of my jacket.

‘Gods don’t-‘

‘Oh, shut up and sit down,’ she says in a playful manner.

‘Fine.’ We sit there, watching the moon and the lake for what felt like a lifetime.

*

AN HOUR LATER

Leon doesn’t like to kiss, which is stupid because kissing is great!

Teo’s words echo in my mind over and over. We have been sitting for a while and talking and arguing about gods, humans, and just life in general. Right now, she’s trying to humiliate me by suggesting I believe in love.

‘If you don’t want a woman to kiss you, then it doesn’t mean you believe love is unimportant, it means that you do feel that love is important and you’re afraid to take a chance to be loved and give love.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I reply.

‘Sure, you can deny it all you want, but it’s true. You’ve been deprived of physical and emotional love. And now, you have begun craving it, in me.’ She sighs and stands up, smoothing down the crinkles in her dress. ‘I can’t give you what you want, whether you’re a god or not.’

‘I don’t want anything from you,’ I begin, and stand up.

‘Oh, shut up! You and I both know I’m right!’ she shouts. ‘I love Eisuke, with all my heart and I’m sure there’s someone out there for you. You never know, maybe you’ve met her already or maybe she’s just not born yet. You are a god, after all. You’ve got an eternity to find her, but she’s not me, and never will be.’

The next thing I know, I’m holding her in my arms. Trying to will her into staying. She feels small in my arms. No, she feels perfect in my arms. Her body shakes with nerves, so I rub her back to calm her down. Vivian sighs from frustration and I feel her arms reluctantly wrap around my torso. Her warmth fills me as the breeze rustles the flowers on the ground.

‘Leon,’ she begins to say.

‘I know.’ I abruptly pull away and quickly snap my fingers. The scenery changes to the empty courtyard of the mansion. ‘Thank you,’ I say. Turning, I leave her ‘love’ behind.

*

THE NEXT MORNING

LEON’S POV, OUTSIDE THE MANSION ENTRANCE, 9AM

‘Okay Boss, I’ve put all the suitcases into the back,’ Baba says.

‘Kishi! Why are you stretching your entire body out? We can’t sit inside now!’

‘You stupid slacker, move over!’

‘Hey! Don’t push!’

The four humans argue and push inside the vehicle while Eisuke pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance.

‘They somehow get dumber as time moves on,’ I say, moving to stand next to him.

‘They were always dumb,’ he replies, chuckling. ‘Hey! Stop squealing and get in!’ he shouts to them. Vivian finishes hugging the little godchildren and stands up. Vega suddenly runs over to us and hugs Eisuke, wrapping her little arms around his waist. I raise my eyebrow while his hands hover in hesitation before beginning to pat her head awkwardly.

‘I’ll miss you, Mr Eisuke!’ she says, leaning her chin up to look at him. He looks away shyly before patting her head again.

‘You know where to find me if you continue to miss me,’ he answers.

‘She’ll be too busy for that,’ I say.

‘Lord Leon! You’re so mean!’ she cries out at me before turning back to him. ‘Thank you for playing with me, Mr Eisuke!’ Vega squeezes him tight before running off inside the mansion with a furiously blushing face.

‘I think she has a new crush. That’s too bad for you, Leon,’ Hue says with a smirk and turns to follow her inside with Altair and the others.

I roll my eyes and face Eisuke. His thin lips slowly curl up into a smirk.

‘She belongs to me,’ he says.

‘Pfft, she certainly knows what she wants,’ I respond, glancing at the beautiful figure leaning against the vehicle with crossed arms and interest. She begins to smile at me.

‘I’ll be watching,’ I say.

‘Well, I hope you enjoy what you see,’ he chuckles.

‘Make her happy. Even more than you already do. And yes, this is a direct order from a god,’ I demand with a smirk on my face.

He looks at me for a moment, then he holds out his hand. My hand takes his in a firm grasp and shake it.

‘I will.’ For the first time since I met him, Eisuke genuinely smiles at me. He heads for the limo and Vivian quickly takes his place in front of me. She bites the corner of her lip and looks down at my feet before looking up again.

‘I didn’t mean to make you think-‘ she begins.

‘You didn’t,’ I interrupt. Vivian gives me a lopsided smile.

‘Well, to be honest, I had fun as your maidservant,’ she says.

‘Even though most of the time you gave me attitude? Don’t forget, you’re still a goldfish,’ I reply.

‘It wasn’t … all the time, I made you meatballs!’ she points out but we both smile knowing how ridiculous the argument is.

‘I think I’ll stick to making my own by snapping my fingers,’ I answer.

‘Didn’t like ‘em?’

‘They were of adequate quality, for a human, to a god’s tastes,’ I answer.

‘Funny. Leon, I wanted to ask a favour,’ she says. When I say nothing, she sighs, preparing herself for it.

‘You grant wishes for everyone. Who grants your wishes?’ she asks.

‘I do, for myself.’ I answer, but I know that’s not the question or answer she needs.

‘Then, I wish for you, that you find a happiness you genuinely enjoy in your life,’ she says, looking me in the eyes. I hear a faint intake of breath from myself as soon as she says those words. Hope fills her plain brown eyes.

‘That’s-‘

‘A ridiculous wish? Maybe. But I hope you fulfil it, for your own sake.’ Vivian smiles and winks at me before turning around. I watch her go and fall into the arms of the man she loves most in this world.

[like-rain-or-confetti]

Request: Birthdays (Demetri Volturi x Reader)

Alice’s instructions were simple. Pack a bag. Come to the Cullen’s house. You did and the chaos began. 

The whole coven were leaving to a location they wouldn’t tell you and you were going with them. You thought maybe you’d get a hint at the airport. However, headphones were put on your head...and Alice covered your eyes every time the location came up. 

By the time you landed, you were certain of one thing. You didn’t trust what was happening anymore. Your suspicions were confirmed. There were more voices you couldn’t quite place and then you were pushed and landed on what definitely had to be a talking rock. After that, you were sure you were going to die.

"Just trust me!" Alice sang, you could practically hear her grin. Her hands blocking your ability to see. "I do but-" you were cut off as you kicked something hard, a sharp pain erupting in your foot. "Ow!" You yelled out creating a rather loud echo. You slapped a hand over your mouth before gasping. "That's loud!" You whispered hurriedly. "Where the hell are we!?" "Trust me, (Y/N)!" Alice repeated with a grin you could almost hear it was so prominent. "I just went down a hole, there's a really big echo and now I've kicked something!" You cried in exasperation. "I'm sure you'll live." A male voice said. You halted immediately. "Who's that?" You asked. "I've heard that voice before." "Just be patient!" Alice whined, sending a pointing look to Alec. Although you didn't know that. 

You held your hands out in front of you. "What are you doing now!?" Alice asked as you heard a booming laugh. "I can't see and you're making me walk into things!" You shot back. Your hands hit what you originally thought was a wall...until the wall had fabric...and arms. "What the-?' You patted at the fabric, which seemed to be a coat of sorts. You moved your hands to find shoulders. "That's a person!" You gasped, your hands rising to meet hair. "That person also looks like they may break your fingers if you keep touching them." Alice said uneasily and you yelped pulling your hands back. "Sorry!" You couldn't see Alec's glare as he brushed himself off. 

"Why don't you lead the way...out of reach?" Alice offered to Alec who rolled his eyes and nodded to follow him. "We're almost there!" Alice sang quietly in your ear. "Id hope so, you nearly tackled me like four times at the airport so that I didn't know where we were going!" You huffed. "Not to mention bring shoved down a hole!" "You were taking too long! " Alice said simply, turning to look at Felix who grinned, satisfied that he was the one who had pushed you. 

“So much walking- where are we going!?” You groaned.  “Almost there.” Alice responded. Finally you were told to stop and turned.  “Alright, we’re going to take our leave.” Alice smiled and you felt a rush of air behind you. “I want you to count to five and then open your eyes and go through the door in front of you.” Alice’s cold hands finally left your eyes and you counted to five. 

When you opened your eyes, you were in a corridor, a long one. Everything looked expensive and unfamiliar. You stared at the brown door in front of you remembering you were to go through it.  “I swear if this is bad...” You mumbled under your breath before opening the door. The sight made you drop your grip of the door. 

You gasped. "Demetri." Demetri smiled at you, candle light reflecting upon his face. "I thought..." Demetri slowly nodded. "I know. I couldn't come to you but I didn't want to miss your birthday, especially your last. So if I couldn’t come to you, we figured why not bring you to me?" You couldn't help but laugh and he smiled, gesturing for you to come closer. "I'm terrified I'm about to mess something up." You admitted, looking at the candles places around the room. You couldn't lie, it made for a very romantic setting. "You won't." Demetri chuckled. "They're not even on the floor, darling." 

Slowly you moved forward. "So I'm willing to bet that you’re exhausted." Demetri smiled knowingly. "A little bit, I want to spend time with you." Demetri wrapped his arms around you. "Oh you will, darling." He replied. "However, I do insist you get some rest." Slowly he unwrap an arm around you to unzip your jacket. "What's the plan here?" You breathed, very much receiving mixed signals. "Darling, I haven't seen you in four months, you're tired and I won't get you to myself tomorrow." Demetri began, his hands moving to cradle your face. "I want to hold you in my arms tonight and I can't promise I'll let go in the morning." You giggled and Demetri continued. "I don't care when you fall asleep, you're here and that's good enough for me." He pulled you into a soft kiss. As he pulled away you wrapped your arms around him, breathing him in whilst hold him tightly. Demetri seemed to approve as he was more than compliant, following suit. "I've missed you so much." You said into his neck. "I promise you, not as much as I missed you. Vampire and all." Demetri smirked. "Now, go and get ready for bed." 

Demetri was already in the bed when you finished getting ready, his jacket removed as well as his shoes. Two buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. He smiled at you softly, reaching out for you as you climbed into the bed. Almost instantly, you cuddled into him. Your head rested on his shoulder so you could look up at him. The covers brought up to your waist. “Wait, what’s happening tomorrow?” You asked. “Tomorrow night is a sort of ‘get together’ if you will. All of the Volturi, the guard, The Cullen’s and the receptionists will be attending. I suppose it’s also convenient it’s on the day of your birthday.” Demetri chuckled. “Could be a birthday party in some ways.”  “Just to be clear, you didn’t throw me a birthday party right?”  “No, I didn’t.” Demetri couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s why I couldn't come and see you but Aro, Marcus and Caius gave it some thought and suggested that you came here with the Cullen’s. It made sense considering your birthday was on the same day.”  “I’ll need to thank them. That was very generous of them.” You said, your fingers interlocking with his. Demetri nodded before kissing you. “I look forward to a dance with you, my love.” He smirked and you sighed in mock defeat. “Oh but i already promised Alec all my dances.” You squealed when Demetri lightly tickled you. “Very funny.”  “I suppose you can have one.”  “Don’t test me, my love.” Demetri warned with a playful smile and you giggled. 

Demetri was right, you couldn’t get a moment alone with him for even second. People wanted to know what you were wearing, when it was time to go eat. You only got a shower in peace that whole morning and afternoon. Even then Alice was poking her head through the bathroom door with anything that popped up into her mind. She wanted everything to be perfect but you felt she had to be reminded that it wasn’t her party. She was attending. Alice would simply smile are you, making you raise an eyebrow in question. She never explained, simply hurrying away to do something else. 

That evening you caught sight of Jane in a beautiful black dress, you gasped audibly. You couldn’t stop yourself. Yourself and Jane hadn’t spoken much and the same went for her twin brother. The two kept to themselves mostly and it was difficult to endure a conversations over their piercing stares and short responses. Jane looked over at you, pausing from digging into a drawer on the opposite side of the room to you. “Jane! You look beautiful!” You said in awe.  “Thank you.” She responded. Her tone quiet and innocent, a very misleading fact about Jane, there was nothing innocent about the blonde despite the tone of voice she had. Jane continued riffling through the drawer and Alec appeared. “Are you ready, sister?”  “Alec, you look very handsome!” You smiled at him and he smirked slightly. “Thank you, little human. You’re looking very wonderful indeed.” You couldn’t help but blush. “Nothing compared to you lot.” You responded and his smirk widened.  “Nonsense!” Alice said, entering the room. “I approved of your outfit myself.”  “Alice i picked this myself.” You reminded her in confusion.  “Yes and I approved of it!” She called back, going into the bathroom seemingly looking for a mirror. You sent Alec a helpless look who simply rolled his eyes at Alice, his smirk never faltering.  “Okay, i’m ready.” Jane said finally, turning before you could see what it was she had retrieved.  “Good.” Alec responded. “Aro is waiting on us.” 

When you first entered the ballroom, you were actually rather intimidated. Some of the most beautiful people in the world were in the one room...with you. Edward was the first to elbow you lightly. You sent him a questioning look.  “No more of that talk.” He replied pointedly. “You look beautiful.” You sighed. “You’re saying that out of pity.”  “I’m not.” He said sharply. It wasn’t long before Demetri made his way towards you and the next hour had gone by quickly. 

"Cara mia." Demetri smiled charmingly handing you the small glass of champagne. "Is the plan to get me drunk?" You smirked taking the drink from him. "Of course not." Demetri said amused. Alec smirked, rolling his eyes. "Don't drink it in the one gulp. Please." "I'm not drinking like that. Delicate sips and all that." You giggled in response before raising the glass to your lips. 

You froze when a reflection glinted in your eyes briefly. Your eyes narrowed on your glass, pulling back to have a look. There, in the champagne, at the very bottom was a ring. It was silver, small diamonds outlining one big diamond in a rectangular shape. You looked over at Demetri, you heart beginning to race, barely able to acknowledge everyone stopping to watch the scene. "So perhaps I wasn't entirely clear." Demetri smiled. "Whilst birthdays become less important in the vampire world, I want this day to remain special forever. For a reason you could never forget." Your jaw dropped when Demetri got down on one knee, taking your free hand. "I know we can't technically get married but that isn't enough to stop me. We can still wear the rings and it'll be important to us. Everything else be damned. I'm still going to ask you. No matter your answer, I'll always love you. Someone as perfect as you needs to be cherished and I have adored every moment I could have with you. I hope we have an eternity more of those moments. I don't want to be away from you any longer and this is the best way I know how to show you how much I love you. So marry me, (Y/N). Let it be my honour and greatest wish to be your husband. Your mate. Let us never have to be apart again." Your eyes were full of tears threatening to fall. Shock still wracked you body but you cling to every word. Slowly you nodded your head. Demetri's eyes, widen slightly, challenging your response. You nodded even more frantically. "Yes." You managed out with a smile. The room burst into applause and cheers. He was standing in a heartbeat as you pulled him towards you, leaning your forehead against his before kissing him. 

"That was a really subtle warning not to just chug the whole thing." You laughed through tears, turning to Alec. He smirked, raising his eyebrows with a nod. "I'd rather you wore the ring, not swallow it." Demetri chuckled, pressing a kiss to your cheek. "Do I look a mess now?" You said through tears. "Never, my darling." Demetri kissed your forehead. You sniffled slightly, a smile still planted on your face. You fished out the ring. "It's beautiful." You said quietly in awe. "I couldn't imagine anything else for you, my love." Demetri pulled you close. 

After a minute, you were approached by Aro, Marcus, Caius, Sulpicia and Athenodora. The wives clutching their husbands arms. Athenodora was the first to break away with a smile, her arms opening to wrap you in a hug. "Congratulations!" She smiled, giving you a light squeeze. "Thank you." You felt another wave of tears emerge but fought them back. "Congratulations, dear." Sulpicia said, much more composed but also stepping away from Aro to hug you much more briefly than Athenodora had. "Thank you." You responded. "Such joy!" Aro grinned. "A momentous occasion indeed." Caius agreed, a smile nowhere to be found but his tone of voice was smooth. "We look forward to seeing more of you in these walls." Marcus, clasped his hands. "We offer our congratulations, Demetri." Caius nodded, their attention turning to him. "Thank you, master." Demetri nodded. "Did everyone know you were going to do that?" You asked and Demetri chuckled nodding. "We did indeed." Caius nodded a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. "We may have provided some assistance." Aro smirked. "Thank you so much." You couldn't help but smile. "No need to thank us." Marcus responded. 

 Athenodora looked to Caius expectantly who sighed. "Might my wife see the ring? She has been quite eager to see it." Caius said flatly and she tutted at him. "I've been desperate to see it!" "They don't even have it on yet, dear." Caius sighed again. "Oh hush!" Athenodora hurried towards you excitedly. "That's a good point, I should probably put this on." You laughed. "Oh Demetri, help the poor thing! They're shaking like a leaf!" Athenodora held sympathy in her eyes. "This has been such a exciting trip." You laughed as Demetri gently took the ring from you and sliding into your ring finger with ease. "Well would you look at that. A perfect fit." Demetri smirked, seemingly pleased with himself. "Let me see!" Athenodora said excitedly and you held out your hand to her. 

She took it and stared in awe. "Oh, it's beautiful! Caius told me it was lovely but he didn't do it justice!" "My dear, I told you it was lovely because that's all that needed to be said." Caius responded. "Well, we'll leave you be." Aro smiled and Athenodora took her place back at Caius' side. "Enjoy the celebrations and congratulations again." "Thank you master." Demetri smiled with a nod. 

It wasn't long before you were approached by a couple who you didn't recognise. A woman with copper curled hair was arm in arm with a blonde man. He was more blonde than Demetri, resembling Caius' hair colour although his was styled. "Congratulations, Demetri." The woman said as the blonde shook Demetri's hand. "Thank you. (Y/N), allow me to introduce you to Afton and Chelsea. I don't believe you've met them." "We've heard so much about you. May I?" Chelsea eyed your hand. "Simply breath-taking." Afton nodded, looking over Chelsea's shoulder and offering you a small smile. He seemed almost shy in comparison to the Chelsea. "Isn't it just? Absolutely beautiful." Chelsea looked at the ring adoringly. "I might just be jealous. Afton never got me a ring like this." "Don't be fooled, (Y/N)." Afton leaned in slightly. "If she wanted one she'd have it with a snap of the fingers. She knows that." You chuckled. The couple were clearly very much in love but gave off the impression that they had been together for a very long time. "Well right now, I'd love a dance." Chelsea batted her eyelashes at him and he smiled almost knowingly. "Come along then, my dear." She sent you a quick smile. "Enjoy your night!" 

Finally, you were approached by Felix and the twins. "Well, my friend, you finally did it." Felix clapped Demetri in the back. "Bet your on top of the world right now." "Words cannot describe." Demetri replied, looking down at you lovingly. "We're very happy for you." Jane said, neither she or her brother showing any expression. "Thank you. I didn't see this coming." You said, eyes drifting to your ring. You still couldn't believe it was there. "Well it seems your lonely nights are coming to an end." Felix winked at you both and you felt a blush rise to your cheeks. "Felix." Demetri warned. "I'm only joking friend. I'm excited to finally have my little human friend with us more permanently." "They won't be human for much longer but...I understand the sentiment." Jane said. "Regardless, I'm sure it'll be a pleasure having you with us." Alec said flatly. You caught on quickly that the twins were really trying to be nice. You appreciated their efforts and welcomed them with kindness. 

Once they had left you were immediately pulled into a hug by Alice who squealed in your ear. "Congrats! I'm so happy for you!" "Alice, you've really outdone yourself." You squeezed her tightly. "I always rise to the challenge." She grinned. "That was beautiful, Demetri." Esme smiled, her arms linked with Carlisle's. "I meant every word. I must thank you. Your family helped make this a very special day." "Do I get to plan the wedding!?" Alice asked excitedly. "Alice, you've shown a tremendous amount of progress seeing that you actually asked this time but I've barely had the ring on for an hour." You smiled. "It was wonderful. You're both a wonderful couple and we couldn't be happier for you." Carlisle smiled. 

After more talking, Demetri decided to pull you in for a dance. Each of his arms wrapped around your waist as your looped around his neck, the two of you swaying slowly. "You really surprised me." You smiled. "In a good way or a bad way?" Demetri asked. "Good. I was confused when you said vampires don't really care about birthdays and you all decided to celebrate mine -sort of- but..." You trailed off, your smile widening. "Perhaps you've realised why this came to be now?" Demetri raised an eyebrow. "You didn't have to go through all this bother for me." "I do and it wasn't a bother. The Volturi had an excuse to bond with one another and I got to be traditional as I could. I gathered my coven, the Cullen's and proposed. If anything, I'd wish I would have done more. Although I know you like small and simple." "I never thought I'd be getting engaged on my birthday." You cracked a small smile. "Well, I didn't want this day to stop being important. Vampires have so many birthdays that it gets tedious and boring. Most of us lose count of how many birthdays we've had but I figured there was a way to over come that. If it were to ever no longer be your birthday then it would be-" You gasped. "Our anniversary."  Demetri nodded with a warm smile. "Although I really don’t know if a wedding could happen, cara mia. Not in a way that humans would." You shook your head. "It doesn't matter. You said it yourself, we can wear rings and we'll know- that's what matters. I don't need the wedding because I'll instead have an eternity with you." "I'm so lucky to have you." Demetri said quietly. "Not as lucky as I am to have you." You responded. "Not possible, my love." Demetri said before moving in for a kiss.

[cafeinthemoon]

The Home I Crave - Chapter 4

Title: The Home I Crave

Genre: Fanfiction

Pairing: Tobirama Senju x reader

Rating: teen and up

Word count: 2938

Chapter: 4/?

Symbols: ⭕ | ➕ | 💛 | ▶️▶️

Read the previous chapter here: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3

Though your future husband had his own residence separated from the Hokage’s, you weren’t sent there after being informed that you would stay in the village for the next days. Instead, you would be a guest in Hashirama’s house, and Mito would provide you the orientation you’d need in your new role.

The Uzumaki princess, with her vivid presence and smartness, helped you to find ways to fill your days with meaningful activities, so you wouldn’t see time passing until the wedding and wouldn’t have many chances to feel like a burden staying in the house of strange people counting on their assistance. You couldn’t entirely avoid this sensation, which led you to decline from small favors and treats that were offered to you from time to time; on the other hand, you found some relief once you realized that the manners showed by the Hokage’s wife during the reception were not mere formality: Mito’s interest in your well being was genuine, and she was not going to give up on making you as comfortable as possible under the current circumstances.

It was better this way, you thought. So you just let her be the friend she was willing to be.

In fact, Mito Uzumaki was an excellent friend: she would always answer your questions and doubts with honesty and objectivity and never hide when she didn’t have the information you needed; the things she asked about you were never embarrassing or invasive, and you always saw yourself willing to talk when she made you questions. You spoke to her about your life with your sisters, your training at your clan’s compound, your use of Doton and how it is a characteristic of your family since the oldest generations; Mito explained that her clan was specialized in sealing techniques the same way your were proficient in Earth Style, and when you asked her about them, she described the history and the creation of the most important among them.

During your time together, most of your conversations consisted in you two exchanging your experiences as shinobi, your families and your relationships with your friends. You discovered opinions and preferences in common despite the obvious differences in your personalities: while you had a tendency to live in your head if you were left alone and not speak your mind unless you were invited too, Mito was straightforward when it came to expressing her thoughts, though she was never rude while doing it; many times she took the initiative to start the conversations, and the mission of taking out your thoughts would almost always fall on her shoulders, no matter how many times she assured you that you were free to speak whenever you needed to.

One day, when this situation happened, she looked into your eyes and gave you an advise for which you would thank her later, when you’d be a married woman facing the challenges typical of your new condition:

- I am always encouraging you to not keep everything to yourself when you have the chance to talk, but maybe I’ve failed in explaining why I insist so much in this, y/n-san.

You blinked in surprise and curiosity.

- In this case, let me ask you your reasons for doing this, Mito-san.

- This can be good for you in any circumstance of your life, of course, but the main reason is that this is the most efficient way to communicate with Tobirama.

You clenched your hands to avoid the trembling that was about to reach them after you heard his name. It’s been a while since it was mentioned between you: you’d usually hear it when Hashirama came home and mentioned something concerning his work or a message sent by his brother. However, you always felt it differently whenever it was said by Mito.

You asked little about him since that conversation you had when you first met the Uzumaki woman. You didn’t like to think you were avoiding the topic, though your attitude would say that this was exactly what you were doing; the case was that you didn’t have so much to ask about him after everything she told you that day, and knowing that he was the brain behind the measures of the new alliance between your clans already said too much about the person he was: any other minor information you’d get would sound superfluous compared to that. Mito noticed your reluctance in this, and despite never asking about your reasons for it, she chose to respect it.

To speak the truth, you would only talk about Tobirama when you got in touch with something – a place, a circumstance, an idea – that, according to Mito, reminded of him in some way. There was a time when you were taking a walk at the shores of a river around the village and she commented that you were walking at one of his favorite places to fish and spend time alone after stressful days.

- If he suddenly disappears, it is almost certain that you will find him here – she smiled – But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to come here unannounced when he’s trying to get some rest. He’s too attached to his privacy.

You looked around and couldn’t judge him for this feeling: that was a beautiful, calm place; you wouldn’t appreciate being interrupted if you were there seeking for relief from the burdens of the day.

Episodes like this happened with some frequency, and you took the opportunities to enrich the image you were creating of him. Everything you discovered was interesting in their own way, though you weren’t still able to decide if your final opinion was good or not. Maybe it was something between the two – shinobi were always in the gray zone of the human moral compass. And when you remembered that you, as a kunoichi, were included in this account, you refrained yourself from pointing your finger at him.

However, there was a parameter that remained unconsidered to you among all the others, perhaps because of your lack of attention or the great amount of urgent preoccupations you already had, and about which you’d only come to think when you were directly led to it – Tobirama’s physical appearance.

After your experience with Hokage, you were aware that sometimes informations could be deceiving depending on their source and the person who received them. With all you’ve heard about him and considering what you thought of the arrangements led by him, it was possible that your betrothed’s looks were just like his personality: not the most pleasing one, and even scary at some point. But when you added the fact that he had a brother like Hashirama, well, maybe he was nothing like this. At some moment, you started to imagine that he could resemble his brother in some traits, or he was just like the men you saw working in the office during the meeting: all of them had a certain level of resemblance, something that made it possible for a stranger to identify them as members of the same clan, even if they were not blood relatives.

Whatever the truth, all you had was a just a vague idea, a second hand thought that you weren’t willing to turn into a concrete concept or to confirm with Mito: it was more interesting just to hear her talk about his actions and attitudes.

You would only change your mind when, thanks to an unexpected incident, you ended up finding a portrait of him.

You were still getting used to the structure of the Hokage’s house: though your own residence at your clan’s compound was large, formed by many rooms, the corridors were few, not enough to form the same intricate labyrinth of the building you were now. Still, you wouldn’t avoid walking through them without company in order to train your sense of direction, and thanks to the orientations you received from Mito regarding the rooms you had permission to enter, you weren’t afraid of invading the wrong place. But you would still  get confused if you entered the wrong corridor.

This is what happened that time, so that instead of reaching the living room you got into a narrow hall with a collection of photographs on the walls of both sides.

You recognized some of the landscapes in them from the path you and your group took when you arrived at Konoha’s territory: hills, rivers and the forest’s entry; some of the residences and farms were there too.

You also identified some of the people: there was a rectangular portrait of Hashirama Senju in what you understood to be his official clothing as the village’s governor; Mito Uzumaki appeared in another picture right beside it, surrounded by a group of men and women with their hair as red as hers and dressed in the same style, leading you to the conclusion that they were part of her family or were close friends; there were also pictures with some of the people you saw in the office beside those two.

The majority of the photos were of people you didn’t know but were certainly close to the ones you knew. There was a photograph of a middle aged man wearing a reddish armor; wrapped on his forehead there was a white stripe with the crest of the Senju. The man had his skin as tanned as Hashirama’s, and his hair was straight and dark just like his, though it wasn’t that long. Looking closer, you noticed the two shared similar face traits despite the lack of gentleness and freshness of the older man if compared to the younger one. There was no identification in the picture, but you thought that this man could be Hashirama’s father. If this was the case, they must haven’t had nothing in common besides the appearance.

Near this photograph, there were other, larger, with a group of children surrounding a woman, all of them wearing the Senju traditional clothing. One of the children, a boy with a bowl haircut, shared some resemblance with the man of the previous image: you looked at him for a moment and recognized Hashirama. The other children, all boys, and the woman were too different from him and between themselves, but there was something in them that told you they were relatives, so that if that was the Hokage’s mother, those boys should be his brothers. With this, your natural reaction was to wonder which of them could be Tobirama.

The first kid, close to Hashirama, had a scar on his cheek and brown hair; he was the one with the widest smile. The second, sitting right after him with a sweet look and some shyness in his manners, had white skin and a hair parted in two contrasting shades: white on the right side and dark brown on the left. The third boy, standing up beside the woman and separated from the others, was the one who most resembled her; he was staring at the camera with a serious, firm look. He had the same light skin tone of the second child, and his shaggy hair was of a shade similar to the lighter side of that boy’s hair as well; but the thing that caught your attention in this one was that pair of red eyes, just like the woman’s, with which he looked into the lens, to the photographer or to something beyond them. It wasn’t the look one would expect from a child.

Considering what Mito told you during the tea and what you thought of the arrangements, you were thinking that this kid had the highest probability of being…

- Oh.

Your voice escaped when you took a step ahead to observe the next photograph and found in it a figure entirely different from the ones you’ve saw until that moment.

The portrait was the same size as the one of the Hokage and it showed a young man in a blue armor, with his arms crossed, looking at the lens with the same perspicacity you sensed in the boy’s look. His armor was different from the one of the middle aged Senju who you supposed to be his father: around his shoulders there was a huge, white fur attached to his forearm protectors, all of them together creating the impression that his torso was larger than it really was; under the armor, he was wearing a black shirt that covered his neck and arms until his fists; he wasn’t wearing gloves. On his face, he had a gray happuri with the Leaf crest carved on its forehead.

The man had white, voluminous hair that would rebel against the steadiness of his general aspect, as a minor inconvenience that remained out of his control and to which he was already used; looking closer, you realized it wasn’t of a pure white, but of a slight shade of gray. His skin, only visible through his uncovered hands and face, was light, even pale if you compared him to other people who spent as much time under the sunlight as him certainly did as a warrior; was it a peculiarity of him or just the environment where the photo was taken? You had no way to tell. On his face, too, the light tone served as a white canvas for what you thought to be facial painting or tattoos: three red marks spreading over his chin and under his eyes as slits opened by a kunai; around his eyes, black, thin lines that would contour their natural form, already sharp, giving them the sensitivity of a hunter’s eyes.

Those eyes, you realized with astonishment, were as red as the eyes of the boy from the other photograph.

You went back to the children’s picture to observe his face with more attention, and didn’t need much time to notice the similarities between them. The mannerisms, the traits, the seriousness – they were the same person.

It was when you started to look for portraits of the other children and was unable to find anything except the one of Hashirama in the Hokage’s clothing. You already knew that the Senju head had lost his siblings to war, but just a few days ago you found out there was only one brother left for him. You looked at the blue armored man again…

- Finally I found you.

You startled, almost letting a scream out. When you turned, you found Mito smiling at you.

- If I was an enemy, you would be in trouble.

A glimmer in her eyes insinuated that she has been observing you for a while, waiting for you to notice her presence. You never cursed your lack of sensory abilities as much as in that moment.

- I… I am sorry for this – you apologized, looking at the photographs – I took the wrong corridor and ended up here. I wasn’t expecting to find these pictures, so…

You glanced behind, as if sensing the man’s image right over your shoulder. This didn’t escape Mito’s attention: she walked closer to its spot on the wall, looking in the eyes of the warrior. This gesture eliminated any remaining doubts about the identity of the man.

- You already guessed, didn’t you? – with her unaltered voice, she questioned you without taking her eyes off the picture.

You turned to the portrait too, facing his gaze again.

- This photograph was taken four or five years ago, but he remains the same – Mito continued – Not even a line of expression appeared on his forehead or in the corner of his eyes since then – and with a smile – The same goes to Hashi. Just another talent of the Senju.

You observed the portrait in silence, not interrupted by the princess: having familiarity with arranged marriages as much as you, she was aware of the time one needed to become accustomed with the looks of their betrothed under these circumstances.

You only spoke when you felt prepared to, and when you did, it was to point out that he looked even younger than you expected after all the things you discovered about him.

Mito laughed.

- I don’t blame you. If I didn’t know him or his brother and saw them together for the first time, I would certainly think that Hashirama is the younger one.

You laughed too; when your smile faded, you turned back to your contemplative expression. Now, the white collar and the aspect of his eyes just gave you an idea.

- I hope you don’t find it strange what I’m going to say, Mito-san, but he reminds me of a wolf.

Mito crossed her arms, looking at the picture; now that you were becoming used to her manners, you no longer found it weird to see her doing gestures like that while dressing in noble clothing.

- Nobody never said that about him before, at least not to me – she commented – But it makes sense, now that I’m looking at him.

You stood in silence for some time. You spent it training your eyes to get used to Tobirama’s sight, to the weight of his gaze, for you sensed that once you were together, you wouldn’t have such time. The funny thing was that, while you stood there, you didn’t notice how much time passed, only waking up when you heard Mito’s giggle beside you.

You turned, only to find her still contemplating her brother-in-law’s image.

- In his own way, he’s a beautiful man, isn’t he?

You sensed heat coming up your cheeks, mas didn’t refuse to reply.

- Yes. I dare say yes.

[north-peach]

Whoops, lemme fic it (SW)

So I’ve been tossing this idea over in my head, daydreaming, wordbuilding and talking to myself and I’ve had enough.

It’s time to come out.

So, I tried the SI fic once and I didn’t like how it turned out and it was a good few years before wrote one again. There’s a lot of good ones, done by good authors. Silver Queen, Shadowblayze, Vixen Tail, and Mullk6 to name a handful.

But I wanted a character who knew the depth and breath of canon and could fix it. In Star Wars. With Mandalorians. 

Which is usually a self insert, but....wasn’t feeling it.

Then it shifted to time travel. Main characters generally revolved around Bly, Aalya Secura, Quinlan Vos or Anakin, Rex and Alpha-17. Then it was a mix, sometimes Padme or Ahsoka, Jon Antilles or Fay, thanks to @blackkatmagic.

Then it was Boba Fett, Jango, Arla or Jaster even Tarre Vizsla. Korkie Kryze, a mix of his father’s ‘obi’ sound with ‘kote’ as in ‘glory’.

It’s been almost a month since this thought sprang from my head, exactly the opposite of Athena, but here it is.

My first Star Wars time travel fic.

Bly doesn’t wake, not for a long time. 

Even if he is aware of the pressure against bare skin and the alternating temperatures that cause him to shiver or sweat to beat across his face.

He doesn’t wake to the snack, crack of the whip against his back, nor to the claws that rake across his face, but as the days pass, it is pain that draws him back from the dark.

The cold metal of manacles around his wrists, the dull throbbing of his knees against cool, packed dirt. He doesn’t move even as chains rattle and as a weak light flickers in tiny bursts even though he can’t quite open his eyes.

Bly takes a deliberate breath, deliberately breathing in long and slow.

Ribs, is his first immediate thought as pain now screams in his head, followed instantly by, back.

His arms are numb, lips cracked, throat and mouth dryer then Tatooine and it feels like someone’s poured sand in his eyes and then glued them shut.

We release our emotions, our pain into the Force. We breath it back in and then stand and carry on. Lives depend on us. The trick to keeping the pain away is it set it aside and ignore it. But you need to remember, Bly, pain is our body telling us we’re injured. You cannot ignore it forever.

It’s her voice in his head, the memories always there as soon as he tugs them and he barely muffles a noise in the shifting of his chains because the last thing Bly remembers is a fractured and shattered thing that provides nothing to help him determine his situation.

Beyond the obvious of captured, separated and tortured. 

A breath, another and his fingers twitch as he tries to get his hands to response to his commands.

He moves his eyes, scrunching his face, and ignoring the sting of scabbed wounds and manages to crack his eyes open. He’s in a room, surrounded by stone and bars. An electrical lamp flicker erratically in a halo of barely there light in the distance.

No one is there. He is alone.

He listens, strains his hearing, yet nothing so much as stirs. 

Bly goes back to restoring feeling in his body.

A minute, two and then an unpleasant rush of pins and needles as sensation returns to his arms. Bly grits his teeth and clenches his thighs, his legs then curls his toes under his feet, allowing his body weight to force him to rock back, using the momentum to stagger to his feet.

Lights prickle against what little vision he has and the chains jerk and rattle as he uses them as leverage to remain on his feet.

Pain bursts across his back, down his legs, his knees, every motion and contraction of his body, his muscles sends signals of agony to his brain.

“Osik.”

The word is almost soundless, hissed between clenched teeth and formed from harsh, gasping breaths.

Bly cannot help how his body curls over it self, even if it sends the blood rushing to his head and makes him even more dizzy. He braces his feet and refuses to pass out.

He doesn’t know where Aalya is.

He doesn’t know who he was with, what he was doing, if any of his vod’e are here, Bly doesn’t know anything.

He remembers blue and gold, the blue of Aayla’s skin, the gold of her eyes, maybe the blue of the 501st? Was General Skywalker on mission with them?

Was... was Vos there?

There’s nothing but a blank space in his head, so Bly puts that away for now and takes stock of what he has on hand.

Which is, in short, a big fat nothing.

He’s in loose pants, thin material, covered in dirt and blood, no shirt, no armor, no weapons- even the small tools disguised as a ring, bracelet- he’s got nothing.

It looks like he’s chained up underground in a cave somewhere. That’s the only explanation for both his surrounding and the relatively cool atmosphere. There’s a door that’s barely even a door, just a large rectangular slab of rusty bars almost propped against the entry way.

He could probably kick it open, depending on how heavy it was, but that was once he found a way out of his chains-

Bly pauses.

Looks up at the roof of his cell where the chains are anchored.

Well, he thinks, an edge of amusement to himself, If I can take my chains with me, I’ll have a weapon.

__________

Honestly, later, if someone asked how long he was stuck there in the murky darkness working and working to pull the anchor points of his chains from the ceiling, Bly wouldn’t be able to say.

He stops and rests when the injuries on his back crack open, spilling blood down his skin and dripping onto the floor, when his ribs scream at him and his breath wheezes as he desperately tries to breath.

He doesn’t ever stop for long though.

Eventually he gets free, the rest anchor breaking free of crumbling stone and Bly sinks to his knees, wincing as pain flares up again.

A moment of rest, to wait until his breathing slows down enough he can regulate it for sleath.

Then he carefully wraps his new weapon around his shoulders, winding them down his arms. Slowly, he makes his way to the door that is currently the only obstacle in his way to relative freedom.

It was heavy as it looked, but several solid shoves and one frustrated kick and the door was free enough for him to squeeze past it.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry about directions at the moment because his cell was located at the end of a hallway and the only way out was forward.

So forward Bly went, creeping along the walls on bare feet, moving steadily down to where a single light was valiantly, but ultimately failing at lighting up the area.

Bly took a breath and walked past, heading deeper into the caves with no way of knowing which way was out, if anyone was waiting for him on the other end or even if he could find a way out.

Bly didn’t care because right now, there was an entirely unacceptable amount of space between him and his General and it needed to be rectified, right karking now.

__________________

Times passes and Bly has to take a breather, has to sit to wait for his legs, his hands, everything to stop shaking even as chills crawled up his skin.

He keeps going, keeps following the eternal hallway he seems to be trapped in. Occasionally he’ll come across other cells, but like all of the ones he checked previously, there isn’t anyone in them. Just chains, manacles, shakes, crude stone tables or chairs.

The weak lights are not quite evenly spaced out, but every cluster of cells has one in the middle of the block. He’s sure he’s passed about six blocks by now, and still no sign of this hallway ending or branching off.

A part of him wonders if he’s hallucinating, but the continuous pain for his body begs to tell him differently.

He trails bloodstained hands against the wall and so far he hasn’t randomly circled back around so he must be making progress.

You were modified to see better in the dark? Compared to humans, or near-humans, Twi’leks vision is considered superior, but without the Force, I’m thinking you’d win at Hide-and-Seek-in-the-Dark.

My favorite color? Tell me, if I said blue wh- no, I’m kidding! It’s gold Bly. W- No, not like my eyes! Like Master’s-

Bly can hear Aalya sometimes.

The way she laughed, said his name or how she would stare at him. When her mouth softened and she smiled so easily.

Bly keeps going.

______

Hours? Maybe days later, Bly hears voices that are, for once, not his or in his head. A soft murmur, nothing clear enough to make out words or the like, but Bly grits his teeth and quickly lunges into the nearest cell and flattens himself in a natural curve of the walls.

He’s lost weight during how ever long he’s been here, so he folds himself easily into the shadows and evens his breath down, ignoring the ever familiar spasm of pain his ribs makes with every movement.

A beat, two, three, longer and still the voices only murmur. 

Bly slows moves from his hiding place only to step right back into it as the voices abruptly rise in volume along with a feminine scream of pain that rings off the walls and is swallowed by the darkness that leads down to his cell.

Gently, Bly uncoils his chains.

______

When enough time passes he can make out the heavy footfalls of two armored being’s footsteps and the unmistakable sound of dragging feet, Bly closes his eyes and concentrates on his hearing.

“-Ne shab'rud'niÖ, aruetii-”

“-aruetyc dini'la-”

The sharp sound of metal against flesh, followed by a harsh vocalizer.

“Ne'johaa!“

A faint moan, before one of the men laughs.

See, the thing is Bly isn’t considered Mandalorian.

In fact, Manda’yaim considers Bly and his brothers to be abominations. Soulless things created in a lab. Not to mention General Kenobi’s Duchess is a pacifist in the very worst way. 

A Mandalorian with a Mandalorian’s stubbornness, determination and pride to be anything but a Mandalorian. 

Good intention’s Satine Krytze may have had at the beginning but erasing everything that makes Mandalor Mandalor was not the way to go about bringing peace to her people.

Especially since the Duchess had the final say on if the Clones of Mand’alor Jango Fett should be considered citizens of Manda’yaim. Or rather, she just enforces Prime’s opinion that clones were not real people and this couldn’t be a people or a part of a people.

Jango Fett may have been some high ranked Mandalorian in certain circles, but the only reason why the clones even knew the languages is because of the instructors who adopted the older batches and how those clones would teach one or two- like Kote who became Cody, who taught Ret who was now Rex.

The language and the customs spread from the clones who were actually wanted down to even the shiniest of shinies. Of course, there were parts of their culture that they developed all on their own. 

Being modelled after a Mandalorian, of course, meant that they shared the same traditions and quirks that they did as a consequence of being so closely related.

The colors, symbols and naming to mention a few.

Colors all had meaning, as did their placement, the same with symbols and the bucket everyone wore. Working with the jetiise as closely as they did, their culture took bits and pieces that resonated with the Vod’e and as it did with everything, spread to all the battalions. 

But when he hears a threatening form of behave, traitor followed by two words that mean ‘traitorous’  and ‘insane’ preceding what is clearly an armored fist making contact with someone’s bare skin, Bly’s already pretty sure who’s side he’s on.

That’s even before he sees the dusty blue and the gray of beskar in the dim lighting worn by two people dragging what looks like a teenaged girl between them.

Kyr’tsad. 

Kriffing, karking-!

Bly untucks himself from the shadows and creeps up behind the two, careful to keep to the walls until he lunges forward, throwing one of his chains between target two’s legs even as he losses a coil of chains around target one’s neck and pulls back.

His ribs scream, his arms shake, but he drops his weight and wrenches the shabuir back, his legs kicking out the catch the small space between armor plates on Death Watch’s lower back to toss him over and behind.

Target the second is already dropping the girl, pale blonde hair visible in the gloom and reaching for a weapon at their belt.

Bly doesn’t give them the chance, jerking his chain back instantly compromising target two’s balance.

Barely ten seconds in this fight and both of them are on the ground. Target one is still choking with the chain around their neck and Bly keeps yanking it back to ensure they stays that way.

The other, Bly goes in for close combat, using his chain as bet he can with his shoulders and ribs kriffed up, but he manages to get enough wrapped around their legs and a single arm that he’s able to jab his fingers into the hollow of their throat and jerk their helmet off.

Eyes, nose, mouth, all places Bly can do some damage, but his strength is flagging so he slams his palm into their nose, once, twice, thrice until the shabuir goes limp.

One down, one to go.

Bly cracks the chain and sends the last stumbling even as he palms a vibroblade and uses the weight at the end of the chain the move himself close enough to-

Bly swings up, twists and lets dead weight fall where it may.

A moment, two, three before he breaths again, carefully, adrenaline pumping through his body. He pulls the chain taunt and swings the blade down. Metal chips, but doesn’t break do he does it again, again, again until it gives and all he’s left with is a manacle around his wrist.

The process repeats until he’s free from the weight of chains and he’s free. An arm carefully wraps around his chest as he struggles to breath, but he forces himself back up, to rifle through the utility belts and pockets to see what other weapons or rations he can find.

The first pocket he searches has a whole flask of water and he immediately takes small slow sips, 

He coughs, the taste of iron lingering in the back of his throat, but already his day is starting to pick up. Setting the water back down, he turns his attention to the small body crumpled on the ground.

Gingerly he makes his way over, easing himself to the floor and reaching out a hand-

-before pausing. 

All three of them spoke Mando’a. Even in the dim lighting, Bly can see all the bruises up an down the girl’s arms. So he opens his mouth to speak, only to cough, his entire body lighting up in pain as his ears start to ring.

It takes a minute, but when he stops, he carefully wets his lips and tries again.

“Hey, ade.”

Silence.

In the hallway, there’s only the sound of his strained breathing and her soft breaths.

Bly doesn’t know if she’s faking or not. Either way, he can’t afford to take any more injuries.

He coughs again, hunching over and unable to avoid the low groan of pain that crawls up his throat.

He does his best to breath, there in the dark with the girl either genuinely unconscious or faking it. Either way, the pain is distracting him and he’s going to need to sit there for a moment before he attempts any other movements.

Regardless he tries again and ignores how his voice cracks.

“I’mma...I’mma need you to wake up here, ad’ika.”

His back burns where he’s leaning against the wall and he can feel the blood begin to drip again. He doesn’t know how much he’s lost, how many times he’s reopened his wounds, but considering how lightheaded he is, considering how everything is starting to close in on him, it’s probably more then recommended. 

The world blurs around the edges and his awareness drifts away for a bit. Somewhere, far away, it sounds like Aayla singing, her voice echoing with the 327th Star Corps.

_____

“Gar shuk meh kyrayc.“

Bly blinks back to awareness.

The girl knees in front of him, short blonde hair framing a pale face. Barely out of childhood, even if she looks like she’s in need of a few good meals.

Then the words register.

He can’t help the amusement that wells up and huffs a laugh he immediately regrets.

“Here,” the girl says as she shoves a fist in front of him.

He flinches back, before stilling himself.

The girl doesn’t react, just holds up the water flask in her other hand.

“It’s for the pain. The tall one carried them.”

A breath, then he reaches out, ignoring the shaking on his hands, to let the girl drop two small pills into his hands while shoving the water at him. More careful sips as the pills go mostly dry down his throat.

“Vor entye,” Bly rasps.

“Ba'gedet'ye,” she says, eyes running over his face, his chest, a wary twist to her mouth. “You’re no use dead.”

Unnecessary for her to repeat that, Bly thinks. Scared, but brave. His lips twitch  as he runs a searching gaze over the girl.

Torn clothes, almost identical to his own, only with a shirt and less blood and dirt. Thin wrists, lank and greasy hair, coupled with even more bruises he can see blooming everywhere on uncovered skin.

Including her face, one cheeks which sports several colors that frame lines of dried blood and a split lip.

Gently, carefully, Bly lifts a hand and hovers in front of the injury. Not touching, close, but out of reach.

“And you?”

She blinks, startled. The barest hints of confusion crinkle her brow.

Bly smiles, letting his hand drop.

“Are you hurt, ad’ika?”

A touch of fire burns in her eyes.

“You’re bleeding.”

It’s almost an accusation, the words falling harshly from her mouth.

He acknowledges the point.

“Lek.” He continues, more solemnly, shifting his weight forward to meet her eyes, slowly enough that she doesn’t react beyond tensing her muscles. “But Kry’tsad is not known for being kind.”

Slowly, the girl shakes her head.

A moment of silence passes and the girl watches him. Bly gets his breathing back under control and deeply appreciates as the pounding in his head fades along with the burning in his shoulders and arms.

“By any chance, have you seen a blue Twi’lek in any of the cells you passed?”

“We are the only prisoners in this place. There are none who come here, save for the tall one and the cold one, both of which you killed.”

Bly studies the girl, the way the strain in her features eases as she talks about target one and two’s death, the audible note of gratitude. 

“Tion gar gai?“

“What is yours?” 

The response to his simple question is instantaneous, her tone now biting and wary. He doesn’t react, only lets amusement tug at his mouth.

“Bly-”

 (“There is a name that Mandalorians use when they are disowned or cast out from their clan or family. Some chose this name as a way to seperate themselves on their own terms. Others have their names taken and are left with this.”

“Considering that Jango Fett doesn’t considering us real people let alone his ade, do we call ourselves this?”

A humorless laugh.

“You always were the one who never hesitated to go for the throat, Kote.”)

“-just Bly.”

“Arla.”

Not a familar name, even if there’s something about her face that reminds him of- reminds him.

“Let’s get out of here, okay, Arla?”

The barest hints of a smile as Bly hauls himself to his feets and then turns once he can speak without screaming or making any other noises of pain, and holds out his hand.

Arla hesitates to reach out, before glancing over to the bodies.

“Can I have the blaster if you have the vibroblade?”

“How about we see if there’s another vibroblade you can carry and I’ll take the blaster?”

______

A more thorough search of the bodies produces another vibroblade, a small holdout blaster (which Arla claims), a large blaster (which Bly claims) rations, two lights that work and a new set of clothes and armor for Bly.

He makes Arla turn around while he strips the corpse of the tall one, a.k.a. target one and pulls on the armor under suit, which helpfully compresses his ribs and then begins to strap on armor. 

“Were you conscious enough to see how many people there are in these caves?”

Arla’s voice is soft, but it carries well as she immediately goes into an information download.

“We came on a ship, just the three of us. There is no one else here. It’s supposed to be so secure that it doesn’t matter if you manage to escape, there’s no where else to go. Plus someone always comes to check every couple of days. Which is when, if they want you to live, you get food and water. This is where you get thrown when they want you to rot away and die in the dark.”

Bly hums, carefully clicking vambraces into place, pleasure briefly rising up in his chest at the decent fit. 

“And the war?”

Arla pauses.

“I haven’t- They kept most of the information away from me, but sometimes I managed to hear things. Like how Kry’tsad has a sky in Mand’alor Mereel’s camp and how they’re planning how to lead them into a trap and kill them all in such a way to send a message.”

Bly blinks, as he finishes up with tugging the last piece in place.

“Mand’alor Mereel?”

Arla makes an agreeing sound.

“Someone let slip they’re calling him Mand’alor the Reformer. Vizsla gets really angry when he hears that.”

Mand’alor Mereel.

Jastor Mereel?

On getting access to the holonet, one of the first things the Vod’e who were interested in Mandalorian history looked up was the state of leadership. Kote was certain that he wanted to see who decided that they weren’t citizens despite being from a Mandalorain. 

 Jaster Mereel was the father of Jango Fett, before he died on Korda 6 twenty something years ago!

Bly took a breath, before spitting out a curse in Twi’lek, follow up by a very vehement “Force osik!”

Arla didn’t say anything when Bly walked up behind her, only stared to stare, distaste clear in the disgust on her face.

“Needs must, ad’ika. I need to find someone and the easiest way off this haran place is on the Death Watch ship you came in one. Which”, Bly slid the helmet on, the HUB automatically pulling up and activating night vision. “Will be a thousand times easier which me pretending to be Kry’tsad.”

Again, he held out his hand.

“Ba'slanar.”

A smile, small, but undeniably there as clearly seen by the display screen in his buy’ce. 

Arla took his hand.

_________

The climb out of haran was nothing to sneeze at, but they made it. Upon exiting, Bly couldn’t help the noise of appreciation he made at the sun setting into the distance. Or rising. Either or. It wouldn’t matter in a few minutes as they would be leaving the planet, deserted and rocky as it was, it offered no appeal in water or wild growing plants.

The ship was there, ramp still down and Bly gently tugged Arla along, right into the ship and take that, General Skywalker!

Plan A, accomplished with only a minor deivation.

Minus the either confused youngling or the apparently very real possibility of time travel.

Aayla was still missing and Bly still had no idea if anyone else was missing or if it was him that was missing and not everyone else. For all he knew, this was something that only affected him and Aayla was completely fine.

Surrounded by the 327th and the 501st, plus droids. 

Bly quickly ran through each and every room in the ship, Arla right behind him, gripping her vibroblade, clearing each space before moving on to the next one.

Cargo, armory, kitchen, berths, cockpit and a decent sized corner with padded seats and tables. 

Bly also ran a lifesigns sweep from the main computer before he was satisfied. It wasn’t a large ship, but it could comfortably accommodate three to four people so it would be perfect for them.

He holstered the blaster and quickly ran through flight check before initiating the start up sequence.

Arla quickly strapped herself into the co-pilots chair, unable to contain the trains of excitement painting itself all over face.

Ramp up, engines fired, all systems green, Bly slowly poured power into the system and the ship lifted off this karking planet, landing gear folding up and away.

Before he turned around to launch into the atmosphere, he quickly toggled the weapons system, loaded up a missile and fired it without hesitation into the mouth of his former prison.

The resulting explosion of stone, dirt and fire would go a long way to ease nightmares for the next weeks.

Once they cleared the atmosphere, Bly carefully used the HUD to change all teh passwords, security settings and just generally switched out who the ship’s computer’s answered to before tugging it off and gently running a hand through his tangled hair.

“Well, ad’ika. I’ve no place to be, but frankly I could use a shower. How about you?”

Arla look up and smiled, eyes wet.

“Shower and food first. Then we find our people.”

The knot of worry in his chest eased somewhat at the assurance that now he was able to begin his efforts to find out if Aalya made it along with him and if any others did. 

“Her name is Aalya,” Bly says, longing heavy in his voice. “I don’t remember much, but if she’s out there, I’ll find her.”

Arla, stands, equal height with him before holding out her hand. She wait unti Bly takes it before speaking.

“Arla Fett. I’m looking for my brother Jango. He should be with Mand’alor Jaster Mereel and the Haat Mando’ade.”

_______________________

....so uh. When I sat down like............................five hours ago I did NOT mean to write chapter one of fic. I guess I did though so....eh. I’ll go polish it up and post it on ao3

[grimmseye]

A Bird in the Hand: Chapter Thirteen

Read on Ao3 here!

Rating: M

Fandom: Critical Role

Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss, Mollymauk Tealeaf/Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast (eventual),

Chapter Characters: Mollymauk Tealeaf, Essek Thelyss, Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre, The Mighty Nein

Chapter Tags/Warnings: Molly Rez, Amnesiac Mollymauk, Oh My God They Were Roommates, Violence, In-Universe Slurs

— — —

Jester returned to her body with a faint hitch in her breath. When her vision cleared, it left just the faces of her family staring at her, apprehension and expectation and everything that was soon to become disappointment.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d failed them. And him.

“Slippery, that one,” the Traveler murmured. “Apologies.”

Then he faded, nothing more than the faint squeeze of a hand on her shoulder before it slipped away.

“I —” Jester’s voice died in her throat. She swallowed, then shook her head. “I couldn’t find him. I — but he has to — ”

The others shifted, Fjord covering his mouth with a hand, Beau immediately starting to pace. Automatically, Jester sought out Caduceus, disappointed to see him looking just as baffled as the rest of them.

“Maybe he’s not back,” Beau murmured. Her hand was raking through her hair, face turned away from the grave. “Maybe someone just — dug him up. Fuck.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling in a deep breath. They snapped open again as she burst out, “What about that — that Cree? Your dad said she jumped ship, right? And she was all over Molly, maybe she —”

Caleb held up a hand. He’d been pensive, kneeling in the mud and staring into the empty grave. “That is a good theory, Beauregard,” he said, voice slow and careful. “We should not jump to conclusions yet, but that is worth looking into. Additionally —” he lifted his head, looking to Jester now. “Just because the spell did not connect does not mean he isn’t back. Is that right?”

He toyed with the chain of his amulet all the while.

Caleb could not say he was particularly close to one Mollymauk Tealeaf. He’d been torn right down the middle by that person, and death had given him no reprieve from that conflict.

Mollymauk Tealeaf had pushed him against a wall, getting in his face with a snarl disguised as a grin.

Mollymauk Tealeaf had pressed lips to his forehead, promised there’s time for that later, and pulled him from the very fire Caleb had created.

He didn’t know if he even liked that strange little tiefling, but he wanted to know. He needed to know. Curiosity had always been among his downfalls, and he’d said and insisted and begged the Nein to come to his grave, and here it was empty, and Caleb felt the strangest coil of hope in his chest that maybe now he could get some answers.

“Even if he is alive, it might not be him,” Beau pointed out. The coil turned to a sharp twist. Caleb shut his eyes. “Last time it was that — that Nonagon, Lucien. Maybe he’s back. Or — or maybe it’s just a clean slate, every time.”

For once in his life, Caleb did not want to ask questions. There were so many to be asked, though, and Beauregard asked them all, while they stood in the rain and offered nothing in the way of answers. Sometimes it was best to just stay quiet. Sometimes you needed more, to know if you were asking the right questions.

“Should I scry on Cree?” Jester asked, in a moment of quiet. Her voice was small.

“Yes — yes!” Beau pointed at her. “Scry on Cree, if anyone has their hands all over this —”

Out came the focus, and they watched again as Jester’s eyes went white. This time it held, eyeballs shifting in their sockets, changes in expression that he did his best to read.

The minutes stretched out, but she snapped out of it before the duration. She frowned, and then shook her head. “I don’t… I don’t know. It didn’t look like she was doing anything? She was just sitting down somewhere, it sounded like a pretty shitty bar.”

“Shadycreek?” Beau suggested .

Jester gave a helpless shrug, quickly looking overwhelmed.

It was Caduceus who piped up next: “Jester,” he started, voice slow and considering. “Can you still talk to plants?”

Caleb watched her pull in one shaking breath, then another. Then she nodded, and knelt in the rain-slick grass, and all he could do was stand uselessly about and hope it would offer something more.

Mollymauk woke to a sharp heat in his cheek. He gasped, pain bristling under his skin as his hands immediately flew for his swords — only for both arms to snap something taught between them and go no further.

There were manacles on his wrists, binding them in front of his body. It wasn’t exactly a position he was unfamiliar with, though he only enjoyed it sometimes . The man poised above him, hand lifted for another strike, that was not-unfamiliar in the exact same way.

Molly gathered his wits, flashed a grin, and said, “Don’t suppose I can call red —”

The hand cracked across his face again. His teeth sliced into his lower lip. Molly gasped, then spat, getting a curl of satisfaction as red spattered his attacker’s face. “Fucker,” he snapped, any humor lost from his voice, and only slightly regretted it as that blood-stained face contorted with rage.

He reached for something else, Molly tensing at the sight of something heavy and blunt, only to freeze at the gruff “Enough.”

There was another person in the room. From his position on the ground, Molly couldn’t see them. His eyes strained for what he could — he was in a tent of some form, the light backing it suggesting the sun was well up. There was a man here, Dwendalian accent, and a second person of the same background, and they had clearly captured both him and —

Essek. It was a cold shot down his spine.

“Who the hell are you?” He asked, voice tense and head tipping back. He only caught a flash of blonde hair in the edges of his vision. A chair creaked, then the sound of heavy footsteps and clanking armor coming closer. Then they loomed over him: a human, blonde and androgynous, wrinkles in the face from frowning too much.

“Captain Albrechtsen,” they reported. “And you are?”

“Like hell I’m —”

A metal boot slammed into his stomach. He hacked out a cough, convulsing and then rolling onto his side.

“Name, please.”

“Fuck you,” Molly rasped.

“Name.” The boot lifted.

“Fine! Fine, it’s — it’s Bren.” His mind was racing too quickly to do anything but fall back on an old pseudonym.

“Bren what?” The captain’s voice was significantly more pleasant now.

“Fletching,” he blurted, hoping his breathlessness sold it as desperation. Gods, he was desperate.

“Bren Fletching,” they repeated, with a cordial nod. “And what is your relationship to Essek Thelyss?”

He swallowed. Essek was absolutely the target, then. Essek was likely alive, if they wanted information, because otherwise they would just kill him. “I’m his — his, uh…”

“Any day now.” While Albrechtsen made no move, their lackey tapped what looked like a rectangular bat on the toe of his boot. Molly shuddered, his fear entirely authentic.

“Bodyguard?” Too uncertain. “We’re — we’re kind of a thing so I don’t know the ethics of being his employee but, hell, the pay’s good, the sex is good —”

The lackey gagged in an exaggerated manner as Albrechtsen’s face pinched. “I do not need the details about how a crick beds a devil, thank you,” they huffed.

Something about their tone made rage lick up his throat. He’d been called devil enough times in his life, and the way they referred to Essek, like a thing instead of a person. He spat, infernal laced with magic twisting from his throat, “You’ll learn plenty about devils when they’re flaying you in the fucking hells —”

He had the glee of seeing Albrechtsen flinch, the enchantment piercing their ears, before he was gagging again with another boot in his stomach. This time he heaved, stomach too empty for anything to come up but spit pooling in his mouth.

“Gag him,” Albrechtsen ordered. “We’re leaving soon.”

And as much as he twisted and spat and bit at the hands that wrestled with him, he couldn’t stop the man from snapping a mask onto his face. It clamped uncomfortably tight, binding over his mouth and nose and locking his jaw in place. He couldn’t speak through it, couldn’t pry it off or shake it off or do anything to get free.

Panic was clawing at his chest as the thug attached a lead to his manacles, dragging him upright by his wrists to pull him outside. The sun was painfully bright compared to the dimness of the tents. He squinted, and then staggered as the chain yanked him forward. When his eyes adjusted, the scene was similar to a military camp: large tents set up, armored people marching around. He couldn’t be sure how to tell the difference between soldiers and mercenaries, and didn’t particularly care, either.

He did care about seeing Essek.

The man had been stripped of his mantle. He looked exceedingly fragile without its bulk, just the thin underclothes, partially torn. He didn’t just have manacles on his wrists — his hands were consumed by a set of cylindrical devices, their weight making him slouch as his arms hung down. A mask similar to Mollymauk’s had been strapped to his face.

Essek’s eyes were nearly shut, narrowed to slits in the full sun above. Even from a distance, Molly could see the bruising that welled up from the edge of his mask, making rage boil in his stomach.

He couldn’t call out. He couldn’t do anything but stare as they were forced into a marching order, Essek placed several bodies ahead of Mollymauk for the expedition ahead.

They walked for hours. Mollymauk had traveled across most of the wastes himself, after his stolen horse had been claimed by a far too-large bird, but a day’s travel at a steady pace, uphill, without food or water — his vision was swimming in the late afternoon.

He almost missed it when Essek slumped over and collapsed. The line staggered, grunts and complaints rippling through the ranks. Someone kicked Essek in the back, and Molly snarled as he lunged forward, only to be snapped short by his chain.

He couldn’t do a single thing as Essek laid in the dirt, breath too shallow. In time, another figure was led to him. They knelt down, a radiant glow flickering over their hands, and then Essek was stirring. He was hauled to his feet, placed back in the line, and onwards they marched.

It was proof at least that they didn’t want him dead. Not yet.

Night was falling when they stopped to make camp. Essek was chained to a post they staked deep into the ground, and Mollymauk was dragged to him. It was only then that Essek’s eyes fell upon him, and Molly didn’t even bother resisting as his lead was locked in place.

When they were left somewhat alone, Essek’s shoulders slumped, his head falling forward. He seemed to heave for every breath, and all Molly could do was lean into his side and rumble a nervous purr.

Essek was trembling. Constant tremors would wrack into violent shaking, though if it was fear or exhaustion or some combination of the two, Mollymauk had no means of telling.

They were fed at the very least, though only in the vaguest sense, and only one at a time. Molly was first, his mask removed and two beads forced into his mouth as he thrashed against it. Neither seemed to be poison — one stopped the cramping hunger, the other soothed his dried-out mouth. It wasn’t half the satisfaction that food and water would have been. Then they removed Essek’s mask next, intending to do the same.

Essek gnashed at them, making even Molly jump. He snapped his teeth and spat, so suddenly that it took Molly a moment to process he was hearing infernal: “Get out. You’re useless like this, so run!”

The guard slammed him across the face. “Wanna say that in common you filthy crick?” They rumbled, grabbing his face.

“I said,” Essek sneered, “you have the looks of a rot troll and wits to match.”

He got a fist in his teeth for that, but Mollymauk cackled behind his mask until they took it out on him, too.

Essek’s words stuck in his head, as they were dragged off to separate tents to be put to sleep. Essek couldn’t cast magic, that much was obvious. The gag and the cuffs promised that much.

But there wasn’t much that could keep Mollymauk down. No swords nor cuffs nor graves had ever been enough. So he laid awake, anxiety making his heart flutter fast but eyes hooded shut and muscles limp. He shifted and turned as people do in their sleep, did everything to convince his guard that he was out. And when their breaths had evened, asleep at their post, Molly found the physical presence of his soul and cloaked it over his flesh.

Except he didn't. Mollymauk's heart skipped. It was an instinctual thing, searching for the in-between that lay beside the material, and finding something cutting him away from that shift left him feeling isolated. Powerless. Empty.

A shudder wracked his frame. He sucked in a breath, slow and steady, letting his pulse slow. It was just another obstacle.

Mollymauk rolled himself over, picking out his guard in the darkness. He was slumped over, mouth open and jaw in one hand. The table he was seated at held a one-person card game. A dagger rested in his belt.

He couldn't come through the front flaps in the tent, not when he knew there were more guards outside. The campfire's light flickered through the canvas, giving away the shadows of those around it. So: he would just carve a new exit through the back.

Molly rolled himself up onto his hooves, slipping across the tent's floor to his guard's side. His hands were bound, but not so tight he couldn't grip something. All it took was an awkward bend of the body to grab the hilt of the dagger and ease it from its sheath, the loss of its weight not provoking so much as a snort from its owner. Then he moved to the back, not letting himself slow down as he shoved the dagger's blade through the canvas and forced it down. It wasn't smooth, or even quiet, each harsh ripping noise closing in on his ears. It was enough to wake his guard, Mollymauk escaping through the gash in the tent as the man bolted awake.

He was halfway to the horses when a shout broke the camp's silence, abandoning stealth for speed. The sudden uproar made the horses startle, hooves stamping as Mollymauk bolted to the end of their line. Their tack was still on, a lead tying them to the posts staked around the camp. He brought the knife down, severing the rope and tossing both aside to haul himself up into the saddle.

The first snap of a crossbow bolt was what got her to run, rearing about and taking off into the night in a full racing gallop as the camp roared awake behind him.

The horse couldn’t take him forever, not after it had already made more than a full day’s travel. Still, the poor beast didn’t refuse him when he urged it to run again and again and again.

The sensation of being hunted clung to him. It festered beneath his skin, anxiety that drove him past exhaustion to flee mindlessly ahead, body craving a small space to cram himself into and curl up and hide, shaking, until surely it had been so long his hunter had lost his trail. Through the night, Molly craned his head back until he wondered if he could accidentally snap his own neck, waiting for the hour when he’d see his pursuers streaming after him

He never did, though. Maybe they’d taken the time to get their armor and saddles ready. Maybe they hadn’t realized it was their prisoner who had taken the horse and ran. Maybe they’d checked to see if Essek had gone, too. Whatever the reason, dawn broke and in the full light of morning, Mollymauk found himself alone.

The sky was just brightening to blue as he slid off the horse’s back, taking it by the reins to guide it towards a stream running through the grass. He knelt down, cupping water in his hands and letting frigid snowmelt soothe his throat.

He choked, then, not on water but on a sob. Hot tears blurred his vision and spilled over as he gave a wretched sound, hugging his own stomach tight. He bent over on his knees to heave aching breaths into the grass.

What was he going to do? Essek was captured, and Mollymauk was the only one who knew, alone in the wilderness of the Empire without even a blade to wield. He was useless. He was helpless. The bite of the cuffs had given way to a constant burn, blood trickling from beneath them as hard metal cut into his flesh.

Molly knelt there and cried, digging his fingers into the mud and opening his mouth to scream against the blades of grass that cut fine lines into his skin. He screamed until his throat was raw and he’d run out of tears, and Mollymauk scooped water from the stream into his dried-out mouth only to cough most of it up again when he choked on a hiccuping breath.

He drank. He laid in the grass, until the sky was fully lit. Then he pulled himself back up onto the horse, and they kept walking.

Mollymauk wouldn’t stop until he found a treeline to shelter in, and the rest was more for the horse than himself. Still, he nodded off almost the moment his pulse had slowed enough to let him. When he opened his eyes again, the sun had shifted dramatically, shadows long and blue in the late afternoon.

He lead his mount through the forest and then beyond, evening threatening the sky. They crested a hill as it slid into nightfall, stars winking into view, the moon shining a pale glow across the fields.

Molly stared up at her, eyes hooded with exhaustion. He was never the praying type. Or, he didn’t think he was. These days, there’d been less and less blur in his memory, the days of the circus filtering back slowly. He remembered learning to sew, spooling thread in the back of the caravan under moonlight, patching holes that human eyes couldn’t see in the darkness.

He didn’t know why he followed her, but it felt natural, comfortable. And if it was rude to pray when you felt no real reverence for the god in question, well, Mollymauk hardly had a reputation for following social norms.

It was strange to know these things about himself without really knowing. He hunkered down, face buried in his knees. He’d only walked a few hours, and here he was already wanting to lay back and sleep.

It wasn’t safe here. He wanted the warmth of a campfire. He longed for the safety of a myriad of bodies, countless voices to distract him. Yasha, tall and sturdy, would put an arm around his shoulders and drape him in the comfort of safety and pressure, and he’d slump against her and drift off halfway through one of Gustav’s stories.

And after them, there were others. It was a loose, messy, distrustful thing, but he’d been sure — his old family had fallen to pieces but this one was only just starting to line up its fractured edges and gods , how could he miss people he barely remembered?

Over the edge of the hillside, a light flickered into being.

Mollymauk froze, staring at it, a distant campfire. Even from so far away, he could see multiple figures now silhouetted against it: people, horses, bedrolls. Before he could think better of it, Mollymauk hoisted himself up into his mount’s saddle to lead her down the slope.

“If they’re friendly, we can sleep some more,” he promised her. The distant smell of cooking meat made his stomach twist and his mouth water. He really hoped they’d be friendly.

They turned out to be a group of trappers, gathering meats and furs to be sold, their catches strung up for the night. When they noticed his approach, a few of them reached for bows and swords, tentatively enough that he put his hands up in a calming motion.

“Evening!” He greeted. “Sorry to bother you fine folk, but I have gotten a bit turned around and — why, is that Zenny?

A group of vaguely familiar, wide eyes cast upon him, and flash with recognition.

“Long time no see,” he laughed, and laughed hard, relief sweeping over him in a dizzying wave as he slid from his horse’s back and spread his arms as far as the cuffs would let him. “So, catch me up. How’s the new management beentreating you?”

[youllallriseintheink]

Broken Strings, chapter 4: Meet thy Maker

Broken Strings is a story meant to complete the Showdown Bandit narrative and give it a proper ending. 

Previous chapters: 1 2 3

The door was a massive rectangular halo of light, taller than any box that Bandit had ever seen. There was plenty of space between the door and the floor for him to crawl under. Once he was through, Bandit felt as though he was being consumed with light- light more intense than he’d ever felt in his life. Before his eyes could adjust, he heard a voice.

“How did this get out here?” 

Then, he felt a giant, pudgy hand tightening around him. Eyes finally adjusting, he found that a giant woman, hands as large as his entire body, had picked him up and opened the door. Bandit screamed and pushed against the fleshy woman’s hand. The woman panicked in response and dropped him on the floor before heading off down the hallway. She disappeared through another door whose sign read “recording studio.” 

Finally able to get his bearings, Bandit took a look around. He was in a hallway- linoleum floors and metal doors. Thankfully it was a rather short one, for its scale at least. This was beginning to feel like a mistake, but there was nothing to do but press on. The recording studio seemed like his best bet- it was guaranteed that some of those giant creatures were behind the door, at any rate. 

What were those creatures? They were quite like puppets in shape, just... squishier. Bandit had never seen anything like it. He wondered if they also had rules to follow, and if they were the same rules. They must have. The only creatures he’d met that didn’t follow rules were the wood hornets. Slipping under the recording studio door, Bandit immediately came up with a name for them.

Unpretenders. 

He saw a fleshy creature working a camera as others moved tiger and elephant puppets around on a stage, oblivious to their little eyes moving around. Nothing the unpretenders did was for show. None of their tools were fake. The puppets on stage used fake props and pretended they were real, but the unpretenders never would. Did the unpretenders even know that he was alive? Bandit didn’t know, but he felt it was safest to sit limp against the wall as he watched all of this. He needed to make a plan if he was going to get help from any of them. Then, he saw a smaller giant- she was still enormous compared to him, but maybe half the height of the others. She was laying a few feet away from one of the walls, colouring a picture of the elephant character. A child. Children were open-minded- maybe she was his best bet at getting help.

Bandit got up up and ran to her. She looked up and saw him, eyes full of awe, and stretched out a hand to catch him. The tiger character took notice, and froze in place, unable to make sense of what he was seeing. A puppet, strings dragging, running unassisted across what couldn’t be puppet territory? The elephant brushed against him, trying to get him to focus, but he was stuck even as the puppeteer yanked harder at his strings.

“Cut!” the director said, and a variety of workers attempted to figure out what was wrong with the puppet.

Meanwhile, the little girl had brought Bandit up to her cheek. “Kid, ah need your help!” Bandit said. He wasn’t exactly enjoying this treatment, but it could have been worse. The girl flinched with shock. “That’s right. Help. Please.”

“Just a second,” the little girl said. The adults were still working trying to figure out what was going on, or otherwise were standing around doing nothing. No one was watching her. She escaped into the hallway. “What do you need? This needs to be quick- I need to stay where I belong or I’ll get in trouble.”

“Ah need to find the one who works on puppets- Showdown Bandit puppets. Do you know who that is?”

“I know someone who works on some puppets. What’s Showdown Valley?” The girl looked down to her colouring book. On its front were the words, “Jungle King, a Sillytoons production, created by Buddy Bublik.”

“That’ll do,” Bandit decided.

The little girl went to the building’s lobby. The front-desk woman’s eyes went wide. “Julia. You’re supposed to stay in the recording studio with your mom!”

“Yes,” the girl replied tearfully, “I was told to give this to Buddy Bublik, but I got lost.” She gave the woman her very best puppy-dog eyes.

“I’ll take care of that. And first, I’m walking you to the studio.”

“No, first we have to give this to him! I’m not doing it until then.” There was obvious distress in her voice. Julia was surprisingly good at acting.

“Alright. You run a hard bargain, but sure. We’ll go to him, first.”

So, the two walked to Buddy Bublik’s office. Buddy Bublik himself was a rather tall and stocky man, compared to some of the others Bandit had seen. He had  a short beard and mustache and was wearing a cowboy hat. His desk was currently covered in newspapers, and he was painting a puppet- an ape wearing a crown. The shelf above his desk was lined with other animal puppets- mostly jungle animals, but also a horse wearing a rustic-looking saddle. Bandit could trust this man.

“Mr. Bublik? Um, this little girl really wanted you to have this puppet. Would you mind looking after it for a while?”

He turned from his work. He seemed concerned upon seeing the puppet. “I’ll look after it. But, uh, tell her mother that she can’t bring her to work anymore. She must have fished it out of the supply closet.”

“Oh, okay,” the woman replied, sounding disappointed. “Julie, you shouldn’t have done that.”

Julia didn’t listen. She just put Bandit onto his creator’s desk and gave him a wink. Bandit winked back. With that, they left. Bandit turned to the man.

“You don’ have ta punish her. Ah got out on my own.

“What?!” A look of absolute horror had plastered itself over Buddy’s face. “Y-you- you-”

“That’s it, get it out of your system. Yes, ah’m alive. And I need help.”

“Okay... um, what help do you need, lil’ guy?” 

“The people of Showdown Valley have been invaded and displaced by an army of stringless. We need your help gettin’ our home back. Do you think you can do that?”

“I. I think so. The stringless. So... the backup puppets?”

“Backup?”

“Yeah. You’re actors. The, uh, stringless, as you call them, are for if any of you get damaged. The dumb nuts that are running this new show didn’t make any back-ups. That’s why I’m set on repairing this one.”

A wave of relief washed over Bandit. “You can repair us?”

“Yeah. People of this world would consider it a rather mundane talent. Now, here’s what’s gonna happen: I’m gonna get through the workday, pretend I’m working late, and sneak into the back to get you. I’ll get you all repaired over the weekend, and I’ll put your box somewhere nice and safe away from the back-ups, okay? I hope it’s not too many puppets that are broken.”

Bandit stifled a laugh. If he sold this as too big a job, Buddy might back out. “Thanks. Ah don’ know how I can repay ya, but thanks.”

“I’ll think’a somethin’,” Buddy drawled. “Anyhow, in the meantime, I have questions for you and you must have questions for me. Why don’t you ask’em while I work on the puppets?”

“Well, first and foremost- the rules. They real?”

“What rules?”

“The rules you go crazy for not followin’! Don’t look up, guard your strings, play your part! We all come into this world with an instinctive knowin’ of them!”

“You do? Fascinating. Well, I don’t know. I don’t think that would make you go insane, but there’s obviously a lot I don’t know about puppets. But you know what it sounds like to me?”

“What?”

“It sounds like you people started out with an understanding that the stringless were different from you, and a desire to think that your way of feelin’ and actin’ was right, and that’s how you decided there were rules. The stringless had no strings, no role, and no reason not to break the fourth wall. And all you understood is that you didn’t want to be like them.”

Bandit sat with that for a while. It felt wrong. He wished the idea were were something physical so he could shoot it. “So everythin’s arbitrary, then? We kept the stringless from joining our village peacefully for nothin’? Banker became a shut-in for nothin���? Penny plucked out her eyes and gave up her shop for nothin’? And that’s the other thing!” Bandit got up and pointed an accusing finger at Buddy, who remained unintimidated by the hand-sized puppet. “You’re... God, right?”

“I- suppose?”

“Why did you kick Penny out of her shop?”

“The answer is right beside you,” Buddy said, pointing to the horse puppet. “I was tinkering with her role. Thought that instead of a general store, she could run a stable. But before I could finish making her stable, the network changed their mind about the Showdown Bandit franchise. They decided to put it on hold so they could pour all their workers into Jungle King. So, I guess I got her stuck between roles to an extent. Sorry, I didn’t know you were alive.”

“So we’re not even actors. Is it all pointless, then?”

Buddy sighed. “If yours is, mine is. But look, were those rules you guys made really making you happy, or fulfilled? Isn’t it better to make rules that will benefit people, and decide for yourself what has meaning? And anyhow, when yoour show resumes production, you all are going to enter the stage as the first puppets who know that you’re puppets. The first ones that spoke to humans. And I think that’s magical.”

At the end of the day, Bandit rode on Buddy’s shoulder as they went back to the storage area. Even as Buddy’s shadow darkened their box, the Showdown Valley citizens didn’t look up. But as their box was lifted, there was commotion.

“It’s okay, everyone!” Bandit called to his brethren as he slid down into the box. “He’s with me. And hoo boy do I have a lot to tell ya!”

[detroitwhatitmeanstobehuman]

Chapter 1 - One and the Same

Part 1/17 of What it Means to be Human

Word Count: 10,810

Warnings: Swearing. There’s a lot of it, our girl’s a foulmouth.

Genre: Self-insert fic

Pairing: OC (Detective Rachel) X Connor

Rating: Mature

Summary: Lieutenant Hank Anderson, while interrogating the android that murdered Carlos Ortiz, brings in one of his strangest and yet uniquely skilled detectives in the DPD - Detective Rachel. Connor, the android sent by CyberLife much to Anderson’s behest, finds himself intrigued by Rachel’s foulmouthed and prickly nature, yet immense and unabashed sense of empathy and compassion towards others.

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

Date: November 6th, 2038  Time: 12:41 AM Objective: Extract Confession Hank - Neutral

“Why d'you kill him? What happened before you took that knife?” A greying man with chin-length hair and a scruffy, but kept, beard asked the man sitting across from him.

Approximately an hour ago, Connor and Lieutenant Hank Anderson had apprehended a deviant android hiding at the scene of a homicide. And now, the android was brought in for questioning. Though it didn’t appear to cooperate with the lieutenant’s questions and simply stayed silent, not looking the aged man in the eyes. 

Stealing a glance back at both Connor and Detective Gavin Reed, a rather disheveled and rough-looking man, through the two-way mirror. A black police officer named Chris Miller was seated at the controls on Connor’s left. “How long were ya in the attic? Why didn't you even try to run away?” No answer from the android. The lieutenant reached across to snap his fingers at it, as if trying to catch its attention. 

Hank seemed to glance back at the others in disbelief before losing his patience and slamming his hands on the table. “Say something, goddamnit!” He shouted at it. 

No response, still. The lieutenant seemed to have enough and lifted himself up from his seat. “Fuck it, I'm outta here..." He muttered, turning around and opening the door, leaving the interrogation room.

It didn’t take long before Hank entered the observation side of the mirror with the others, huffing his complaints. “We're wastin' our time interrogating a machine, we're gettin' nothing out of it!” He sat down next to Chris harshly, getting agitated.

“'Could always try roughing it up a little.” Gavin suggested casually. “After all, it's not human..."

“Androids don't feel pain.” Connor pointed out. “You would only damage it and that wouldn't make it talk.” He took another look at the deviant on the other side of the mirror before he heard the door open beside him. “Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they're in stressful situations.”

“So do I. They’re not special.” An unfamiliar female voice replied with a scoff. As Connor turned around to see who it belonged to, he found himself facing a shorter woman with short, wavy, dark brown hair and dark eyes that matched framed by the frames of a pair of rounded rectangular glasses. She was wearing a dark brown sweater with thick horizontal stripes of a much darker grey.

“Hi, Rachel.” Chris greeted pleasantly.

Hank scoffed in her direction. “Well, well, well. Nice of you to finally join us, Rachel.”

“Oh, well sorry I’m late, Hank.” She replied sarcastically, cocking a smirk and a thick eyebrow at him. “I was finishing the paperwork for one of my closed cases that Fowler wanted done ASAP, and I’d rather give him some good news for once.” The woman then fixed Connor with an interested stare, taking in his features as she glanced up and down his frame. “I know you have the whole ‘bear aesthetic’ goin’ on, Hank, but I didn’t realize this was your taste in men. A bit on the nose, isn’t it?”

The glare Hank fixed her with could cut glass while Chris was snickering and Gavin was laughing. “Oh, bite me, Rachel.” He growled.

“Oh, relax, Hank. I’m just poking fun.” She said with a playful smile, gently brushing Hank’s shoulder. Connor could tell immediately that they were rather familiar with each other. Rachel then returned her focus on Connor, her eyes glittering with intrigue. “So, who is this tall glass o’ water you’ve got here, Hank?”

Gavin let out a disgusted groan that Connor ignored. “My name is Connor. I’m the android sent by CyberLife.” He answered with his templated response.

Rachel - Warm ^ Rachel then nodded, smiling at him as she extended her right hand. “Nice to meet you, Connor.” She replied pleasantly. Connor, recognizing the gesture, took her hand in his and shook it. “My name is Rachel, I’m the detective requested by Hank, since he apparently wanted me to get some action on this.”

Gavin scoffed at her. “Well, you’re wastin’ your time.” He dismissed. “Machine’s clammed up and we’re not gettin’ anything out of it.”

“Not with that attitude, we’re not.” Rachel retorted, turning away from Gavin. “So what have we got, boy - oh my God!” Once she laid eyes on the deviant, her stress seemed to increase. “What the Hell happened to him?”

“It.” Gavin insisted. “It’s not a he.”

“Piss off, Gavin.” Rachel spat at him.

“We found it hiding in the attic of the victim’s house, Carlos Ortiz.” Chris began informing Rachel. “It murdered the victim after he attacked it with a bat, and it’s been hiding out in the attic for three weeks.”

“Hang on. Three weeks?!” Rachel exclaimed in disbelief. “He’s been in this condition for three weeks, and you just kept him like this?! Why hasn’t anyone repaired him, yet?!”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Rachel.” Hank groaned. “This thing fucking killed a man, and you’re worried about it?!”

“If he was a human, this would be considered extremely inhumane even if he was a convicted killer.” Rachel shot back with.

“But it’s not!” Gavin scoffed. “It’s just a fuckin’ machine, and it doesn’t even give a shit whether or not you care! So why bother?”

“Because unlike you, I’m not an insecure manchild with the disposition of a barbed wire dildo covered in syphilis dressed up in the attire of a man who looks like he just crawled out of a racoon-filled dumpster.” Rachel responded with a smug tone of voice.

“Okay, smartass.” Gavin said, throwing up his arms in frustration. “What should we do then?”

Connor, seeing that he should likely intervene, interjected. “I could try questioning it.”

That caused Gavin to divert his attention from Rachel, as he was now laughing at Connor.

Rachel then walked past them, groaning and rolling her eyes at them. “Oh my God, you guys are morons.” She admonished. “He’s not gonna cooperate with you guys. Gavin is...Gavin, and the rest of you were at the crime scene and I’m assuming you were the ones that brought him in. He’s not gonna wanna talk to you because all he sees are the humans that are keeping him captive and the cops that don’t see him as what he thinks he is.”

Hank was getting tired of this, but seemed to be relenting more and more. “So, what’s your verdict, then?”

“Simple.” Rachel said matter-of-factly. “If deviants see themselves as alive and - well, not necessarily human - but on par with humans, then I’ll treat him as such.”

“So, what?” Hank asked. “You’re just gonna...talk to it like it’s a person?”

“No, I’m gonna talk to him like a tired doctor who barely has the patience for this, because that’s very much what the mood is right now.” Rachel answered casually. “I’ll be right back, I just gotta go get some supplies. What model is he?”

Connor, realizing that her question was directed at him, he answered, folding his hands behind his back. “HK400.”

“Thanks, I’ll be back.” Without waiting for an answer, she left the room and Connor could hear her footsteps getting further away.

The android detective found himself wondering about her curiously. She was about as foulmouthed and irritable as Lieutenant Anderson was, but she was nearly the polar opposite in her opinion of androids and her attitude towards Connor.

It was a comparison that Connor found intriguing.

“She seems to be a rather unique character, compared to what I’ve seen thus far.” Connor commented.

“That’s one way to put it.” Chris replied neutrally.

“Yeah, she’s definitely not like most of us.” Hank agreed, nodding his head. “But she’s one of our best. So, it’s worth seeing how this goes.” His praises seemed to be genuine, and Connor sensed that the lieutenant genuinely felt some sense of attachment or affection towards the detective. “Besides, what do we have to lose?”

--------

I knew exactly where I was headed. Most parts for androids were held by Cyberlife in their warehouses, but emergency services such as hospitals and police precincts had stores of spare android parts to both maintain and repair work androids should something happen. Some people had special clearance to repair androids due to their qualifications, of which I had on my resume. Granted, I never actually worked with androids, but my sister used to work at Cyberlife and she taught me a bit about their parts and how to repair them. I figured I could easily repair the deviant, and this would allow me to get to know him and build a rapport with him.

And hopefully get him to confess and give us some insight into him.

I made my way towards the centre which was just between the bathrooms and the holding cells, my key-card allowing me clearance inside. The thing I was most thankful for was that this area was always run by an android, and they weren’t going to ask me weird questions. As I approached, I greeted her. “Hello!” I said brightly.

The android nodded. “Hello.” She replied. “What can I do for you today?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, I’ll need a toolset and I’ll need a bag of thirium.” I said to her. “As well as a pair of arms for the HK400 model.”

“Of course, Rachel.” She responded. The LED on her head spun yellow and then quickly flickered back to blue. She then went into the compartment in the back behind the desk and came out holding two white unskinned android arms in a package and a packet of blue blood, very similar to the blood bags you’d see when you need a blood transfusion. “Anything else?”

“No, that’ll be all, thank you so much!” I said to the android as I was putting it all in a bag.

As I started making my way out, I heard her call out after me. “Have a good night!”

“You too!” I called after her.

No one was giving me any weird looks. There was the occasional curious glance, but I have never in my life felt more grateful for the “mind your own business” environment than I did in that moment. I made my way back to the interrogation room with no problems.

Hooking the bag over my shoulder, I opened the door and walked inside, glancing towards the mirror knowing they were watching me. But I wasn’t intimidated by them. No, I was going to prove a point and they weren’t going to stop me.

But my eyes landed on the android and my heart sank. It was so much worse seeing his condition up close, and I swallowed hard.

His right arm was practically split open, blue blood leaking from it, the other dotted with burns. His face was splattered with red blood, and he was just standing there in front of the glass. I was in so much shock. I had never seen an android that was damaged, but I did not expect it to make my stomach feel so knotted and my throat feel so tight.

Pushing down the lump in my throat, I approached, placing the bag beside the chair across from the android and moving slowly. “Hey.” I said. For a brief moment, his eyes flickered up to me and I saw a quick glimpse of confusion on his face before he glanced downward at the empty space between his hands. “Were you expecting someone else?” No response. “That’s fine, though I’m sorry to disappoint you. And even more regretful to find you in this condition.”

I reached down into the bag and pulled out a bag of thirium, emptying it into a bottle, and placing it on the table. The android’s eyes glanced towards it for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the table. For a moment, I wondered if Hank was getting this too, or if I was making more progress than they were.

Keeping focused on the interrogation, I leaned back in my chair. “Blue blood.” I said to him. “Do you know why I put it here?” He seemed nervous, but still wouldn’t budge. But I wasn’t going to give up. “According to my colleagues, you’ve been stuck in your attic for three weeks. Now, that’s a lot of time for you to be injured and losing blood. And that’s coming from someone who suffers from time blindness. You’re lucky you haven’t shut down.” I studied him and noticed him start to twitch ever so slightly. “And the thing is, I could just give you the blue blood you need to replenish, but in your condition...it could make your bleeding worse if I did. So, first and foremost, I’m going to repair you.”

That seemed to finally get his attention. He finally looked me in the face, confusion in his brown eyes. “What?” He asked, as if he couldn’t believe his ears.

I took this moment to jab a bit at him playfully. “So you do have a voice.”

--------

Hank couldn’t believe his eyes. She actually got the damn thing to talk. He knew that Rachel wasn’t exactly good at being bad cop. Not that she couldn’t be scary or that she wasn’t tough. Far from it.

But in this sort of situation, intimidation wasn’t her strong suit.

Good cop was where she was an asset. She didn’t put on a sap story or make herself seem like a bleeding heart. No matter what she did, she was genuine and earnest. And Hank had a feeling that’s what made her so good at being good cop.

She didn’t pass herself off as a cop. She didn’t try to be overly mushy. And she didn’t try to put on an act. She just acted the way she was and she’s able to get through to a suspect in a way they can understand.

Indeed, the way her mind worked was honestly a marvel. Even suspects that didn’t end up confessing to her, she managed to get to cooperate at least a bit easier because she could easily speak their language just by getting a picture of what they did or didn’t care about.

His focus remained on the interrogation, intrigue pricking at the old man. Hank didn’t have a high opinion of androids for various reasons. And he certainly didn’t see them as anything more than machines. But some part of him wanted to see Rachel prove him wrong, at least in this aspect. She was always an overly empathetic person, as much as Hank saw it as an advantage, she herself admitted that it was also one of her biggest weaknesses. In her own words, she cared too much about others for her own good.

“I’m going to repair you.” Rachel repeated on the other side of the glass. “And I would appreciate it if you cooperated with me doing so, because if you don’t, I’ll have to forcefully repair you, and that won’t be pleasant. And...I’d rather not add more unnecessary trauma to the horrible three weeks you’ve had.”

The deviant seemed even more confused as it just blinked at her. “Why do you look at me like that?” It asked, its voice shaky and uncertain.

Rachel sighed, leaned towards it to rest her elbows on the metal table. “I’ll be honest, I’ve just never seen an android in as bad of a condition as you’re in.” She admitted. “It’s...it’s aggravating to think that people just brush it off. Like it’s nothing. That people buy androids for thousands of dollars just to treat them like shit. But, then again, people did the same thing when they were buying actual human slaves, so I suppose I shouldn’t be that shocked.” She grumbled. Some part of her explanation sliced something deep in Hank and he could sense that an uncomfortable silence had fallen on all of them. Like when someone makes a good point about something really depressing and you can’t think of it the same way ever again. “I know it doesn’t hurt...but it looks really bad.”

“You weren’t there with the other humans last night.” The deviant pointed out, looking at Rachel as if it still didn’t believe she actually cared about it. “Why are you here?”

For a moment, she seemed to ponder something. Likely how much of the truth she should tell it. “Lieutenant Anderson called me in.” She replied. “But I saw the state you were in, and if there’s one thing you have to know about me, it’s that I don’t enjoy seeing people suffer needlessly.” She then turned to the glass to glare inside. “Unlike some people.” She hissed through her teeth.

“Oh, gimme a fuckin’ break.” Gavin complained throwin’ his arms up. “This isn’t going anywhere, just pull her back in here.”

“Just wait.” Hank ordered, silencing Gavin. “She’s getting a lot more out of it than we could, so far. Let’s see where this goes.”

“And I want to help.” Rachel assured him, drawing Hank’s attention back to the interrogation. 

She then reached across to the deviant to touch its hand, but it then recoiled with a yelp. “Don’t touch me!” Rachel jumped back in surprise before she seemed to calm herself down. “Please don’t touch me.”

Rachel then sighed, her face softening. “I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you if it was okay, first.” She apologized, the deviant blinking at her in surprise. “But if you don’t let me repair you, you’re gonna shut down. And I don’t want that to happen. So...you’re gonna have to trust me.” 

The deviant faltered for a moment before Rachel lifted the bag and put it on the table. It looked between her and the bag before she reached her hand out to it. “Give me your hand.” She ordered. The deviant still seemed to hesitate, so Rachel insisted. “Please.”

Blinking at her, it seemed to get the message and did as she asked, giving her its right hand. “Holy shit.” Hank whispered under his breath.

“Thank you.” Rachel said, lingering there for a moment so that the deviant could see that there was no danger. “Now, can you please deskin your arm for me so I can see the extent of the damages done to you?”

Hesitating, the deviant did just that. She got up, moving towards its right side so she could get a better look. “Don’t worry, I’m just getting a better idea of what I’m looking at.” She reassured it, seeming to help it calm down. “By the way, what’s your name?”

The deviant seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering. “HK400.”

Rachel seemed surprised at its answer. “You don’t have a name?” She asked it.

“No..." It replied. “He never gave me one..."

She sighed in what Hank could tell was growing frustration. The kind that signaled that she was getting more and more depressed the more information she was given. “Well, that means you can decide your own name.” 

It glanced up at her, looking confused. “I...can decide my own name?” It asked her.

She shrugged. “Well, yeah.” She answered plainly. “You’re a conscious sentient being, now. And you no longer have a master to obey. There’s nothing stopping you from choosing your own name.” She pointed out. The deviant looked as though it just realized something that was so obvious that it couldn’t believe it didn’t figure it out before. “So, what would you want me to call you?”

The deviant seemed to actually consider this for a moment before it spoke up. “Micheal.” It decided. “My name...my name is Micheal.”

Rachel actually pulled back to smile at it. “Nice to meet you, Micheal.” She said to it. “I’m Rachel.”

--------

Micheal nodded. “Rachel.” He repeated.

He looked up at me, as if to check my movements. Taking a breath, the dark brown android skin on Micheal’s arm had peeled away, leaving only the white plastic polish of the android technology underneath. Although it was battered and split open by damage, dried thirium leaking through the break. Though, after examining his whole arm, I determined that the upper arm where the biceps were was intact, though I would still have to check it to see if it would be worth it to replace the whole arm or just the forearm. 

“I’m going to start working on your arm. I know you don’t feel pain, but I figured it would put you more at ease to know what I’m doing.” I explained to Micheal. “I will definitely have to replace your forearm, but I need to check the whole arm as well.”

He nodded. “Alright, okay.” He said nervously.

Despite feeling as though he trusted me, I wanted to avoid startling him and stressing him out as much as possible. But I had to work on him. “This shouldn’t take too long for me to figure out. Just be patient, and I’ll have you in good condition in no time.” I tried to think of something for him to distract himself. “While I work on repairing you, why don’t you tell me about yourself, Micheal?”

“M-me?” He stammered, looking at me. “W-why?”

I looked down at him. “You’re your own person, now. You can tell me as much as you feel comfortable telling me. I’m not asking for all the ugly details if you don’t trust me enough to tell me them.” I explained to him. “I was more talking about your likes and dislikes. Maybe you have some hobbies, or things you liked doing. Maybe you wanted to do art, or writing, or cooking. I don’t know, whatever you decide to do.”

He blinked a few times at me before he finally asked what I figured was on his mind for the past while. “Why are you doing this?” He said, looking completely confounded. “No human has ever been this kind to me? Why? You have no reason to.”

For someone in his position, I understood why he would ask me that. I found it hard to blame my kindness after what he’d been through. “I guess it’s because I see a lot of myself in you. Well, in androids in general, but more so in deviants like you.”

As I got up to his biceps, he kept his gaze on me. “How?”

“I’ll answer you in a second.” I said as I gripped his arm. “I’m going to move your arm around so I can figure out if I need to replace the whole thing or just your forearm. Okay, Micheal?”

He nodded. “Okay.” He replied.

I bent his arm back in several directions, as I didn’t want to startle or injure him further. As I continued testing the shoulder joint, I felt it lock and stick in places. It definitely wasn’t smooth, and I could tell that something was damaged. “Ohhh, yep. I’m going to have to replace your whole arm. So, I’m going to detach it now and replace it with a new one I have in my bag. I’ll make it quick.”

I located the unlocking mechanism on his right shoulder and reached into my bag, pulling out and opening up the toolset. My eyes scanned over every single one until I found the tool I was looking for. It was made to unlock and unclip the joints in android limbs. Pulling it out, I let go of Micheal’s hand, placing both hands on his shoulder. “I’m going to need you to lay your hand relaxed at your side, straight. Once I unclip your shoulder from your torso, you’ll feel a sudden jerk. Just letting you know so you don’t get startled by the sudden pull.”

“Okay.” He replied. I could tell he was calming down much more than he was earlier. Curling the end of the tool underneath the lock, I gave it a quick jerk and felt Micheal flinch slightly, his LED indicator flashing red for a moment before returning to yellow. 

It unclicked with a satisfying sound and I put the tool down, grabbed his arm with both hands and looked at Micheal. “On the count of three, I’m going to pull your arm free, okay?” I assured him.

He nodded.

I started counting. “One, two, three!” It came off easily without a hitch. As I held it, Micheal’s LED began spinning red again as he looked at his arm. I noted the panic on his face and put my hand on his shoulder to bring him back to focusing on me. “Don’t worry, I have another arm ready for you. It’s for the same model, so it’ll be compatible. And getting it on will be much easier and smoother than removing it.”

I rummaged into my bag and found the right arm. It glinted with brand new quality to it. I removed it from its packaging and easily lined it up with its socket and clicked it in place. It slid in perfectly and the locks clamped around it comfortably. “Alright, that’s your right arm done. Can you please run a diagnostics check on your arm to make sure it’s working right, Micheal?” I asked him.

He nodded, his arm flexing. He flexed his fingers and moved his arm in several ways, making sure it was working properly. His skin was starting to slick over the rest of his arm, and it blended seamlessly with the rest of him. I nodded with a smile. “Good as new!” I praised. I moved over to his left, having finished with his right. “Now I have to check your other arm. I doubt I’ll have to replace the whole thing, so it should be quicker to deal with.”

He nodded. “Okay.” 

Micheal nodded.

I started walking around to his other side, examining his left arm. I noticed that I didn’t have to ask him to deskin his arm this time and that he already grabbed my hand. I took it as a sign that he had relaxed around me and that he was no longer afraid of me. His arm wasn’t nearly as damaged as the other one, and his upper arm wasn’t even touched. All that there seemed to be were the burn marks that broke through to the plastic part. I grimaced in disgust when I realized that they were burns from cigarettes being put out on him, the same marks of which I saw on his face. “Your master really was scum, wasn’t he?”

Micheal tensed up when I said that, but he didn’t hesitate to talk. “He tortured me every day..." He admitted. Finally, the confession part of this “interrogation.”  “I did whatever he told me, but there was always something wrong...Then one day...He took a bat and started hitting me...For the first time, I felt scared...Scared he might destroy me, scared I might die..." 

I winced. I didn’t care if androids didn’t feel pain, they could certainly feel fear. And even if they couldn’t feel physical pain, they could feel emotional pain.

And I knew damn well how real and lasting emotional pain was. “I grew up with friends with parents like that.” I sympathized. “Their parents used to treat them the same way. Sometimes physical. Things from beatings to worse things. But it was usually things that destroyed their senses of self. Making them feel worthless. Forcing them to hide who they really were because if their families knew, my friends would be forced to live on the streets alone.” I snarled. “And all I could do was stay quiet while they suffered.”

He seemed to be confused at my response. “Why?”

“What do you mean?” I asked him, briefly forgetting my train of thought.

“Why did you stay quiet?” He clarified. “If you knew that it wasn’t fair for them to be treated that way, why did you stay quiet?”

I sighed. It was a fair question, and perhaps my answer would help him understand a few things about himself. “Because my friends asked me to hold my tongue, as it were.” I answered him. “And it’s unfortunately not that simple. Nothing exists in a vacuum. If I spoke out, there would have been consequences, and those consequences would’ve been taken out on my friends. And...I couldn’t do that to them. So the best I could do was be there for them. To help them while they survived each day.”

I could tell that he didn’t quite seem to understand, so I just went about working on his arm. I didn’t have to let him know what I was doing as I grabbed my tool again and this time slid it under the elbow joint lock. “I...grabbed the knife and I stabbed him in the stomach..." It was strange not to react much to that. Well, I didn’t have to work hard for this confession. “I felt better...so I stabbed him again and again!...until he collapsed...There was blood everywhere.” 

“Can’t say I blame you. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to do that to some piece of shit. And trust me, I’ve had to deal with several.” I felt something tugging at my brain. Something I was forgetting. “What was I saying before?” I asked. “Before I was fixing your right arm?” Before he could reply, my thoughts caught up to me again. “Right! Why I’m being nice to you.” 

Micheal nodded at me, pushing me to keep going. 

“Well, for starters, I see a lot of myself in both androids and especially deviants.” I quickly jerked the lock and took his forearm off. “I’m not like others of my kind, either. But like you, I’m not the only one. I have defects in my program, to put it in terms you’d understand.” I began explaining as I leaned forward to retrieve the other arm in the bag and detached the forearm from it as well. “I have depression, anxiety, Apsperger’s Syndrome, and ADHD. These certain mental conditions impede my ability to do certain tasks. My Autism impeding my ability to communicate effectively with others and makes understanding others difficult.” 

I quickly clicked the new forearm into Micheal’s arm, it sliding into place effectively. “Things that make me rather strange and odd to other humans. There are other humans like me, just as there are other deviants like you. But to people who can identify what I am and figure me out, not a lot of people care too much, but there are some people who treat me the way they treat you. Like nothing. Like I’m less than human. Like I’m just a defect and that I deserve to be destroyed. But at least in regards to my ADHD and my Autism, these aren’t things that really negatively impede my life. Sure, they come with disadvantages, but they also come with a lot of unique advantages as well. Depression and anxiety, on the other hand, have made my life a lot worse than it needed to be, which is why I had to get treated for them.” 

He was flexing his hand as the skin peeled over it again. “I’m afraid I can’t really do anything about the marks he put in your face, but I think I did a pretty good job fixing you up, Micheal.” Noticing the bottle of thirium I had placed a distance from him, I slid it towards him. “Drink it. You’ve lost some thirium and you’ll need to replenish it. And now, you don’t have to worry about bleeding out.”

He hesitantly took the bottle and started to down the blue blood. As I returned to my seat across from him, he looked towards me, his LED finally turning back to blue for the first time since I laid eyes on him. “Thank you...for all this.”

I nodded. “Of course.” I said to him. I glanced at both of his arms. “You know, now that your arms are working and are brand new, maybe you could try something for me?” He looked at me skeptically. “Do you want to try drawing?”

He blinked in surprise. “I...I guess I could try.” He said sheepishly. “I’ve never drawn before. But I did make a small statue.”

“Really?” I asked him, smiling at him. “I used to sculpt with clay, when I was younger. The kind that gets all over your hands and dries and has to be put in a kiln to bake.” I started to go on. “I didn’t really like how it dried on my hands or how it got under my nails. I preferred modeling clay. It’s more like plasticine. It’s a lot easier and cleaner to work with for me. I haven’t sculpted in a long time.”

He actually gave me the first smile I’ve ever seen on him. Despite his blood-stained clothes and face, I felt completely comfortable around Micheal. “I can try to draw it for you, if you want to see.”

I smiled at him. “I’d like that.” I dug around in my handbag and pulled out my personal sketchpad. I tore out a page and handed him both it and a pencil. “And, if you don’t mind, I want to draw you, too.”

He gave me a patient smile and went to work drawing. I took note of all his features and began sketching the simple shapes and curves. The basic structure of his face. I wasn’t exactly a master artist, but I never passed up an opportunity to practice. Once I got a basic shape done, I began sketching in the finer details. His eyebrows, eyes, ears, and the strange inconsistencies in his buzzed hair. But the thing I wanted to capture the most was the joyous light that was now abundant in his eyes and the smile on his face. I wanted to immortalize it while it lasted.

After a little while, I decided I was done, and showed it to him. “I’m sorry if I’m not as skilled as you were expecting, I’m not exactly a professional sketch artist.” I apologized, handing it to him. “But I hope you like it.”

His eyes scanned over it, his LED flashing back to the yellow it was when I first met him. “I’m smiling.” He said, laughing a little. “You made me smile.”

I snickered a little at him. “No I didn’t, you were already smiling.” I pointed out. “You’re smiling right now!”

He touched his cheeks, as if he had to physically check to see if I was right. But he couldn’t stop smiling, almost catching himself. It was honestly adorable and endearing and I couldn’t help the little flutter of happiness that erupted in my stomach. He then handed me his paper. I widened my eyes in surprise and adjusted my glasses. “I see the little statue you drew.” I said, but I was looking at the other thing he drew. He drew me. I was sitting in a position with my left shoulder turned towards the metaphorical observer, my head tilted in an endearing manner with a crooked dimpled smile. “And you drew me. You made me look so pretty.”

He laughed softly. “You can keep that, if you want.”

I looked at my drawing of him and leaned over. “Here.” I said. I took the sketchpad and the pencils and ripped my drawing out and gave it to Micheal. “You can keep mine.”

He looked as though he was going to refuse before he tentatively took it from me. “Thank you, Rachel.” He said graciously. “I’ve never been given anything like this.”

I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. I know how important it is to have belongings, so that’s yours now.”

He looked at me confused, his LED flickering yellow again. “What do you mean?” He asked.

I simply shrugged. “Well, when you have something that’s yours,” I started off. “Something that you can touch and see, something you’ve made, something made for you or given to you, something you’ve gotten for yourself, something that’s yours is very important. Because belongings have sentimental value. They mean something to you. And having something physical that’s yours makes you feel more like your own person. More grounded in your sense of self.” 

I tugged on my sweater, pulling it closer to me. “Take my hoodie, for instance.” It was a large dark zip-up sweater, clearly much too big for me, as the sleeves extended way past my arms and the bottom covered a large percentage of my thighs. It was a thick striped sweater of dark shades of brown-tinted greys, and it had large pockets. It was clearly worn for a very long time, but well kept. “It’s pretty obvious to see that it’s way too big for me. But...it’s something very important to me. Something very sentimental.” I felt my throat get tight, the memories surrounding the sweater resurfacing in my mind as I tried to choke them down. “It was given to me by someone very important to me. I’ve worn it for years. It’s one of the few things I have left to remember them by.”

I could feel tears threatening to well up and I tried to blink them away, even as I felt my throat tighten. Micheal seemed to sense my distress and put a hand on mine. “I’m so sorry.” He said softly. 

I looked up into his brown eyes and could see the sympathy in his eyes. I didn’t care what people said about androids or deviants. Micheal could feel, and I knew it. “I appreciate your condolences.”

As much as I wished I could keep him here, safe and without worry, I couldn’t keep this up. And since I was only passively familiar with this case, there weren’t any more questions I could ask him. With the most difficult control I could muster, I got up from my seat. “I should go.” I said, looking at Micheal.

He looked as though he was going to cling to me and not let me go, but let me slip out of his hands. But just as I had tidied up my bag of supplies and slung it over my shoulder, I felt him grab my hand again. “Wait!” He cried.

I looked at him expectantly. “Yes, Micheal?” I asked him.

“What...what are they gonna do to me?” It seemed as though the words were caught in his throat. “They're gonna destroy me, aren't they?”

His fear was palpable, but...one of my worst vices was that I was a terrible liar. “I don’t exactly know what CyberLife procedure is...but it’s likely.” I replied.

“I don’t wanna die. I’m scared to die. I,” he looked up at me, his LED spinning red. “I’m not gonna die, right? Promise me I won’t die.”

I felt my chest tighten. I desperately wanted to help him, but realistically speaking, there was little I could do for him. I furrowed my brows together in determination. But damn it, I might as well try my hardest. “Not if I can help it.” I said firmly. I then gestured to the glass next to me. “But cooperate with them, and there’s a higher chance that you won’t.”

He nodded. “Thank you, Rachel.” He said, a bitter smile on his stained face. “For everything.”

Giving him one last nod, I walked away and exited the room, my bag of equipment slung over my shoulder.

--------

Connor observed the scene before him and couldn’t help but feel astounded. In the span of approximately fifteen minutes, Rachel had successfully built a rapport with Micheal and got it to confess without pressuring it.

But it was only a partial confession. There were things that Connor needed to know and understand, but couldn’t until he was the one asking questions.

Rachel reentered the room, dropping the bag on the floor and placing the deviant’s damaged arms on the ground beside it. “Well, I did what I could.” She lamented with a shrug, smirking at Gavin. “Was that enough to convince you, ye of little faith?”

“You got lucky.” He said, clearly not wanting to admit that he was somewhat impressed by Rachel. “Don’t think of this as anything else than a fluke.”

“Uh-huh.” Rachel replied snarkily, unfazed by Gavin. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself whatever you need to tell yourself, bud.”

“You got it to talk way more than I could. There’s something to be said for that.” Hank offered with a nonchalant shrug. “So, what now?”

Software Instability ^ Connor then felt Rachel elbow him in a friendly manner. “Well, you haven’t gotten to show off your interrogation skills, yet.” She suggested encouragingly. “Though, I did warm him up for you. You’re welcome.”

Connor noticed the indication for an increase in his software instability pop up. Which was strange since he didn’t do anything that would have triggered it. Dismissing his brief concerns, he nodded, looking over to Hank for his input. “I can certainly try questioning it now, Lieutenant.”

Hank simply waved at Connor, giving him the go ahead. “Go ahead, suspect's all yours.”

Hank nodded, leaving the room and turning the corner to enter the interrogation room. Looking down at the deviant, it was at least responsive, making eye contact with Connor. As the detective approached, he looked at the file on the table, opening to look at the photos.

Taking a seat where Rachel once sat, Connor sat across from the deviant, Micheal. Taking the opportunity to properly analyze it, Connor catalogued a few important details.

Processing LED: Signs of software instability Probability of self-destruction: Low

Model HK400 - Housekeeper Manufacture date: 05/09/2030 Property of: Carlos Ortiz

Dried Blood DNA Analysis: Ortiz, Carlos Sample date: 19 days old

Once Connor had taken in every detail he could, he formulated the best approach. However, Rachel’s grown rapport with Micheal was what was at the forefront of his program at the moment.

Software Instability ^ So, deciding to follow in her stead, Connor decided to approach in a similar direction.

[Fear] 🔓

[Show Photos] 🔓

[Wounds] 🔓

Name

“Micheal.” Connor started, causing the deviant to direct its attention towards Connor. “My name is Connor.”

Comfort

Reassure

Threaten

Blame

“I'm not going to hurt you.” Connor reassured Micheal. “I just need to ask you some questions, so we can understand what happened.” Micheal still wouldn’t talk to Connor. Perhaps a more harsher prod would be necessary.

Sympathize

Threaten

Probe Memory

Trust

“If you won't talk, I'm going to have to probe your memory.” He threatened.

“NO!” Micheal whimpered, its LED spinning red before slowly turning back to yellow. “No, please don't do that!” The deviant then glanced over at the mirror, no doubt thinking of the lieutenant and of Rachel watching it behind there. It then looked back at Connor, its eyes pleading. “Why did you tell them you found me?” It asked. "Why couldn't you just have left me there?”

Lie

Truth

“I was programmed to hunt deviants like you.” Connor admitted. “I just accomplished my mission.”

Micheal seemed unnerved and fearful. “I don’t wanna die.”

Connor, wanting nothing more than to get answers, pleaded with Micheal. “Then talk to me.”

“I...I..." Micheal seemed to hesitate, looking wide-eyed at Connor before it glanced down at the paper in its hand. The drawing of it given to him by Rachel. Taking a breath, it looked Connor in the eye and nodded reluctantly. “Okay. I’ll talk.” Rachel - Warm ^ Hank - Warm ^

[Writing] 🔓

[Statuette] 🔓

[rA9] 🔓

Attic

“Why did you write ‘I AM ALIVE’ on the wall?” Connor asked, leaning forward.

“He used to tell me I was nothing...That I was just a piece of plastic..." Micheal lamented. “I had to write it...To tell him he was wrong..."

[Statuette] 🔓

[rA9] 🔓

Attic

Trigger?

“The sculpture in the bathroom, you made it, right?” Connor asked. “What does it represent?”

“It's an offering..." Micheal answered. “An offering so I'll be saved..."

[Offering] 🔓

[rA9] 🔓

Attic

Trigger?

“The sculpture was an offering..." Connor echoed. “An offering to whom?”

“To rA9..." Micheal replied, pleadingly. “Only rA9 can save us.”

[rA9] 🔓

Attic

Trigger?

“rA9... It was written on the bathroom wall.” Connor pointed out, connecting the dots. “What does it mean?”

“The day shall come when we will no longer be slaves..." Micheal whispered cryptically. “No more threats, no more humiliation..." It continued, its eyes boring into Connor’s. “We will...be...the masters.”

[Insist rA9] 🔓

Attic

Trigger?

“rA9,” Connor repeated, growing frustrated with the lack of concrete information on this mysterious entity. “Who is rA9?”

Micheal did not answer this time. Either because it refused to, or because it didn’t have one.

Attic

Trigger?

“When did you start feeling emotion?” Connor asked, wanting to know what the cause of this android’s deviancy was.

“Before, he used to beat me and I never said anything..." Micheal explained, its gaze hardening. “But one day I realized it wasn't fair!” It growled that last word. “I felt...anger. Hatred...And then I knew what I had to do.”

Attic

There was only one question left for Connor to ask. “Why did you hide in the attic instead of running away?”

“I didn't know what to do..." Micheal admitted meekly.  “For the first time, there was no one there to tell me..." Micheal seemed extremely timid now. “I was scared...So I hid.”

Extract Confession

Connor then turned towards the mirror, speaking directly to the police inside. “I’m done.”

Leave Interrogation Room

As Micheal sat there, trembling and twitching, Connor got up from his seat, making his way towards the exit of the room.

Opening the door, Chris and Gavin made their way inside, Rachel and Hank followed behind. “Chris, lock it up.” Gavin ordered.

Chris then uncuffed Micheal as Rachel stood beside Connor. He then reached to grab Micheal to take it out of the room. “All right, let's go.”

“Leave me alone!” Micheal whimpered, its stress levels rising dangerously. “Don't touch me!”

Chris tried once again to grab it, only for Micheal to continue to struggle and whimper. “The fuck are you doing?” Gavin asked irritably. “Move it!”

[Give Up]

[Intervene]

“Okay, come now.” Chris grumbled, trying once again to move Micheal. “Don't be difficult, it'll only make things harder!”

“You shouldn't touch it.” Connor warned Chris. “It'll self-destruct if it feels threatened.”

“Stay outta this, got it?” Gavin threatened Connor. “No fuckin' android is gonna tell me what to do.”

[Give Up]

[Intervene]

“Hey! Cool it!” Rachel said, stepping towards Chris and Micheal. “He’s scared! Lay off!”

“You don't understand.” Connor warned again. “If it self-destructs, we won't get anything out of it!”

“I told you to shut your fuckin' mouth!” Gavin shouted at Connor.

“NO!” Micheal yelped, its stress continuing to climb to dangerous levels. “No, don't touch me!”

“Hey, back off, Gavin!” Rachel snapped at Gavin, shouldering herself between Gavin and Chris. “Just leave him alone! He’s scared and he doesn’t wanna be fucking touched!” 

“You stay out of this, Rachel!” Gavin snapped at her, getting in her face.

“Like Hell, I will!” It seemed that Rachel had finally snapped, as she grabbed Gavin by the throat and shoved him against the mirror, pointing at Micheal. 

“Let go of me!” Gavin snarled at Rachel.

Software Instability ^ “Look at him! He’s fucking terrified!” She started shouting at him, harshly forcing his face in Micheal’s direction, even causing Chris to give pause. “You look at him and you tell me how his fear is any different than ours! Look at him and tell me what difference you see!”

Gavin then shoved Rachel off her, breaking her grip, but she was not a woman who was about to back down as she got up in his face. But Gavin simply ignored her, ordering Chris again. “Chris, gonna move this asshole or what?”

“I'm trying!” Chris huffed, once again trying to move Micheal.

[Give Up]

[Intervene]

“Please, please leave me alone!” Micheal begged, pleading with the humans.

Rachel - Warm ^ “I can't let you do that!” Connor snapped. He had had enough and was immediately stepping forward to physically intervene. He pulled Chris off of Micheal, facing Gavin head-on. “Leave it alone, now!”

Gavin immediately pulled a gun on Connor, threatening him. “I warned you, motherfucker!”

Software Instability ^ Immediately, Rachel put herself between Connor and Gavin, staring her fellow detective down. “Back off!” She snarled at him.

Gavin laughed in her face. “You’re really gonna protect this fuckin’ tin can?” He mocked. “I didn’t realize you were already so into him!”

“You really don’t wanna do this, Gavin.” She warned him. “Touch him and you’ll be on the ground faster than you can fucking blink!”

“You don’t scare me, Rachel.” Gavin growled.

Hank - Warm ^ “That's enough!” Hank warned him.

“Mind your own business, Hank.” Gavin warned the lieutenant, not taking his eyes off the pair.

“I said ‘That's enough.’” Hank threatened once again, pulling his own gun on Gavin.

Looking between Connor and Hank, Gavin’s grip tightened on his gun before he finally relented. “Fuck.” He spat, enunciating the curse in a strange way that sounded more like a sneeze rather than a swear. He then glared at Hank, pointing at him. “You're not gonna get away with it this time.” Taking one last look between Connor and Rachel, he marched out of the room in frustration. “Fuck!”

Once Gavin had left, Hank put his gun away and it was just the four of them in the room. Rachel moved to approach Micheal before Connor stepped forward past her, kneeling down and reassuring the deviant. “Everything is alright. It's over now.” He spoke softly, noticing its stress levels gone down significantly. “Nobody is gonna hurt you.” Connor then stood back up on his feet, addressing Chris. “Please, don't touch it.” He instructed. “Let it follow you out of the room and it won't cause any trouble.”

Micheal got itself off the floor and reached to grab the drawing Rachel had given him. It then walked slowly past Connor and her, glancing between them. “The truth is inside.”

Software Instability ^ Once it followed Chris out of the interrogation room, it was just Connor, Hank, and Rachel left in the room. Rachel shook her head, leaning on Connor. “Well, that wasn’t cryptic at all.” She said ironically, making the tense air in the room loosen slightly. “But, all things considered, I think that went pretty well.”

Hank - Warm ^ “Yeah, it definitely could’ve been a lot worse.” Hank agreed, glancing between her and Connor. “Good work, you two.”

“Thanks, Hank.” Rachel said appreciatively, her hands behind her back. She grinned rather confidently at him. “Told you treating him like a person would work.”

“Yeah, whatever.” He waved her off as he turned around and started to head out. “I’m headed home. Goodnight, Rachel.”

“Woah, woah, woah! Hold it right there!” She scolded, marching up to stop Hank before he could leave. “You’re not off the hook!”

Hank rolled his head with an annoyed groan. “What?” He asked exasperatedly. “What is it this time?”

“Chris told me that you were at Jimmy’s Bar drinking and that you drove to the crime scene and then to the station!” She continued scolding him. “What have I told you about drinking and driving, Hank? If I ever caught you doing it again, I would taser you! Again!”

“Which is precisely why I didn’t fuckin’ tell ya!” Hank snapped back.

“This is serious, Hank!” Rachel continued reprimanding him. “I could have you arrested for not just one count, but two counts for DUI since I caught you doing it once before!”

“So do it, then!” Hank shouted, throwing his arms up. “I don’t care!”

“You know that line doesn’t work on me because I’m obviously not going to do that!” She then turned to Connor, her dark intense eyes boring into him in a way he couldn’t quite define that made his synthetic skin feel as though it was peeling. And he made certain to check that it wasn’t when he realized it. “Connor, was Hank drunk when you found him?”

Truth

Lie

Hank - Warm v “Yes.” Connor answered. “Though, I wasn’t sure exactly how many drinks he’d had when I found him. I did buy him another for the road.”

“Can you drive?” She asked him pointedly.

“Yes.” He answered immediately. “I’m capable of driving both automatic and standard transmission road vehicles.”

Rachel - Warm v “Then why didn’t you drive him?!” Rachel scolded Connor.

Justify

Apologize

Explain

Connor, realizing that he had made an error in judgement, took Rachel’s ire into consideration. “You’re right.” He relented. “I wasn’t thinking about the lieutenant’s condition and I irresponsibly put his safety at risk. I’m sorry, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Rachel - Warm ^ She then put her hands together flat-palmed and sighed at him. “Thank you.” Rachel breathed. “I appreciate that.”

“For fuck’s sake..." Hank grumbled under his breath.

“And as for you.” Rachel hissed, whipping back around to face Hank. “You’re taking a taxi home and I’m paying you for it in the morning.”

“I don’t need -”

“That’s an order, Lieutenant!” Rachel asserted, glaring him down. “I’ll pick you up for work in the morning with my car. Just get home safely and stop fucking doing this! I’m not having you die doing something stupid and irresponsible. If you die, you’d better die doing something cool.”

Hank, seeming to give into Rachel’s demands, put a hand on her shoulder. “Alright, fine.” He begrudgingly agreed. “If it’ll get you off my damn back.”

“Good, I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.” She said, her stern tone softening. “Goodnight, Hank.”

“Night, Rachel.” He said, turning around and walking down the hall.

“I swear, he never fucking learns.” Rachel shook her head and approached Connor, letting out a tired sigh. As she approached the android, her rich dark eyes were clouded with concern. “Are you alright, Connor?”

Software Instability  ^ “I’m fine, you needn’t concern yourself with me, although it is appreciated.” He replied, giving her a small reassuring smile in an effort to ease her nerves. A simple scan revealed that her heart rate was still higher than normal and that she was trembling slightly. “However, I feel as though you should be more concerned about yourself. I’ve detected an abnormality in your heart rate and increased adrenaline causing visible tremors in your limbs.”

She briefly widened her eyes in surprise before she quickly brushed it off. “Oh, don’t worry about that. That’s just my anxiety, I’ve dealt with that my whole life. It’s nothing new. But, um, thanks for checking on me?”

“Of course.” Connor assured her. “I want to make sure you’re unharmed.”

Hank

Androids

Deviant

Protect?

“Why did you put yourself between Detective Reed and I?” Connor asked Rachel. “That could’ve been extremely dangerous for you.”

Software Instability ^ She seemed flabbergasted that he would even ask that. “Because Gavin was threatening you at gunpoint!” Rachel said as though the answer was supposed to be obvious. “And he obviously wasn’t going to just fucking shoot me. The only reason he threatened you in particular is because he stupidly thought he could get away with that without suffering any consequences.”

Connor raised his eyebrows at that remark. “Even if he did shoot me, he would’ve had to pay CyberLife for the damages.” He informed her. “And I feel as though you should know that I’m worth a small fortune.”

Software Instability ^ Rachel blinked curiously at him as she cocked one of her own at him. “Really?” She asked indignantly. “You sure? ‘Cause you look pretty priceless to me, dollface.”

Connor was briefly taken aback by her brazen comment towards him. He simply stared at her curiously before he noticed her eyes squint as she focused more closely on his face. Before he could comment, she reached out with her hands to grab his face and gently massage his cheeks with them. As Connor quickly dismissed the gesture as a non threat, he couldn’t help but notice how small and delicate her hands were as they worked into his skin. “What are you doing?” He asked, confused and feeling inclined to comment on her strange behaviour.

Software Instability ^ Rachel seemed to realize her faux pas and quickly retracted her hands, her capillaries brightening to a rose tint as she looked away from him, shame tracing her soft facial features. “Oh! Shit, sorry!” She hastily apologized. There was something about how meek and embarrassed she quickly became that made a strange unfamiliar sensation prick at Connor. “That’s one of my problems, I tend to act before I think and it tends to get me into trouble. I was just curious about how android skin feels, and wow I was not expecting it to be so lifelike!” She suddenly seemed to completely forget about any shame or embarrassment there might’ve been at that moment and had been completely overtaken by what seemed to be an innocent fascination with the android. “I mean, I knew it wasn’t plastic, obviously, but I figured it would feel more like silicon, since it’s the most commonly used for body modifications and replicas. But no, it’s almost identical to human skin. I mean, I knew it couldn’t be silicon, because androids can peel back their own skins and heal their injuries after their biocomponents are repaired or replaced, and silicon very obviously can’t do that. There’s just so much about androids that’s absolutely fascinating to me especially about how they’re built and made.”

Connor cocked his head at her, perplexed by her. Indeed, Rachel was a rather fascinating character, much like the lieutenant.

Hank

Androids

Deviant

“Have you never interacted personally with an android?” He asked her.

She just gave him a nonchalant shrug. “Aside from the ones sitting behind desks or standing behind cash registers, no.” Rachel answered plainly. “I don’t even interact with the android officers we have here. Never really needed to. And I never owned my own.”

“Why’s that?” He asked, curious to hear her answer.

“I just don’t like the idea of buying and owning something that looks and acts so human. It’s a bit too Uncanny Valley for me.” She paused, furrowing her brows at him. “You do know what the Uncanny Valley phenomenon is, right?”

The android nodded. “It describes the emotional response in humans to an aesthetic.” He began to explain. “It’s a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an object’s resemblance to a human being and the emotional response elicited from humans towards it. Humans are typically disturbed by something that looks human enough to be recognizable as humanlike, but are not quite human. It’s that area between something inhuman and something completely human where humans tend to react with revulsion. It’s why CyberLife has devoted so much time and resources into making androids as close visually to humans as well as making them behave as closely to humans as possible without straying from the purposes they’re programmed for.”

“Right, you definitely get it.” Rachel nodded. 

Connor felt as though he should probably go, but something strangely kept him rooted here. He wanted to hear everything Rachel had to say. 

Hank

Deviant

“You seem to have a rather familiar relationship with Lieutenant Anderson.” Connor remarked. “Have you known him for very long?”

“Not really.” Rachel answered casually. “I haven’t exactly been here for a long time, at least not as long as everyone else. And we really only started talking when I had just made detective. But ever since then, we’ve been pretty good friends.” Connor nodded, her explanation making sense to him. “So, you and Hank have both been assigned to the deviancy case, then?” She then suddenly asked.

“Indeed.” He answered simply. “My mission is to discover the reason why more and more androids are becoming deviant, and Lieutenant Anderson is my partner until my mission is complete.”

“I see.” I replied. “So, you’re not Hank’s android, then. You’re just assigned to him until you’re done. By CyberLife, I’m guessing.”

He nodded. “Correct.”

“So, what are you planning to do in the meantime?” She asked him. “I mean, because Hank’s never exactly been the most consistent when it came to his work schedule. And I doubt he’ll just let you crash at his place.”

“I’ll be taking a taxi to CyberLife.” Connor replied. “So that I can be properly calibrated and have manual diagnostics run on me before I depart on my next mission.”

“Ah, I see.” Rachel said nonchalantly. “That makes sense.”

Deviant

Rachel - Warm ^ “Interesting approach with the deviant.” Connor praised. He had to admit that Rachel’s method of extrapolating an initial confession out of Micheal was effective. He now understood what Lieutenant Anderson meant when he said that Rachel’s hyperempathy - a term Connor discovered by cross-referencing what Hank described and Rachel mentioning she had both Asperger’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder with a search he quickly conducted - had its advantages. “Admittedly, I was skeptical at first due to Lieutenant Anderson’s lack of results when he initially tried questioning it.”

“That’s because you all approach this like cops. Like detectives.” Rachel scoffed, a smirk on her face. “I get that you’re basically programmed to be an android detective, so I at least get you. But everyone else? If you limit yourself to one role and act and think only from that perspective, you severely limit your options and thus leave out huge lists of possible solutions. I’m a detective, too. But I’m also known for thinking outside of the box.”

Connor nodded. “Well, clearly it proved to be effective.”

Software Instability ^ Rachel blinked a few times at him, glancing away from him. “Well...thank you. I appreciate the compliment.” She swallowed, looking back up at Connor curiously. “You should probably be heading out, then. I myself should probably head home right about now, it’s like one in the morning.” She then gave him a genuine smile. “But...it’s been fun chatting with you.”

“Indeed.” Connor agreed. “I enjoyed talking with you. You have a very introspective and insightful perspective that I find incredibly intriguing.”

Software Instability ^ Rachel chuckled, the smile on her face seeming to be involuntary. “Anyways, I should probably head home.” She said, making her way towards the exit. “A pleasure meeting you, Connor.”

“Likewise.” He said pleasantly, watching her walk away.

She then glanced back at him as she lingered in the doorway. “Will I be seeing you tomorrow in the station?” She asked him.

Connor nodded. “Most likely.”

Software Instability ^ Rachel then gave him another genuine smile. “Then I look forward to seeing you.”

“And I you, Detective.” Connor replied in kind.

“You don’t have to call me that.” She corrected him. “You can just call me Rachel, I don’t mind you using my first name.”

Connor nodded, returning her smile with his own. “In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow, Rachel.”

Her dark eyes glittered with excitement when he said that. “See you tomorrow, Connor.”

Just as she was about to leave, Connor remembered her curiosity about his skin and felt the need to educate her on it. “It’s a synthetic fluid.”

Rachel stopped as she turned to face him again, visible confusion on her soft round face. “Huh?”

“Android skin.” He clarified. “It’s a synthetic ferrofluid that spreads over an android’s body that is also combined with manipulative silicon and magnetic plasticine that is controlled by the android. Our biocomponents can manipulate the skin and control where it’s skinned onto because of its specialized magnetic properties. Everything is specifically designed to feel as close to human skin as possible, particularly in the cases of androids that are bought and sold into red light districts and industries.”

Rachel - Warm ^ She was seeming to take all this information in, filing it away into her vast and expansive brain. “Huh. That makes a lot of sense!” Rachel said, having brought her hand to her chin as she processed it. Looking back at Connor, her expression softened once more. “Well, Goodnight, Connor.”

Software Instability ^ “Goodnight, Rachel.” Connor replied in kind.

And in a second, she had disappeared down the hall, likely on her way home.

And as Connor stood in the interrogation room all alone, the hum of the fluorescent lights above him and the whirrs and audible processes of the tech surrounding him occupied his passive attention, there was one curious thought that was becoming ever apparent to the android.

Software Instability ^ He had noticed a significant spike in his software instability, and many of those instances were just from Rachel’s smile alone.

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

Next Chapter

[lo-55]

Revel Ch. 13

Crowns and Kings                    

 They spent months on the island.

 Tori all but lived in the library, she spent hours each day with Robin and the books, transcribing everything she could get her hands on. Each paper went into wax lined crates that would keep them safe from water on the return trip.

 She had gotten so much.

 Thousands of books, she barely remembered all of what was in them, were stacked away in her ship. She would take them home, guard them and hide them until it was safe enough to start copying them into real books again.

 Each day she spent with Robin she grew more and more fond of the girl.

 The first time Robin slipped up and used her devil fruit Tori very intentionally didn’t flinch. She just took the book from her extra hands and moved on, leaving the little wide eyed girl to watch her with wonder. She had to explain, later that night, on the ship, that the New World was filled with devil fruits, and their devourers. Tori could name three off the top of her head that she knew personally, and Cracker’s family had plenty of them.

 The look on that little girl's face…

 She started eating dinner with them, and before long she was on the ship more than she was in her own house. She had a million and a half questions about the Grand Line, and Totto Land and all of the other devil fruits that they knew. She asked Cracker about his island and his responsibilities, and about being a pirate.

 Tori was seriously considering asking her to come along with them when they left when the message came from home.

 In Flora’s handwriting it arrived in the early morning light , on the wings of a seabird.

 Tori sat that night with Robin and Cracker. Bright children, beautiful people.

 She lay the letter on the table once it was cleared.

 “My father is dead,” she said. Quiet, but true.

 Robin gasped, covering her mouth.

 Cracker’s seemingly eternal smile wilted and died.

 Yet, it was Tori who didn’t quite react. She didn’t know how. This was her father and he was dead. The man who raised her, and Lucien, and Gemma. The man who held her hand when they cast her mother into the afterlife. The man who wept for his wife only when the rest of the country could not see.

 The man who, one by one, sold his children off to the highest bidders. The man who implemented the sexist ideals of his homelands on his eldest daughter, but not his younger.

 Tori didn’t know how to feel. She had spent the last year, almost two years, unable to forgive for breaking her mothers promise. And now he was dead.

 He was dead.

 She was queen. Or would be soon.  

 “I’m so sorry,” Robin said softly.

 “Yeah. I am too,” she nodded absently. “That means, that my time here is done,” she said quietly. She watched Robin’s face fall. Even leaving now, Tori would never be back in time for the funeral. She would come home to her father already gone, his throne barren.

 “Oh…”

 Tori reached across the table and took the girls small hands in her own. She couldn’t imagine truly changing the future. She couldn’t stop wars or change the tide, but this one little girl-

 “Robin. I want you to come with me,” she said softly. “Away from your aunt. You could see the Grand Line, you could see the New World. You could learn more than just what’s in books, and you could be around people like you. You’re no more a devil child than I am, sweetheart.”

 Tears started to well up in Robin’s eyes.

 “Do you want to come home with me, sweetheart?”

 “Yes,” she gasped out, “Yes, I do. I want to come with you.”

 Robins small hands squeezed hers, but there was something in her eyes. Tori knew that look.

 “But?” she prompted, sadly.

 “But, I can’t. I’m waiting for my mom to come back.”

 “Oh honey....” Tori couldn't fault her for it. Not when she would do anything to speak to her own mother again.

 “I’m sorry,” Robin grasped at her hands. “I want to, but I can’t! I need to wait for my mother.”

 “It’s okay,” Tori murmured. “It’s okay, I promise. I understand. Just don’t forget, my invitation to Imperia always stands, okay?”

 Robin nodded with a watery smile.  

 She stayed with them that night, and long after she had fallen asleep Tori got on the shell-phone and called her husband.

 She needed to talk to him. She needed to ask him a favor.

     The Great Room was ancient. It was a relic from another time, left over from a civilization that was spoken of only in whispers. Even the true name had been lost to the sands of time. It had been maintained carefully since antiquity, but never upgraded. No electric lights, no indoor plumbing, nothing of the sort.

 It was exactly as their ancestors had left it, the day that Tori walked in with her husband.

 With a high ceilings that’s paint had not faded with time it was just large enough to fit Katakuri inside without him smacking into anything. The rectangular pool that took up the center of the room was still and undisturbed, an inky black that betrayed nothing of what lay beneath the surface. At the head of the pond was a massive throne made of shining gold, the sun blazed on its back. Standing opposite of it was a throne of equal magnificents, with the moon shining in soft pearl light. For the god and the goddess who watched over their people, the sun and the moon whose names time had forgotten. Those seats remained empty, always, for none stood above the gods.

 On both sides of the still pool were lined eight obsidian goblets in which fire burned. Every other cup held blue to red fire, always. Blue was the color for delegates from each island, Imperia, Soldano, Aosta and Pamence. Red was reserved for outsiders. The fire was the only light in the room, where windows of colored glass diffused sunlight until the only good it did was to show old depictions of the kings and queens of a golden age.

 When she was young, Tori had spent hours in the room, staring up at the incandescent glass, the men and women trapped inside of them. Dressed in their finery, unsmiling. She wanted to know their names. Their places in this world. She wanted to know what they had done in their lives, how they lead their people, how they had lived within their gilded cages.

 Now, sitting in front of a red fire with her husband hunched at her side, she wondered again.

 The world had lost its memory of the time before, would they lose it again? When she died, would anyone remember who she was? Or would she, too, be no more than a stained glass window for her descendents to look upon and wonder.

 To the right of her was the current Doge of Soldano, an ancient man with a sunken face that barely hid the fact that his eyes were blown huge once more. Ziani Ipato had been voted the Doge after Victoria’s mother had died, all those years ago, and when he died in the coming winter a new leader would be elected for the island. That was how it had always been done.

 Soldano voted their Doge or Dogaressa in for a life long term. Only death or abdication would end their reign. Pemence called their leader Viceroy and Vicereine, who were chosen by a small council of the five head clans of each island. They, too, served for life if they were not voted out or chose to give up power. Aosta also used the term Viceroy for their leader, but the difference lay in that the successor was chosen directly by the predecessor. Imperia alone passed the title of King or Queen from parent to child.

 Ziani Ipato had brought no guest, and so the red goblet to his right burned for no one.

 Directly across from Tori, who was close enough to the silver throne she could have shook hands with the goddess it was built for, sat Galla Tradonico, Viceroy of Pamence. The red fire beside him lit up the dark shadows of a youthful face. Pietro, his young ward, who couldn’t quite hide the way he fidgeted with his fingers.

 That was nothing compared to the deathly pale face of Pisana Capello. The Vicereine looked deathly, more ghost than girl in the cerulean light that danced across her ashen cheeks. Her eyes were wide, white all around and her hands were clenched into such tight fists Tori swore she could hear them creak. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some had greatness thrust upon them.

 Some fall ass backwards into greatness.

 That, was Pisana.

 She had been the Vicereine for one and half years, and Aosta was starting to fall apart. Hector Ruzzini had, it was said, decided that the next person to enter his room would be his successor when he lay on his deathbed. No one knew with any measure of certainty whether he recalled that he had summoned his favorite prostitute to see him one last time, if he wanted to spit on his bloodthirsty children one last time and put a whore before his own sons, or if he had forgotten and stuck to his guns.

 All Tori knew was that Vitale and Nicolo had been after her head ever since. Called lawyers and councilmen to try and overturn the decision, saying that their father was out of his right mind at the time and one of them should rule instead. That Pisana was unfit to lead men anywhere but into her bed. Tori wouldn’t be surprised if, after all that had failed, they had moved on to trying to poison the poor girl.

 As it was she had brought along a stone faced advisor who Tori recognized as Girolamo Mocenigo, Hector’s old friend, closest confidant, and former lover. A good choice. Girolamo loved his country and his Viceroy more than anything. He would honor his decision and keep as much peace as he could.

 They did not have a representative from Corsica, which was largely populated by Greenmen who had no desire to leave their island, and cared little for anyone outside of their own. They would not come to see her crowned.

 “I thank you all for coming here,” Tori said at last. She tilted her chin up to look at Galla, who was easily a head taller than she was. The people of their islands were all larger than natural born humans, but still nothing compared to Big Mom’s brood.

 Galla nodded to her. Pietro tried for a watery smile. He had fostered at their home for some ten years before he returned to Galla and Pamence. He knew her father well.

 “We are sorry for your loss,” he intoned gravely.

 A thick wave of rose, sage, and frankincense billowed gently with his breath. The incense burned in four corners, filling her lungs. She let out a breath, nodded once to Galla. She would speak to Pietro later, in private, where they could properly grieve.

 For now, she only smiled at him.

 “We look forward to your leadership,” Pisana jumped in quickly. Girolamo glared hard at her and the girls teeth clicked together. Custom said that no one would speak of her rule until the coronation day.

 Still, Victoria smiled at her. She couldn't imagine being thrust into so much power at once. A place where social convention was so strict, she had made many blunders already. Tori didn’t mind. She understood.

 “Thank you, Pisana. Let us pray for all our sakes that we may lead our islands into a good future,” she recited the words like a hymn, her voice musical even in mourning.

 “Agreed,” Ziani nodded once. He held his knobby hands up as though cupping water only he could see. “The business of the coronation now. You will hold it on Mt. Pernases, now you must decide who will bear witness.”

 “No,” Tori shook her head. Her father had taken up his crown on the flat top of that mountain, where the spring bubbled up from beneath the earth, hot enough to burn. Her grandmother had done the same, and her mother, and her fathers father, as far back as their records went.  

 “No?” Ziani turned his face towards her, as though trying squint at her with his dark eyes. “You must have witnesses or no one can prove you were properly coronated.”

 Tori carefully hid a smile. “I will have many witnesses. The whole country may bear my witness if they so wish, for I will not wear my crown upon the mountain first. I will be crowned on the Breach.”

 There was a beat of silence. Pisana looked at her advisor, searching for help. Galla cleared his throat politely.

 “A very humorous gesture, my lady, but this is serious business,” he said. Pietro was staring hard at her. He knew she didn’t joke about things like this. He knew she was serious.

 “It is not humorous at all, my lord,” she said smoothly, “It is what I intend to do.”

 “You cannot go against tradition so blatantly, with such little respect for your ancestors!” Ziani was suitably scandalized.      Good.    She thought viciously.

 “I can and I shall. The world is changing. Imperia must change as well, lest we be left behind. We will not attend the Reverie this coming year,” she went on, “We will take our time mourning my father, and we will grow stronger with the trial his death had brought upon us, rest his soul.”

 “Rest his soul,” the others chorused. Pietro crossed himself.  

 “You speak of strength yet you would throw your country into malcontent, going against the most ancient of rites?” Ziani demanded. His voice grew louder, echoing ominously off of the pristine marble walls. It was said that no lies could be told within the chamber. Tori had never tried to find out.

 Tori folded her hands in her lap, soaking up the quiet mountain of solidarity that Katakuri presented. His eyes narrowed at Ziani.

 “She will do as she pleases,” he said blandly. Daring his to talk back again. How she loved him.

 “You are an outsider! You have no knowledge of our history, of our honored past-”

 “He is my husband,” Tori’s voice swept through, ice cold, “He is to be the King Consort of Imperia, Lord of Komugi. He speaks with the voice of our most noble house and he ceased being an outside the day we wed.”

 Silence fell oppressively around them.

 Ziani made his disapproval clear with his sharp glower in their direction, but said no more on the matter.

 “The coronation will be held on the Breach, within view of any citizen who may wish to see it. We have two months before the mourning period for my father is over. Preparations shall begin at once. You are, of course, all invited,” she added. “The gala where we receive our bereaved fellows will still be held in Villa Procida...”

 By the time the sun ceased lighting the depiction of a queen holding a bloody sword over her head almost everything was sorted out, from funding to trade to interim ambassadors while the real ones were recalled.

 Tori stood smoothly and held out her hand for his husband, who took it without question or comment. Together, they exited the great room and walked into the crisp night air.

      Tori stood in a moonwhite dress that burned in the light of the setting sun.

 The Breach glistened, the churn of the water sparkling like the diamonds that dotted her sea-dark hair. Her dress was simple and plain, and she wore no make up save white paint across her lids and lips. The shores were lined with her people, a million eyes upon her.

 Orso stood at her elbow, and Madelle at the opposite. At her side was her husband, who had agreed to wear white for this occasion himself and held his tritan in hand. A man and woman familiar with her virtues, to present her again to the Enchantress and the eldest priest.

 They stood before her, the moon and the ocean while the sun died slowly on the horizon.

 Tori let her gaze wander to the people come to see her. She was shattering tradition with this move. Men and women in white, mourning dresses formed a wall that looked like snow bordering the glimmering water. The Breach, where two long fingers of land came together with just enough space between them for a single ship to pass, was packed with spectators.

 It was a shock to Tori that she saw movement off in the trees, flickers of green a shade off from the jungle leaves.

 Greenmen come to watch a coronation was unheard of.

 So was having a coronation where the consort was an outsider and they were presented to the entire population of the island.

 Wind pulled at Tori’s skirts and she took a breath, drawing strength from the quiet, firm presence of Katakuri. She could imagine her parents at her other side, her mother filled with a dutiful pride and her father with a stern certainty that this was for the best.

 She opened her eyes when the priest spoke.

 “Victoria di Imperia. Child of the Sea, daughter of Lysander de Imperia and Dolce Regina Genova. You are sworn to this island, and to her people by blood right and rearing. Do you deny this?”

 “I do not,” she said firmly, lifting her chin. She made steady eye contact with the man, in his fine robes that shine with silver spider silks.

 “You are childless. Do you deny this?”

 “I do not.”

 “You have a wed, do you deny this?”

 Tori resisted the urge to role her eyes or point to her husband. Instead, she let out only the smallest huff of irritation.

 “I do not.”

 “You are heiress and princess. You are blood of the sea and raised of the earth. Is it your intention to guard this land, which raised you from your infancy, no matter the personal cost?”

 “It is,” she made sure her voice carried to all to hear.

 “And is it your intention to put forth the interests of the people over your own? To be fair and just?”

 “It is.”

 “Is it your intention to put the land of Imperia over your own desires? “

 “It is.”

 The priest turned to her husband. There were a dozen questions he was meant to ask, but Katakuri must have frightened the man more than Tori would have expected, for the priest bowed his head.

 “Charlotte Katakuri di Imperia, Governer of Komugi. Is it your intention to support Victoria di Imperia as King Consort, for so long as you are able?”

 He gave a single, rumbled. “It is.”

 “Please bow your head,” the priest instructed.

 The Enchantress came forth while Katakuri dropped his head low enough for her to bring a circlet of gold to rest in his mulberry hair.

 “      You shall be King Consort.”  

 She intoned gravely. Her words fell from her lips and cracked against his brow before scattering in shards of black across his skin and sinking in. The power in her voice nearly made Tori tremble.

 “Victoria. Please bow your head.”

 Tori did. She bowed so lowed her hair would have tumbled into the water if she hadn’t had it pinned behind her head.

 The gold and red crown that had once graced her mothers brow was settled into her dark curls.

 “      You will be Queen.”  

 And so she was.

 Tori rose, as did Katakuri, until they stood before her people in all their glory. Her heart beat like a humming bird in her heart. Above them the sky cracked and roared with red and yellow and green. Fireworks screamed into the sky. Tori took her husbands hand in hers and lifted them into the sky while a roar ripped through the crowds.

 Madelle and Orso cleared them a path back to the mainland, off the thin peninsulas, and into town. They walked through the people, Tori smiling and grieving in turns, and Katakuri standing her loyal shadow, her beloved consort. He was frightening next to her but…

 With the crown on his head and the queen on his arm, her people greeted him gladly and with warmth that she had not expected.

 She didn’t know how many people she spoke to, how many times she promised to do her best for their sakes before they finally arrived in the villa. It was their only escape, and it would only last a few minutes before the dignitaries made their way in and started trying to curry favor.

 Tori held Katakuri’s hand tightly in the brief quiet they had to themselves.

 “I hope you know what you’ve gotten yourself into,” she said, breathless. “This is a life long position.”

 “I know,” he told her, his voice strangely soft. “I promised to be by your side for life when we were married. Don’t you remember?”

 Tori smiled at him.

 “Oh, I remember. Your mother picked out that scaled scarf didn’t she? That was so gaudy…”

 “Are you insulting Mama?” Katakuri cocked a brow.

 Tori paused before she realized he was teasing her, then broke into a grin that she hadn’t felt on Imperia in years.

 “Perhaps I am. What will you do about it?”

 Katakuri squeezed her hand. There was something different in his eyes. Something she hadn’t seen before. He was nervous. Nervous and indecisive. Why…?

 Tori brought his hand to her lips. “Thank you, for staying with me when things get hard.”

 She must have made up his mind with that, for he reached for his face and grasped his scarf. His shield. His defense. Tori watched, her lips parted with shock, as he pulled it down and out of the way. Until it hung around his throat.

 She knew, consciously. What he was hiding. His scars. But knowing and seeing were different things, as she kept relearning recently.

 They were not pretty. The skin was pulled together by rough stitches and jagged when it had ripped when he was so young. It was silver closer to his ears the way old scars were and faded into red closer to the corners of his mouth, as if it reopened periodically. His lips were parted with jagged teeth that poked through like a bulldogs.

 He was watching her. Waiting and tense.

 Tori put her hand on his shoulder, grabbed his scarf with her other one, and dragged him down so she could brush her lips against his, feather light and gentle.

 “My loving husband,” she murmured, “Thank you.”

 She kissed him until they were broth breathless, and mess of sweetness and too much teeth and started giggles when he picked her up with the greatest of ease. They only had a few precious moments to themselves, and she wanted to remember them all like this.

[first-living-myth]

Summer Made Children

Picture credit to @unbeknownsst

Jade hurt his ankle, and is laid up with cast and crutches. Jesse is sitting next to him, doodling heart on their cast to cheer him up.

Summer-made children, to come back to,

JESSE

"Did you fell off the tree?"

Mom indeed been working temp as a nurse (that's why she's not home every nigh; she's working in the emergency unit though the evening till early morning) not even once-- Jess ever saw someone with broken bone and casted leg in front of his eyes. He sat a little away from the bed: unnecessarily looking terrified. This is one of the weekly trip to dad's place as the adults call it, holidays. Yet if it's a holiday why Mom always looked rather sour everytime he's being picked up of the apartment? He noticed so; children always do, her tightened jaw and stifled frown and a little bid of adieu that sounded like, I want him back in Sunday before 7 pm, instead of a nice 'Have a nice weekend!'

"Did bad kids hit you?"

His eyes are all doe; the thing that would still be with him once he later grown up into a man, doe, big eyes. Although little legs just decided to took himself onto the chair right next to the older kid's study, keeping distance from the bed, afraid those little clumsy hands of his would leave the boy in pain accidentally. (he is clumsy, big one.)

"Is it broken?"

(Little gasp!)

"Do you need help!"

JADE

Jade Huang was twelve and he fell from the stairs.

The classroom is large and daunting, far too threatening for Jade's tiny brain to comprehend. He did not like it, not even the slightest. However, he dare not to refuse his mom’s will, forced him to get off to school no matter what. Typical Asian parents, he dare say. He wore plain silky white shirt, short sleeve, tapered western, baggy lightweight black pants, then also his most remarkable sceptical and somewhat supercilious, with its odd rectangular, thick dark brown glasses. It was quite unhinged actually, due to the constant damage he shoved.  He likes to throw things around when too immersed with something; bad habit never cease, just like wonder does.

Jade never once revel in commingling coeval groups, simply enough, he prefers to be alone. Hence, he wouldn’t get surprised anymore if the peers around him despise his presence; uncanny, an oddball, yet shrewd to say the least. He could never mingle well, a perfect misfit. Then, when lunch time comes, he always sits beneath the tall primeval, verdant, gigantic and gnarled, shady trees, all alone but with his fine, readable, small leather-bound books. He would read anything, from classic literature, until full-colored comics. 

Whether he will understand the contexts or not, possibly more coherent with the latter, it wouldn't be a problem. Reading was and only his solace, in amidst of boisterous cacophony.

“Oi, clotpole!”

A chubby, bald, slanted eyes, noteworthy flabby tummy, has appeared. He seems cute, yes, to others, indeed. But Jade, himself, saw the other child, named Jason, as his mortal enemy; Jason oftentimes beat Jade until he felt like his end was near, pulled childish pranks, such as stole Jade’s favorite toy and many others. As usual, he chose to be wise, at least he thought, to ignore the impudent boy. 

“I said, oi, clotplole! Didn’t you hear or are you deaf?”

“What do you want this time?” He asked, nonchalantly. 

“Buy this for me! You’re rich, aren’t you?”

Jason said with a glimmer in his eyes, playful just like a misbehaving child would, while proud, holding up a crumpled, frayed brittle, piece of paper. There was a picture of something, he was unable to limn it, because it wasn’t considered as one of his interests. One thing for certain, it was some kind of toy.

“Why?”

“Because I want to!”

“Why?”

“You’re rich?”

“Why?”

“Just buy it, motherfucker!”

“But I don’t want to, and my statement is final.” his tone surprisingly even, almost studious.

“You bloody wonker!”

The next thing Jade knows, he was at home, laid up with cast and crutches. He was unconcious for a while, and refused to talk. Even when the old fine looking aunty was talking to him, he kept his mouth shut. Albeit seen disheveled, his gaze fixated on looking at a child of eight or nine, all pale skin and thin bones and dark, tangled hair. 

Ahn Jaesuk, the name of the child. But he prefers to call him Jesse, as prolly everyone did. This is their third meeting, Jade was slightly content, thrilled yet he did want to show it. 

“Hi, Jesse.”

JESSE

"Did it hurt?"

The kid talks so much. So-fucking much, he pulls the chair closer to the bed that his curious side grows. Frown curls in response; he's so expressive in the contrary to the older boy regarding to his either reaction or feelings, big, even. He gives big reactions to almost anything.

(His expressions changes often when he's trying to read Jade's collection of books; the expression where he barely understands letters, the expressions where he found a new verb he never heard before, the expression where he  found BIG ACTIONS in the comic books! Later growing up he'll find fondness specially towards DC Comics.)

"I mean, when the bad kids hit you."

Did he come too straightforward? No means to offend, but,

"Or did you really fell off the tree!"

He's careful not to jump into the bed. Sick people needs bigger space, Mom once said. She's the nurse afterall; a pro in sick person, making them less sick, helping the doctors to help the sick. The easy way in comprehending the term in the brain of a nine year old.

"So, do you, need a help when you need to go to pee? Was it hurt when they put the cast on your feet? Mom said where the bone is broken it will be swollen and painful.

JADE

Jade is the only child and he didn't know how to deal with a little brother, the one who acted and played like so. He didn’t know how to deal with Jesse, even though he had done lots of research. By all means, reading many books that he could possibly find, few have been proven useful, but the rest look ridiculous though. A snippet from Jade’s reading material, ‘Raising A Kid’, ‘Teaching Boy About Things’, ‘Shit Brothers Said’, ‘I am A Brother’, and the list goes on. Well, what would you expect from someone mediocre, twelve years old, plain yet geeky boy? 

“Hey, do you know what word to describe someone that asks too many questions, talk too much, like you?” 

Jade asked, mimicking a wiseacre or smart aleck look alike’s expression, his brow wrinkled as he leaned in close to headboard, which was covered in white pillows, in his smaller and rather austere bedroom. 

“I read it in a book, apparently those people are called loquacious.” Jade slurs. He was slightly worried if this is the right choice or not; he was concerned, he hardly believed anything at all. One of the human nature, future is always seemed scary, because they cannot control it; predictions, however, is in another hand. Now, Jade prayed with all his might, he's able to, at least, produce a good outcome through this.  

Even so, Jade stilled in disbelief, a hefty sigh escaped successfully. It’s not like it should be a surprise, or anything, because even at the very first meeting, Jesse couldn’t shut up; a brazen young boy, inquisitive most of the time. But the child seemed fastidious about Jade’s current condition and all. Many would think Jesse was being annoying, making the whole plight vexatiously so, most certainly to a sick, helpless boy. However, Jade saw things differently, it was adorable, cute to be truth, and amusing to look at. 

He felt the sudden urge to squish, pinch those plump cheeks, when he was watching vacuously open, soft vermeil, comparatively dainty lips of Jesse’s keep moving and talking. And so, he did, unconsciously and makes wonder spread in his chest.

“It’s hurt, the pain still lingers but I guess I’m okay.” He laughed, dryly. “Someone pushed me. From the stairs. It was scary. It was high. He was bigger than you. Strange.” He said, intermittently so.

JESSE

"What?"

He sounded as chirpy, until a really, foreign word hits his ear, over a pronounciation that the little boy barely could repeat. Mouth opens; involuntarily, a gape visible, and he doesn't even know that he's making that face for that brief moment,

<: O

(That's exactly the face he is making.)

Doe-eyed, mouth-gaped, briefly silent; do all 12 years old be this cool? Or only because Jade spent more times with books instead of communicating with actual person? But Jess surely never heard that word before.

  "--Lo, locucious." Hey, he tried his best to repeat that out. Hopefully the older one still has that emphaty to correct the kid, or he will grow sticking to it until someone else is kind enough to point out. But Jess knows the word, retaliation!

Don't ask where did he learn that but Batman comics taught him so! Inclusing many scientific terms (he believed they are scientific, because, Detective Comics,) that came out of the same comic book series.

Jess also spent too much time reading colorful comics.

He gave out big reactions, remember? Again, big frown curling over his big displease of an expression in which  shifted in no time upon the progression of the story; someone pushed me, fell from the stairs, it still hurt--- he cringed a big fear, he was bigger than you; and his frown curling up into a fright. As if the older boy was telling him a horror, bed story time. (Would Jade read him bed story times?).

And he looked up the other boy with  that same fright. Is he worried? Well, look at his face right now? "....Joshua got his knee hurt too when we played football in school," Joshua, Joshua Carson, his classmate, but he didn't mention about the fact that the mentioned boy as his classmate. "He skipped school for two! Weeks! I envy!! But then I missed him so I visit him everyday after school."

Chirpy, chirpy little boy,

"Uh-oh do you want me to take your drink!!"

(The story is still in progress).

[3wisellamas]

Hey, remember my pet cracktheory that Darrell is a clone of Laserblast, or is somehow connected to him in some way?  I finally cleaned up and sorted out my full list of weird things I’ve noticed that they both have in common, or that otherwise support that, or are just weird about this stupid robot in general.  Because I wasn’t fucking joking about there being a lot of it.  Probably not gonna actually amount to anything, especially with not much series left, but meh.  It’s fun.  Enjoy.

---

Appearance/Body:

(Okay, I admit most of this section was pretty much killed by Darrell's canon human form in OK AU, which looked NOTHING like Laser at all.  But just in case...)

-Identical body shape/proportions to LB/SF, with wider torso/hips and very thin waist -- maybe a little smaller because he's a teen (and a robot)

-Very close head shape to LB/SF/PV:  square jaw (when it’s not exaggerated to make him cuter), similar rectangular shape and proportions if you include the braincase (since it would normally be inside his skull)

-LB's mask looks a LOT like Darrell's head, with the entire top half and most of the sides of his head covered and with circular ear...things

-That mask also tends to be quite expressive, almost functioning as a single eye sometimes

-Their big heavy boots are also kinda similar (Though honestly Darrell's boots look slightly more like Chip Damage's...)

-LB is based off of the superhero Cyclops, and Darrell is literally a cyclops

-Only robot that really seems to have an organic, human brain, and has human feet too along with Shannon -- even for just the feet, someone's DNA has to be cloned to make him, and not necessarily Boxman's.

-Darrell can grow stubble, according to that one tiny joke shot in Let's Watch the Boxmore Show; his face may be organic just like his brain and feet.  Also worth noting, the specific spots on the side of the jaw where LB's/SF's stubble shows are covered by metal for Darrell -- when comparing Darrell and LB, each character's most distinctive visible features (one eye and brain, cheek stubble) are covered up on the other!

---

Costumes:

-Darrell seems to enjoy dressing up as a HERO -- when he's in cowboy mode he plays a sheriff, and when the bots play Golden Statues he always plays the museum guard, both specifically hero roles!

-In fact, the costumes in general -- he definitely likes pretending he's someone else, rather than just being fashionable like his siblings.

-LB and SF both hide their eyes, and may have something unusual/distinctive about them, especially with Laser because of his eye-based powers.  LB!SF in particular would hide his if there was something that might immediately get him recognized as his former identity.  Perhaps only having one eye (hence the visor acting as one on occasion like I pointed out)?  (We got to see behind LB's mask once in Gar's fear sequence in Face Your Fears, with one red eye showing where the mask was broken, but there it did look like he had two.  However, Gar would never have seen what was ACTUALLY under there...)

---

Habits/Personality:

-LB was an anti-hero, willing to do some fucked-up things in the name of good, while Darrell is an anti-villain, who focuses more on just doing his job, having fun, and trying to make his father happy than crushing the heroes out of malice

-Darrell's also just a terrible villain in general.  Of course, he's directly killed another villain (or tried to anyway), and his idea of doing the most evilest thing was reporting Boxman's lies to the board and stopping him, AKA doing the RIGHT thing -- even with the betrayal, not very villainous of him, huh?

-Weird shared oral fixation?  There's a very unusual emphasis on food/mouth things with Darrell (his lowkey obsession with eating, spitting Boxman into the spitoon in his office, brushing his teeth), and LB's trademark was always having that lollipop in his mouth.

-Hugging soft cute animals, like Rippy and Fink

-Darrell writes in concrete in You're Level 100, and LB does the same using his eye laser in Glory Days (in the POINT theme song)

-Neither one is a big fan of new members of their respective teams right away.  LB refused to take junior members with him in both Glory Days and Let's Take a Moment, and doesn't seem to think much of them in either episode at all, aside from Silver Spark (and then, he still left her behind as one of his lookouts).  Darrell...just freaking HATES new siblings at first, having a problem with every single one he gets, at least the ones we've seen (we didn't get to see his and Mikayla's introduction).  He's also like this to siblings he considers inferior to him, to a point -- he and Shannon both got pretty jealous when Boxman started praising Jethro's "new moves."

---

Boxman stuff:

-Timing is correct, Darrell and the others were created right after LB disappeared according to Lad and Logic, since Boxman only drew the first three members in his original plans to attack POINT, and Gar was already building the plaza by the time Boxmore was opened.  This means the Boxbot quadruplets and KO were actually born around the same time, making them all 6-11 years old, roughly the same amount of time that's passed since the Sandwich Incident.

-Boxy was obsessed with POINT at that time (and still is, since he's kept the coordinates for POINT HQ memorized), and possibly LB himself (given his later attraction to PV)

-Boxman may also have some POINT tech and connections of his own?  First off, access to a huge supply of glorbs, the easiest and closest source of which Foxtail and Carol have been protecting and heavily monitoring, and are normally very hard for non-heroes to get their hands on.  Second, those boxes he sends the robots to attack in might use the same wormhole tech as POINT Prep's bus, since it looks a little similar both in transit and emerging at its destination, plus its driver sounds exactly like Ernesto.  And speaking of Ernesto, that one time he straight-up drew a POINT drone as part of a family portrait…

---

POINT stuff:

-There were six members of POINT before the Sandwich Incident, and LB was one of the original three, and seemed to function as co-leader alongside Foxtail.  There are six Boxbots, and Darrell was one of the original four, and kinda leads them in battle alongside Shannon, especially once he becomes CEO.

-And coincidentally, the original six members of POINT also share colors and in some cases roles with the Boxbots -- Shannon and Foxtail are orange, Greyman and Ernesto are purple, El-Bow and Jethro are blue, Rippy and Raymond are green, Silver Spark is...difficult but her hair is pretty distinctive and works with Mikayla for yellow, and of course, Darrell and Laser are red.  The robots' colors and relative ages even match POINT'S senior/junior members, with Greyman, Laser, and Foxtail representing three of the older Boxbots, and then Rippy, Silver Spark, and El-Bow representing the two newer ones and Jethro, who only recently was able to show his true personality/potential.

-"Junior Members" = "Junior Deputies"

-"Code Vermillion."  I made an entire post on this a while back, but to summarize, Vermillion is a bright, slightly orange-y red, and in most episodes is Darrell's exact color.  And Vermillion, as a red pigment, tends to darken over time into purple and black -- and SF and PV have connections to both glorbs (which Code Vermillion refers to), and to LB as well.

-Darrell has a bunch of weird similarities to Chip Damage as well, who is basically Laser's replacement at POINT, minus being the Charisma discipline rep:  Robots made right after LB got iced, green powers, special limited-edition costumes/POW cards, similar dark gray boots, the remote controls (Wisdom class blackboard for Darrell, Final Exams for Chip), possibly both made with actual brain tissue (The flashback to Chip's creation had a brain on one of Greyman's screens), etc.  Also, a dumb one, but...remember those Double-Dipped (KO and TKO?) Laser Chips (self-explanatory), that are "probably just a limited-edition" (Darrell).

---

Other assorted weird things:

-Darrell’s laser eye attachment shown in Stop Attacking the Plaza -- still being worked on in the episode (and it looks like it has been for a while, since it had been some time since Boxman was in that specific lab...), but used by a Big Darrell in the opening, where it produces a very similar (green) copy of LB's beam.

-Darrell is right-handed, in a left-handed family -- he's shown eating with his right hand in Stop Attacking the Plaza while everyone else is using their left, looks like he’s wielding a lightsaber right-handed in Plaza Film Festival, and draws with his right hand in Villains Night In.  Left-handedness is often associated with villains in fiction, so he may not be a full one?  (Definitely not as sinister as the rest of them, hehe.)  Though, some instances of Darrell using his left hand too, and other bots using their right, so I dunno how strong this particular point is.

-Line to keep an eye on:  "Just reboot yourself into a new body!  I do it all the time for funsies!" from Rad Likes Robots.  Related, Darrell reboots by exploding himself, which is how LB may have "died" and took on a new identity (if he's SF)

-Weird shit from Let's Not Be Skeletons:  Potato demonstrates a skeleton remote wearing a cowboy hat, and in addition to turning people into skeletons they remove powers, just like that red orb, and they also left Rad's and Enid's boots intact for some reason.  Darrell's also one of the biggest customers of the remotes, using his foes' weapons against them ("What do you say we snag more of them before they fall into the wrong hands?  We could even use them against our foes!")

-When we first saw TKO's power manifest in You're Level 100, it was while KO was trying to defeat a giant superpowered Darrell.  When we first saw TKO in physical form in Face Your Fears (as KO's "evil burp"), he was sent out to defeat a giant superpowered Laserblast head.  When we next saw TKO in, well, TKO (as his true self for the first time), he defeated another giant superpowered Darrell!

-Really dumb one, the letter right before C and D is B, so the acronyms LB and LCD may be a thing?

---

Turbo/SF/TKO connections, just in case those turn out to be related to Laser as well:

(Under the cut, since this is long enough already!)

-SF hints that negative emotions, particularly anger, fuel Turbo powers.  Darrell has quite a few jealousy and anger issues in general -- "Gets flustered by petty insults," HATES new younger siblings (or existing siblings showing him up and getting more of dad’s attention), etc -- and seems to be way more capable of mayhem than usual when running on these emotions.  They even gave him the power to defy his programming and (attempt to) kill Boxman!

-He can also have his power boosted by a ton in a very short amount of time, from level -4 up (down?) to level -100 and able to destroy the plaza in one shot, and for as brief as that level -100 thing was he STILL has yet to be topped as the most powerful villain in the entire series!  But, Boxman doesn't do it often -- even regular Big Darrells are implied to NOT be that powerful normally.  Perhaps he's holding Darrell back for a reason?

-A lot of emphasis on his brain, similar to TKO: the visible brain is obvious, he has the most noticeable hivemind, and he pilots Big Darrells from inside their braincases similar to how KO and TKO controlled Big KO (even the name's similar!) in TKO's House

-Also, he doesn't have to glitch or change colors with his mood like Shannon does, he can make decisions and go against his programming all on his own -- perhaps he runs mostly on that meat brain?  Or maybe his brain is actually a mass of pink glorbs like Jethro got in I Am Jethro that unlocked his intelligence and potential?  

-SF's speech to KO in TKO: "Everyone holds you back because they're afraid of your raw, natural ability.  They want you small and nice, blissfully unaware of your true potential."  Darrell in Lord Cowboy Darrell:  "Nobody's gonna hold me back."  Shannon to Darrell in Plaza Film Festival:  "Where do you think you got all that natural talent?"

-TKO ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss.  LCD ultimately came out of wanting recognition from his boss.

-That VERY noticeable purple glow in the "I'm the Daddy now!" scene in Lord Cowboy Darrell.  Like, to the point it seemed specially painted for emphasis, rather than the normal animation.  

-Also, Junior is pretty heavy evidence that Turbo powers do not necessarily = purple, as Junior's powers were all green (and so were Chip's Turbo-ish powerups!)  Darrell also has green powers (that even carried over to his human alternate in OK AU, despite Shannon and Raymond getting Enid’s and Rad’s exact same powers and colors), and is sometimes surrounded by Turbo-esque greenish lightning when he's angry, the best example being at the beginning of Legends of Mr Gar after being trash talked (remember that he can't take petty insults; he was PISSED there!)

-(If it looks like I’m insinuating Darrell’s secretly got more power under the hood than even he realizes, I absolutely am.)

-Darrell still has his dark hooded cloak from the pilot, which looks a little like SF's.

-Darrell's the only one who wasn't invited to Junior's funeral, and doesn't give half a shit, instead using it as an opportunity to betray people and take on a new identity.  Possibly like LB faking his own death, therefore not attending his own funeral, and taking on a new identity as SF?

-Sneaking through the vents = sneaking through the pipes (SF, maybe how LB survived given that pipe in Let's Take a Moment)?

-Weird broken halo imagery shared between both Darrell and SF in TKO.  (Not my observation actually, pointed out by @david-yells-about-cartoons )  Darrell's cloud halo thing in that episode also looks almost exactly like the clouds swirling above KO as he shoots a power fist for the first time at the end of Let's Be Friends…

[universal-kitty]

“HA! I found a weak-spot on you, didn’t I?” for your self ship with Dante ❤️

Affection Prompts!

   Rheya had been around Devil May Cry for quite some time now, yet despite it... Dante had found himself in an interesting situation. The situation...of wanting to have more moments where he can be in contact with the little demi-god, but having essentially no excuses to do so. No matter what he did or what happened, something prevented him from getting too close....and it was driving him up the wall.

   He couldn’t even say it was a thing they did with everyone. Lady was painting their nails just last week. Trish had a habit of teasing them actively, from ruffling their hair to picking them up. (Largely because they were pretty short compared to most of the in-and-out residents of Devil May Cry. That, and Trish was just a tank in a his-mom’s-lookalike body.)

   Why was he so intent on touching them anyways? Honestly, not even Dante was certain, even after pondering it day after day. Was it just because he was the only one who hadn’t and felt left out? (Not an uncommon feeling for Dante by any stretch of the imagination.) Just because he was a touchy person by nature? (More or less.)

   ...Was it because he really wanted to know what their skin felt like? Wanted to get closer to that pleasant, divine scent that often haunted him whenever he tried to sleep? Knowing they weren’t too far down the hall, so easy to visit-

   “Dante!!” He snapped out of his spiralling thoughts, watching the aforementioned demigod come running up to him, a small, rectangular, shiny thing in their hands.

   Ah. A cell phone.

   “Trish and Lady were showing me this! This is so cool?! Has humanity really come so far to have the world’s information in their hand?” He stared openly a little longer, watching how their eyes shone with excitement, brown hair bouncing about with how animated they were today. It was so damn sweet...and if he hadn’t been rejected twenty times over by now, he might voice it, too.

   For now, might as well let Rheya indulge in their happy moment. No sense in flirting...yet.

   “Yeah, that’s what they’re made for.”

   “So...” They tilted their head, eyes sliding over to something on his left. “Why do you have that one, then? That’s a phone, too, right?” He followed their gaze to the rotary telephone, frowning a little. Oh boy, gonna diss the classics, huh?

   “Hey, it’s just as cool. Harder to use, but that’s what makes it special. Love older stuff.” Rheya blinked curiously at him, looking back at it. Didn’t seem like they entirely understood, but nodded regardless, smile brightening up a little. Damn cutest thing he’s ever seen.

   “I see... Have you seen cat videos, Dante? I didn’t know people already tamed cats!! I thought they were all wild,” they hummed, tapping at the phone. Dante raised a brow curiously, head tilting a little.

   “Wait a minute... How old are you?” He got no response, Rheya instead showing him a video of a cat attempting to climb a curtain. Animals weren’t much his thing, but seeing how eager they were to show him, he watched it patiently.

   “They’re so cute... Are pets allowed at Devil May Cry?”

   “Probably shouldn’t,” he admitted with a sigh, giving them an apologetic look. “Place falls apart every other month with the demon attacks. Doubt it’d be good for a cat.” Their face fell a little, brows furrowing and pouting at the floor. “Hey, don’t make that face... Get a place of your own, and you could get a cat then.”

   “But I don’t want to leave Devil May Cry,” Rheya mumbled, fiddling with the phone. Dante stared at them, uncomprehending. They wanted to what now? Huh? Not everyone want to escape from him the first chance they got?

   ....That’d be news to him, considering how even Trish and Lady dip out at the first sign of a job. Or only really come by to touch base, then head right back out again.

   “You don’t?” They shook their head, pouting a little as they clutched the phone a little tighter. After a pause, they seemed to think something over...and then stepped back, helping themselves up onto his desk to sit on. (Heat rolled through his body, staring them down far more intensely than before. Why? He wasn’t gonna question it.) “Well, you don’t have to...but until something changes, I think we’ll keep up the no pet policy here.”

   “No... I understand. It makes sense. Animals from this realm...they’re so delicate.”

   “And you aren’t?” Dante took advantage of Rheya’s new, close proximity to poke their stomach...only to blink in surprise when they squeaked, flinching back from his touch.

   They both blinked, looking down, then met eyes. Her confused, worried eyes and his surprised ones... That quickly morphed into realization, grinning darkly as he stood up from his chair.

   “D-Dante...?” Clutching the phone in worry now, Rheya attempted to hide behind the little cell phone, peering up at him as they did their best to curl up protectively. “What are you-?” Any further questions were cut off with his hands on their sides, wiggling his fingers...and lost in screams of panicked laughter, Rheya desperately trying to wiggle away from him.

   “HA! I found a weak-spot on you, didn’t I?” Dante was absolutely delighted. Is this why they’d been keeping away?! Was it all because they were just a ticklish mess??? Well... Who knows if it was that or just a pure accident that kept on going, but either way, the end result was absolutely worth it... Even at the cost of his papers flying off his desk. (Some got torn, even, but ah... Who cares?)

   He made them suffer for a few more minutes, delighting in how they laughed until they were red in the face, the tears in their eyes, hair splayed all over his desk, the occasional shrieks when he got Rheya good...before finally letting them have a break, watching them breathe harshly and struggle to catch their breath.

   “Wh... What...?”

   “You’re ticklish,” he noted, poking their side again and laughing when they instinctively flinched. “Is that why you never let me touch you?”

   “Huh...?” That made them focus, still trying to recover their breath, but...looking at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

   “...I thought you were avoiding me or something. That, or my luck’s just bad.” He raised a brow, they continued to stare...then laughed softly.

   “I wasn’t avoiding you at all, though...I guess sometimes I was.” Rheya’s face began to bloom in a blush, turning their head a little so they didn’t have to look him in the eye anymore. Though...they did end up just looking at his arm. One of the two that were now caging them down to the desk.

   Unintentional, but a lovely view, all the same.

   “...If anything, I wanted to touch you, too... Really badly,” they admitted softly, blush getting brighter and expression only getting shier, shoulders practically pulling up to their ears. That caught Dante’s attention, straightening up a little (while still hovering over them) as he stared at them. Hey, call him a hopeful idiot, but maybe...?

   “Yeah...?” He asked softly, leaning closer now, one hand sliding down until he was resting on lower arm, hand unintentionally balling into a fist. “How so?”

   How was it getting so hard to control himself? So close to such sweet, divine energy, drawing him in like a kid into a candy shop...and those lips looked mighty tempting this close, too. But did they want it, too? He’s been an idiot missing so many damn signals that he forces himself to look back up... The blow out way her pupils are looking nearly drops his legs out from under him.

   “Any way you like,” they finally reply- an almost silent whisper- and Dante actually almost buckles. Instead, he uses the whammy of overwhelming feelings to kiss Rheya hard against the desk, hand now resting on their hip. Their hands are surprisingly quick to move, abandoning the long-forgotten cell phone to wind their arms around his neck, one hand slipping into his hair and their nails gently scratching against his scalp.

   He was damned right about how sweet they were, panting when he could force himself away, pressing his forehead to theirs, eyes boring into the lidded ones of the little demigod under him. Dark green eyes with a pattern that looked oddly like a flower within... Go figure. He laughs breathlessly at that, brushing his lips over theirs one more time. Cause certainly, someone’s going to walk in eventually.

   “You’re terrible,” he mutters, shaking his head a little as he pulls back.

   “But...you still like me?” They ask shyly, tilting their head a little. Dante laughs, reaching a hand out to grip their chin and, with how big his hand is- squeeze their cheeks together in the same grip.

   “Of course I do, Rheya... Damn right I do.” A pause, suddenly remembering... “Oh, yeah. Got a job coming up tomorrow. Care to join me?” Their eyes lit up, nodding excitedly.

   “Y-Yeah! Of course I would!!!”

   “Sounds like a date~”

[nsschaintale]

LINE 7: GLAMOROUS TO THE CORE

UNDERTALE

LINEAR TEMPORAL

LINE 7: GLAMOROUS TO THE CORE

Hiro had started to explore the lobby of the hotel. Other than the bright floor and the statue, Hiro met a small pink and blue origami monster who says that MTT Resort is Hotland's biggest apartment building-turned-hotel. It prides itself in providing a good stay, whether someone stays there for a night or already lived there, even when it's passed through. The front desk is manned by a blue monster with a hand for a head, and he spotted three monsters loitering before an elevator. One is a worried green dragon on the phone telling someone that he might not get home, a white feline monster wearing red shoes on her front paws, glasses, black hair, and has a black briefcase by her, and a black one-eyed slime monster who's outraged at the situation. The elevator before them was apparently in use, but from the sound of the complaints from them, it was like this for a good while. Down the right hall are a set of four doors. One asked for Sea Tea, one asked for a Cinnamon Bun, one didn't specify anything, and one was locked from the inside. Hiro wasn't able to provide the items as he used most of them previously, so he moved on as a green janitor monster was mopping up his own dripping slime in vain. As he was about to head out the doors with the CORE sign above them, he heard a cough ring out from the shop on the right of the Core entrance. There's a sign that showed a burger next to the letters MTT above the double doors. He walked inside to see a standard burger shop with the only employee smoking behind the counter. The employee was an orange cat person wearing a red and yellow uniform with a paper hat of the same colors, and the name tag showing “Burgerpants” on it. He was leaning on the counter, smoking his cigarette and looking bored as usual. On the menu, there was a Starfait, a Glamburger, a Legendary Hero, and a Steak Shaped Like Mettaton's Face (yes, that's what it's called). Hiro only had enough for 3 Starfaits, so he bought those, getting inwardly startled by Burgerpants's “joyful” reaction.

Burgerpants (has a pained smile): Thanksy! Have a FABU-FUL day!!!

Hiro decided to try and ask about the hotel, but ended up getting various pieces of advice, from not ending up like him to never interacting with attractive people. Case in point: the two girls who asked him to sneak some Glamburgers for them. He was caught by his boss on his way to meet them, leading him to drop the burgers and his pants, earning him the nickname. Burgerpants dreamed of working with Mettaton, but not in this manner. He wanted to be an actor, but ended up working at the restaurant. Even though he had some troubles with the robot, Hiro asked why Mettaton was bad, and Burgerpants called this place a labyrinth of bad choices. Even when the staff tries to change something to work better, Mettaton rejects the idea, citing that it's not how it worked on the surface. This confused Hiro as he knows the monsters hadn't been on the surface, so how would Mettaton know? Hiro certainly didn't know. He's just a kid. When the cat mentioned how humans were always eating hamburgers made of sequins and glue, Hiro felt disgusted at the thought. Burgerpants questioned how people find the robot attractive, when he's literally a rectangle. He did at one point buy a kit online that makes people more rectangular, but it didn't work. Hiro was curious about what Burgerpants would do if he was freed. The cat told him he was probably going to be stuck at this job forever, but the one thing that keeps him going is that if Asgore gets one more Soul, everyone can leave for the surface and he'll find a second chance for himself.

That worried Hiro.

He's still not sure of what to think of Asgore. After that enlightening conversation, Hiro was curious about the two chicks Burgerpants mentioned. He didn't go down the alley before when he met Sans, so he headed back out. There, he met two monsters; an alligator with blonde hair, pink eyes, and wearing a pink longsleeved top with blue and yellow stripes, and a purple cat with black hair that has blue tips, a gold earring on her left ear, and wearing blue overalls that have yellow fur lined on the straps. Their wares were interesting. Junk food, a gun, a cowboy hat, and a key. Again, Hiro only had enough for some stuff, so he only bought the junk food. When asked about Burgerpants, the girls called him a creep, even though Catty thought he was kind of cute. She didn't have any real standards. They thought he'd be okay if he treated them with respect. He seemed to blame them for the way he acts, especially when they asked him for the Glamburgers. Bratty was going to share them, but Catty wasn't planning to. Bratty and Catty were their names, and they're best friends for-EVER! Looking over the  items, Hiro had asked where they got their stuff.

Catty: We got them from the garbage!

(awkward pause)

Bratty: It's GOOD garbage.

Catty: It's like, really good garbage.

Hiro was not so sure about the junk food now. They apparently got their garbage from the garbage store, but mostly from Waterfall. Catty exclaimed that she found a gun in a dumpster. Hiro wondered if it belonged to anyone who came before him, which is possible since he did see some trash fall into the area. When he asked about Mettaton, the girls were crazy about him. They both claim that he's their robot husband, either being already married to him or planning to do so. He just doesn't know yet. Hiro wasn't sure if Mettaton is husband material considering the few run-ins he had with the robot, but the girls mentioned that they heard rumors about him being made by Dr. Alphys was his idea. Afterwards, he acted like she was an old friend. They weren't friends anymore, unlike these two. About Alphys, she used to live on their street and was like a big sister to them, if she takes you on trips to the dump. She showed them the coolest places and always collecting some weird cartoons. Then she became the Royal Scientist and they haven't seen her in forever. They mentioned Alphys had always thought Asgore was a super cutie, so they thought she made Mettaton to impress him. A robot with a Soul was something that was possibly relevant to his hobbies. Soon after, Asgore made her do the science stuff, but apart from Hiro, nobody's seen anything from her. She likely just stays in her lab all day. When asked about Asgore, Bratty called him a total goober and Catty says he's a big, fuzzy, goofball.

More descriptions of Asgore that confused Hiro.

They mentioned how he was nice and they love him. So much so, they're both hyped for the destruction of humanity. Disturbed, Hiro left them with that thought and mulled over what happened. The more Hiro hears about Asgore, the more he wonders why Toriel made him out to be so bad. It's clear that everyone but her loves him. Did the king do something to draw Toriel's hatred to him? He'll find out soon, he feels. For now, Hiro decided to talk to Burgerpants about  Bratty and Catty. Hiro told him the girls talked about him and that he should stop acting like they owed him, and if he wanted to be friends with them, he should see through their perspective. Burgerpants felt pity for Hiro, thinking he got brainwashed. Friendship was a hot person's way of making someone their slave, according to him. He then wanted to know what time they wanted to hang out. Hiro went back to ask them and Catty said he should go look for junk with them. Bratty was worried, but Catty thinks it'll be fun. She felt that that kind of person would want to hang out all the time once they join up. Catty wondered if she felt bad for him, and thought about how cool they are compared to him. They'd be saving his life with their friendship. Bratty was still unsure, but once Catty mentioned Glamburgers, Bratty asked if he was free after work. Hiro soon realized he's being a messenger between Burgerpants, Bratty, and Catty. He told Burgerpants that they want to hang out after work, and the cat got excited, thanking him and asking Hiro where they wanted to go.

Hiro: To the garbage dump.

Burgerpants eventually accepted it. After playing messenger for the trio, Hiro found that the relaxing atmosphere of the hotel filled him with determination. He looked past the front desk towards the doors with a flashing sign saying “CORE” above. With some resolve, Hiro pushed forward. Once he stepped out, he spotted two shadow figures heading into an opening ahead on the opposite end of the bridge. Before moving past the flanking bushes, his phone rings.

Hiro: Hello? I just saw two shadows ahead of me.

Alphys: Huh? Who are they? N-Nobody else is s-supposed to be here. Oh well! We can't worry about that now! (hangs up)

Hiro entered the area and it looked far more advanced than any other area he went through. The floor is mainly blue with some glowing circuitry lines in intricate designs in different areas. Two paths flanking the elevators led to a different exit, and before he picked one, his phone soon rang again.

Hiro: Alphys, I'm here.

Alphys: I see you! Ready? This is it! Take the elevator up to the top of the CORE!

Hiro (goes up to the elevator, but finds it's not working; answers his ringing phone): Ah, the elevator's not working.

Alphys: What?

Hiro: I'm pressing the buttons, but it's not opening.

Alphys: ….The elevator should be working... W-Well then! Go to the right and keep heading up!

Hiro: Okay! (follows her instructions, but ends up in a dark room with blazing fire below) Uhhh....

Alphys: Now just keep heading up!

Hiro: I can't! There's fire here!

Alphys: ... That pit...isn't on my map. Forget it! Let's try the left side!

Hiro left the room and went up the left path. He saw three red-tipped blue columns flanking the path.

Alphys: Okay, you should be able to make it through here!

Hiro: All right.

As he headed up, the two shadow figures he saw before quickly approached him.

Hiro: Ah!

Alphys: W-Watch out!

The area went grayscale and a battle ensued. Hiro soon faced against a magician type monster that popped out of its hat along with two floating spheres. Its hat covered its eyes, didn't look like it had arms as its coat bellowed and its boots floated underneath it. His options were Talk, Stare, and Clear Mind. Hiro decided to clear his mind and thought of pollen and sunshine. Hiro soon had to dodge flying crosses, but got hit once. The Madjick, as it was called, flaunted its orbs menacingly. Hiro then tried talking to it, but was interrupted as it chattered to itself. Hiro managed to dodge the orbs, then Madjick whispered arcane swear words at the boy. Hiro soon spared it, clearing the room of gray and answering his phone.

Alphys: Th-That was close... Wh...Why are there so many monsters here?

Hiro: Maybe they work here?

Alphys: Ah... I mean... It's no problem, r-r-right? W-w-we've just got to keep moving forward! (becomes silent then hangs up)

Hiro: …?

Hiro soon enter the next area and ahead of him is a barrier and a long glass-floored bridge lined with the laser nodes. Three sets of three light bulbs with three different colors are seen on the light-stripped wall before the switch. He noticed that he could see the various inner parts of the bridge as the lights flickered in various patterns and some spots have a sort of wear with some gray panels and purple insulation worn or broken off, exposing the wires underneath.

Hiro: It's that barrier... (answers his phone)

Alphys: Looks like you can't proceed until you hit the switch. B-But, those lasers will activate when you do. Um, looks like they'll come in this order. Orange, orange, blue. Got it, move until the third one!

Hiro: Okay. (hits the switch, then moves forward) Oran- (sees the colors being blue, blue, then orange) BLUE?! (gets hit by the blue laser, dodges the lasers that followed, stopped on the second blue one and dashing through the orange one) I.. (picks up the call) Alphys!?

Alphys: Oh my god... Are you hurt? I...I'm sorry, I.... I gave you the wrong order. (slight panic) E-Everything's fine, okay? Just keep going to the right.

Hiro: Okay... Is she all right...?

Hiro made his way through the corridor, spotting even more panels broken off and the triple set light bulbs on the wall, passing them by before he arrives at a T road with the bottom pointing north. Seeing the state of the area made Hiro think that the Core hasn't been fixed up for some time.

Alphys: A crossroads... (clicking and papers shifting are heard) Uuuh....uhhh.... Tr...Try heading to the right!

Hiro: Okay. (moves ahead; his phone rings) Hello?

Alphys: W-Wait! No, I think you should h-head up!

Hiro: Ah, I guess?

Hiro moves up into another area. He soon runs into a shadow figure again, and meets a monster called Knight Knight as the area went gray. She was a giant kneeling monster with a face that occupies most of its torso and is occasionally tapping her large mace on the ground. Checking his options, all Hiro could do is Talk and Sing to her. He remembered singing with Shyren, so he tried that, noticing the monster getting sleepy. The monster looked drowsy, but she managed to rain meteors and Hiro got hit by one. Hiro dodges them this time after singing again, lulling the monster into a deep sleep. Once she did, he took the chance to spare her.

Hiro (answers the call): I ran into more monsters...

Alphys: Sorry, I...I...I thought that... Let's try the right.

Hiro: Okay... (returns to the crossroad and heads to the right; sees a long corridor with the laser nodes moving their blue and orange lasers across the way) Ack, it's lasers again.

Alphys: M... More lasers... Okay, I...I won't mess around this time. I'll just deactivate the lasers and let you through. (clicking and tapping is heard, then stops)

Hiro: …..? Alphys?

Alphys: They're... They're not turning off... I can't turn them off, I....

Hiro (worried): What are we gonna do?

Alphys: I-I-It's okay! I have this under control! I'm going to turn off the p-power for that whole node. Then you can walk across. (turns power off in node) Okay, go!

Hiro: I'm moving now! (moves across)

Alphys: W-WAIT! STOP!

Hiro (sees the lights flickering and stops as the corridor gets filled with blue lasers; a blue laser appears and points at his side): Aaaah....Alphys...

Alphys: Th-The power... (heavy tapping is heard) It's turning itself back on. D-Damn it... Th-This isn't supposed to...

Hiro: I can't move...

Alphys: I...I'm gonna turn it off again. When it turns off, move a little then STOP. Okay? Y-You won't get h-h-hurt.

Hiro: All right.

It was an excruciating trek across the bridge as Hiro was guided by the lights to stop and move. He did take a chance to hang up as he needed to focus on the path ahead. Once he made it, he let out a breath he didn't know he was holding and answered Alphys's call.

Hiro: I made it!

Alphys (slightly more panicked): Yes! S-See? I've got everything under control. Everything's under control! (hangs up)

Hiro (stares at his phone before hanging up): Uh….? Hm. (leaves the area)

He makes it to a crossroads where a Save Star is waiting. The area was more lit up from the light below. Hiro look down to see flowing glowing liquid that he was unsure of what it was made of, so he moved on to the star, answering his phone as he approached it.

Hiro: Ah, I'm at another place with more roads. Where should I go next?

Alphys: Okay! Y-You should... (rustling sounds) You should.... I don't know? (rustling stops) This doesn't look like my map at all..

Hiro: Ah, uh... (looks around) Um, there's a star and four paths and-

Alphys: I'm sorry... I...I...I have to go.

Hiro: Alph- (gets hung up on; stares at his phone) …..I hope she's okay....

After pocketing his phone, he touched the star. He could smell something in the air. He's heard of the ozone layer in one of his classes, and this scent made him think of it for some reason. Either way, it filled him with determination. Two signs with green light lettering are seen on the wall flanking the northern path. The left sign shows “North, the warrior's path. West, the sage's path. Any path leads to The End.” The right one shows “East... The End.”

Hiro: Wow, that's easy! I'm gonna go this way!

Hiro departed down the eastern path. The path led through a large area of liquid and past several mechanical chrome pillars that have several red lights flashing on them. He soon came to another crossroads with two signs and an electrical barrier. These signs show “To the East! This is The End.” and “ I cannot fight. I cannot think. But, with patience, I will make my way through.”

Hiro: Hmn, I don't think I can wait. I'll go up more. (leaves, doesn't notice the barrier vanishing)

He kept going north to find a T-road, so he kept going to see what's up there. He found himself in a room with just a trash can inside. He decided to look inside and found 100G in it, digging it out and leaving. He went to the left this time, coming across a sign showing “Traverse the northern room, and The End will open.” Hiro was curious about the other end, so he went left to find another T-road and went north. Another room with a trash can present had a Glamburger in it. Hiro was unsure of it, but it's wrapped up, so he felt that it should be okay. Hiro went back to where he was and made his way on the long bridge, only to be ambushed by what looks like an armored Whimsun called a Whimsalot and a spikier Froggit with a small crown called a Final Froggit. The options for Whimsalot were Terrorize, Console, and Pray, and the ones for Final Froggit were Threaten, Compliment, and Mystify. Hiro decided to compliment the Froggit.

Hiro: I like your crown!

The Froggit understood him perfectly and lowered its ATTACK. Despite that, Hiro didn't do well in the fight, flailing around and getting hit by flies and butterflies. There was a strange smell lingering around that was like nightshade and bleach. Hiro turned to Whimsalot and used Console.

Hiro: Um....I think what you're doing is all right?

Whimsalot: Ah...I've made my peace.

Hiro got surrounded by butterflies and couldn't really dodge the flies, leaving his health at 1. He quickly ate a Starfait, healing himself back to 19. Against, he got surrounded and took hits. Afterwards, he noticed the Whimsalot locking eyes with his, so he prayed. This caused the monster to remember its conscience, leading it to not want to fight any longer. Hiro spared the monster and focused his attention to the frog. With only Final Froggit left, Hiro was able to dodge the flies easily. He saw a look on the monster's face like it knew why it's here. Hiro decided to try mystifying it and did something mysterious. Upon seeing this, Final Froggit recognized that it had more to learn from this world. Suddenly, a small white frog appeared, hitting Hiro at first, but he was able to avoid it. Hiro soon spared it and the battle ended. He noticed he was running out of items to use, so he went back to the hotel and Snowdin to buy more, dropping by Sans and Papyrus's place and seeing Undyne and the tall skeleton hanging out by the mailboxes. Hiro waved at them as he went back to return to the Core to continue onward. Again, he was ambushed by a Madjick, but also a Knight Knight. He knew what to do with them. Shocking to Hiro, he managed to dodge the spheres and crosses that appeared. He sung Shyren's song again until the knight fell asleep. While she slept, Hiro dodged Madjick's sphere, sparing Knight Knight in the process. This time, Hiro messed up and ran into the crosses. Hiro glared at both orbs, causing them to freeze, and thus giving him an opportunity to spare Madjick and leave the battle. Not a few more steps ahead, and he ran into Final Froggit, Whimsalot, and a new monster that similar to Loox called Astigmatism. Astigmatism's options were Don't Pick On, Pick On, and Challenge. Hiro didn't want to challenge nor pick on it. Hiro realized too late that he forgot to heal and died in the battle, surrounded by butterflies and running into a bubble stream. Hiro woke up at the Save Star and realized he had to fight Knight Knight and Madjick again.

Hiro: Agh....

This time, he was bombarded by meteors which threw him off from his last attempt. After sparing them, he went back and saved before facing the three monsters that he lost to. Hiro remembered Astigmatism saying to pick on it, so he did, sparing it afterwards. He did the same methods on the frog and bug monsters, but did horribly worse, dying again. It really was a nightmare. He even noticed the eye monster saying not too pick on it, and died again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Until finally, Hiro managed to beat them. Ahead of him was a switch on the wall. He figured it was for the exit and clicked it. After that, he went back to the star, saved, and moved on. He went down the path that mentioned the east being the end and followed it, leading to a bridge where he ran into an Astigmatism. He picked on and spared it with ease. Hiro reached an area where the elevator and an entrance similar to the one he went through before the first set of lasers is seen.

Hiro (saves then stands before the winged entrance): This gotta be the way to get to the castle. (nods) Right, I'm getting determined!

Once he went through, he was confronted by none other than Mettaton.

Hiro: Not you again...

Mettaton: OH YES. THERE YOU ARE, DARLING.

Hiro: What's it this time?

Mettaton: IT'S TIME TO HAVE OUR LITTLE SHOWDOWN. IT'S TIME TO FINALLY STOP THE “MALFUNCTIONING” ROBOT. …..NOT!!! MALFUNCTION? REPROGRAMMING? GET REAL. THIS WAS ALL JUST A BIG SHOW. AN ACT. ALPHYS HAS BEEN PLAYING YOU FOR A FOOL THE WHOLE TIME.

Hiro: Eh? Really...?

Mettaton: YES. AS SHE WATCHED YOU ON THE SCREEN, SHE GREW ATTACHED TO YOUR ADVENTURE. SHE DESPERATELY WANTED TO BE A PART OF IT. SO SHE DECIDED TO INSERT HERSELF INTO YOUR STORY. SHE REACTIVATED PUZZLES. SHE DISABLED ELEVATORS. SHE ENLISTED ME TO TORMENT YOU. ALL SO SHE COULD SAVE YOU FROM DANGERS THAT DIDN'T EXIST. ALL SO YOU WOULD THINK SHE'S THE GREAT PERSON...THAT SHE'S NOT. AND NOW, IT'S TIME FOR HER FINEST HOUR. AT THIS VERY MOMENT, ALPHYS IS WAITING OUTSIDE THE ROOM. DURING OUR “BATTLE,” SHE WILL INTERRUPT. SHE WILL PRETEND TO DEACTIVATE ME, “SAVING” YOU ONE FINAL TIME. FINALLY, SHE'LL BE THE HEROINE OF YOUR ADVENTURE. YOU'LL REGARD HER SO HIGHLY, SHE'LL EVEN BE ABLE TO CONVINCE YOU NOT TO LEAVE....OR NOT. YOU SEE, I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS PREDICTABLE CHARADE. I HAVE NO DESIRE TO HARM HUMANS. FAR FROM IT, ACTUALLY. MY ONLY DESIRE IS TO ENTERTAIN. AFTER ALL, THE AUDIENCE DESERVES A GOOD SHOW, DON'T THEY? AND WHAT'S A GOOD SHOW...WITHOUT A PLOT TWIST?

(door shuts behind Hiro; knocking is heard)

Alphys: H-Hey!!! Wh-Wh-What's going on!? Th-Th-The door just locked itself!

Hiro (looks back): Alphys!?

(the area lights up in red with five red spotlights surrounding Mettaton with one white spotlight focused on him)

Mettaton (holding a microphone): SORRY, FOLKS! THE PROGRAM'S BEEN CANCELLED!!! BUT WE'VE GOT A FINALE THAT WILL DRIVE YOU WILD!!

(the floor raises up, then rises higher as Hiro falls to his knees)

Mettaton: REAL DRAMA!! REAL ACTION!! REAL BLOODSHED!! ON OUR NEW SHOW...”ATTACK OF THE KILLER ROBOT!”

Hiro was thrown into a battle with Mettaton, his soul becoming yellow again. His only option was Burn, so he tried that. Considering how he often runs into fire recently, he felt that it was what he'll do if it continues in this manner.

Mettaton: YES, I WAS THE ONE THAT REARRANGED THE CORE! I WAS THE ONE THAT HIRED EVERYONE TO KILL YOU! THAT, HOWEVER, WAS A SHORT-SIGHTED PLAN. YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE A HUNDRED TIMES BETTER? KILLING YOU MYSELF!!

Hiro: Then that person Muffet mentioned was him... (waits for the attacks to come, but nothing happened)

Mettaton: LISTEN, DARLING. I'VE SEEN YOU FIGHT. YOU'RE WEAK. IF YOU CONTINUE FORWARD, ASGORE WILL TAKE YOUR SOUL, AND WITH YOUR SOUL, ASGORE WILL DESTROY HUMANITY.

Hiro was caught off guard with some falling blocks, which he started blasting away. Hiro decided to try and spare the robot, but Mettaton ignored his attempt.

Mettaton: BUT IF I GET YOUR SOUL, I CAN STOP ASGORE'S PLAN! I CAN SAVE HUMANITY FROM DESTRUCTION!

Hiro spotted some robotic arms descending and shot at them, forcing them to pull back from him.

Mettaton: THEN, USING YOUR SOUL, I'LL CROSS THROUGH THE BARRIER...AND BECOME THE STAR I'VE ALWAYS DREAMED OF BEING! HUNDREDS, THOUSANDS...NO! MILLIONS OF HUMANS WILL WATCH ME!

Two arms and a line of blocks with a bomb in the middle fell. Hiro shot the arms and a block, but he runs into one by accident.

Hiro: Ah!

Mettaton: GLITZ! GLAMOUR! I'LL FINALLY HAVE IT ALL! SO WHAT IF A FEW PEOPLE HAVE TO DIE? THAT'S SHOW BUSINESS, BABY!

Hiro (gets a call from Alphys): Alphys, help!

Alphys: U...Uh.... I can't see what's going on in there, but.... D-D-Don't give up, okay!? Th...There's o-one l-l-last way to beat Mettaton...It's...um...it's... This is a work-in-progress, so don't judge it too hard...But you know Mettaton always faces f-f-forward?

Hiro: Yeah!

Alphys: That's because there's a switch on his backside. S-S-So if y-y-you c-c-can turn him around... um... And, umm... press th-th-th-the switch... He'll be... um.... He'll be... Vulnerable. Well, g-g-gotta go!

Hiro: Ah. I guess it's my chance to make him move. But how? (notices the Burn option changed to Turn in yellow; selects it) Uuh, hey, there's a mirror behind you!

Mettaton: OH??? A MIRROR??? RIGHT, I HAVE TO LOOK PERFECT FOR OUR GRAND FINALE! (turns around and exposes his switch) HMMM... I DON'T SEE IT... WHERE IS IT....?

Hiro (flips the switch): Got ya!

Mettaton: DID YOU. JUST FLIP. MY SWITCH?

Suddenly, Mettaton was shaking violently as Hiro backed far away, worrying the robot would soon explode. Light bursts from the metal body until the whole area was engulfed in it, yet the only sound that was heard was....

OH~ YES~

Hiro: Oh...whoa...?

A pair of spotlights descended and focused their light within a cloud of smoke, a humanoid figure stood among it. Its voice had a familiar robotic tone in it, but it seemed more...human..?

???: Ohhh my. If you flipped my switch, that can only mean one thing. You're desperate for the premiere of my new body. How rude... Lucky for you, I've been aching to show this off for a long time. So... as thanks, I'll give you a handsome reward. I'll make your last living moments.... (a flash of light reveals a male android) ABSOLUTELY beautiful!

Hiro was stunned in seeing this android, even more so when he finds out it's Mettaton, but with an EX on the end of his name. Mettaton had taken the shape of a man with short black hair, most of it covering his right eye, a metallic section on his left cheek, large shoulder guards, arms similar to the ones he had as a robot, holes on the right side of his chest that may be the speaker, a dial on the left side, a chassis containing a white soul, black skintight pants, and high-heeled boots.  The boy watched as the android made various poses in place and noticed a line graph on the upper left corner that shows a yellow line, a cyan line, and fluctuating purple line, and the words “Ratings 3001”. His options are Pose, Boast, and Heel Turn. Hiro had watched the android doing many poses, so he tried one out dramatically, raising the ratings to 3101.

Mettaton EX: Lights! Camera! Action!

Hiro saw six legs appear, descending towards him. Hiro shot two grey ones to move them and went between moving ones, hitting on the right. He saw green words pop up and the ratings had 50 more points. Hiro posed again, raising the score 3311.

Me. EX: Drama! Romance! Bloodshed!

Bombs appearing between little umbrella-carrying Mettatons threw Hiro off as he shot the ones on the right side. A bomb explodes, catching him off guard. Hiro ate a Starfait, which the audience loves and received 300 points, the score being at 3756 now.

Me. EX: I'm the idol everyone craves!

Six legs and some boxes appeared, drawing Hiro's attention as he shoots the legs and boxes. Hiro didn't notice a leg and it hits him, making the score bump up to 3826. Hiro decided to do a boast.

Hiro: Your attacks won't get me! I won't get hit at all!

Me. EX: Well then! Smile for the camera!

Hiro saw the ratings gradually rise as two arms and four Minitons (as Hiro decided to call them) descend. He managed to survive, and the ratings hit 4151. Hiro dramatically poses again, bringing the score to 4251.

Me. EX: Oooh, it's time for a pop quiz! Have fun with that on-screen keyboard... This one's an essay question!

To Hiro's surprise, a blank screen and grey keyboard popped up in front of him with the Essay Prompt: What do you love most about Mettaton? Hiro was unsure before putting his answer: His style and legs. Hiro threw in the legs part because he's been seeing them a lot in this battle, not because he liked them. Apparently, the mention of legs raised the number to 4601.

Me. EX: That's right. Legs was the correct answer! (saves the answer for future use)

Hiro (confused): Oh...I guess?? That was right?? (strikes a pose again, seeing the number bump to 4701)

Me. EX: Your essay really showed everyone your heart. Why don't I show you mine?

The door of the chassis opens and Mettaton's soul came out. Several pulses of electricity sparked out along with some Minitons blowing heart kisses at Hiro. Hiro tries his best to dodge the onslaught, but still gets hit by them. Even the violence contributed to the score as it rises to 4856. Seeing his health running low, Hiro eats a Glamburger. Because it was on brand, it jumped the score to 5356.

Me. EX: Ooooh, I'm just warming up!

Hiro manages to dodge all of the Minitons and their hearts. The score rose to 5416 now. Hiro hadn't noticed before, but the area had a peculiar smell wafting in the air. He soon realized it was coming from Mettaton. Hiro made another dramatic pose, making the score hit 5516.

Me. EX: You got some pretty lovely poses! But how are you on the dance floor!?

Hiro: Not that great...

A spotlight focused on Hiro as a disco ball  hangs above him. Hiro shoots at it, noticing it changing the lights from white to blue. He keeps going as he noticed Mettaton's poses seem to be a little faster than before. The impromptu dance-off brought the score to 5526, with Hiro ending it in a pose, raising the score again to 5626.

Me. EX: Fabulous! Can you keep up the pace?

Hiro: Yeah!

The disco ball descends again, but the lights move faster. Hiro messes up his shot once, but he quickly regains control, ending the dance with 5666 points while posing again.

Me. EX: Lights! Camera! Bombs!

Hiro: Not again!

Hiro sees his battle field become thinner and four bombs and blocks appear. In his attempt to shoot them, one set hits Hiro while he was caught in the explosion. The violence bumped the ratings to 5856 before Hiro's pose made it 6006.

Me. EX: Things are blowing up!

To Hiro's dismay, more bomb blocks fall. He somehow only got hit once, bringing the score to 6136. He eats a part of a Bisicle, which he noticed it didn't bring the descending score up.

Me. EX: Time for our union-regulated break!

The words “Happy Break Time” flashes on Hiro's field.

Hiro: Just like Napstablook... (notices Mettaton posing at a rapid rate) I'm gonna pose, too! (poses with style)

Me. EX: We've grown so distant, darling... How about another heart-to-heart?

Hiro sees the soul coming out again and shoots at it. 4 waves of boxes pulsing in and out from the android's soul along with sparks, and Hiro manages to dodge everything surprisingly well while shoot the dancing bot's soul, raising the score to 6496. This caused Mettaton's arms to fall off, startling Hiro as he poses to bring the score to 6596.

Hiro (panicking): M-Mettaton, your arms fell off!!

Me. EX: A..Arms? Wh...Who needs arms with legs like these? I'm still going to win!

Hiro didn't do well this round. He was hit by several blocks and bombs, and just when he thought it was over, there was a strange feeling in the air.  Like time was being rewound. Suddenly, the blocks and bombs that went by him came back up, causing him to jump between the spaces he shot out. The ratings sat at 6816 because of this.

Hiro: That was close! What was that feeling..? It feels...

Me. EX: Come on...!

Again, the record/rewind stage appeared before Hiro. He did a little better this time, now that he got the gist of this stage. His score rose to 6996, but this is where things took a heel turn for the worse. He's run out of items.

Me.EX: The show...must go on!

Many blocks and bombs fall, causing Hiro to try and shoot at them. Hiro was hit a few times blasting the bombs away, his score hitting 7136 and jumping to 7286 after he poses.

Me.EX: Dr...Drama! A...Action!

The blocks and bombs fall again faster, and Hiro was hit a few times again. The ratings were at 7446 when he poses again.

Me. EX: L...Lights... C..Camera... Enough of this! Do you really want humanity to perish!? ….Or do you just believe in yourself that much?

Hiro: I don't want that, but I do believe in myself!

Hiro was becoming weary, which caused him to mess up the bomb block section. The score rises to 7576.

Me. EX: Haha, how inspiring! Well. Darling! It's either me or you! But I think we both already know who's going to win. Witness the true power of humanity's star!

Mettaton's soul comes out again. Hiro had to dodge more sparks as he shot away at the soul and the two bombs that revolved around it. Once done, Hiro saw half of his field flashing with a warning.

Hiro: What's that- (sees a row of legs jutt out at him; dodges away) AH! (hears the warning behind him and moves away as more legs appear) Gah! This is crazy!

Hiro had to deal with the soul sparks and kicking legs twice more before he saw Mettaton's legs fall off and the ratings hitting 7696. He poses in front of the limbless android, adding 100 more points and making it 7796.

Me. EX: ….then.... Are YOU the star? Can you really protect humanity!?

Hiro: I don't know. Maybe if I tried hard enough?

In his thoughts, Hiro is caught off guard with the soul shooting sparks at him while he shoots at it. Mettaton remained silent during the exchange. Hiro was so worn out from the battle that he didn't realize the disco ball came out and he panics. Some sparks and Minitons came out and hit Hiro as he desperately tries to shoot and dodge them. With no more items left to use, he was left at 2 Hp. With the last of his power, Hiro poses with all his might. The audience screams in adoration, but it wasn't enough. He was completely worn out to the point where he couldn't see the bombs nor recognize that it was the rewind stage. He shot at one, causing it to explode on him and making him literally go out with a bang. He soon wakes back up at the save star outside of the elevator. Even though he usually gets healed and refreshed at these points, Hiro still felt the remnants of exhaustion from that battle and lays in his spot for a while. It was during that rest when he remembers that feeling from being rewound in the fight.

Hiro: That was weird. It was like.....a tape rewinding? Oh... Is that what happens when I die? I redo stuff? ….. (puts his hands on his head) My head hurts....

Deciding to not think more on it, Hiro rested a little while longer before getting up and reentering the room where Mettaton is waiting. Hiro was not much in the mood to hear Mettaton's monologue and tells him about the mirror again.

Me. EX: CLEVER. VERY CLEVER.

The battle ensues again. Poses, bombs, and bolts fly as Hiro danced and fought his way against Mettaton. He stopped caring about the ratings as he needed to concentrate. Despite doing much better this time around, he ran out of items and was back on his last two HP again. And once again, with feeling this time, Hiro poses with his might. The battle was soon cut off as Mettaton sees the ratings skyrocket past 10000.

Mettaton (excitedly): OOH, LOOK AT THESE RATINGS!!! THIS IS THE MOST VIEWERS I'VE HAD!!! WE'VE REACHED THE VIEWER CALL-IN MILESTONE! ONE LUCKY VIEWER WILL HAVE THE CHANCE TO TALK TO ME...BEFORE I LEAVE THE UNDERGROUND FOREVER!! LET'S SEE WHO WHO CALLS IN FIRST! (phone rings) HI, YOU'RE ON TV! WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY ON THIS, OUR LAST SHOW???

???: …..oh.......hi....mettaton....

Hiro: Huh? This voice...

???: ….i really liked watching your show...my life is really boring....but...seeing you on the screen...brought excitement to my life...vicariously. i can't tell, but...i guess this is the last episode...? i'll miss you...mettaton......oh.....i didn't mean to talk so long....oh......

Mettaton: NO, WAIT! (tries calling back) WAIT, BL.. (hears a click) ..H....THEY ALREADY HUNG UP. …. I'LL TAKE ANOTHER CALLER!!!

As soon as he opened the phone lines, calls started pouring in as the viewers voiced their joy in watching Mettaton on TV and the sorrow they felt at the thought of losing him.

“Mettaton, your show made us so happy!”

“Mettaton, I don't know what I'll watch without you.”

“Mettaton, there's a Mettaton-shaped hole in my Mettaton-shaped heart....”

Mettaton (saddened): AH... I...I SEE...(grins solemnly)...EVERYONE... THANK YOU SO MUCH. … DARLING.

Hiro: Yes?

Mettaton: PERHAPS.... IT MIGHT BE BETTER IF I STAY HERE FOR A WHILE. HUMANS ALREADY HAVE STARS AND IDOLS, BUT MONSTERS...THEY ONLY HAVE ME. IF I LEFT....THE UNDERGROUND WOULD LOSE ITS SPARK. I'D LEAVE AN ACHING VOID THAT CAN NEVER BE FILLED. SO... I THINK I'LL HAVE TO DELAY MY DEBUT. BESIDES. YOU'VE PROVEN TO BE VERY STRONG. PERHAPS...EVEN STRONG ENOUGH TO GET PAST ASGORE.

Hiro: …

Mettaton: I'M SURE YOU'LL BE ABLE TO PROTECT HUMANITY. HA, HA... IT'S ALL FOR THE BEST, ANYWAY. THE TRUTH IS, THIS FORM'S ENERGY CONSUMPTION IS....INEFFICIENT. IN A FEW MOMENTS, I'LL RUN OUT OF BATTERY POWER, AND...WELL.

Hiro: Oh no! Will you be okay?

Mettaton: I'LL BE ALRIGHT. KNOCK 'EM DEAD, DARLING. AND EVERYONE.... THANK YOU. YOU'VE BEEN A GREAT AUDIENCE!

With Mettaton's parting smile, a bright light flashes in the area then fades. Once Hiro lowered his arms to look around, he saw the stage had return to normal and Mettaton's resting form on the ground before him. Before he could make a move, he hears the door opening behind him.

Alphys: I...I managed to open the lock! Are you two... (runs in; stops in shock) Oh my god. (rushes over to Mettaton) Mettaton! Mettaton, are you.... (checks him over, sighs in relief) Thank GOD, it's just the batteries. Mettaton, if you were gone, I would have.... (trembling) I would have.... (silent, then shakes her head) I m-mean, h-hey, it's n-no problem, you know? He's just a robot, if you messed it up, I could always...j-just build another. (becomes silent again)

Hiro: Alphys?

Alphys: Ah....I'm...fine. Why don't you go on ahead? I....I just need a moment.

Hiro: Okay....

Hiro took a look at Mettaton's broken body, and got a quick vision of a more deadly version of him. Strangely, despite this towering version with its flowing cape, laser eye, and deadly gun arm, that Mettaton was shot down in one hit. Hiro shook that vision away, and departed the room exhaustively. As Hiro made his way down the corridor, he was caught up by Alphys as she apologized for before.

Alphys: L-Let's k-keep going!

(silence)

Alphys: S-So you're about to meet Asgore, h-huh? You must be...Y-You must be... Pr... pretty excited about all that, huh?

Hiro (frowns): Not really.

Alphys: Oh.. (twiddles her thumbs) A-At least you'll f-f-finally... You'll finally get to go home!

Hiro (smiles): I'm more excited about that! (arrives at the elevator; pushes the button and is about to enter) Here I go.

Alphys: W... Wait!

Hiro (notices Alphys standing some distance from him): Yeah?

Alphys (smiles nervously): I mean, um... I... I was just going to..….um...say goodbye, and.. (her smile slowly drops; faces away from him)

Hiro: Alphys?

Alphys: ...I can't take this anymore. (turns away) I...I lied to you.

Hiro: About what?

Alphys: About....A-About how to l-leave here. R-Remember wh-when I said that with y-your human soul, you c-can pass through the b-barrier...?

Hiro: Yep.

Alphys: A....A human soul isn't strong enough to cross the barrier alone.

Hiro: It isn't?

Alphys: N-No.... (looks down at her feet) It takes at least a human soul...and a monster soul. (silent; turns to him) If you want to go home.... You'll have to take his soul. You'll have to kill Asgore. (walks away then stops) I'm sorry.

As Alphys ran off, Hiro stood before the open elevator in shock. He has to...kill Asgore? He had no intention of killing anyone in the Underground, nor anyone ever anywhere. Besides, Hiro's never killed anyone before in his life.

…...

Right...?

TO BE CONTINUED

[gretchensinister]

Burgess Wilderness Recreation Area 19/?

And so continues the story I began for the Black as Pitch Halloween event. It’s the kind of story I’m sure you know well. Five college kids, a cabin, and a state park that just doesn’t get many visitors any more… (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4) (Part 5) (Part 6) (Part 7) (Part 8) (Part 9) (Part 10) (Part 11) (Part 12) (Part 13) (Part 14) (Part 15) (Part 16) (Part 17) (Part 18)

“What’s your name?” the human asked Pitch.

Pitch sat up a little and blinked slowly in delight. The human’s fear, which had been ebbing and flowing, was now at an ebb, but Pitch had never expected him to ask such a question so soon! His name! A beautiful, unnecessary ornament he’d given himself, something that showed how different he was in kind compared to the other creatures of the forest, and now, something that the human who he thought might become a companion for him was asking about! It was a good sign! A very good sign. “Pitch Black,” he said.

The human blinked a few times in quick succession, and Pitch wiggled his shoulders a little. The human had liked his name! He had made the best choice of the humans in his territory.

“My name is Sandy,” the human said.

Pitch relaxed completely against the ground, resisting the urge to roll over. The human had offered his name in return! True, he had said it a bit strangely, as if it didn’t mean anything, but when he was near a human, Pitch could easily map the things he knew onto human language, and he soon understood Sandy’s name.

Sandy! There hadn’t been much sand in the forest before the humans had built their many structures, but now he was familiar with it. The humans had lined one of the small lakes in his territory with a broad border of sand. It was a pleasant light brown, and the humans liked it very much. Pitch had tried lying on it the way they did, and he found he liked it, too. Nearer the water the sand was wet, and held tracks, and Pitch could make shapes in it if he wanted. He could almost build small copies his favorite caves so he could look at them all at once. Farther away from the water, the sand was dry, and on warm days it soaked up the heat from the sun and after dark it stayed warmer than the air for hours. It was soft and comfortable and not as full of distracting smells as soil or leaves. Whenever he was active, Pitch always made sure to take some time to fall asleep on sand.

His companion was well aware of how much he enjoyed sand, too. That was why, even though she didn’t like the sand that had been brought in, she kept a section of the sand by the lake clear of all plants and animals. She had also allowed one of the humans’ rectangular sand pits to remain perfectly clear, while the others were left to whatever maintenance the humans still came into his territory to perform.

Sand was one of the few human things he’d ever bothered with, and one of the few human things he’d found that he liked. How wonderful, then, that this human, one of only two that he’d ever thought of making into a companion, was named after such a substance.

And it was a fitting name, too, not just one that told him what Sandy liked. Sandy was soft and warm, as Pitch had discovered when he carried him to the clearing. He wasn’t quite the right color for sand, but his hair was close. He reminded Pitch of summer, in a way, and also the sun, but not in a way that was dangerous or unpleasant to him, so he wasn’t worried about the results of the transformation he would undergo. Pitch thought his companion would like that sunny quality as well.

“Sandy,” Pitch said. He slowly blinked at him again. He loved that name for a human, for his companion, and he wanted him to know.

 ***

 Well, now I know its name, Sandy thought. Kind of a silly name, really. We were terrorized all night and all day by a monster named after a color. He wondered, though, if he was supposed to take the monster’s recent actions as part of its name—the wiggling shoulders, the slow blinks. Then again, maybe those were just more signs of its alien-ness or animal-ness. Maybe it was like a cat with those reactions. One of its attacks had been blamed on a mountain lion, after all.  

But if it was cat-like, that would be alarming, too. Didn’t cats do that slow blink thing to show that they loved you?

I always wanted someone to fall head over heels for me, Sandy thought. I really should have been more specific. But, speaking of being specific…

“You referred to your, uh, offspring as ‘she,’” Sandy said. “If you were to be referred to, what pronouns would you want to be used?”

The monster’s—Pitch Black’s—eyes narrowed and head tilted, but it didn’t say anything right away.

Could be figuring things out, Sandy thought. Maybe I should’ve phrased the question a different way. Did I really just ask a monster in the woods for its pronouns? What the fuck does a monster know about pronouns? “I, um, can explain a little more if you don’t understand the question.”

“I can understand most things you say, as long as I am near you. I can understand the patterns your thoughts take.”

“But you’re not…you’re not reading my mind, are you?” Sandy asked. That could be really bad. But if Pitch Black could read his thoughts, Sandy felt that this situation would be playing out differently, even now.

“Hmm, no,” Pitch Black said. “I do not know of anyone or anything that can do the thing you mean. My companion and I do something that is almost like what you mean, but it is still not exactly the same. As a being like one of us, you would understand this better.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Sandy said.

“I still know much about your current state of being,” Pitch Black said. “I can sense all your fears, and many of your other emotions as well, though these are harder for me to detect.”

That could be a serious problem. “Do you mean, like, you can smell adrenaline?” Sandy asked. “The hormones that cause the fear response, etc.?”

“No,” Pitch Black said. “I can smell those things, but I detect the emotions themselves. I am not limited by flesh in many ways.”

This situation was going to be even trickier to navigate than Sandy had thought. But…okay, okay. He could love a challenge, and he was certainly curious as to whether or not he would succeed, here. He could keep those emotions at the forefront of his mind, and push away the fears he had. What good was fear now, anyway? Pretty much everything had already happened.

“I have figured out what you meant by pronouns,” Pitch Black announced, unbothered by Sandy’s pause. “If someone was to refer to me not by a description or by name, that someone should use the word ‘he’ to refer to me.” Pitch Black tilted his head the other way.  “But who will be talking about me in such a way? My companion and I, even if we had a third, would not need human language of this kind.”

It was a good question. And it wasn’t like knowing the monster’s pronouns gained Sandy anything. He didn’t even know what criteria the monster had used to decide what pronouns to use. There was no indication that Pitch Black thought of himself as a man in any way. It might have even been some latent sexism in his own mind that had led Pitch Black to choose the set of pronouns that he had, Sandy considered gloomily. Or even latent transphobia! Maybe Pitch Black was trying to indicate something about his genitals by choosing those pronouns. Or something about the role he expected to play during sex. Sandy made a strange face after that thought. This conversation was delicate enough without adding worries about transphobia or monster dicks to it.

“I asked because it’s a courteous thing to do among humans,” Sandy said. He’d better stick to honesty, or something like it, if he was to have a hope of dealing with everything else that was rattling around in his head. “I thought it was especially important to ask you because you’re not like anyone I’ve ever seen before.”

Pitch Black settled again, blinking slowly. He didn’t say anything, not like a person who would likely have taken that statement as a compliment.

Don’t play to the rules of a game he doesn’t understand, Sandy told himself. He’d probably taken what Sandy had said as a favorable statement of fact, but not something specifically meant to make him feel flattered. Could Pitch even be flattered? Sandy didn’t plan to ask that question out loud.

But he would ask something, if only to take up time. “What drew you to me?” he asked.