#Because well used it forces or conditions the opponent to move or not move certain ways

[fragmentedblade]

The way Luocha's conversation and confrontation with Jing Yuan was established in terms of a xiangqi match (or whatever it's called ingame in the English translation; "starchess", I think?) was great, especially with how Jing Yuan congratulates his last move.

How Luocha's course of action is laid is also very typical of xiangqi strategies for what I've been reading, especially when it comes to the use of the general piece. Jing Yuan has to abide to the law, can't move, and is forced to let Luocha get away with what he wants to do.

[satoshi-mochida]

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II coming west in early 2025 - Gematsu

NIS America will release The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, and PC via Steam, Epic Games Store, and GOG in early 2025 in the west, the publisher announced.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails through Daybreak II is currently available for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Switch in Japan and Asia, as well as PC via Steam in Asia.

Here is an overview of the game, via NIS America:

[Possible spoilers for Trails through Daybreak 1]

About

No longer threatened by the mafia organization Almata, the people of Calvard have returned to their peaceful lives. But one day, a shocking series of murders involving a mysterious crimson beast sets the wheels of fate in motion once again. Various factions spring into action – both those who abide by the law to uncover the truth and those looking to capitalize on any new developments wherever possible, no matter how sinister. With chaos once again looming on the horizon, the spriggan Van Arkride receives an unexpected visitor, prompting his own investigation. Who is behind the murders, and what is their goal? The sands of time bring old and new faces together for this thrilling second installment in the Trails through Daybreak saga.

Story

Year 1209 of the Septian Calendar. The threat posed by Almata has passed. Peace has finally returned to Calvard. And, for a time, that peace goes uninterrupted—until a CID special forces unit is slaughtered by an unknown assailant. With authorities working to contain the situation, criminal forces take the chance to make their own moves. Meanwhile, a spriggan by the name of Van Arkride begins his own investigation—after prompting from an unexpected visitor. Who could be responsible for this massacre? What was their objective? And how does it all relate to Agnes’ search for the eighth Genesis? A crimson beast’s roar. A chance meeting with a boy and girl, both embroiled in a mysterious search. These are the circumstances that lure Arkride Solutions down the trail of an inescapable fate.

System

Battle System – The game builds on the seamless transition between field battles and command battles introduced in the previous game with new mechanics that can be used in both: Cross Charge & EX Chains! Mastering the use of these two combo mechanics can provide you with overwhelming firepower to use against your opponents.

Cross Charge – If you manage to Perfect Dodge an enemy’s attack during a field battle, the Cross Charge icon will appear! Pushing the correct button while the icon is on-screen will swap in another party member, who will simultaneously execute a charge attack on your foe! As a bonus, the party member that you swap in will have enhanced attack power for a period of time.

EX Chains – EX Chains can be activated by fulfilling specific conditions during command battles. Once these conditions have been met, using a craft or normal attack against a stunned enemy will automatically activate an EX Chain! This allows party members with SCLM activated to launch a simultaneous attack that will also impact nearby enemies, dealing massive damage.

Choose Your Chapters – Van and his collaborators will not always travel together during the events of Trails through Daybreak II. At times, some of the group may split off in order to take care of tasks in different areas of Calvard concurrently. Because of this, each act contains multiple chapters you can play in any order. Progress the story in the order you choose! Each chapter features a different cast of characters as we see their side of the act’s story play out. Once you’ve completed your chosen chapter, the next one will start up automatically.

Unique Missions – Certain chapters will feature missions that utilize the unique skillsets of the characters in that chapter’s party. For example, directly controlling the holo core AI, Mare, to hack the orbal network, or using Swin to silently tail a suspicious individual.

Characters

Van Arkride – The man at the head of Arkride Solutions. A lover of sweets, saunas, and orbal cars. Due to his job as a spriggan, Van has a tendency to take on legally-questionable jobs. However, the fact that he occasionally walks on the edge of the law does not preclude him from doing good by others—as is evidenced by his numerous personal contacts. While tracking down the Oct-Geneses at Agnes’ request, Van developed the ability to transform into an armored form known as the Grendel with the help of Mare, the holo core installed within his combat orbment. It was with this new ability that he was able to fend off the mafia group known as Almata. Having once terrorized the entirety of the Republic, Almata was eventually brought to its knees by the Arkride Solutions team during the fight for the Oct-Geneses. Upon the quelling of this threat, however, they decided to temporarily go their separate ways. Now left to himself in a less-than- lively office, Van is free to return to his lone-wolf lifestyle once more.

Agnes Claudel – A first-year at the prestigious Aramis Academy who currently serves on its Student Council. Despite her polite manner of speaking and at times meek demeanor, Agnes has shown great strength and determination while employed at Arkride Solutions—especially when facing off against the seedy underbelly of society. Agnes first met Van while searching for eight prototype orbments known as the Oct-Geneses, which she inherited from her great-grandfather. As thanks for taking on her request, she began working as one of Arkride Solution’s part-time assistants. At present, Agnes has recovered seven of the eight Geneses. Unfortunately, while continuing her search for the last remaining Genesis, she’s had no choice but to also divide her time between preparing for the Aramis Academy Festival and periodically helping out around Arkride Solutions. Regarding her relationship with Van, she both respects and admires him as her employer. However, she seems to be harboring some more amorous feelings for him as well…

Elaine Auclair – An A-rank bracer affiliated with the Calvard branch of the Bracer Guild. She is occasionally referred to by the moniker “Beauty’s Blade.” Due to her dignified beauty and masterful skill with a sword, Elaine tends to catch the eye of the media more often than not. Unfortunately, this also leads to talent agencies offering her contracts for modeling and acting—she always declines. Outside of being the poster girl for the Bracer Guild, Elaine has no present interest in joining the world of entertainment. During her high school years, she enjoyed a brief and fleeting romance with Van before he suddenly vanished without so much as a word. It was only recently, after seven years, that the two were able to reunite. Although their lingering feelings for each other have left their current relationship a bit tense, their time fighting Almata together was able to strengthen their bond once more. Some time after the events involving Almata and the Oct-Geneses, Elaine received word that the Central Intelligence Department’s elite Gamma Squad had been brutally murdered by an unknown assailant, and that a ‘crimson’ monster was spotted at the scene of the crime…

World

The Republic of Calvard – A large country located in the central region of the Zemurian continent. Its current leader is President Roy Gramheart. Due to the unfortunate circumstances created by the desertification of eastern Zemuria, Calvard has a substantial history of receiving both immigrants and refugees. The resulting mixture of cultures and ethnicities has made the country into something of a melting pot. One hundred years ago, Calvard was under the heel of its monarchal rulers. It was only after Sheena Dirke and her compatriots brought about a democratic revolution that the nation was transformed into a democratic republic. Though in constant conflict with Erebonia over the control of bordering regions, Calvard has recently been on the receiving end of reparations from the empire following the Battle of Jormungandr. These reparations enabled Calvard to enter a period of rapid growth and development, leading to its eventual overtake of Erebonia as the most powerful nation on the continent. Regarding the region’s recreational interests, recent technological advancements in orbal vehicles and filmmaking have caused a boom in both the motorsports and orbal cinema industries.

Messeldam – A moderate-sized city located in the north of Calvard. Due to its long-standing role as one of the Northern Sea’s major trading ports, Messeldam was often tasked during the days of monarchal rule with the delivery of imports to the capital of Oracion—along with fresh seafood, of course. Although the port remains active to this day, developments in airship technology have greatly diminished its significance. The city itself, however, remains an important gateway to Remiferia and its surrounding nations. Unlike Langport, Messeldam possesses very few tourist destinations. That being said, the townscape’s architecture tends to be quite popular with visitors, as its design has seen little change in the past century. The city’s Eastern and Central Eastern populations are fairly meager due to its geographical location. As such, it lacks a community that values cultural traditionalism. This has, fortunately, been a boon for Messeldam, as new art movements and customs are accepted with relative ease. It was this very attitude that led to the city serving as the venue for the Orbal Film Festival for a number of years, until its relocation to Tharbad in 1208.

Watch the western announcement trailer and a Trails series overview trailer below. View a set of screenshots at the gallery. Visit the official website here.

Western Announce Trailer

Trails Series Overview Trailer

[postgamecontent]

Aah! Harimanada (MD Mini 2)

Aah! Harimanada is based on a manga that ran from 1991 to 1996 about a sumo yokozuna who declares he will beat the legendary Futabayama's streak of 69 wins. Should he lose even once, he will retire on the spot and walk away. With this action angering pretty much everyone involved with the sport, Harimanada has a real uphill battle against him. What made this comic unique is that as Harimanada piles up his wins, he comes off increasingly as some kind of monstrous force of nature. You never quite know what he's thinking or what he's going to do. His opponents, by contrast, are depicted in a far more human fashion. Harimanada is the protagonist, but at a certain point you can't help but feel bad for his opponents. Some real good drama interspersed with exciting over-the-top depictions of sumo matches, in other words.

Somewhere around the peak of the property's popularity, three games were produced. If any of them could be called the lead SKU, it would be the Mega Drive version. It takes its premise directly from the manga, tasking the player with winning 70 consecutive matches. You have a few continues to work with, but it's still a monstrous task. Not many fighting games could stand under such conditions, and Aah! Harimanada certainly isn't in that rare club. And I say "fighting games" because that's really what this is. You can jump, and you have command-based special moves. You're still trying to get your opponent out of the ring, but there are life bars that will be whittled down as matches go on. Grappling and button mashing will serve you well initially, but as the matches go on (and on) you'll have to learn a few other strategies.

Aah! Harimanada has a legendary reputation among Japanese Mega Drive fans, who consider it a kusoge on the level of Sword of Sodan if not worse. It's considered a poor adaptation of its source material, and the sheer tedium of actually finishing it has ironically become a point of pride among some brave souls. Personally, I don't think it's any worse in terms of fealty to its source than most licensed games of this era, but the conditions for completing it are indeed frankly ridiculous. Aside from that, though? This isn't as bad as you might think. I could see people having a bit of fun in the two-player mode, and using save states to break up the main story into more manageable pieces helps a lot. The presentation is pretty good for what it is, too. I won't call this a good game by any means, but I can see why it compels some people and how it ended up on a mini-console decades later.

[akchiropractic]

Dr Tim Las Vegas News

Yahoo - Dr Timothy Francis

Applied Kinesiology, or AK for brief, is a system of muscular tissue screening made use of to detect concerns in the body. When the initial research study by Dr. George Goodheart at Wayne State College was published, it dates back to 1964. AK uses the principles of Diagnostic Irregularities of Muscular Tissues (DAM), which utilizes distinctions in muscular tissue action to numerous stimuli as indications of health and wellness. Advocates commonly point out AK as a method to identify physiological and biochemical imbalances such as nutrient shortages and allergies while opponents commonly assert that it lacks clinical evidence.

Advocates of Applied Kinesiology stick to the belief that each muscular tissue can be examined and informs a tale concerning a person's overall health and wellness. Additionally, Applied Kinesiology practitioners think they can make use of muscular tissue screening to determine food allergies, poisoning levels in the body, hormone imbalances, structural imbalances in bones/ligaments/muscles and even more. Doubters likewise point out the subjective nature of muscular tissue screening and argue that results may be guided by factors such as the practitioner's expectations or predispositions ; making them undependable. Despite this objection, there has actually been data published because 1985 revealing favorable connections between Applied Kinesiology and person outcomes in concerns to pain relief, growth price, adaptability and joint enhancements due to chiropractic adjustments located during therapies utilizing Applied Kinesiology methods.

With both sides recognized, we now move into reviewing just how this system is being made use of in Chiropractic treatment today with an exploration on " Just how is it Utilized in Chiropractic Care?" Just how is it Utilized in Chiropractic Care? Chiropractic Applied Kinesiology (CAK) is a system of muscular tissue screening made use of to evaluate and treat power imbalances throughout the body. CAK has actually been made use of in chiropractic care for several years as a approach of detecting postural and muscle problems, examining the efficiency of proposed treatment plans, and aiding to develop an reliable treatment strategy. The concept behind CAK is that each muscular tissue is attached to a certain part of the body, and its stamina or weak point can suggest whether there are any kind of underlying concerns. Experts make use of hands-on muscular tissue screening to determine irregularities in the body's muscles or imbalances between them. During hands-on muscular tissue screening, the practitioner uses mild stress with their hands on the person's issue area while they try to withstand the stress. If resistance to the force is as well solid or as well weak , it may suggest an hidden issue. Advocates of CAK argue that it can be an reliable kind of detecting and dealing with medical conditions. There are likewise criticisms of this method from doubters within the medical area that argue that there is no clinical evidence supporting its use in chiropractic treatment. Despite this objection, numerous practitioners continue to rely upon this technique as a reputable method to detect and treat their clients. Hands-on muscular tissue screening is simply one kind of chiropractic used kinesiology made use of in health care. In the following section we will discover hands-on muscular tissue screening in even more deepness and review just how it is normally made use of in chiropractic treatment. Experts make use of hands-on muscular tissue screening to determine irregularities in the body's muscles or imbalances between them. https://drtimlasvegasnews775.blogspot.com/2023/02/dr-tim-las-vegas-news.html Dr Timothy Francis Las Vegas https://drtimlasvegasnews675.blogspot.com/ https://drtimlasvegasnews675.blogspot.com/2023/02/dr-tim-las-vegas-news.html https://drtimlasvegasdjnews938.blogspot.com/ https://drtimlasvegasdjnews938.blogspot.com/2023/02/dr-tim-las-vegas-dj-news.html https://codingforbeginners324.blogspot.com/

[ohthehypocrisy]

How to write a pokemon for Pokemon Unite part 2 - Attackers

Prev: Intro - All-Rounders

In the last post, we talked about what makes an All-Rounder unique in their versatility. This time, we’ll be taking a look at the lethal firepower of Attackers.

Before we begin, there was one little tidbit that I forgot to mention concerning All-Rounders. While it is true that All-Rounders are varied and can excel in 2 or 3 roles, a pokemon can also have no particular talent and be designated as an All-Rounder. For lack of a better term, the pokemon’s lack of talents and skill can be used to justify the All-Rounder trait. Pokemon like Azumarill, Dragonite, and Tyranitar are good examples, as they don’t particular excel at being a Supporter, Defender, Attacker, or Speedster. However, their reliable ability to deal high damage means they can spearhead an attack or defend a score, or make a mad dash for the goal zone, or benefit greatly from the early lead granted by taking the central area. It pays to be moderately average.

And now, let’s take a shot at what Attackers are really all about.

The gold standard among all Attackers is that they all use ranged basic attacks. It might seem obvious, but certain pokemon are more well suited to the Attacker archetype then it would seem. Take Cinderace for example.

High Attack and high Speed make the pokemon a shoe-in for the Speedster archetype. If it were any other pokemon, it definitely would be. However, Speedsters are physical based assassins that are extremely dangerous up close, and Cinderace doesn’t like getting Red Carded...often. Because the pokemon is a sports based fighter, shooting projectiles is its main gimmick. Even its signature move, Pyro Ball, is a long reaching hot shot that goes for goal. Cinderace is designated as an Attacker because of its ability to deal high damage from afar, staying out of the enemies range and utilizing moves to keep it that way. While its enemies are playing football, Cinderace is playing soccer, juking and running out of harms way and delivering the game winning score.

Cramorant is another Attacker that seems to be underestimated due to its stats. It’s all rather average, with not a single stat breaking 100. But while it lacks a signature move, it does have a signature ability, Gulp Missile, which makes up for all of its shortcomings. 

Firstly, Gulp Missile gives Cramorant a unique identity in Pokemon Unite as well as in the games. With a funny fish (or yellow mouse) in its mouth, it means that Cramorant cannot lose its boosted basic attack from dawdling for too long and will even eject it at an enemy upon hit. The boosted attack even has the effect of damaging an additional enemy on hit, making its range deceptively large. Gulp Missile is so iconic for Cramorant that it has to use either Surf or Dive, two moves it has to use in order to activate the ability. Even its Unite Move is a super powered version of this ability, having Cramorant dive into its personal pool of proliferous portions and projecting them at its problematic pokemon opponents. 

The point is, Cramorant is an Attacker because of its signature ability, a facet of its character. Since it has low stats, it has to rely on conditional boosts to get the most damage out of its skills.

Duraludon in Pokemon Unite just barely manages to make the role of an Attacker. Its stats lend it to be more on the defensive side, even with a bit of speed to use all of that power. However, it is decidedly an Attacker since, well, its body is shaped like a mighty light cannon. But not for the lack of trying does it make a decent Defender as well. When Duraludon attacks, it makes the visible area its own territory, forcing enemies out and away. This is exemplified by its Dragon Pulse and Flash Cannon skills, two very powerful moves that are too dangerous to be around. Stealth Rock and Dragon Tail are more or less utility attacks than true offense as they are meant to make Duraludon’s offensive presence even greater. Dragon Tail can be used to grant Duraludon some more coverage while Stealth Rock covers the area Duraludon cannot defend. 

Something to keep in mind, Duraludon is an Attacker, which means it is on the weak side when receiving damage. It is capable of dealing huge amounts of damage in the area, but it has trouble defending itself. It prefers to defend the area by making it too dangerous to approach, but this is where an enemy Defender would come in and jeopardize that plan. Please do not leave your Attackers to fend for themselves without understanding their plan of attack. 

Our last example is Greninja, a pokemon with high Speed, high Sp.Atk, and high Attack, a perfect pokemon for the Attacker archetype. Where Duraludon utilizes its Attacking stats to play as part-Defender, Greninja uses its speed to play as a part-time Speedster. Double Team and Smokescreen are both moves that grant Greninja some mobility and can even disorient its enemies. Its other moves, Surf and Water Shuriken, add to this as Surf is a dashing attack and Water Shuriken is a projectile attack that Greninja can fire in any direction and maintain its momentum. 

But perhaps the most curious part of Greninja’s toolkit would be its physical basic attack. Greninja is an Attacker, so why does it have a physical basic attack? Well, because it’s part Speedster. If an enemy is out of range, Greninja will use a projectile, but if they are close enough, Greninja will use a melee attack. 

This is unique in that Greninja is the only melee Attacker in the game out the moment, which emphasizes an important distinction in all archetypes. There is always room for creativity here, and one should not be afraid to challenge conventions.

Now that we have all that said and done, let’s look at some pokemon coming up who are eager to take their own shot at glory in Pokemon Unite.

With extremely high Sp.Atk, the pokemon is bound to make a splash as an Attacker. However, even though the pokemon has high Sp.Def, its low HP makes it a nonfactor, putting it in the same boat as Duraludon, but a little worse off. As an Attacker, the pokemon needs the support of a reliable teammate to help it stay in the fight, drawing attention away from it. It will be worth it as the pokemon’s High Sp.Atk ensures that even its basic attack deals a massive amount of damage. With the ability to dish out so much damage, the pokemon has to be limited in some aspects, but also capable of building up power for its attacks when it’s time to spill the tea. This is to ensure that the pokemon’s ability to deal damage is dependent on the player’s skill rather than overwhelming power.

Very low speed means this pokemon will have reduced mobility compared to other attackers, but high stats in all other regards means that the pokemon will be a sure hit among the Attackers. Decent defenses will also mean that the pokemon can safely take a hit or two, making it unsafe to be close to the pokemon. The lack of mobility is off putting, though, so the pokemon makes up for it with a powerful ability that makes it easy to shoot first. It also never misses thanks to a unique Unite Move that ensures that no enemy will escape its poisonous rounds.

With a stat spread that resembles a stock price chart, this pokemon is a terrifying opponent. Super high Sp.Atk means that this pokemon will hit hard and has the defenses to take a hit and fire back. But it doesn’t use those numbers to trade damage, it uses them to hold the fort down and fire off powerful shots. While it’s similar to Duraludon in that it can hold the area down, this pokemon actually excels at clearing away hordes of enemies thanks to a unique attribute. It’s signature ability allows it to power up its moves even further at the cost of increasing the cooldown of its moves. However, those moves have a side effect of reducing their own cooldowns on hit, meaning that this pokemon excels at dealing powerful pistol potshots at the enemy. Of course, if you miss, you’ll be left wide open, so brush up on your aim if you don’t want to end up crabby.

On the speedy side of things, this pokemon is a nimble little thing, which is impressive considering its lack of limbs. Or, err, perhaps it has too many? Either way, high Speed and high Sp.Atk shows the great potential it has of being an Attacker, but all of that speed seems like a waste if it weren’t utilized. To that effect, the pokemon will play like a laser beaming drone, dealing damage from afar but not too close where it gets put in danger. By locking on to a target, the pokemon fires a laser beam that damages that enemy. It then has to use its speed to maneuver about, staying out of range while also splitting the damage dealt among all enemies on screen. The pokemon has a versatile range of options it can use to achieve this, ensuring that this pokemon will be the star player of the game.

And finally, we have a pokemon that loves being able to deal damage, even though it cannot take a hit well at all. Having equally high Attack and Sp.Atk makes this pokemon out to be an all-or-nothing Attacker, which is all well and good, but not as effective without a good enough Speed stat to utilize. Surely, those low defense lend the pokemon to be a decent ranged fighter, right? Well, not quite. This pokemon is a rare physical Attacker, which is counterproductive to its role. How can it possibly be an effective Attacker if it’s vulnerable to getting KO’d so easily? Well, with these low defenses, the pokemon has evolved sneaky ways of getting away with its awful deeds. You’ll find out soon enough, but just know that this creepy pokemon has a trick up its sleeve, some sand in its pockets, and will eventually prove to be a thorn in your side.

-

Being an Attacker is more than just shooting at things until they stop moving. It’s about shooting at things until they stop moving while maintaining a strategic foothold on the map, keeping the offensive momentum up. Attackers are very important in breaking through the enemy’s defenses, because without them, games would be a slow and boring stalemate. As long as you aren’t getting yourself KO’d, you’ll be an asset to your team.

Next time, we’ll look at the powerful Defender archetype, and what it means to sacrifice yourself for the greater good.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Okay, so, with all thats being discussed about speed and vampires muscles, I'm now thinking: what about fighting? While speed and strength surely help you in a fight, they're not everything. In fact, that are a lot of fighting moves based on using a opponents strength and tempo against them. There's also the fact that speed does not necessarily equals agility, and I think certain gifts would be very helpful as well (obviously). If I had to say, Jasper and Alice are the best fighters. I'd place Edward very low since a lot of it is muscle memory and I don't think he can read that. Emmet is promising, but I think he's way to rekkles and anyone with experience could take him down. What do you think? How would you rate the Cullens?

I feel I'm answering a dangerous question that could potentially revive the speed debacle...

Well, regardless, let's get to it. The Cullens in fighting order:

1) Jasper

Jasper has by far the most experience on the battlefield of any of the covens. Well, that's not even fair, none of the Cullens had experience before Eclipse. Jasper has far more experience than pick your vampire anywhere in the world.

Jasper lived and breathed war for nearly a century and he survived when the vast majority of those around him perished. To me, that's very telling, and easily places him as the best fighter in the coven.

The rest of the Cullens probably shouldn't even be placed on the same list as him in terms of fighting.

2) Carlisle

From here on out it gets harder to rank. However, we see Carlisle briefly fighting in Bree Tanner and he seems to be doing very well for himself out there in the battlefield. We also know that Carlisle's likely the fastest Cullen and one of the strongest. This puts him ahead of Rosalie.

Though, again, he's going to be presumably much worse than Jasper.

3) Rosalie

We don't see Rosalie in action, but she's level headed, does fight during Eclipse and there's no hint of trouble on her end, and she was in good physical condition when she died. This gives her the strength and speed she needs to likely be a fairly competent fighter.

4) Emmett

Emmett would rank higher, but as you point out, he's reckless and in love with his brute strength. The strength makes him a force to be reckoned with, but he's not one for any strategy, and I imagine against not newborn opponents he might have a far more difficult time.

5) Alice

I actually rank Alice pretty low. I think Alice, with her gift, primarily wins fights by avoiding them entirely. While she does see the future, she's smaller and weaker than the vast majority of vampires. More, her visions have to be processed and sometimes seem to cut off her awareness of her surroundings. This is not something she can rely on in a fight.

Yes, she spars with Jasper and does well, but that's sparring and it's Jasper fighting his wife. It's not the same thing as the battlefield.

I think Alice would survive most battles and fights but this is not so much because of her fighting ability but that she knows exactly when to retreat.

6) Esme

Esme gets put higher up the list than Edward because I suspect she's in better condition. She fights during the Eclipse battle and no one's too worried about her (well, in front of Bella).

I don't think Esme would really know what to do in a fight, I have a very hard time picturing it, but she likely is not horrifically terrible.

7) Edward

We see Edward fight Victoria. It's not good. More to the point, he's skinnier and weaker than most vampires (and yes, anon, slower) and his gift isn't actually going to get him much.

What Edward catches and doesn't catch with his gift is a bit up in the air but it seems to be... very strong thoughts. In Midnight Sun, Edward can't find out where Bella is in Port Angeles despite being in the rapists' heads. They know where they are, but he can't access that information, he only gets their current thoughts and desires and visual input.

Unless Edward's opponent's thinking, "And now I shall kick him in the shin", Edward's not going to catch that. And even if he does, there's no saying that there's anything he can do against it. Emmett arm wrestling Edward can think, "I am going to crush this guy's arm into a rock", Edward will hear it, and his arm will still get crushed into a rock.

8) Bella

Bella is turned an utterly emaciated woman with substantial blood loss. She will never be a fast or powerful vampire. More, while the venom seems to have made her far more graceful than she was, Bella has no fighting intuition.

Bella's great plan in a fight is to stab herself to distract the vampire.

I suspect Bella will be an awful physical fighter.

[starcrossedkaiju]

Kingslayer AU: Chapter Five

If you remember that post I made about the Red Resistance you’re a real one.

Notes: this one is very short. It’s just to move the plot along and blah blah blah. Next chapter is a good one I think.

The next time Scott showed up to the Red Desert it was for a petty fight that Scar had instigated by trying to steal directly from the Renchanting base. The situation made Scott face palm, and he contemplated not even showing up. However, when Jimmy offered to go in place of him, he told him not to bother. That he would be back in less than a day and night cycle.

Scott walked into the meeting just as the Red Army crested a hill. Which they stayed on. Scar yawned exaggeratedly and trekked up to his opponent, who was wearing a bandage on his left arm.

Cleo was also there. She seemed to be focused on drawing shapes in the cracked sand with the tip of her sword. Most likely feeling bitter about her former ally, Tango, joining Dogwarts. Everyone was paying as little attention as possible while Scar fired off false promises and white lies. Grian busied himself with apologizing to the nearest members of the Red Army for Scar’s embarrassment.

Scott was nearly falling asleep on his feet when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Tango.

“Hey Major, you got a minute?” he whispered.

“So many,” Scott responded, gesturing to the desolate state of their meeting.

The two of them quietly excused themselves from the group to speak in private. Scott didn’t know why he didn’t tell Tango to just leave him alone. Maybe it was because Tango had a certain air of reluctance about him, Scott was certain he pulled his punches. Maybe it was shear boredom.

“So, nice weather,” Tango observed the arid desert sky.

“Uh huh..” Scott provided, unimpressed.

Tango stared at him blankly. Awkwardly.

He cleared his throat, “so I heard about your battle with Skiz and Ren. Impressive,” Tango said.

“What is with you people and beating around the bush? We’re not friends,” Scott pushed Tango away by the middle of his chest, “Tango,” he reminded.

Tango looked hurt for a second, “ouch Major. Fine, I wanted to ask you to join me,” he said.

Scott burst out laughing, to which Tango scolded him and shook him by the shoulders. That shut him up, it also earned Tango a slap.

“Don’t touch me,” Scott ordered.

Tango put his hands up, “no touching here! But be quiet. I brought you over here alone for a reason,” he pointed out.

Scott glanced at his allies. Blissfully unaware of the possible treason he may have been about to commit.

“Nobody knows this yet,” Tango whispered, “but I’m spying on the Red Army,” he said.

“What?” Scott asked rhetorically.

“Yeah, I have a plan. It involves you,” Tango responded.

Scott paused to consider if he was really about to entertain whatever was about to come out of Tango’s mouth.

“How do I know you’re not just trying to get close to me and then kill me on behalf of him,” Scott pointed at Ren, who was rolling his eyes at Scar and animatedly conversing with him about something Scott forgot about a long time ago.

“You remember the cow farm right?” he said.

“Yes,” Scott nodded suspiciously.

“I let you take my cow, on the promise that you and Jimmy wouldn’t tell anyone,” Tango recited.

“And we didn’t,” Scott said.

“Exactly. I know I can trust you, and I can’t trust them, Etho tried to kill me remember?” Tango pointed at Etho and Ren.

“So I want you to join me. Not the Red Army, me. Impulse is doing the same thing,” he concluded.

“Didn’t Impulse actually kill you?” Scott pointed out.

Tango waved his hand, water under the bridge.

Scott drifted off into contemplation. Everything about joining a coup against the Red Army screamed danger. More than usual. Dogwarts was a force to be reckoned with. They had superior gear, defenses, players, and alliances. Maybe Scott could cheap shot Martyn and Skizzle, but he could not promise that same luck against Etho or anyone else for that matter. The thought of even trying made his stomach turn.

And then there was Jimmy. If their plan didn’t work, what would happen to Jimmy? The Crastle? Or the Red Desert for that matter? The target on their backs was large enough. Scott had to take a step back. Since when did he get himself involved in a war?

Since he started defending himself, his mind provided.

Since he started standing up for his own freedom. For their freedom.

“Okay,” Scott said.

“Really? You’re in?” Tango’s eyes lit up, his joy was a bit loud for Scott’s new predilection for secrecy.

“Shh!” Scott put a finger in front of his face, “that’s not what I said…” he averted his eyes.

“I want to, believe me, I do,” he said, “but I can’t.”

Tango’s smile faded instantly, his red eyes grew disappointed, “Why not?” he seemed hurt.

“I have too much to lose. I can’t risk this,” Scott held the charm of his necklace up, it’s gemstone still shimmered bright green.

“Scott, I admire your devotion, I really do; but this is a bit bigger than that,” Tango said.

Scott’s expression fell into shock and reproach.

That seemed like enough of an answer for Tango, who backtracked as he realized he’d struck a nerve.

“I mean!” he corrected, “I mean nothing will happen to Jimmy. Cross my heart, he will be under the Red Resistance’s finest protection,” Tango stood up straight and crossed his heart.

Scott decided that was satisfactory. He made a face that said the opposite though, just to make sure Tango’s pride wasn’t too uplifted.

“Fine. I’ll join you Tango, but if I get even the slightest inclination of funny business, I’m out,” Scott cautioned, but he agreed.

“Terms and Conditions, I get it. The Red Resistance will not indenture any of its members,” Tango responded with a gleeful grin.

“You guys and your red themed names,” Scott teased, but held his hand out. They ought to make it official before everyone stopped snoring.

Tango shook it enthusiastically. The two called it done and Scott returned to his side, and Tango returned to the Red Army.

*****

Scott traveled back home that day. No fighting had taken place, although Scar had decidedly talked himself into a hole and ended up giving Ren access to any sand Dogwarts and their affiliates needed for the next week. It was no skin off Scott’s back, he didn’t care. Not his sand.

Wearing so much armor and standing in place for two hours gets on ones nerves. Taking off his heavy diamond chestplate felt like enough liberation for the day. He expected to hear from Tango or Impulse at some point, preferably soon.

Jimmy asked him how the meeting went when he returned, holding out a cup of coffee.

Unsure of whether or not to tell the truth, Scott lied, he said nothing happened and made fun of Scar for running his mouth so much. He said he was tired.

*****

“Scott? That you?” Tango’s voice came through a small door in his abandoned cow farm. It wasn’t needed anymore.

Scott pointed his torch towards the voice, illuminating a door, which Tango had crafted into the side of the underground farm.

“Yes it’s me. Why’s it so dark in here?” he asked.

“I don’t want people to know I’m still using this place, that’s why,” Tango motioned for Scott to come to him.

Tango silently listened for any sign that Scott had been followed, then pushed a stone slab in front of the hidden door with a silent thud.

On the other side of the door was a short hallway, then a very small room with some pillows on the floor and a table. A map of the server that included all the structures and members was pinned up on the wall. There was also a well loved notebook on the table.

“Where’s Impulse?” Scott asked, sitting down on one of the pillows.

“Ren needed him for something, he’ll probably be here next time,” Tango explained. He sat down and lit a candle to make more light.

“I thought we would start by going over the basics today,” Tango picked up the notebook and flipped through some of the pages absently.

Scott looked away and then back, “okay, shoot,” he said.

The “plan” centered around infiltrating the Red Army, convincing them (mainly Ren) that Scott had decided to switch sides. Then, him, Tango, and Impulse would eventually build their trust. Somewhere in there they would convince the Red Army to stop messing with people and come to an agreement with the rest of the server. Something about working together instead of against each other.

“We still have to work some stuff out,” Tango concluded with confidence.

“That’s the plan? You really think this’ll work?” Scott crossed his arms.

“If you can insult Scar convincingly enough, yes,” Tango said.

“Oh this’ll be easy!” Scott laughed, mostly to cover up his nerves.

Tango chuckled with him, then became serious once more, “I’m glad you have a sense of humor going into this. Even after what they did to you,” Tango said.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” he apologized.

Scott’s hands stung a bit in response, but he nodded a silent “thanks”.

They were quiet. Scott nervously fiddled with the hem of his coat, lost in thought, mostly regret.

Impulse did show up the next time. He arrived just after Scott did. Everyone sat awkwardly in the little room for a while and Scott was wrapped in nostalgia for a similar time. A time where the only threat was an obscene number of phantoms.

Over the course of their meetings, Scott observed his teammates and their actions. A far cry from who they used to be, including him. Scott’s hair had grown past his ears and turned purple at the tips, and he’d become rather paranoid about always wearing armor.

Tango spent much of their interactions lost in thought. The ghost of whatever was eating at him weighed visibly on his shoulders in the way his head was always bowed in a perpetual staring contest with the ground. He was irritable.

Impulse was a wild card to Scott, they’d never really met before; but it was clear he’d been changed as well. Illustrated by his long “mining” trips, which he only returned from to attend their weekly meetups with no resources to show for it, and a general aura of depression.

His mind was drawn back to the picture Cleo had taken of almost all his server-mates, together in front of the Vibe Machine. He’d studied everyone’s faces countless times. Mostly wondering where everything had gone wrong.

Had they ever truly been friends in the first place? Or was camaraderie a comfort when everyone else was just as weak as one another.

[quickspinner]

Damsel in Distress for Hire

I wrote this for the @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers sprint challenge ages ago, but life happened and I never got it edited and cleaned up. Now I have, so here it is! I used the @mlweeklyprompts prompt Bard. 

Luka reined in Sass before the gelding could clear the shadows of the trees, and eyed the keep tower with some satisfaction. It stood alone on a hill, with ground cleared around it and a wall around the courtyard, and only a single tower rising out of the fortifications. It looked like their information had been good, then. Their opponent didn’t have a large force, hence their underhanded approach. They were depending on the seclusion of this place to keep them safe, and not strength of arms. That made him breathe a sigh of relief. He of all people knew how much harm misinformation could do, and though he had done everything in his power to be sure of his information, there always was that worry in the back of his mind. 

Luka urged Sass forward at a walk. 

“Hail and well met!” he called cheerfully, waving. “I am but a single traveler, of no threat to you!” He dismounted from Sass and spread his arms wide, hands far from the rapier hanging at his side. The guards exchanged a look, but didn’t move. 

“I am a minstrel on my way from the capital to cities in the south,” Luka said, with a little bow that still kept his hands well clear of his weapon. “I’ve been travelling all night to get through these woods, and as I’ve stumbled on you here, I was hoping I could perhaps share your fire and the protection your company would afford me from the local dregs so that I may take a short rest in peace? I have some goods of my own that are better shared, if you would be so kind to allow me to sup with you.” He leaned over and reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a large bottle that glinted appealingly in the sunlight.

The guardsmen exchanged grins with each other, and invited him at once to come and share their watch, on the condition that he give them all the news he had and play a little for their entertainment. 

“Shall I not be detaining you from your duties?” Luka asked, glancing up at the Keep as he tethered Sass. “I’ve no wish to get you in trouble, nor be chased away for causing undue distraction.” He winked at the guards, who chuckled. 

“It’s light duty today,” one of them said easily, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Any force large enough to breach it will be seen from the tower long before we spy it from here, and nothing here to tempt anyone except a fine lady who barely even had any baggage. Come and give us the news!” 

It was amazing, Luka reflected to himself as he sat down, opening the bottle and pouring generous measures into the cups they they held out for him, what you could get away with when you carried a lute and some good wine.

“Aye, she was a nice one to look at though,” the second guard observed with a sigh. “I was on duty when they escorted her in this morning. A highborn lady, that, worth her weight I’m sure. Not that the higher ups tell us much.” His companion elbowed him and gave him a dark look, before turning back to waggle bushy eyebrows at Luka. 

“Ye seen many pretty ladies?” he asked, and a smile twitched at Luka’s mouth at the obvious attempt to deflect the conversation. “Bet ye have, a court songbird like you.” 

“Oh, many,” Luka agreed, hiding his distaste at the epithet. Court songbird, indeed. “Duchesses and princesses and high court ladies of every kind, but there is only one lady that holds my heart, no matter how much my eyes may wander.” He winked and the two men guffawed. Luka disguised a roll of his eyes with another deep drink from his cup. He’d been around this type enough to know what kind of humor they enjoyed. Luka turned his eyes up in the direction of the keep, hiding his scrutiny behind a dreamy expression. 

“My lady is as lovely as any princess I’ve ever seen,” Luka continued. “Clumsy, sometimes, but all the more joy in catching her, ey?” Another round of laughter. “She has beautiful dark hair, and the sweetest, most beguiling eyes you’ve ever seen, and her mouth was carved by the gods.” He sighed longingly. “And I’ve been apart from her much too long. I’m on my way back to her now, and I appreciate you sharing your fire with a lonely minstrel.” 

“There, there,” the taller man said, not without genuine sympathy, and patted Luka’s shoulder roughly. “Ye’ll be with her again soon, no doubt.” 

Luka looked toward the Keep gates and smiled as shouts began to rise in the courtyard. “I do believe you’re right,” he said, finishing the last of his cup. “It’s been a pleasure, gentlemen, but my lady awaits. I leave you this medicinal powder and my sincerest apologies for the headache you’re going to have in the mornings.” 

He set a small pouch on the ground, where it would be in plain sight of the men who had just slumped to the ground, unconscious. 

Luka tsked as he picked up their empty cups and examined the residue at the bottom. “More than enough to keep them out most of the day,” he murmured with satisfaction. He leaned back against his pack and waited.

Eventually, the heavy keep doors swung open, and a petite figure in a lovely velvet red dress came striding out. Luka couldn’t help his smile, or the sigh of relief and longing that passed his lips. 

She caught sight of him and scowled, completely ignoring the passed out guards that lay on the ground. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. 

“Well met, to you as well, Marinette,” Luka laughed. His roguish smile made a mockery of his courtly bow. 

“Why are you here?” she asked again, crossing her arms. “You were supposed to wait in the capital.”

“I am no court bard, to find inspiration in perfume and flattery and empty love affairs,” Luka sniffed affectedly. “I am a seeker of adventure, and I follow my heart.”

“You dog my heels,” Marinette accused, reaching down to pull out the hidden ribbon she had worked into her gown. The dress split on the sides, and Marinette straightened, rolling the ribbon carefully around her fingers even as she glared at him. “Admit it.”

“Admit that you have my heart? Gladly.” Luka swept a bow, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Don’t flatter me,” she snorted. “You’re not any good at it.” 

“Shall I compliment you instead?” Luka asked pointedly, and Marinette blushed, looking away. His compliments were always far worse than his flattery, because he meant them. 

“Don’t change the subject. You were worried about me,” she accused, waving a dagger like an admonitionary finger. “I can handle myself.” 

“You can handle yourself, and me as well,” Luka grinned, and then softened his tone, dropping his courtly pretense. “But I’m always worried about you. That proves nothing except that I care about you.” He held up a furled parchment between them. “However, this is actually why I’m here. I also bring Lady Kagami’s thanks and her appreciation for your very convincing performance of a helpless highborn princess being carried off, although she feels it wasn’t a very accurate imitation of her.” 

Marinette snorted. “Kagami could have easily handled these idiots herself if her mother wasn’t such a stick in the mud. It probably would have been more entertaining for everyone if they had managed to kidnap her.” She sheathed her dagger and took the parchment, unrolling it as she added, “I hope she sent her payment as well as her thanks.” Her lips pursed as she read, and then pushed out in a pout as she looked up at him. “Okay. That’s a good reason.” 

“No point in riding all the way back just to traverse the exact same route again,” Luka agreed. “And since I was coming all this way, why not meet you at the door? I’ve stashed our supplies in a nice little campsite far enough away from this mess,” he gestured at the tower. “We can spend the night and set out in the morning.”

“We?” Marinette asked, eyebrows raising. Luka shrugged.

“I’ve no mind to let you get that far away from me for that long,” he told her, only half joking. “I’m sure there’s a noble house somewhere in the city looking for entertainment, and if not—” Luka shrugged. “Then there’s certain to be a tavern."

Marinette grimaced. “I don’t like it when you play taverns,” she muttered. “You’re far too good for that.”

“We take the pay where it comes,” Luka reminded her, plucking the parchment from her hand and tucking it back in his saddlebag.

“It doesn’t have to come with tavern wenches hanging all over you,” Marinette complained. 

Luka barked a laugh. “The noble ladies are just as bad, only more subtle,” he chuckled, mounting his horse. He extended a hand down to Marinette. “Shall we? I’m sure Tikki’s getting hungry.”  

Marinette looked up at his tall gelding and sighed. “I can get up myself,” she muttered, but she let Luka grip her wrist to give her a little extra boost. She landed across Sass on her belly with a small grunt, and then scrambled into place behind Luka. She could see the curve of his smile just before he faced forward. 

“I’m glad you’re coming with me,” she murmured into his shoulder blades. “And I’ll gut anyone who touches you.”

“My thanks, my gallant lady protector,” Luka said, patting the hands clasped around his waist. “I need fear nothing as long as you are with me, except the hour of parting.”

Marinette huffed, her breath tickling his neck. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Luka looked over his shoulder and winked. “If my heart grew much fonder of you, you would never be rid of me.” 

Marinette was silent for a moment, and then said, “Maybe I don’t want to be.” She said it very quietly, and held her breath after. Luka’s big hand covered hers again, his thumb caressing the back.

“Then maybe you should say yes the next time I propose,” came the teasing answer, and Marinette’s mouth dropped in outrage. 

“You propose every time we pass a church!” she scoffed. 

“Yes,” Luka agreed shamelessly. “How many churches do you think there are between here and the Jewel of the Southern Wastes ?” 

“Not enough to convince me to marry you,” Marinette shot back. “I like the way things are.” 

"As do I," Luka chuckled.

Marinette sniffed. "I knew you weren't serious."

"Of course I am. I will wed you the moment you say the word. But if you are content, then so am I."

"You're infuriating, you know that?" Marinette huffed. 

“There, there,” Luka laughed, patting her hand before putting his own back on the reins. “We’ve a long way to go to get there, and through some pretty sketchy territory. Maybe if you’re really lucky, we’ll get robbed.”

“You think?” Marinette perked up. “Bandits?”

“Possibly even ruffians ,” Luka teased, and laughed when she smacked his shoulder. 

“Ruffians are always broke,” Marinette complained. “I want bandits. I’m going to have to buy new dresses when we get there, I can’t wear dresses from the Northern court in the South. I’d look ridiculous.” Her eyes widened slightly. “Luka, what did you do with my dresses? You didn’t pack them yourself, did you? They’re much too delicate—”

“I had them professionally packed and sealed and sent to Lady Alya for safekeeping,” Luka reassured her. “I would never dare let harm come to your wardrobe.” 

Marinette slumped in relief. “Oh, good.” After a moment she added, “Thank you.”

Luka lifted one of her hands from his waist and kissed the palm softly. 

[claudiarya]

Hey guys, I’ve written a post RoW fanfiction. I warn you that it has a death trope in it, so beware.

You can also read it on Ao3 as well. 

Count words: 5990

Hope Suite

They didn’t know the moment when it all went wrong. Had it been when Kaz had accepted the job? Had it been when Inej had left Pekka Rollins alive, or when they had kept going despite all the adversities, they had encountered? The events of the last days were starting to become a blurring reel, that had done nothing but confuse them. What had started as a fairly easy job for the queen of Ravka, it then had turned out to be a major standoff with their enemies, which was putting not just one country, but the whole world as they knew it in peril. Maybe it had all gone downhill when Jarl Brum had managed to escape his prison cell at Hellgate, aided by one of his most trusted Drüskelle, his mind already too corrupted by the former General’s manipulations.

By the time he had been set free again, and had sought revenge against his detested neighbors, specifically against the witch queen and her monstrous husband, Inej, Kaz and his crew had already been too involved with their task to worry about it. How could they have known that once out, Brum was going to use everything in his power to bend Ravka? The Fjerdan man was aware that he couldn’t compete with its ruler, so he had worked out a different strategy entirely: if he couldn’t hope to win in a direct confrontation, he was going to annihilate her and her subjects from within, even if it would cost the destruction of his own country and more…

They didn’t know how Brum had gotten the information, but he had travelled to the mountains and had somehow liberated a certain shadow summoner from his sacrifice of eternal of pain, well before Zoya could do as she had planned. The shadow summoner in question had disappeared without a trace, only the Saints knew where he could have gone to hide away.

Needless to say, the darkness and its vampiric actions had started to spread again, at twice the speed. It looked like a ravenous beast had been set lose. It had extended in other countries as well, a silent and unannounced menace ravishing everything in its wake, that terrified even sailors at sea. If that wasn’t enough, Brum had also found out about Dirtyhand’s ‘involvement’ with the queen, and had made an ally with an ex Barrel boss, who had lost all his fortunes and power to a teenage crippled kid. Two powerful and dangerous men driven by their thirst for revenge had revealed themselves to be even more unstoppable than any of them had originally believed.

***

Inej remembered when Kaz had asked her to take a short leave from her sea voyages, to run one last time with him and the other crows in this task in which her skills at gathering information were going to be fundamental. Jesper had, of course, already accepted his friend’s proposition, and if at first Wylan had been skeptical, he had ended up joining the crew for the job. Perhaps for his natural instinct to follow wherever the gangly sharpshooter went, or maybe for the fact that he had made friends with the King consort, their shared love for science and ‘infernal gadgets’, as Kaz would call them, a fertile ground for common understanding.

“I won’t force you to do anything,” he had rasped to her while sitting on the roof ledge at the Slat to watch the tepid Ketterdam sun slowly blinking into existence in front of them; their intertwined fingers a testimony of how far they had already conquered together. The only thing that hadn’t won yet was their insomnia.

“Your particular set of skills is needed for this job, but I understand if you don’t want to be dragged into this,” Kaz had continued, and she had known he had slightly turned his head in her direction, as she had kept her eyes on the dawn.

After a while and still no answer from her he had sighed.

“Inej, what I’m trying to say is that we need you. I need you. I don’t think I can do this without you, so please tell me now, so I can send back a definite answer to Her Royal Pain.”

The Suli girl had marveled at his words: she didn’t think she had ever heard Kaz admit out loud that he couldn’t do something without the help of someone else.

“I’ll do it,” she had exclaimed, now turning her gaze on his stone-carved features. “But on one condition: I want Queen Zoya to help me fight against the slave trade in Ravka, and I want her to promise me that human traffickers are going to find the justice they deserve in her country.”

Kaz had squeezed her hand, the look in his eyes an oath to himself as well as to her.

***

Inej clutched her hand on her injured arm. She could feel the blood on her palm, as she watched Kaz keeping at cane point the last of the men who had tried to kill them. Their lead for the relic of Santk Feliks’s heart had taken them here, in an obscure abandoned, or so they thought, monastery on the Ravkan coast, right on the border with Fjerda. They had found out that centuries before, the order of religious men inhabiting the place had been the resting place of the only remaining part of the Saint. An easy reconnaissance job, an easy trail to follow. But ever since the spreading of the blight, of the Kilyklava, nothing had been easy.  It was as if for every movement they made, their enemies were ten steps ahead of them. Inej had never seen anyone outsmart Kaz like that. Usually, he was the one who had everything under control, who could predict every outturn, every maneuver his opponents were going to make. But instead, everywhere they had attempted to gather information, they had encountered a setup of sorts: mainly the place they had intended to scout, burnt to the ground. Had they a spying traitor in their mix? Inej had never seen him more on edge than she had in the last month, but now they had passed the pretense of this being another job. It had stopped being that when the world hab been threatened by an unstoppable force and Pekka Rollins had entered the picture. It was personal. And she suspected that he was also trying to keep true to the promise he had made her.

Inej had thought they had planned this out so carefully, she was sure they would not encounter any unpleasant surprise this time. After the too many (not) coincidences, they had started scheming their way for the hunt of the heart with only the four of them and Nikolai and Zoya, who had had to, although begrudgingly, leave out the Triumvirate and their closest friends from this particular matter of international importance. How was it possible then, that their traces had been tracked even here?  Kaz and Inej had offered for the job, a quick break in into the abandoned archives of the monastery, while Nikolai, Jesper and Wylan would wait for them on the Volkvolny to pick them up and leave after they had completed their task. Perhaps a smaller party was going to attract less attentions, their rouse of a devoted young group of people had served them well in the little town around the old holy building, and they had played their parts too well that Inej had forgotten for an instant that they had a bigger goal in mind. She was never going to forget the easy talk, the laughs they had shared around the table of the little tavern they had resided in, her hand clasped together with Kaz as a sort of lifeline for the both of them; her head resting delicately on his chest as they were lying down on the little bed they shared.

The four men that have been sent to kill them had caught them by surprise. Again.

Kaz had just uttered “We’ve got what we need, let’s go,” when the first thug that had tried to sneak up on him. Inej had made a quick work of the assassins, if her knives embedded in two of the men’s throats were of any indication. Despite that, one of the others had managed to graze her arm with a bullet, when she had momentarily lost her focus because the remaining one had kicked Kaz’s bad leg, eliciting a sound of pain from him. If only Jesper and Wylan had been there with them.

As she hobbled to where he was standing, Inej realized that Kaz was shaking from the effort of not to keel over in pain, his hand gripping the crow’s head of his cane so tightly, she feared he was going to snap it in half.

“Kaz...” she started

“You’re bleeding,” he rasped, diverting his gaze from the man to her, for the briefest of moments.

“It’s nothing,” she said. But she could see that he wasn’t really convinced, and with a soft grunt, he fished from his pocket a handkerchief and handed it to her, before asking to the person on the ground.

“How did you know we would be here?” his eyes two unforgiving coals.

The hired assassin didn’t answer at first but gave away in a little chuckle instead. Suddenly Kaz, still balancing his weight mostly on his good leg, brought down his cane on one of the man’s own legs. His scream of pain echoed around them in the old room.

“It doesn’t feel good, does it?” he said. This was Dirtyhands himself, any trace of the young man he had been with her at the tavern, vaporized.

“Now, tell me how you knew we were here, or I’m going to break every bone you have, and we both know how pleasant that is.”

The man chuckled again, but then he started talking.

“At times one shouldn’t look for spiders,” he said with a sickening grin. “At times, it’s the little insects nobody sees or cares to check because they’re believed to be harmless that tip the scales.”

Inej could see Kaz’s mind trying to figure out the man’s words, his gaze distant.

In that moment she realized that she was never going to tire to see that look on his face. Nor any other looks for that matter. Wobbly, the boy in question turned to her, he took the kerchief she had been pressing on her wound from her hand, and before she could realize what he was doing he tore it a bit and tied it around her bloody arm.

“Let’s get out of here,” he stated, wincing visibly as he made to move towards the door.

The man started laughing again as if Kaz had said something so funny he couldn’t control himself. Inej was on him before she could think. A knee on the thug’s sternum and her blade pressed to his throat.

“What’s so funny?” she inquired, looking down at him with disdain. She was tired, and she wanted to bring Kaz back to the Volkvolny, to get his leg looked properly after.

“In the end, you really are nothing but two delusional kids,” the man said, and Inej could feel his voice reverberate from under her knee.

“Stop speaking in riddles, or I swear to all the Saints known I’ll cut your throat right this second.”

He raised one hand in a gesture of mocking surrender. “Let’s just say that nobody is leaving this place alive,” he conceded.

“What do you mean?” asked Kaz from somewhere behind her, his tone menacing yet on guard. The tip of Inej’s knife scraped the man’s throat when he didn’t immediately answer back, two droplets of blood slid down the blade.

“This place and the whole town are about to be razed down by bombs and cannons. General Brum’s ships are approaching. They wanted to make sure our precious king consort and his flying machine didn’t leave this place unscathed. There’s no escaping your tragic fate now.” He snarled. His voice couldn’t conceal the hate he had for Nikolai, so he must have been one of those Ravkans from the West, unhappy with who was ruling over them now.

“No,” Inej said softly, and shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re lying!”

The man’s eyes lit with a manic light. “The world shall end in flames and darkness before being ruled by Gri –” He never finished his sentence, as Kaz brought down his cane once again, this time on his head.

The silence that followed could have lasted a minute or an eternity, Inej couldn’t be sure.

“Kaz,” she started again while standing.

“You need to leave. Now. I can’t walk, I think my leg is broken, but you need to leave me here and run from this place.” Kaz said, turning to look at her, the desperation palpable in his voice

“I’m not leaving,” she approached him. “We need to warn Nikolai. Tell them all to leave.”  

“Inej – ”

“Either pick up the comm and call them, or give it to me, Kaz. We’re only losing time like this.”  Her tone was unmovable.

Without any more protests on his part, he took out the little ingenious device Wylan and Nikolai had come up with. It permitted them to communicate even from quite long distances.

“Crow 1 and 2 to Too Clever Fox, do you copy?”

For the briefest of instants only there was only the sound of static, but then.

“Too Clever Fox here, I copy you. Kaz? What’s going on?” came the king’s voice.

“Nikolai, listen to me: you have to leave. Now. Get the Volkvolny and depart. This monastery, this town is about to be razed down by bombs. They knew we would be here; Brum’s ships are approaching. You – ”

“We’re coming to get you,” Nikolai interrupted him.

“No, there’s no time for that. You have to leave here now, or it will all be for nothing.” He looked at Inej then, his eyes searching hers in the dim light of the room with evident resignation.

“No! Kaz, Inej, no, we’re coming and we’re all surviving this.” Another protest from a different voice, Jesper’s.

“No! You have to listen and be quiet. I know where the thing we’ve looked for is. It’s hidden somewhere under the little place you train your soldiers. I also know how they’ve been able to predict our every move. Bugs. Check the war room for devices of the sort we’re using right now.”

“I will,” was Nikolai’s response.

There was another brief pause of static, Kaz spoke again, before he could be interrupted

“Jesper, Wylan,” he said. “The Crow Club and everything else is yours and Nina’s. You’ll find all the documents in my office back at the Slat. Do with them whatever you think it’s right.”

“Kaz, please we still have time, we can come and get you.” It was Wylan’s voice now that came from the other side.

Inej got closer and circled the hand in which Kaz was gripping the device with her own. “Wylan, you have to leave. Right now, ring the alarm bell of the town and go.” She started and then said:

“Guys… find my parents, tell them – tell them what happened, and that it was all for something better. We love you.”

Another anguished call for their names echoed around the room they were standing.

Inej took a breath a finished what she meant to say. “Nikolai the Wraith… take good care of her, and don’t forget our promise.  When you see Nina and Zoya tell them – ”

She couldn’t finish the sentence the threat of tears pricking her eyes. Luckily the privateer answered back.

“I’ll tell them, and I promise everything we did by far will not be in vain. Thank you, my friends. We will never forget what you did for Ravka and for all of us.”

Kaz and Inej could also hear the subtle sounds of distress of their friends, their family. She realized in that moment how much all of them meant to her. Funny how life had a tendency to remind you how deeply you loved someone when you’re about to lose everything.

Kaz brought the device back on his lips and in a clear voice said: “No mourners…” and before they could hear an answer coming from the other side, he had already thrown on the ground the device and smashed it with the tip of his cane.

The movement made so that he lost his balance. He would have crashed on the ground if Inej hadn’t been there to prevent the fall. She brought his arm over and shoulder and steadied him.

Kaz looked at her intently, his face turned in her direction, his eyes scanning her features and she knew what he was about to tell her even before he spoke the words.

“Inej, you can still make it, you’re fast, you have to run and save yourself.”

“I knew you were going to say this, but if you think that I could ever leave you behind you’re sorely mistaken.”

He did not relent, and as stubbornly as ever he removed his arm from around her shoulder, he gripped his cane with all his might so as not to fall again and faced her.

“Inej, please. Run now. Live. You have so much you still have to give to this wretched world.” Kaz Brekker never said please, never. Yet here he was, a broken boy standing in front of the girl he had grown to love.

“I can’t do that,” Inej simply replied while shaking her head in denial.

“It was all my fault, and you can’t pay my foolishness with your life, I won’t allow it. It’s not worth it. I’m not worth it.”

She took the short distance separating them and put her hand atop his on his cane.

“None of this was your fault, you have to get that straight. We’ve done something good, we helped our friends, our countries. And you’ll always be worth it to me.”

At her words she felt his breath hitch, but still his eyes held behind them a strange resolution.

“I can’t be the reason why you die here today, why can’t you understand that?” Kaz’s voice cracked, perhaps with the effort of holding back his desperation. Inej brought her free hand up and gently cupped his face with her palm. Her thumb grazed his cheek in a loving gesture.

“I’m not afraid to die, Kaz. But I’m terrified at the idea of a life without you in it. So, no. I’m not leaving, not now, not ever.”

***

As they stumbled outside the musty room of the monastery, Kaz with an arm draped around Inej’s shoulder for support, the Autumnal sun had started its descent. The soft orange and purple hues of the rays reflected on the sea surface, and the waves created a gentle melody. Inej couldn’t help but think that this was the Saints’ way to lead them onto their next job, their next adventure…

They dragged their feet until they were near the shore and lowered themselves down. For a moment that felt like an eternity, they gazed to the horizon, the sheer but peaceful resignation palpable in the air.

When Kaz clasped her hand and looked at her, she remembered a conversation she had overhead between the boy and Zoya.

They had adjourned their meeting after having gone over their plan again, everyone had stepped out of the room except for Kaz and Zoya, who had prevented him from exiting with a question. Curious as to why he hadn’t joined her outside, she had stayed behind the closed door, waiting in the long corridor. She had known that Kaz, and probably the queen too, were aware that she was there, but she hadn’t cared much.

“Just out of curiosity, why are you doing this Mr. Kerch rat?” she had asked, her voice reverberating even outside.

“I thought it was pretty obvious, Your Highness. It’s for the reward.” He had replied in that wry tone of his that she knew drove Zoya crazy.

“Oh, but I don’t think it’s just that.” Even without having been inside, Inej could picture the other woman taking one of the positions she had learned the queen preferred. Arms crossed and a frowned expression to better look down on him. In the crows’ time at the palace, the two Suli women had formed an easy and quiet friendship. The captain of the Wraith had helped her queen to reacquaint herself with her Suli heritage and Inej had even told Zoya that once the situation was over, she was going to bring her to her family caravans, to spend some time amongst their people. They had become sisters at heart and by blood.

“Enlighten me with your glorious knowledge then.”

Kaz had always liked playing with fire, but he was always walking a fine line with the sovereign of Ravka. Perhaps he wanted to see how much she could take before she decided to strike him out of existence on the spot.

“When you saw that this was getting dangerous, that it wasn’t going to be an easy job, you could have easily dropped everything and return to Ketterdam with you crew. Why didn’t you? Why stay when you knew the risks?”

Inej had heard genuine interest in Zoya’s voice that didn’t bore any resentment.

“I don’t know what you want me to answer.”

“Try with the truth, I know it’s hard for you, but indulge me. I know you’re not doing this just for yourself and your own benefit, as shockingly as it may seem. You’re still here for Inej, for the promise we had sworn to keep.” The queen had said as if she had found out the deepest secret of the man standing before her.

“Let me get this straight,” he had rasped. “I’ll always do what’s best for me, but I’m also a man of my word and I made a promise.”

There had been a few seconds of absolute silence, in which probably Zoya had studied him with those piercing blue eyes of hers.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but under certain aspects we’re not that different you and I. Your prickly behavior can only last so long, Kaz, but eventually you’ll have to let go. I’ve learned that even the thickest thorns have their purposes.”  The queen had said with a wisdom that at times made Inej wondered how many lives the queen had already lived.

“Ah, but here’s where your wrong, Your Excellency. In this scenario you’re comparing me to thorn wood, while actually I’m just barren land on which nothing grows.”

His lapidary answer would have been enough to render speechless anyone, but not Zoya the Grisha queen of Ravka. In her spectacular talent at having always the last word she told him: “You’ll realize that you can’t keep up this cold demeanor forever. I just hope it won’t be too late when you do.”

***

Inej squeezed Kaz’s hand tighter and looked him straight in his brown eyes, a shade lighter in the orange sun. From a distance they heard the sound of bells. Their friends had managed to give the alarm, she only hoped they were already on their way back to the palace. The tolls were shortly followed by another sound: propellers guiding the Fjerdan ships to face the town and the monastery. With a small smile grazing her feature she told him said.

“You were wrong. You were wrong that time when you spoke with Zoya.” If at the beginning of her sentence he had seemed confused, now she could see he understood what conversation she meant.

“You’re not just barren land, Kaz. You managed to build something from nothing, you survived all those terrible things in your life and in the process, you managed to grow, to thrive, to do something good for Ravka and your friends. I’m sure your brother would be proud of you. I know I am.”  He didn’t reply.

The rumbling of the aircrafts was almost cacophonic, in contrast to the peace they had basked in not a few minutes ago. Despite that, it was as if the two of them had been placed in a protective bubble of their own, in which not even those machines of war could destroy.

Perhaps it was the lightening, but Inej swore those were unshed tears glinting in Kaz’s eyes. In all the years she had known him, she had never even seen him get emotional or choked up about something, but here, now, on this shore with her, Dirtyhands was doing just that.

“I’ve never wanted for it to end like this – his shoulders shook as he held back a sob – for us, to end like this. Inej, believe me when I tell you that if I could go back, I would do so many things differently. If I could go back, I would start to show you how much I admire you, how much I love you so much earlier than I did.”

Inej’s hand found his face again. The tip of her fingers skimmed his lips in such a tender gesture that they parted under her touch.

“There’s no need for that, Kaz, I already know. And it doesn’t matter how early or late you started. You show me you love me every day.” Her limb continued on her exploration: she touched his brow, his eyes, his cheekbones. “I propose a deal: I’ll find you in the next life Kaz Rietveld, and even there I’ll be waiting for you perched on your windowsill feeding the crows.”

Still looking at her straight in the eye, he let go of her hand, removed his gloves discarding them on the sand and rubbed her disheveled braid between two trembling fingers.

“The deal is the deal. I’ll find you there then.”

The rumble of the ship cannons had reached a deafening peak as their beams struck mercilessly on the monastery in an unescapable trap of fire.

Before the very end, the two held themselves up on trembling knees and embraced the other. A small smile of resigned happiness on both of their faces.

“Stay with me,” Kaz whispered, and unlike another and far time her answer was clear.

“Always.” Inej swore.

Saints protect us both, was the last thing she thought.

And then there was nothing but searing light.

***

In Os Alta the feast on Sankt Nikolai was fast approaching, but even if she was the queen Zoya didn’t feel much festive. The white, still landscape of her country at this time of the year was an accurate representation of what she had been feeling ever since they had managed to find the heart of Sankt Feliks, save Ravka from the plague and its enemies with another peace treaty and bring the Darkling – or Aleksander as he insisted to be called – back to the little palace where they could control him. She knew they were taking a risk, but it was safer to have him closer than not knowing where he was. It had been a hard decision, but she wasn’t going to murder him in cold blood, she was not going to turn into a monster, as he had in his lust for power. In his loneliness.  

When everything had come back to a pseudo- normality, when she had had time to think and just be, it was then that everything she had been holding back for the sake of her country hit her with tenfold the force.

Zoya had understood that keeping emotions bottled inside you, was going to eat you alive in the longer run. It was something she was learning every day, and that she was willing to change, if only a bit. She had started letting go in the small gestures of affection she shared with Genya, in the loving words she had with Nikolai, in the playful banters she occasionally allowed herself to have with the rest of her friends. Her family.

And so, as the Grisha queen strode towards her garden, the winter sun barely a strip on the horizon of a new morning, she couldn’t help the tears that fell down in two cold streaks down her face. Zoya brought an arm up to dry them, the sensation of the thick wool of her winter kefta both prickly and a reassurance.

She opened the door of the little corner of her world. Nobody entered this sanctuary except for Nikolai, since she hadn’t allowed anybody else to see her soul from that close. The structure her king had built for her always managed to leave her speechless. The glass and iron were combined in perfect harmony, and when Zoya worked in it by day, the sun would cast and create a series of little mesmerizing rainbows. However, what would always speak to her were the walls, painted by Alina. The roaring dragon flying, the little fox, the ship resembling the Volkvolny mastering the sea, the colors and symbols of the Grisha orders were her most trusted companions during the solitary hours of her gardening.

It was there where Nikolai found her, tending to her plants and flowers. She heard him enter her safe haven, and she supposed he had come out to her when he had awoken and hadn’t seen her resting beside him.  He approached her and kneeled beside where she was on the ground, a rather small pot between her hands. Nikolai knew that when she was working here like this, he would have had to let go of his privateer side, and just be the man she had fallen in love with and married. In short, he needed to be her anchor.

“Those are nice flowers,” he said, pointing to the little thing with red petals. A genuine interest coloring his voice.

“They’re wild geraniums.” Was Zoya’s noncommittal answer. Her eyes hadn’t looked up at him.

“And what is that other sprout beside the flowers?” Nikolai prompted her again, indicating the smaller, yet visible plant growing alongside the geraniums. It looked like it was enveloping the geraniums in an embrace, its green leaves a stark, yet so right, contrast with the red of the petals.

This time she raised her gaze, and her blue orbs found a pair of comforting hazel ones staring back at him.

“It’s ivy.” Again, she didn’t let herself go into any sort of explanation.

“I remember you with a vase like this when you left for the Suli caravans.”

So, he had noticed, of course he had. Zoya was always taken aback by the fact that when it came to her, Nikolai was even a closer observant than he already was.  

As soon as everything had settled after the whole ordeal, she had decided that she was going to be the one to bring the news to the Ghafas. Her and only her with no escort and no Nikolai in tow. She had told him that she had to do this particular thing alone, and he had just hugged her and encouraged her to go. It had been a spiritual journey of sorts; one she had promised her other Suli sister they would take together…

“Yes,” she said in a whisper. “They were Inej’s favorite flowers. I brought a pot to her parents when I visited the camps. It was the least I could.” With her hand she showed him other three little vases with the same brightly colored flowers and green little sprout of ivy on the side. “Those are for Nina, Jesper and Wylan. It’s their present for Sankt Nikolai.”  

“Zoya,” he started. She knew they’ve been over this before, and yet she couldn’t seem to let her sense of guilt leave her.

“They knew what they were doing, it was their choice.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t make it any easier, Nikolai. When I met her parents – she shook her head – they treated me like their own. Like I was family. I’ve never felt so accepted, so… seen in my life, except for when I’m with you. And yet I’m part of the reason why their daughter has been taken away from them. They both have been taken away from them.” A small moment of silence, and once again she couldn’t stop the little tear escaping the corner of her eye.

“I just don’t understand how there can be such kindness after so much loss.” Zoya wondered out loud.

“It’s the nature of human beings, and also our strength.” Nikolai said. “Even after losing everything, we find it in ourselves to get back on our feet and fight for something new, something worth all the suffering.” He dragged himself closer to Zoya with his arms and then raised a hand to cup her cheek, gently steering her face in his direction. His thumb brushing away the stray tear marking her face.

“As long as there is life, there is happiness, Zoya. There is hope for a brighter future. And that’s exactly what Kaz and Inej had brought us: hope to build something better from the ashes.” He paused and behind his eyes she could see the same emotions that had been haunting her, testimony of the fact that he too had been grieving his friends.

“Don’t let your sorrow squander the hope they enabled with their sacrifice, because you wouldn’t be honoring their memories in that ways.”

“Oh, Nikolai,” she exhaled before throwing her arms around him with such a force he momentarily lost his balance. “Thank you!”

“Any time, my queen. I’ll always be here.” He promised.

“And besides, you know how much I love when I’m being all smart and wise. I couldn’t let this occasion to show it to you slip by.” He finished with a much brighter tone. Zoya softly chuckled, something she hadn’t thought being capable of mere months ago and told him with fake exasperation.

“Of course, you couldn’t. It’s your modesty I fell for after all.”

They remained in each other’s arms for an indefinite amount of time. The only indication of the time passing was the sun which har finally risen, and now was beating on the glass panels of the garden. Zoya continued tending to her plants, all a part of her in some capacity, as Nikolai watched her in a comforting silence, seated on the ground and with his back against a small tree.

“Why the ivy?” he asked her all of a sudden. His eyes returning once again on the pots near him.

“It can grow even in poor soils and although it requires more time for it to bloom than other plants, when it does its resilience it’s unmatched.” Zoya saw Nikolai nodding in understanding.

“I also found the meaning behind it fitting,” She added.

“What’s the meaning?”

“It symbolizes the constancy of love.”

There was a brief silence in which she saw him taking in the information.

“It is as fitting as it is beautiful,” he said, while he rose to his feet and brought her closer once again, placing a soft kiss on her dark mane.

As they left to go back to the palace, hand in hand, Zoya thought to herself that in life there were people whose souls were connected and strung in ways that couldn’t be explained by logic. She looked at Nikolai walking alongside her and smiled softly to herself, sure she had found the missing piece of her complicated puzzle in the golden boy beside her.

Her gait hadn’t felt this light in months.

In a glass garden, in a country ruled by a powerful Grisha queen with the heart of a dragon, a plant of geraniums and ivy grew stronger by the day, forever entwined in their embrace of constant love for the other.

[anathtsurugi]

So, Star Wars buddies, y’all remember how I wrote that soulmate AU a couple years back...

Well, When You Pry it From My Cold, Dead Chest is finally getting a continuation. The new story will be posted in about a month as part of @kalluzebminibang‘s mini bang event, but the first chapter is available right now on my Patreon. So if you still remember my odd little story, if it touched your life in some way and you’ve maaaaaybe got a few spare dollars lying around for a rainy day, you can hop on over and be one of the first to see the start of the new fic.

But for now, if you haven’t got the spare change but are still excited for the new story, here’s a little sneak peek at the upcoming You Can Take My heart, You Can Take My Breath.

~*~

 Ever since returning from Mandalore, Kanan had been working with him to try and figure out a way to regain his soulmark. Nothing they'd tried had come anywhere close to succeeding. Zeb still possessed amber in his field of vision, and would occasionally report other flashes of color flickering in and out. So it seemed the problem lay not with him, but with Kallus himself.

 These last few days, he had gone out early in the morning to meet with the Jedi, before he had to be on shift and before Kanan would meet up with Ezra for their own regular training. But this was even earlier than he normally woke. He doubted Kanan would even be awake yet. Even so, he would head out, maybe take a little extra time to get into the necessary head space...

 "I know you're not goin' out at this un-Ashla hour," Zeb grumbled from the bunk just as he finished dressing. "Y'should come back to bed."

 Kallus gave a fond sigh as he crossed the few steps back to the bed, dropping to one knee beside it. "I will do no one any good lying here unable to sleep," he said, leaning down to press a kiss to his partner's lips. "Go back to sleep, my love. I'll return in an hour or so."

 "Mm, there's other things we can do if you can't sleep, y'know," Zeb mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

 "Be reasonable, Garazeb," he started with a small laugh. "We can't have sex every time I can't sleep."

 "We could. It's an option. You're just choosing not to."

 Again Alex laughed, placating his lover with one last kiss. "Maybe so, but you at least require sleep, and if you're a good boy and get enough rest, I promise you can kriff me up against the wall when I get back."

 "Promise?" the Lasat grumbled peevishly as he rolled away from him.

 "Promise."

 "Fine. But I'm holdin' you to that. I don't care how late we are for morning shift."

 "Fair enough," Kallus conceded as he got back to his feet.

 "L'ashkerrir an," Zeb mumbled, barely awake.

 Kallus stopped in the doorway at the sound of those words, feeling that same flutter of unbound joy in his heart as he had the very first time Zeb had spoken them. He hoped it never stopped.

 "And I you...my dearest Zeb," he said softly, adoringly, before allowing the door to slide closed behind him.

 Kallus took no weapons with him when he departed the Ghost, despite every instinct he had always begging him to. The very first time they'd gone out into the jungle, Kanan had insisted he wouldn't need any weapons.

 "Are you crazy?" he'd asked, certain the knight hadn't yet been informed about the local fauna. "Do you have any idea what's out there?"

 Kanan had simply given him a shit-eating grin and offered up cryptically, "Only what you take with you."

 Whatever that meant. Still, Kallus had obeyed, and he had not found cause to doubt Kanan yet. This particular morning was no different, if not a touch earlier than even he rose. The sky had barely begun to lighten as he moved through the dense jungle. He'd likely have had trouble finding his way if he didn't already know where he was going. However, much to his surprise, their usual clearing was not deserted when he arrived.

 "Couldn't sleep?" Kanan asked as Kallus stepped into the circle, clearly having been sitting in meditation for some time already. As had been the case on all the mornings prior, he was not wearing his typical mask.

 "I don't know that I've slept properly since Atollon," he admitted, tired of his own stoic front. He had learned quickly that the knight could read him like a holobook. "Though neither, it seems, could you."

 "Call it a hunch," the Jedi said, nodding to indicate he ought to sit down beside him. "Feel up to contemplating your innermost self this fine morning?"

 "As much as one ever is 'up' for such a task," he conceded as he came to sit beside the man he had previously hunted. "Though Zeb did try to argue that it isn't even properly morning yet."

 "And he was right. Unfortunately for those of us with normal biorhythms, the Force says 'jump' when and where it wants to, so we mortals must abide. Let me see your arm," he said, holding out his hand.

 "See, Kanan?" he joked half-heartedly as he rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, resting his forearm in the Jedi's outstretched hand.

 "I can see better than you can right now," Kanan returned in a similar tone, caught somewhere between joking and serious. Exhaling, he brought his other hand up to run his fingers over the skin where the soulmark had once been, and when he winced at whatever it was he was feeling, Kallus was once again grateful not to be able to feel it.

 "Close your eyes," the Jedi told him.

 Kallus did as he was bid, easily quieting the skeptical voice in his mind that had grown smaller and smaller since he'd watched the inquisitor burn away a piece of his soul.

 "Quiet your mind," Kanan coached him.

 Kallus knew the Jedi had not found it easy to convince him to let go of the tight patterns of control Imperial conditioning had worked him into. He still didn't find it easy to just...let go. To give up control of his mind and his thoughts and allow himself to just...be. The closest he came was his state of mind when engaged in a particularly fierce fight ― the sort where he had gone beyond gauging his opponent and plotting his own moves and had simply become lost in the rhythm of the moment...the dance of it. He couldn't say how much time had passed when he became aware of Kanan's voice again.

 "When you first realized Zeb was your soulmate...what did you feel?"

 "Relief," he answered without having to think about it. "Even though I had tried- to give it up...I had feared that my partner had died soon after Lasan. There was something...freeing...in finally hearing those words spoken aloud."

 "But...?"

 "That relief was immediately followed by anger."

 "Because he was your enemy?"

 "Because I was his."

 "What do you mean?"

 "I think I had always known...from the moment I was able to understand the words on my arm...that there would be enmity between my partner and I. The older I became, the more I was prepared to hate myself...for all of it. When the moment finally came...all I had left was anger...hatred...for him, myself...for the galaxy and everyone in it. I tried to tell myself I'd done the only thing I could do..."

 "But you knew different."

 "Deep down...I suppose...yes. I didn't begin to consider the implications of any of it until after Bahryn...and then everything was happening so quickly...and Zeb was forgiving me everything...even if he shouldn't have done. I loved him...so fiercely in those days. I clung to it when I was weak...in my darkest moments..."

 "And then you were captured."

 Kallus gasped, any response he might've had slipping away from him as the memories pierced his awareness, sharp and unforgiving.

 Thrawn's red eyes...his cruel sneer...

 The inquisitor's chilling voice...her molten, scorching touch as she-

 "NO!" he cries out in anguish, struggling to pull back, to turn away from the horror of it.

 "No. Don't run from this. Stand your ground, Fulcrum," the Jedi's voice comes to him again, firm but not unkind, guiding him in the darkness. "We're so close now."

 So Alex let the memory play out, trembling, but not looking away as he relived his worst moment.

 "It- broke me...when that bond was cut," he recounted, his voice unsteady. "I had bled for it...killed for it...in a way, I had died for it...and they took it from me. As easy as peeling off a glove...they stole a part of my heart from me...the part that was good...that was true and worth saving...the part that Zeb loved. They stole it from me," he hissed, feeling the sting of tears as they pushed their way through his closed eyelids.

 "Do you really believe that?" he heard Kanan asking him. "That the part of you that's worth saving is lost?"

 "Yes," he answered, voice still unsteady, but certain. "I don't- doubt his love...but why should someone as wonderful as Garazeb Orrelios...be bound to such a broken creature as this?" He had taken comfort in Zeb's promises...after Atollon...but did he believe himself worthy of them?

 No.

 "That's it, then."

 Inhaling sharply, Kallus suddenly found himself blinking his eyes open in the grey pre-dawn light to find Kanan now sitting in front of him, unseeing eyes gazing rather pointedly into his. Kallus had to resist the urge to pull back from him.

 "I...what?"

 "That's why you haven't been able to regain your soulmark. It's because you aren't certain you deserve to have it...that you don't want Zeb to be tied to you when, in your view, he has the chance to be free."

 "It- would seem so. Yes," he said quietly, achingly, as he let his gaze drop to the small patch of dirt that separated them.

 "Then there isn't anything I can do to help you," Kanan told him, reaching a hand up to grip his shoulder. "Until you know what it is that the two of you share, that bond won't return."

 Kallus inhaled slowly before giving a long sigh and looking up at the Jedi. "I understand. Thank you for everything you've done."

 "Don't give it up for lost yet, Kallus," Kanan scolded him mildly as he climbed to his feet. "Zeb's a stubborn one. He'll help you scrub out that Imperial mindset. You just need to give him a chance to prove himself. Go back to him. You two can probably get in a little extra time before the day gets going."

 "Right. I'll...catch up with you," he said, voice still little more than a whisper. Not watching Kanan go, the only indication he had that the younger man had done so was the quiet sound of his footfalls.

~*~

Interested yet? Wanna see some more? Come check out the full chapter over on Patreon.

[five-rivers]

Long Night in the Valley Chapter 2

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Everyone turned to see Midoriya standing on the stairs to the beach, looking down at them.  None of them, least of all Shouto, had ever seen that expression on his face before. That… flatness that almost rivaled his own.  

Uraraka took a step forward.  “Deku?” she asked, uncertainly.  Suzuki, the commission instructor, threw his arm in front of her, blocking her path.  

“Whatever that is,” he said, voice strained and low-pitched, “it isn’t Midoriya Izuku.  Saito’s quirk doesn’t allow for the subject to have an avatar in the dreamscape without a lot of practice.  There’s another quirk at work here.”

“You need to leave,” said Midoriya, descending a single step.  “Now.”

“It could be a result of his own quirk,” said Aizawa, who nonetheless had a hand on his capture weapon.  “He’s had odd reactions to mental quirks in the past.  Jumping to conclusions is illogical.”

“We have evidence Midoriya Izuku is working for the League of Villains,” said Suzuki, backing away from the stairs, slightly.  “By the rules laid out in the standard—”

Shouto tuned Suzuki out, by now quite convinced that the man had nothing particularly meaningful to say, in favor of examining Midoriya.  

It was Midoriya.  Just, a Midoriya that was annoyed, defensive, and maybe a little offended with just a touch of something else.  Which was a weird combination on Midoriya.  Especially as muted as it was. Midoriya’s expressions, no matter what they were, were always so big.  

“—I am recruiting you to aid this investigation and determine the League of Villain’s plans!”

“If you don’t leave, I’ll make you leave,” growled Midoriya.  

Wow, for someone who was the embodiment of sunshine, he could be really threatening.  Then again, sunburns were a thing, so maybe it wasn’t too surprising.  

“You’re here against my will, after coercing me into allowing a quirk to be used on me.  I want you out.”

“Eraserhead, I suggest you restrain this projection, whoever it belongs to.”

“I’m not going to warn you again,” continued Midoriya.

“I suggest,” said Aizawa, “that you listen to him.  We can ask Midoriya about this when we’re all awake and not in his head.  Like you should have done in the beginning.”

Midoriya tilted his head slightly to one side.  

“I agree!  This is very unethical,” said Iida, chopping at the air.  “This is basically an interrogation, and Midoriya is a minor! You need parental permission!”

“Which, before you start talking about him willingly participating in this course,” said Aizawa, “he has explicitly withdrawn. Not to mention his mother signed those opt-out forms, so her permission is withdrawn as well.”

“You can’t be serious—”

“I am,” said Aizawa.  “Take us out.  This whole thing is illogical.”

“I can’t,” said Suzuki.  “Saito is the only one who can shut down her quirk prematurely.”

“What?” said Uraraka.  “There’s no way for you to contact her in an emergency?  That’s really dangerous!”

“That’s not what Saito Yume said, either,” said Midoriya, flatly. “’The dream state persists until either I release it, the people involved break free, or eight hours pass.’ Implying that there’s another way to break free.  One that you, by necessity, must know.  So, leave. Or I’m going to start to defend myself.”

Suzuki took a deep breath.  “I am here,” he said, “to complete a mission given to me from the Hero Commission.  Your refusal to comply with the terms set out in your licensing agreements will be noted.”

Midoriya brought his head up straight again and squared his shoulders.  His hands clenched.  He was wearing gloves, Shouto noticed.  Not the gloves that went with his hero costume, but work gloves.  He’d seen the landscapers who worked at his family home wear something similar.  

Why?

“Fine,” said Izuku.  “Then I’m going to kick you out.”

“That’s impossible, you—”

“I know this beach very well.”

Abruptly, the pristine white sand was covered in towers of trash, separating Shouto from the others.  Suzuki’s insistence that Midoriya was a spy had already had him on edge.  This put him fully into battle-mode.  

He dropped into battle stance, and carefully froze one of the trash piles in front of him, making an icy stair to the top.  His first priority was to find Aizawa and his classmates and regroup.  To do that, he had to get a better vantage point.  

He jogged up the stairs, noting, absently, that he was now in his hero suit, not his school uniform.  What had he been wearing before this turned into a fight?  He hadn’t particularly noticed.  

He reached the top just in time to see Midoriya bludgeon Suzuki with a piece of rusty rebar.

Alright.  Maybe that wasn’t Midoriya.

.

Aizawa wasn’t fast enough getting around the piles of trash. He would have tried to scale them, but there was no safe place for him to grab on to.  The piles were simply too unstable, too untrustworthy, too poorly shaped.

He arrived just in time to see Midoriya, or what looked like Midoriya, impale Suzuki with a pole.  

Before his mind could fully process the problem child attempting what looked a whole lot like murder, he had him wrapped in his capture weapon.

Midoriya had the gall to look confused, if only slightly.

“Todoroki,” Aizawa barked, spotting his other student on top of one of the horribly dangerous trash mounds.  “First aid, stat.”

“Yes, sir,” said Todoroki, making an ice ramp to glide down.

“Midoriya,” he said.  “What was that?”  Perhaps it was illogical to ask, but he still couldn’t quite believe his eyes.  

“I was testing to see if he’d wake up and go away if he got knocked out,” said Midoriya.  He made a tiny, not-quite-shrugging motion.  “This is just a dream, after all.”

Alright.  That was true, but it was still incredibly disconcerting to see Midoriya act so callously towards the life of another human being.  Although he was unsure how many times Midoriya had hit Suzuki, and certain places of impact were less lethal than others, blunt force trauma, especially to the back of the head, could still be deadly.  

There was the sharp report of a gun, and Midoriya jerked forward, blood leaking from some invisible wound to drip down his face. Then he vanished.  

He turned towards that utter bastard Suzuki, eyes blazing, only to find him entirely encased in a glacier except for his head.

While Aizawa had been trying to train Todoroki out of reflexively encasing human beings in ice, due to frostbite, hypothermia, and other potential health issues, he was willing to let it slide.  Just this once.  

“I told you,” said Suzuki, teeth chattering.  “That isn’t your student.  And even if it was, he’s a traitor.”

“Sensei,” said Todoroki, “what are we going to do?”

“First,” said Aizawa.  He didn’t get beyond that, because Uraraka was abruptly launched from behind a wall of trash, trailing a makeshift tether of salvaged bungee cords.

“Found them!” exclaimed Uraraka.  “I don’t see Deku, though!”

“First,” said Aizawa, feeling exhausted despite technically being asleep, “we regroup.”

.

Toshinori was supposed to be teaching a third-year heroics course.

He wanted to be with Izuku at the Hero Commission training, even if he was retired, with only a retiree license to his name.  

He was in the nurse’s office, getting his brain checked by Recovery Girl, because sudden debilitating headaches weren’t on the long, long list of symptoms he’d come to expect from his injuries and medications.

Chiyo was worried he might be having a stroke, an aneurism, or some other sudden, lethal, brain condition.  She’d used her quirk on him at once, and the pain hadn’t stopped. She’d said that, at least, it should stop an aneurism from getting worse.  

Toshinori hoped it wasn’t brain cancer.  As far as personal abilities went, all he had going for him right now was brainpower and a stupidly high pain tolerance.

He closed his eyes against the bright lights of the room. Everything seemed too bright and blurry.  Sounds warped oddly in his ears.  The fabric of the bed underneath him felt gritty against his fingertips.  

It was like he wasn’t entirely here.  

Oh, the joys of hallucinations.

(Something like urgency pushed against the back of his mind. Whispered Eight, and help, and Nine.)

(Something was going more wrong than usual.)

He waited for Chiyo to step out of the room before he snuck out.

.

Izuku emerged from sleep with a choked gasp, heart racing, head spinning.  Where-?

It took him several fraught minutes to get his breathing under control and recognize where he was.  The room for the Hero Commission course.  His classmates and teacher were sleeping next to him, as well as the commission instructor.  What had his name been?  Something with an S?

Thinking was hard.  It was like his brain was occupied with something else and he kept having to nudge it back on track.  It was like—

He shook his head, which pounded with the movement, distracting him further.  He—He should—

What?

An odd sensation overtook him, and he found himself slowly, cautiously standing up.  It wasn’t like Shinsou’s quirk, where his body was out of his control, but more like he was almost sharing control, somehow.  Like he could, at any point, take control back.  And he did, just to test the theory, stopping for a moment, his hand halfway to his backpack.  

But that was hard, and he really wasn’t up for much in the way of decision-making, and the others were quite adamant that he had to get out now.  They’d know.  He trusted them.  

They picked up the backpack.  

Eight was coming.  They could trust Eight.  

The door slammed open.  Izuku froze.  Several heroes in costume and a man with a suit and a commission nametag stood in the doorway.  

“Get him!”

Four moved so differently from Izuku.  Precisely, like he knew exactly how his opponents were going to act, where they were going to be.  It reminded Izuku of how Sir Nighteye moved.  

In seconds, they were in the main hall, sprinting past crowds with the help of One for All.  Izuku felt bad about leaving Aizawa and his friends, but they knew, they weren’t targets. Izuku was.  

Izuku didn’t know how they knew that, how he knew that.  

Parking lot.  Streets. Alleyway.  Rooftops.  His UA uniform was too attention grabbing.  They dropped his blazer behind one of the rooftop ventilation shafts and tugged off his tie.  The button down by itself was less attention grabbing.  There was nothing they could to about his pants.  Alley again.  The people chasing him could track his phone.  They needed to get rid of it.  

Preferably in a way that wouldn’t immediately tip their pursuers off to the fact they had gotten rid of it.  Sending them the wrong way would be a good distraction, would buy them time.  

They slipped onto a bus and dropped Izuku’s phone into a woman’s purse.  Hopefully, she wouldn’t notice the change in weight for a while.  

Six and Two were very good at this kind of thing.  Not to mention One.  

It would probably sound weird to an outsider, but it was comforting.  The experience and care of the past users wrapped around him like a thick blanket, making it so that Izuku didn’t mind so much about his distraction, even though he wished he could help more.  

He got off the bus.  They needed to find Eight.

.

“Just so you know,” said Aizawa, several registers shy of conversationally.  “If you’ve harmed my student in any way, I will do everything in my power to make your life a living hell.”

“Nothing here actually affects the mind of the subject,” said Suzuki, rolling his eyes.  “Otherwise, we wouldn’t use Saito’s quirk.”

“Your information hasn’t exactly been accurate so far,” said Tenya, pushing his glasses up and frowning.  Suzuki had, in fact, been fundamentally unhelpful.  “In fact, I believe you have outright lied to us on several occasions.”  He glanced at his classmates for support and did a double take.  

Standing behind Uraraka, half-hidden behind a beaten-up old refrigerator, was Midoriya.  A smaller, slimmer, younger Midoriya, who was wearing an ‘ALL M’ t-shirt, thick gloves, and… and an awfully large amount of rope?

He was also crying, silently, and staring at Suzuki.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.  He pulled on the rope.  The refrigerator came free, destabilizing the pile of trash it had been supporting.

It all came tumbling down.  

.

Ochako managed to avoid most of the debris coming for her, and slapped most of the remainder, making them float with her quirk.  Even so, by the time the dust settled, she was covered in scrapes, the pink fabric of her hero suit torn—

Wait.  Hero suit?

Whatever, she was asleep, and the more important thing was to find Iida, Todoroki, and Aizawa-sensei.  They had been in the direct line of the collapse.  She was pretty sure Deku had been able to get out of the way.

“Shouldn’t have done that.”

“Five-point touch activation.  Seems to affect buoyancy of objects.  Possible martial arts background based on movement.”

Ochako spun to face not one, but two small Dekus. The new one was, if possible, even smaller than the first and wearing a gakuran.  He had a notebook spread out across his left arm and was writing in it at lightning speed.  

“Hands are a possible weak spot, but a known one.  Be careful of kicks.”  Gakuran Deku’s words devolved into mumbling, but t-shirt Deku was still nodding, so he must understand.  

T-shirt Deku also had a length of pipe.  Ochako did not like where this was going.  

Then again, the whole point of this exercise was to learn how to defend one’s mind.  She couldn’t exactly fault Deku for doing just that.  She dropped into a fighting stance and grinned.  

.

It was nothing short of a miracle, Aizawa decided, that they hadn’t been killed yet. Then again, it was possible that Midoriya, despite his obviously altered and disturbed mental state, was still holding back against them.  

Which was annoying.  Because neither of the two small Midoriya-lookalikes was particularly strong.  Nor did they appear to be using Midoriya’s quirk, despite the fact that Aizawa, Iida, Uraraka, and Todoroki had no trouble using theirs.  The problem was that they were terrifyingly intelligent, just shy of ruthless, and had an incredible home-field advantage in that they seemed to know the location and nature of every bit of trash on the beach and in that they could evidently make it disappear and reappear at will.  They also avoided head-on combat whenever possible, letting the terrain do their work for them.  

Fighting them was, in fact, like fighting someone with a quirk completely unlike Midoriya’s.  With a fighting style completely unlike Midoriya’s.

And that made Aizawa wonder, because all too often, he caught Midoriya trying to replicate All Might’s style, and if he did that when he could be doing something more like this—

But this wasn’t the time for such speculation.  

He pulled Todoroki away from a trap again (he evidently hadn’t yet grasped that Midoriya was attacking them), and then jumped away from a chain reaction caused by whatever Uraraka just threw.  

Unless they wanted to spend the next hour being beaten up by the problem child… “We need to get somewhere he has less control over the environment.”

“Off the beach?” suggested Uraraka, panting.  “He said—He said he knew the beach well, so…”

Aizawa nodded.  That was good thinking.  Where were the stairs?

“You need to leave!”  

“We’re trying, problem child!” snapped Aizawa, and, miraculously, that made Midoriya hesitate.  Aizawa pulled Todoroki towards the stairs.   The others were able to follow on their own.  

They made their way up, and as soon as they hit the top step the previously clear sky opened up and it began to pour.  Aizawa was soaked through in seconds.  

Wonderful.  

However, the attacks—which had been relentless up until this point—stopped.

“We left Suzuki,” observed Iida.  

Aizawa held back a groan.  

“Who cares?” asked Todoroki.  

“We do,” said Aizawa.  “We can’t let him run around unsupervised in Midoriya’s head.”

“I think he might have gotten crushed,” said Uraraka.  “He was still in your ice, wasn’t he, Todoroki?”

“Yeah,” said Todoroki.  “Trash should stay with trash,” he mumbled under his breath.  

“We have no idea how any of our quirks will function long-term in a dream,” said Aizawa, not addressing the trash comment because he honestly sort of agreed.  “Nor do we know what his quirk is.”  He sighed. “We may also have to consider that he is correct and Midoriya is compromised.”

Predictably, there was quite a bit of protest.  

“He may also have other information regarding the situation at hand,” said Aizawa.  “Which we need.”

There was a rattle among the trash heaps, and Aizawa turned to watch Suzuki drag himself out from under a mound of trash.  

“You left me!” accused Suzuki, loudly.  “You almost let that gremlin kill me a dozen times!”

“Well,” said Midoriya from behind them, where he absolutely hadn’t been a minute ago, “then maybe you should have left when I asked."

[thebudgetgarden]

The Budget Garden 3: Seven Seas (V-Premium)

Hello Cardfighters. So this post might be quite unique in the aspect that I don’t really have anything to really “teach” or that much to discuss either to be honest. The Seven Seas archetype has been a mainstay of the Granblue Clan, as a powerful sub-clan that initially dominated the G-era meta during late 2016 up until early-to-mid 2017, where it was hit and left to die as G was entering a new format.  People are only familiarized with them due to their very boysterous and loud presence in the G-meta game, but when the time came for them to be rebooted in the new V-series format, which, at the time, didn’t really have any truly cheap budget decks, their aggro playstyle was pushed to the limit in order to create a cheap deck that could steal games from the otherwise very slow and methodical meta of Nightrose and Scharhrot Vampir.  The formatting for this instalment is going to be quite unique as we are required, maybe, in a way, even FORCED to run every single card that includes “Seven Seas” in the card name. Therefore, there won’t be much in terms of options for tech choices, as about 90% of the deck is already decided for us. 

Let’s begin with our grade 3 line-up… which also just so happens to be the ONLY grade 3 unit that we are going to be playing in our deck, Lord of the Seven Seas, Nightmist.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any

Treasures

markers, and put a Treasures marker.

[CONT](VC):You get all of the effects below according to the number of your Treasures markers.

• 1 or more - All of your rear-guards with "

Seven Seas

" in their card names can attack and intercept from the back row.

• 3 or more - During your turn, all of your units with "Seven Seas" in their card names get [Power]+5000.

• 6 or more - This unit gets "[AUTO](VC):At the end of the battle it attacked, [Stand] all of your rear-guards with "Seven Seas" in their card names.".

To the majority of people that are having a full on Aneurysm reading this skill, I don’t blame you. The Treasure Markers are just that, markers that are placed on your circles, and that give off specific skills and unique abilities depending on the unit that is in top of them. Think of them as an indicator to know when your cards have their unique abilities and skills, instead of having to keep track of them yourself. Spoiler alert for every single card incoming, every single memeber of the Seven Seas archetype have the skill that allows you to obtain a treasure marker on one of your circles when they perform a successful attack.

Nightmist, apart from having really great artwork, is the main unit of our strategy, and the only real “payoff” for us actually obtaining these force markers. Do not be fooled by the shiny “protect” sumbol on the upper-leftmost corner, this is an insanely fast and loose Aggro deck, aiming to obtain 6 Treasure markers in order to perform 11 attacks in a single turn. This is perfectly reflected in Nightmist’s skill. The first skill allows for your backrow to attack your opponent’s units, just like a test-run version of Magnolia, as well as allowing them to intercept from the backrow, which seems very random but it will become obvious in a second. 

The second skill gives your entire board a very nice boost. With 6 Seven Seas units on your circles, it gives your board an overall surplus of 30k power, while also allowing your grade 1 units to hit force numbers, effectively allowing you to rush against all 3 gifts. 

The third skill is awesome, but really hard to pull off. If you have laid 6 successful attacks on your opponent and their units, Nightmist gets an effect that allows your ENTIRE board to restand, effectively giving you 5 bonus attacks.

Sound awesome, right? In the 25-30 games I have played to playtest for this very blog, I have managed to resolve this final skill on about 5 or 6 of them, either because at that point of the match I had either won the game or lost the game. It pops up SO LATE into the game that you might as well have already won, but when you do get to pull it off, it feels amazing … just don’t expect it to come up that often.

Nightmist is a hilariously bloated card, clearly being designed to fix holes that existed with this strategy before he even got printed. Nightmist is also the most expensive part of the deck, as a playset will set you back about 5-10 euros. 

Moving forward to the grade 2 line-up, the units in this segment arent nearly as complicated or long-winded as Nightmist, as the grade 2 line up does an excellent job of adding some much needed consistency and raw power. 

Our Grade 2 line-up consists of three units, Nightspinel, Negrolazy and Slash Shade. 

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, COST [Counter Blast (1) & put two cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone], and call up to one card with "Seven Seas" in its card name not named "Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel" from your drop zone to (RC).

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [CONT](RC):During your turn, if there is a marker on this unit's circle, this unit gets [Power]+15000.

[AUTO](VC/RC):When placed, you may call a grade 0 from your drop zone to (RC).

  There really isn’t a lot to say, Cardfighters, these are the two types of skills that were really needed for some added consistency and power. Nightspinel not only fulfills the role of the “waifu" card in this archetype, she’s also a very nice way of setting your drop zone up for certain ressurection effects, but she is a single card that can provide more board advantage in a deck that calls a lot of its hand onto the board. Also, she’s very cute, which is also a plus. And in the category of “not so cute, but much more playable” comes Slash Shade, a card with a very simple, yet powerful effect. He can make himself a 24k attacker by just existing on a circle with a marker on it, key word being ANY marker. A protect II gift, which manifests itself as a marker on a circle also works with this skill, so a protect II market makes Slash Shade, even while unboosted, a 29k attacker. Couple that with Nightmist’s second skill, 3-4 of your circles are most likely going to be attacking from the backrow for 29k-34k.  Slash Shade is, in a complete turn of events, the true boss monster for the Seven Seas, as he is by himself an attacker that requires a 20k or more shield from your opponent per attack, making him the unofficial win condition for this deck.  Negrolazy seems like an odd addition, as getting a trigger back onto your board seems rather useless. It is. However, Negrolazy has great synergy with a grade 0 unit that we will be discussing in a little bit.  While the grade 2 line-up is quite great for what it does, the most important aspect to any Blitz/Aggro strategy lies within the Grade 1 line-up, as it needs to provide some sort of value/recursion to offset the early hand loss. The grade 1 units that we will be using are the following: Witch Doctor of the Seven Seas, Raistutor Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow Skeleton Sea Navigator Witch Doctor of Powdered Bone, Negrobone

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [CONT](RC):If there is a marker on this unit's circle, this unit gets "Intercept".

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [ACT](Drop zone):If you have a vanguard with "Seven Seas" in its card name, COST [Soul Blast (1) & retire a rear-guard not named "Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow"], and call this card to (RC).

[ACT](RC):COST [[Rest] two rear-guards], and put five cards from the top of your deck into your drop zone.

[ACT](Drop zone):COST [Discard a card from your hand & put this card on the bottom of your deck], and call a grade 1 from your drop zone to (RC). If your drop zone has ten or more cards, you may call any grade instead. As you can see, all of the cards in our grade 1 line-up offer some form of utility, and it is as basic as it is good. Raistutor gives herself the ability to intercept, which works really well in conjunction with the Nightmist’s skill, as well as letting herself become a 20k backrow interceptor if there is a protect II marker on her circle. Nightcrow works really well while he is in the drop zone, as he can turn any unit on our board into a copy of himself for a soulblast. Also blasting the cards from our soul means more options in our drop zone, so he’s a fun addition that works well with the rest of the archetype. Skeleton Sea Navigator is our mill engine. Granblue decks love to put cards from the top of their deck in the drop zone to fulfill certain conditions or allow for more options. Since we cannot afford to put many cards that mill our own deck, as space is very tight, the Navigator allows up to mill ourselves for no cost at all. Negrobone is a powerful payoff for milling ourselves. Reviving a grade 1 unit isn’t awful since they provide us with value or more Seven Seas units for attacks, but his ability to be able to revive a unit regardless of grade means that we have another way to get our Slash Shades back onto the board. So these are our options for the grade 1 units, but don’t touch that dial, we have a consistency boosting grade 0 unit that helps us find the right Seven Seas units at the right time. (I’m too lazy to make a grade 0 introductory section for a single card)

[AUTO](VC/RC):When its attack hits, choose one of your (VC) or (RC) without any Treasures markers, and put a Treasures marker. [ACT](RC):COST [Bind this unit & put two cards from the top of your deck into the drop zone], and return a card with "Seven Seas" in its card name not named "Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner" from your drop zone to your hand. He mills our deck, he reccurs cards, he gets revived from Negrolazy, he mops the floor, Nightrunner does it all. He is an excellent addition for our deck as he does pretty much everything that our deck wants to do, with an added layer of consistency. 

Decklist and Final Thoughts.

GRADE 3  x4 Nightmist Grade 2 x4 Nightspinelx4 Slash Shadex3 Negrolazy Grade 1 x4 Nightcrow x4 Raistutor x3 Skeleton Sea Navigator x3 Negrobone Grade 0 x4 Nightrunner 8 critical triggers (2 sentinels) 4 draw triggers (2 perfect guards) 4 heals1 Starting Vanguard This deck is one of my favorites. It’s a deck that provides a very unique and interesting take on what a “protect” deck should be, and it allows for some of the most hectic and fun board states compared to the majority of decks in general, not just budget decks. However, time has not been kind to this beauty, as it has been powercrept quite a bit compared to the other budget decks descussed previously. However, if you want a deck that, from the moment that you flip your vanguard over, is chaotic and hectic fun, as well as a very unique take on an aggro deck, look no further than Nightmist and his treasure-loving posse. Thank you all for reading ! If you have any questions or any suggestions as to what I should cover next, please don’t hesitate to contact me on Discord, I would be happy to hear any suggestions or ideas that you might have ! (Bloom#8890) That’s all for now, Cardfighters ! See ya next time. Bloom, aka thebudgetgarden.

[mischiefandspirits]

Colony of Gotham (1/7)

Special thanks to @starlightandsunshine​ for helping me with this <3

The Colony of Gotham is an urban legend that is whispered about in the dangerous city. It's said the Colony is a family of demons and spirits that stalk the night, hunting for the souls of the guilty.

When Bruce became Batman, he'd never intended to be mistaken for a demon. He was happy to lean into it, though, and as he gained his partners -- as his family grew -- they all followed suit.

Next Part

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce Wayne was born a vampire, one from the long-standing Kane family of vampires through his mother. This nature granted him a few abilities. He was more durable than a human and could heal faster. He was stronger and faster than a human and had better sight and hearing, though not to anywhere near the degree that some metas boasted. He could take on the form of an animal and could influence bats, corvids, canines, and felines to a certain extent. Finally, he would stop aging once he reached his thirties, a trait of those who were born or turned young instead of those like Alfred who were turned at an older age and therefore would always be that age.

However, when he set off on his path to becoming Batman, he swore to himself that he would not rely on any of this to fight the criminals that plagued Gotham. He would not be like those heroes past who relied on their powers, then were left defenseless when those abilities faltered or were ripped away. After all, only a vampire’s healing and longevity remained during the day and some spells and devices could similarly strip his nature away.

Batman stuck to his wits, tech, and martial arts training.

Even still, the criminals of Gotham could tell something was off about the Bat. Rumors flew about a demon haunting Gotham’s night, which Bruce leaned into. He hadn’t chosen a bat just because of the family significance. He wanted to strike fear. As such, he stuck to the shadows and allowed his fangs to bare. He used makeup to make himself appear paler and contortionist tricks to make his movements uncanny. He allowed Batman to become an urban legend that sent shivers down the spines of Gotham’s infamous.

When Barbara Gordon became Batgirl, she quickly realized his tricks were just that and leaned into them as well. She became a ghost following in the Bat’s footsteps. She disappeared into a mist made from special smoke pellets and spun across the ground and air in a weightless way that came from years of ballet and gymnastics training. She wore shadows like Batman’s, but violet and gold peeked through the darkness to make her stand apart.

Bruce initially didn’t want her in the field, but she eventually proved herself both competent and stubborn. In a bid to help protect her, he outfitted her with proper gear and let her in on the secret of his nature. She considered it, then a week later she asked him to turn her so she could always watch his back.

Then Dick Grayson was taken in by the billionaire and became the Bloody Robin. They called him a demon child, the son of the Bat who flew on bird’s wings. His cheerful laughs and giggles echoed and hissed eerily thanks to a voice filter. His clothes were bright colors, but were covered by the wing-like shadows that wrapped over his shoulders. Fake blood dripped from his hair and eyes and coated the tips of his gloves and cape. He chirped like a bird as he flipped and flew through the air. His mask made his eyes glow white and his body almost appeared boneless when he moved around on the ground thanks to the contortionist who’d babysat him at the circus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The three heard the tales when teams of heroes began to form, but they didn’t reach out. Gotham’s Colony was a myth, an urban legend. Those outside of Gotham had never heard of them and those within only spoke in whispers.

That was how the Colony preferred it.

Besides, the rest of the world wasn’t as dark as Gotham.

Their tricks and games worked fine in the shadow-filled gothic architecture that made up Gotham, the near-perpetual overcast days, and the deep darkness of Gotham’s nights, but cities like Jump, Metropolis, or Central were far brighter. They could do without, they’d proven that plenty of times against the bigger villains that were either too crazy or brave to fear the Bat, but why should they? The tricks and games had become a part of them over the years and discarding a piece of themselves just so they could work outside of Gotham with strangers felt wrong.

So the Colony stuck to their own.

On the job, at least.

Dick met Wally West at a two-week-long Jr. Forensics Summer Camp when they were eleven and thirteen respectively. Bruce had sent him to brush up on his skills while Wally’s mentor, Barry Allen, thought it would be good training. Neither boy knew about each other's secret lives, but became close friends all the same and kept in contact when they returned home. Dick didn’t reveal it to Wally when he discovered the other boy was Kid Flash, but kept a close eye on Central City just in case.

A similar situation happened two years later when the Colony discovered Green Arrow’s latest protégé, a girl named Artemis Crock, lived in Gotham and had been helped into Gotham Academy by the other billionaire. Dick decided to keep an eye on her, but his pseudo-stalking quickly turned into a genuine friendship.

He may have taken a bit too much joy in introducing Wally and Artemis to one another. Wally got back at him a few years later by introducing him to the model Kory Anders, the secret identity of his celebrity crush Starfire. Dick had to admit to having a crush on Kory as well to explain his nerves.

It turned out to be a net gain in the end, though, since he came out of it with her phone number.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As time passed, Dick started to get too old to be the demon child. He decided to create a new story for himself. One that would let him step out from under the shadow of the bat, using a name from an alien myth in Bruce’s files that he’d loved reading growing up. He and Bruce argued, and Dick spent some time sleeping on Barbara’s couch, but with nowhere to run they were forced to come to a compromise. There was still tension, but it was smoothed over with time and a bite.

Nightwing was a nocturnal bird that had taken human shape after being taken in by Batgirl’s elegance. It chased after and raced the ghost, nothing but shadows and a blue streak flying through the air. Those who got close enough to see his face would say that his skin was like porcelain while black wings covered his eyes completely and his lips were painted with darkness.

Nightwing wasn’t the only change to the Colony, though, because as Dick was finishing up his designs for the story, a little boy was stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

Dick was furious when the kid climbed out of the car into the cave, thinking Bruce had brought the kid in as a new Robin without even consulting him, but anger’s quickly replaced by confusion.

Because Batman wasn’t with the kid.

Jason Todd had gotten grabbed by the Bat after having already nicked three tires off the batmobile. Batman caught him before he could run then replaced the tires. He’d made a mistake in leaving the boy in the car when he went to call for someone to pick him up, however. Jason, who some might generously call impulsive, proceeded to use the opportunity presented to him to hotwire the vehicle and take it for a joyride that ended when he accidentally had the autopilot bring him to the cave. 

Dick was immediately taken with the small spitfire’s story, as well as his stubbornness and intellect. Meanwhile, Jason was amused by the fact that Gotham’s demon was, in his eyes, nothing more than a spectacular conman and wanted in. They teamed up to force Bruce to adopt the younger boy through underhanded -- and perhaps slightly illegal -- tactics.

As Dick started using his new story more and Robin less, Jason got his own turn under Batman’s cape.

People started to say Robin was more vicious. He’d climb walls, the claws on his feet and hands easily cutting into brick and metal. He’d give a fang-filled smirk as he hung from the ceiling like he’d forgotten he was a bird instead of a bat, only to drop down on unsuspecting shoulders. If he wasn’t clawing at opponents, he was beating them with his fists.

As one of his first acts as Robin, Jason saved a young boy who had been kidnapped for ransom. The kid had acted out of it during the rescue, but Jason put it down to trauma. He’d had no reason to realize the young detective-to-be had noticed the edge of Jason’s fake fangs through the shadows and fake blood. No one could have predicted the rabbit hole young Tim Drake had just fallen down nor that it would lead him to massive discoveries in the near future.

When Jason discovered Catherine Todd wasn’t his birth mother, he considered going alone to look for the mystery woman who’d given birth to him. He and Bruce had just had a fight about his temper that had left him benched and he wanted to prove himself, but something Dick had told him months before echoed in his mind.

“No matter how much we argue, we’re always going to be there for each other. Us birds and bats, we’re a family. We have to stick together.”

In the end, he asked Dick and Barbara for help. It was something he was thankful for when his mother sold him out to the Joker. At least he could hold out against the torment with the knowledge his true family would soon come for him.

When Batgirl and Nightwing arrived, Joker fled. Barbara got Jason out while Dick, after seeing the state of his brother, tracked down the clown. Bruce got to him just in time to stop him from beating Joker to death, but when he saw Jason’s condition he couldn’t bring himself to scold his elder son for his loss of control.

Jason was barely hanging on and Bruce, knowing there was no other choice, turned him.

The boy lived, but his injuries were too severe and he fell into a coma.

Three weeks later, Bruce and Dick came into Bruce’s study to find Tim Drake waiting for them. Both were a little more focused on “My parents are never home” than “so I’m in a perfect position to cover for Jason as Robin while he’s sleeping,” to Tim’s confusion, but he ended up in the suit all the same.

The whispers that had come after Joker’s latest incarceration had him crowing about clipping bird wings tapered off as Robin sightings flared up throughout the city. People saw him flying next to the Bat and they heard him tap-tap-tapping his claws. He tapped them against the walls as he hunted through warehouses and against the floors as he crouched in front of technology that seemed to unlock under his gaze thanks to the computer that’d been built into his gloves, the interface of which could only be seen through the lenses in the Colony’s masks and cowls.

Tim didn’t really know how to feel about being adopted by Bruce, aside from the guilt he knew was mixed in there somewhere. It felt wrong to be slipping into the family like that while Jason was right there and Dick had to talk him down when the anxiety attack eventually hit.

Tim was Tim. He wasn’t Jason and they didn’t want him to be Jason.

Dick understood though. He explained how Dick and Jason had both had similar feelings regarding Barbara and Dick respectively, though Dick could admit he’d gotten off easier all things considered. He told Tim that the Colony was a family, and adoption or not, Tim was a part of that now. Jason wasn’t going anywhere and neither was Tim.

When Jason woke, Dick had a similar conversation with him after Jay saw a news broadcast about Tim while waiting for the others to arrive. It soothed him some, and Tim soothed him more when he assured Jason he wasn’t taking Robin from him.

“There can’t be two Robins.”

“Why can’t there?”

As Jason went through physical training to get back in shape, the two worked together to develop a strategy for acting as Robin together. One part of this was Trillic.

Tim, with help from Dick and Jason, invented a secret language made up of chirps, whistles, and clicks. It started as a way for the Robins to communicate with each other without giving away there was more than one, but over time the rest of the Colony picked it up and the vocabulary expanded until it became the family’s own personal language that they’d use whenever they didn’t feel like using words.

A few days after Jason was released from the hospital, Dick found Jason down in the cave and grew worried his little brother was pushing himself too soon after his accident. Then he saw the young woman on the screen. She looked a year or two older than Jason with long red hair, olive skin, and bright green eyes.

They’d met in Ethiopia, Jason told him, while saving a woman from some men. Jason had wanted to try to track her down now that he was awake. He’d succeeded, but it turned out she was an Amazonian hero.

Combined with the fact her name was Artemis, Dick couldn’t help but laugh and make a joke about Jason following in his footsteps. Jason smacked him and told him she was really more of an anti-hero so it wasn’t the same as Dick making friends with Kid Flash and Tigress, but Dick ignored him.

Jason did end up contacting her, and even got her to take a visit to Gotham. Dick took the opportunity to introduce her to Wally and his own Artemis, who Wally began to refer to as Stripes to not get confused. When questioned, he claimed it was because of some outfit of hers that stuck in his mind. Dick and Jason, knowing it was actually based on her identity as Tigress, nodded along and picked up using the name, to her annoyance.

Surprisingly, the two women didn’t get along despite their similar attitudes. This led to them taking great offense whenever people couldn’t tell which Artemis was being talked about, something only Jason, Dick, and Alfred never managed to do.

While the teens were laughing over this, whispers were going around about how the Bloody Robin seemed to be everywhere. If you fled from a room you knew he was in, you’d find him standing right in front of you in the new room. There was no escape. And he trilled more than ever, though his voice almost seemed to echo back at him as if he was having a conversation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Not long after the Justice League had formed, Barbara had hacked into their security system and planted a little bug she named Mockingbird. It was designed to alert her whenever someone mentioned the Colony’s civilian or vigilante identities and copy any footage during the time. More often than not all it gave her was Wally and Bow-Artemis (as most of the family thought of her, to contrast with Axe-Artemis) discussing Dick. Every so often though, there’d be someone pining after Dick or Bruce, which could be good for a laugh depending on who it was.

On a day not long after the Robins had been set loose together, Mockingbird gave her something that was sort of new, yet at the same time not.

The video started with Wally discussing some prank he and Dick had pulled on Bruce and slowly devolved into him just bragging about how awesome Dick was. Suddenly he froze, staring off into the air.

Artemis took one look at him and asked, “Did you finally realize you’ve got a crush on your best friend?”

He immediately went to reassure his girlfriend, but she said got it and even shared his feelings.

Barbara settled in to watch the show.

Unfortunately, it took longer than she’d anticipated for Dick to catch on that the two actually wanted to date him and not just spend more time with him. He was usually pretty good at picking up on people’s feelings, yet Artemis ended up having to pull him into her lap during a movie night and kiss him flat on the lips before it sunk in.

When Barbara approached him about it, he pouted over her spying. Then he admitted that he’d known for years they all had feelings for each other, he just hadn’t wanted to risk getting in the middle of the two’s relationship since they seemed so happy together. When he’d realized how they’d started flirting with him, he’d been worried they were just after a quick thing and he couldn’t do that to himself. So he’d put on his media mask of naive ditz Dickie who wouldn’t recognize flirting if it hit him in the face.

Thankfully the two had reassured him and after talking it through, the three settled happily into their throuple.

To congratulate his brother, Jason gave him a solid week before making jokes about Dick following in Bruce’s footsteps by dating someone with a feline-themed suit.

The next hurdle was deciding how to deal with the media. Dick was Richard “Dickie” Grayson, eldest son of Bruce Wayne. The media loved to go on about him. Pretty much every second of his relationship with Kory had been recorded by the press. Neither of them had minded. He was still a performer at heart, always would be, and she was a warrior princess who had been in the spotlight all her life.

But Dick knew Wally and Artemis weren’t Kory so he talked to them about how they wanted to handle things.

In the end, they agreed only friends and family would know about Artemis, but Wally and Dick would go public. They all had practice keeping much bigger secrets so it wasn’t hard on Artemis to hide their relationship. Meanwhile, Wally didn’t mind playing around for the cameras. Plus, he knew how people treated Dick when they thought he was single and a small possessive part of him didn’t want them trying anything, even if he knew Dick would never cheat.

Things didn’t actually turn out too bad. Of course, there were always the conservatives that came around when Dick got a boyfriend, but they never stuck around long. Bruce had made his support of Dick’s sexuality very clear from the beginning and no one wanted to risk really ticking someone as rich and connected as him off by attacking his son like that.

The real problem came when their agreement to tell their families accidentally didn’t reach everyone.

Dick had been alone at the manor when it happened.

Bruce had gone on a weekend business trip, bringing Tim with him. Alfred was on a trip to England. Jason had taken the opportunity to spend the weekend hopefully not blowing things up with Artemis Grace, who had ended up getting a small flat in Gotham to act as her home base so she could visit with Jason and Dick during the rare occasions she wasn’t running across the world causing trouble with the Outlaws. Dick had been planning to spend the weekend with his partners at Stripe’s apartment, but they’d both been caught up by something (Dick assumed a mission had unexpectedly run long) so he had the night to himself.

He was watching a movie in the theater room when he felt a shift in the air. He immediately dropped to the floor, barely avoiding the sai that had been coming for his throat. Then he was over the back of the couch and engaging the assassin. He quickly realized she was with the League of Assassins as he recognized moves Bruce had picked up from them. She was good, too, but she had clearly come to the fight unprepared to face a Gotham myth. He didn’t take too many hits before pinning her and binding her hands and feet with the obijime from her dress. He then disarmed her of all her hidden weapons just in case.

When he questioned her, she declared that she was Artemis’s sister and had come to avenge her honor after Wally had betrayed her for Dick. She was not going to sit back and let the fool cheat on or dump her sister for the likes of a man she had believed was nothing more than an airheaded socialite.

Then, with narrowed eyes, she added that she had clearly been mistaken as not many airheaded socialites had been trained by assassins. Nor did they use moves only known by those trained by Ra’s al Ghul.

Dick ignored that and explained the trio’s situation as he untied her, having recognized her as Cheshire aka Jade Nguyen aka his girlfriend’s -- apparently protective -- assassin sister.

He took pride in the fact that he was dating someone who was only related to criminals instead of actually dating a criminal, unlike a certain father of his.

She thankfully believed him, though she did warn that should he be lying or should he hurt Artemis, she wouldn’t underestimate him a second time. She made a few more thinly veiled digs at his assassin-based fighting style as he showed her out that he cleanly sidestepped with comments about self-defense training. They both knew she didn’t believe a word of it, but she left it alone as she slipped away into the night.

So long as her sister remained unharmed, she had no desire to get involved in whatever was going on between the Wayne’s and al Ghul’s.

Before she left Gotham, though, she met Artemis and Wally on their way in and informed her sister that she approved of her new boyfriend. Both to be sure Dick was telling the truth and to mess with the speedster. The two predictably freaked out and she used their panic to slip away.

Dick answered Artemis’s call with, “Oh hey, Stripes! Your sister came by earlier to give me the shovel talk over tea. It was pretty gory, but I think the one Jason gave Wally was still probably worse so I’m not going to complain. Are we still on for tomorrow?” to their relief.

Artemis had not wanted to try to explain her assassin sister to her civilian boyfriend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I decided to use Stephanie's Batgirl suit for Babs because most of Babs' suits are either bright or look just like Batman's. Steph will get other suits of hers when she appears.

The Robin suit looks just like Dick's from The Batman (2004), just bloodier.

Nightwing's suit looks like the typical V one, just with the eyes of the mask being blacked out. Also, black lipstick because yes.

Vampires’ animal forms:

Bruce: Gray bat

Alfred: Common raven

Selina: Oriental shorthair cat

Barbara: Little red flying fox

Dick: Black-billed magpie

Jason: Malayan flying fox

[darktypeimagines]

Hi! I was wondering if you could expand a bit on the ´S/O from Unova´ who travels the world (Specifically Leon). This request is a little specific so here goes; The S/O has a thing for fire types, and while in Galar studies under Kabu (They are a HUGE fan) They have two partner pokemon, an Emboar and a Drifblim. Thank you so much, for your time :)

2nd ask – I assume you saw my message about missing posts and re-sent this.  Since the asks have slightly different details, I’ll just combine them into one post

“Hiya! Could you do some HC´s for a trainer who´s mentored by Kabu? To elaborate they´e been a fan since a young child, and also adore fire types. Said trainer has gone to Galar to test their mettle against gym leaders w/ their ace Emboar. After the match, the trainer asked if Kabu could help them specifically w/ fire types.”

So, based on the asks, I’m assuming you want the same character as from the Unovan strategist ask, so I’ll expand on that. I changed up the order of things a little bit.  AND OH BOY I WROTE WAAAAY TOO much again.  I split it halfway to save your dashes.  There’s nothing really triggering, although some people might not be into a relationship with a decent age gap.  

———————————————————————————

You were pretty young when you decided to be a trainer, much like many kids.  But, unlike many kids, you were hyperfixated on one particular trainer: the fire type specialist, Kabu.

You first became a fan ALL the way back when he first joined the Galar League.  Despite being from Unova, you often watched the Galar league because there was just a sense of excitement that was lacking in other leagues.  Galar made a show of their tournaments, so their televised battles were watched worldwide.

Once you set out beyond Unova, you decided to head over to Galar. You needed a fresh challenge, and considering it was the Galar League that helped you decide your course in life, it felt natural to head there next

You ended up battling all the other Galar gym leaders before finally heading to Kabu.  Might as well save your favorite for last!

Apparently, he heard about you already.  News travels fast, especially when the news is about a famous Unovan trainer who’s randomly challenging all of the gym leaders of his region.  He knew he’d encounter you eventually.

He greeted you in the gym, rather formally, saying he was expecting you. You were low-key freaking out on the inside, but managed to keep yourself together.  For about a minute.  Then you lost it.  You started gushing, telling you how you watched him on TV since you were a little kid. How you looked up to him.  How you became a fire-type specialist because of him.  And how, growing up, you wished you could have trained under him.  How that was your most common daydream.

And then you stopped.  Oh no. You went too far.  

Kabu gave you a knowing look, and let out a small laugh. He was used to this; it happened all the time with fans.  Although, it wasn’t every day such an accomplished trainer came up to him and told him he inspired them…  It was incredibly flattering.

He said he would have loved to train you, but you probably surpassed him by now.  He wasn’t sure if you could learn much from him.

WHATAREYOUTALKINGABOUTOFCOURSEICOULDLEARNMOREYOUREAMAZINGYOUHAVESOMUCHMOREEXP- was basically the gist of what you incoherently blurted out.

 Kabu was surprised at the outburst, but he just smiled again.  Did he blush, or did you imagine it?  You’d never know.

Well… in that case. He knew you came to battle, but if you really, really wanted to, he could train you.  He wouldn’t mind.  He’s still not sure what he could possibly teach you, but he could try to come up with something!

After a bit of mental short-circuiting, you said yes!  Of course!  It was a dream come true for you, and… it took you a while to feel like it was actually happening.

You stayed at the inn during your training.  The first thing Kabu had you do was change your schedule. You had to meet up with him before dawn and then make your way down to wherever you were training that day.

Usually, it was one of the mines or his gym.  What surprised you was the content of his training. Often, it wasn’t even battling. It almost seemed like he was training you rather than helping you with your Pokemon or battling…

You had to endure the elements.  Snowstorms near Circhester.  The heat of the Dusty Bowl.  Battling in the pitch-black night.

You jogged together.  Meditated. Kabu even talked to you about eating a little healthier.

You asked him when you were actually going to train with battling.  And that was when Kabu decided to explain his thinking to you.  It was clear that you were a talented trainer.  You knew strategy.  You knew your Pokemon inside and out.  But, what about you?  Were you in peak condition, mentally and physically?  A battle could occur anywhere, at any time, so you needed to be prepared at all times.  Otherwise, there was a chance you could let down your partners…

Plus, as he said earlier, he explained, you seem to have surpassed him in terms of actual battling long ago.

After this, you agreed to continue.  Being with him was a dream, even if it wasn’t what you were expecting.

This went on for months.  You began to wonder how long this would go on for.  Not that you were complaining.  And, in that time, the two of you grew closer.

You started having dinner together frequently.  Kabu was a pretty good cook, so often the two of you just ended up at his house.  Due to the intensity of your training, you often ended up curled up next to Emboar on the floor, passed out after dinner. You always found a blanket on top of you when you woke up.

But, in time, you began to feel the itch to battle. Specifically, against him.  So, one morning, when you first met up, you simply asked him.

He smiled, and said sure.  If you felt you needed to battle him, then you needed to battle him!  So, the two of you headed down to his gym.  It wasn’t open yet, so it was eerily quiet, but in a way, it felt right.

He asked if you wanted to battle in a certain way; he knew Unovan people sometimes had battles with three Pokemon, after all.  And he knew you didn’t Dynamax.  You said a typical single battle would be fine, and that you’d LIKE it if he Dynamaxed! More challenge, after all…

You did agree to have a three on three battle, though, since he only had five Pokemon.

You sent out Emboar; he started with Arcanine.  The large dog growled, baring its teeth – the aggression was quite intimidating and seemed to daunt Emboar.  You knew its attacks might be weaker and more hesitant now…

But, before Kabu could give an order, you had Emboar use Sucker Punch, catching Arcanine off guard and stunning them.  Despite being intimidated, Emboar landing quite the hit!

While Arcanine was trying to recover, you had Emboar follow up the last attack with a Fire Punch.  Not a very effective attack type wise, but it would be fast enough for a quick follow up attack.

Before Emboar could ready another attack, Kabu had Arcanine launch a flurry of Extremespeeds. They took their toll on Emboar, and it was difficult for your Pokemon to get back on its feet.

·As Arcanine was about to start another round, you had Emboar strike the ground and use Earthquake.  It hit Arcanine before it could reach Emboar, and it fainted.

Kabu sent out Ninetales next.  This round was a bit more uneventful, as Emboar got another Earthquake in, which badly injured Ninetails.  But then the fox got in an Extrasensory, knocking out Emboar.

You sent off Drifblim next, the balloon ghost rising high on the residual heat from Emboar’s attacks.  Most people were surprised that you, a fire type specialist, had a random ghost type on your team.  But this was purely strategic.  What most people didn’t know is that Drifblim, like a hot air balloon, could rise higher and faster with hot air.  You used their lack of knowledge to your advantage.

With Drifblim flying high above, Ninetales tried to launch a Fire Blast at them.  Before the move could hit, though, you had Drifblim use Phantom Force.  The ghost vanished, making the fire move miss.  Both Kabu and Ninetales searched around the arena, but Drifblim was nowhere to be found.  Ninetales braced itself for an attack, but didn’t know where to focus its attention.

Moments later, a dark portal appeared behind the fox, and Drifblim flew out, attacking Ninetales.  Between this powerful move and the damage Ninetales took earlier, Kabu’s Pokemon fell, unable to battle further.

Kabu sent out his last Pokemon, Centiskorch.  Luckily for your strategy, just the fire bug’s presence bought new heat to the arena, speeding up your Drifblim.  Kabu immediately Gigantamaxed his Centiskorch, the bug type surrounding itself in energy and quickly taking up the other half of the battlefield.

And you know what?  You had a plan to deal with the giant Pokemon.  It was a cheap tactic, but you knew it’d work.  You had Drifblim use Phantom Force throughout Centiskorch’s Gigantamax time. The giant bug tried to hit Drifblim with Centiferno multiple times, but due to the hot air, Drifblim kept out speeding its opponent.  Finally, Centiskorch reverted to its normal sized form.

It hadn’t taken much damage due to its defense boost, but it was far from unscathed.  As Centiskorch reverted back to its normal form, Kabu surprisingly had it use Crunch, landing a critical blow on Drifblim.

Drifblim wouldn’t be able to last much longer.  It sputtered up and down, trying to keep altitude, obviously exhausted. You felt a little bad doing this… but, you knew it would earn you the win.

You had Drifblim rush Centiskorch, which Kabu didn’t expect. When they were within range, you yelled to your Pokemon to unleash Explosion!  In the blast of smoke and fire, you couldn’t see whether or not it finished the job.  But as the battlefield cleared, you saw both Pokemon, Drifblim laying on top of Centiskorch, fainted.  You had won, with a Pokemon to spare.

After returning your Pokemon, and quietly promising Drifblim a nice treat when you got home, you and Kabu approached each other.

He congratulated you.  It had been a while since he had such a fierce battle!  With an explosive ending, too!  He said he hoped to battle you again someday, and wished you the best along the rest of your journey.

What?

Oh yeah.  You were traveling the world.  Right.

Honestly, though, being with Kabu reminded you what “home” felt like. You felt comfortable with him.  You didn’t want to leave.

And. You broke down and got emotional.  Kabu was rather worried, and quickly crossing the space between you, putting a hand gently on your shoulder.  He asked what was wrong, although you have a feeling he had an idea.

You told him.  You blurted it out.  That you adored him, beyond that of a regular fan.  You… loved him? You weren’t sure yet.  But you knew you had feelings for him and the thought of leaving was a nightmare for you.

It took a moment for Kabu to respond.  He seemed to have to gather his thoughts.  And then, he said it.  He felt the same way.  But he felt you needed to move on.  After all, how could you improve yourself if you stayed here?

But… While he doesn’t want to admit it, because of the age difference between you two, he, too, had feelings for you.  He loved your passion; how you were willing to go to such lengths for your dreams.  You looked up to him for so long, and worked your way towards eventually meeting him.  And even after you realized how hard his training was, you stuck with him!  He admired you.  And he also didn’t really want you to go.

After a long talk, which took place at his home since you both needed somewhere more comfortable to work things out, it was decided that you two would give this a shot.  

You immediately moved in with him.  But, beyond the added romance, the same structure that bought you together remained. You still trained together.  You still woke up early together.  Only now, you woke up before dawn with a kiss and retired to your home – the one you shared.

[isolaradiale]

When the final wire was cut, the entire city went black. The power grid was not tied to the network, but the outage was NULL’s only shot at preventing Ofiuco’s retrieval after she fell from the sky. The entire city fell still for five minutes before power returned, but this light only served to illuminate the next phase. It wasn’t like GPU had been without a backup plan. If they didn’t have a way to leverage the arrest of the Stars, then at the very least they could throw a wrench in their operation. 

However, the light of the moon and stars that shone down on the city in the dead of night was obscured by a sudden apparition. A floating island that existed beyond the flight limitations of the city obscured the view, almost the same size as the city itself and becoming a constant and looming darkness over the cityscape. It cast things into uncertainty, and all of the Shades remaining on the ground flocked up and into it... before a loud rumbling began. 

The island suddenly dropped and it inevitably looked as if it was about to crash into the city itself before stopping in a convenient location: just below the maximum flight limit. Beams of light soon extended from all around the floating island’s perimeter to Spirale below, their uses initially unclear.

That was, until, people began to step out of them. These weren’t NPCs nor agents, their ranks instead populated by the monstrous and the villainous. Enemies and rivals gathered from the worlds the characters had all been taken from, their sights set on razing the city. Chaos immediately unfolded where they landed, structures and people alike targeted while some of these foes sought conflict with their greatest nemesis. 

LISTEN TO ME PEOPLE OF THIS ISLAND CITY.

If it was a device capable of receiving a signal, this distorted voice boomed over it. Many believed the speaker to be an enemy at first, probably one of the agents that had turned their world into disarray. Thankfully that wasn’t the case.

I AM AN EX-MEMBER OF THE GPU AND BOTH MYSELF AND ONE OTHER HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH YOUR ISLAND STARS FROM WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION FOR THE LAST SEVERAL DAYS. GPU WILL DESTROY YOU REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE STARS TURN THEMSELVES IN OR NOT, AND BY THE TIME THE MAINTENANCE DROID IS ABLE TO CONVEY THIS MESSAGE TO YOU THE PROCESS MIGHT HAVE ALREADY BEGUN.

YOU AREN’T DREAMING. THE ENEMIES THAT HAVE LIKELY POURED OUT OF THAT FLYING STRUCTURE ARE ALL VERY REAL AND VERY POWERFUL. SOME OF YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE THEM BECAUSE THEY WALK, TALK, OR GROWL LIKE FOES YOU’VE ENCOUNTERED IN YOUR OWN WORLDS. DON’T BE FOOLED, THEY ARE IMITATIONS MADE COMPLETELY UNDER THEIR CONTROL. HOWEVER THEY ARE VERY DANGEROUS, AND POSSESS THE FULL RANGE OF ABILITIES YOU KNOW THEM TO.

MY PARTNER IN THIS ENDEAVOR TOLD ME THEY’LL BE MAKING SURE THE ISLAND IS LOWERED ENOUGH THAT IT CAN BE REACHED, AND WE’LL ENSURE THE LIGHT LIFTS CAN BRING THOSE WITHOUT WINGS TO THE SURFACE. IF YOU WISH TO KEEP ON LIVING YOU NEED TO NOT ONLY PROTECT YOUR CITY, BUT BRING THE FIGHT TO THEM AS WELL.

Whether these words inspired or not depended on the listener, but there was no denying the immediate threat of the invading force as well as the personal nature of some of these opponents. 

“To those ends, a gift!” This time the speaking voice was a familiar one as a dot of pink light zipped up from the depths of the hole, a familiar android plastered across every screen in the city. This time though her eyes weren’t red. A wave of light reverberated across the city from the flapping of Ofiuco’s wings, granting all it touched their weapons and abilities back for the time being. “Don’t forget there are people from the city itself still working with NULL. I know this is all hard to understand. You don’t know why you’re fighting nor do you know what you’re fighting.”

She exhaled before looking at the floating island above. “I guess there will be some explaining to do when all is said and done, but go! You need to reclaim the starry sky!”

INFORMATION

Welcome to part 2 of Security Breach! There’s a lot to cover here so we’ll try to be as specific as possible. But as always if you have a question don’t be afraid to send it to the ml!

What has happened? With the network shut down thanks to all the cut wires, NULL has wordlessly moved into their backup plan: completely razing the city from within.

To those ends they have summoned a floating island that eclipses the city, and from it enemies pour down from both the top and the light elevators that extend to the city from the floating island’s surface. 

These are not normal enemies however. They are villains and monsters from the worlds of your muses (more information including guidelines in the FAQ section). While they walk, talk, and hit as hard as the real things, they are completely under NULL’s control and share their goals.

This is a grand battle that will be fought on two stages: on the island below and flying structure above. 

Ofiuco has granted everyone their powers and abilities back, but is also enforcing a cap so the enemy forces can’t use game breaking powers. Since this is universal it will also affect the characters within the group (more information in the FAQ section).

For those that are powerless: you will be able to access your Fantasia avatars via the Spirale Alternate World Life app. This feature will be removed at the end of the event, and it will not work for characters that already have powers. 

We will be running this poll until 12:01AM EST on May 1st. Based on the results the story and aftermath of the event will change. 

FAQ

Everyone’s powers are unlocked but are there limitations like in part 1? Yes there are! Abilities used must be tier 6 or higher by vsbattlewiki standards. Obviously these could easily destroy an island, but while structures can be destroyed the island Spirale is on and the island in the sky are both impervious to damage from these attacks. If your character possesses an ability that exceeds this ranking you can tone it down, but some things are strictly off limits like conceptual abilities in certain instances (conjuring items or allies en masse, erasing existences, etc are not allowed). These guidelines are consistent between both sides so as not to break the world.

What’s this about Fantasia and the Spirale Alternate World Life app? Last summer we held an event called the Fantasia War where characters were placed in a fantasy setting with fantasy avatars. At the event’s conclusion we made Fantasia into an MMO game that can be accessed in the Intraspace, and everyone’s avatars have been preserved there. The SAWL app is an app we introduced to allow MMO characters (like from SAO) to be able to switch between their normal and game forms at will, and it is having its functionality temporarily  boosted to let people use their Fantasia avatars, including the attached powers, during the event. This app will not show up for anyone that has powers of their own. 

If your character was not present during Fantasia you can still create your own avatar! You can still find the list of available races here and list of available spells here. 

Villains and enemies are pouring out of the flying island? What does this entail? Essentially what it sounds like. You will have the unique opportunity to bring in villains, monsters, or machines as agents of NULL. They will act as they would in canon, but are dedicated to their cause of destroying the city and killing off its citizens. There are, of course, limitations:

only one boss-tier enemy per mun per series can be brought in. you can bring in as many trash mobs (generic monsters, grunts, etc.) as you want, but you can only choose one powerful opponent. you can just say what kind of mobs might be running around for others to deal with in their threads, but the boss-tier foe must be controlled by you.

boss-tier enemies can be sentient, but they don’t have to be. if you want to bring in things like giant machines that are piloted by grunts, these still count as boss-tiers however.

you cannot bring in an enemy that exists on the masterlist

enemies, including boss-types, can be overlapped throughout a cast to avoid the possibility of someone claiming a boss just to deny other cast members from interacting with them. however do not have these duplicates interact / in the same thread.

The best way to keep this in order would be to make a post introducing the kinds of trash mobs you’d see running around as well as the boss-type you plan on controlling. People can then use the mobs in their threads if they choose, or approach you to interact with the boss. Likewise, you can keep the boss for more personal threads or drabbles. It’s really up to you!

I don’t really have any enemies in my series and I’m not comfortable using mobs from others. Are there any other options for what I can fight? Yes! The Shades are still around, as are a plethora of generic fantasy monsters for you to fight!

Are the weather conditions from part 1 still ongoing? No, those have come to a halt! However the island above blocks all of the weather in general.

Speaking of the floating island. We can go to the top, right? What’s up there? To put it simply: it’s a mess. Whether NULL had difficulty importing code or if it was just a big error, assets from every series imaginable compose the landscape. Maybe you’d see a building from BLEACH, but then one from Naruto right beside it. Some assets have even been merged together. Pieces of it glitch out and redesign constantly, so it’s almost a depressing mockery of Spirale in a way. There are hills and rivers too, but even those are constantly shifting position.

While tons of enemies have poured onto the streets of Spirale, there are plenty waiting on standby atop the flying island. To go it alone would be a terrible idea.

Can we destroy the flying island itself? No! You can destroy the structures on top but new things will eventually sprout up in their place. The ground and undersides seem to be protected by an impenetrable barrier. But even if you could, do you really want it crashing onto the city below?

Where should we put big, newsworthy posts during this event? Please use the tag ‘#isola sb2 news’ as opposed to the regular ‘#isola news’ tag during this part of the event. We anticipate a lot of people are going to want to do cool and interesting things that they want everyone to see so we want you guys to have a space for this, but we also do not want to clutter the regular news tag.

I have an additional question! Feel free to send it to the masterlist! Due to the nature of this part and all of the potential moving pieces we’re sure people may have questions or concerns that haven’t been covered.

When is part 2 expected to end? A week from now on May 1st at 12:00:01AM EST. We’ll likely be polling around the middle of the week to see if people would like an extension however! 

[newstfionline]

Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Next stop Mars: 3 spacecraft arriving in quick succession (AP) After hurtling hundreds of millions of miles through space since last summer, three robotic explorers are ready to hit the brakes at Mars. The United Arab Emirates’ orbiter reaches Mars on Tuesday, followed less than 24 hours later by China’s orbiter-rover combo. NASA’s rover, the cosmic caboose, will arrive on the scene a week later, on Feb. 18, to collect rocks for return to Earth—a key step in determining whether life ever existed at Mars. Both the UAE and China are newcomers at Mars, where more than half of Earth’s emissaries have failed. China’s first Mars mission, a joint effort with Russia in 2011, never made it past Earth’s orbit. All three spacecraft rocketed away within days of one another last July, during an Earth-to-Mars launch window that occurs only every two years. That’s why their arrivals are also close together.

Around the globe, virus cancels spring travel for millions (AP) They are the annual journeys of late winter and early spring: Factory workers in China heading home for the Lunar New Year; American college students going on road trips and hitting the beach over spring break; Germans and Britons fleeing drab skies for some Mediterranean sun over Easter. All of it canceled, in doubt or under pressure because of the coronavirus. Amid fears of new variants of the virus, new restrictions on movement have hit just as people start to look ahead to what is usually a busy time of year for travel. It means more pain for airlines, hotels, restaurants and tourist destinations that were already struggling more than a year into the pandemic, and a slower recovery for countries where tourism is a big chunk of the economy.

AP-NORC poll: Few in US say democracy is working very well (AP) Only a fragment of Americans believe democracy is thriving in the U.S., even as broad majorities agree that representative government is one of the country’s bedrock principles, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 16% of Americans say democracy is working well or extremely well, a pessimism that spans the political spectrum. Nearly half of Americans, 45%, think democracy isn’t functioning properly, while another 38% say it’s working only somewhat well. The poll’s findings are broadly consistent with how Americans graded democracy before the election. But there are signs that Trump’s attacks on the democratic process, including his repeated argument that the election was “stolen” because of voter irregularities, resonated with Republicans.

Schools plan for potential of remote learning into the fall (AP) Parents of schoolchildren learning from home shouldn’t necessarily count on reclaiming the dining room table any time soon. After seeing two academic years thrown off course by the pandemic, school leaders around the country are planning for the possibility of more distance learning next fall at the start of yet another school year. “We have no illusions that COVID will be eradicated by the time the start of the school year comes up,” said William “Chip” Sudderth III, a spokesperson for Durham, North Carolina schools, whose students have been out of school buildings since March. President Joe Biden has made reopening schools a top priority, but administrators say there is much to consider as new strains of the coronavirus appear and teachers wait their turn for vaccinations. And while many parents are demanding that schools fully reopen, others say they won’t feel safe sending children back to classrooms until vaccines are available to even young students.

2nd major snowstorm in a week blankets Northeast (AP) A major snowstorm pushed through the Northeastern United States on Sunday, less than a week after a storm dumped more than 2 feet on parts of the region. By early afternoon, 5 to 7 inches had already fallen in parts of northwestern New Jersey and southwestern Connecticut. New York’s Central Park reported about 3 inches. The highest total was recorded in West Whiteland Township, west of Philadelphia, where about 9 inches had fallen. The National Weather Service predicted up to 8 inches of snow in New York City and 2 to 4 inches in Washington, D.C. Up to a foot was projected to fall on some areas along the Connecticut coastline.

Biden faces border challenge as migrant families arrive in greater numbers and large groups (Washington Post) President Biden’s more-welcoming message to immigrants is facing an immediate challenge along the Mexican border, where Central American families and children have been crossing in numbers that point to a building crisis. In recent days, U.S. authorities have seen the return of large groups of parents and children crossing the border in the darkness, a replay of scenes that occurred during the record influx of families who arrived in 2018 and 2019, overwhelming migrant shelters and Border Patrol stations. Republican critics of Biden say the new wave is the start of the crisis they have long predicted, invited by the new administration’s eager rejection of Trump’s deterrent approach. Yet Biden also inherited a highly improvised enforcement system from his predecessor that was already under strain and highly dependent on Trump’s diplomatic bullying of Mexico. Late last month, Mexican authorities in some areas of the border stopped taking back families returned by the United States under emergency pandemic health measures implemented last March. With the U.S. capacity to hold adults and children reduced by the pandemic and the temporary closure of the largest Border Patrol facility in South Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began dropping families off at bus stations and shelters last week.

Ecuador’s election (Foreign Policy) Ecuador’s presidential election is set to go to a second round after early returns showed a split electorate. Leftist Andrés Arauz leads the count with 31.5 percent of the vote, while his closest challengers Guillermo Lasso and Yaku Pérez both received roughly 20 percent. As the margin between them is so tight, it’s not yet clear whether Lasso or Pérez will face Arauz in the April 11 runoff.

Brexit growing pains (Foreign Policy) Exports from the United Kingdom to the European Union fell by 68 percent in January, according to a trade group representing British truck drivers. The Road Haulage Association (RHA) attributed the drop to trade disruptions due to the end of the Brexit transition period, although the British government has said border friction has been “minimal.” The news comes as EU and U.K. representatives meet this week to discuss extending post-Brexit grace periods on the trade of certain goods.

‘Al desko’ (Foreign Policy) The French labor ministry says it will soon relax a ban on workers eating lunch at their desks in order to enforce social distancing regulations. France’s labor laws currently forbid employees from eating “al desko” and companies face financial penalties if inspectors catch them flouting the law. The country’s strict labor rights include a 2017 law that allows workers to ignore work e-mails outside of normal working hours. “We French and you Americans have totally different ideas about work,” Agnès Dutin, a retired Parisian, told the New York Times. “It’s a catastrophe to eat at your desk. You need a pause to refresh the mind. It’s good to move your body. When you return, you see things differently.”

Russia considering at least $6.7 billion spending package to ease discontent (Reuters) Russian authorities are considering a new social spending package worth at least $6.7 billion to address discontent over falling living standards before an autumn election, according to two government sources. The package, which one of the sources said President Vladimir Putin was likely to unveil in an annual speech to senior political figures in coming weeks, follows unsanctioned nationwide protests last month that hit the value of the rouble. The two government sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media, told Reuters the spending package was meant to make people feel the authorities are aware of their financial concerns and are doing something to help them.

Myanmar junta imposes curfew, meeting bans as protests swell (AP) Myanmar’s new military rulers on Monday signaled their intention to crack down on opponents of their takeover, issuing decrees that effectively banned peaceful public protests in the country’s two biggest cities. The restrictive measures were ordered after police fired water cannons at hundreds of protesters in the Myanmar capital, Naypyitaw, who were demanding the military hand power back to elected officials. It was just one of many demonstrations around the country. Rallies and gatherings of more than five people, along with motorized processions, were banned, and an 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. curfew was imposed for areas of Yangon and Mandalay, the country’s first- and second-biggest cities, where thousands of people have been demonstrating since Saturday. The growing wave of defiance—particularly in Naypyitaw, where such protests are unusual—was striking in a country where demonstrations have been met with severe force in the past.

Iran: US must lift sanctions before it lives up to nuke deal (AP) Iran’s supreme leader on Sunday urged the United States to lift all sanctions if it wants Iran to live up to commitments under its nuclear deal with world powers, state TV reported, but President Joe Biden says the U.S. won’t be making the first move. “If (the U.S.) wants Iran to return to its commitments, it must lift all sanctions in practice, then we will do verification … then we will return to our commitments,” state TV quoted Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying, in his first comments on the matter since Biden took office. Biden rejected the idea in a “CBS Evening News” interview taped Friday and airing Sunday. Former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. in 2018 from the atomic deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. Biden has said he will seek to revive the deal, but insisted that Iran must first reverse its nuclear steps, creating a contest of wills between the nations.

Israel’s Netanyahu walks out on his own corruption trial (Washington Post) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told judges in a Jerusalem court on Monday that he is innocent of corruption charges before abruptly standing, saying “thank you very much” and leaving with his motorcade. Netanyahu quit the courtroom some 20 minutes after the start of Monday morning’s hearing, which continued on without him. The sessions kick-started the second phase of a precedent-setting legal procedure, which, for the first time, involves the indictment of an Israeli prime minister while still in office and campaigning for elections in the coming weeks—the fourth in two years.

Congo working to stop new Ebola outbreak in country’s east (AP) Health officials in Congo confirmed another Ebola outbreak in the country’s east on Sunday, the fourth in less than three years. On February 3, a woman died in Butembo town in North Kivu province, Minister of Health Eteni Longondo announced. This is the 12th outbreak in conflict-ridden Congo since the virus was first discovered in the country in 1976, and comes less than three months after an outbreak in the western province of Equateur, officially ended in November. The 2018 outbreak in Eastern Congo was the second deadliest in the world, killing 2,299 people before it ended in June. That outbreak lasted for nearly two years and was fought amid unprecedented challenges, including entrenched conflict between armed groups, the world’s largest measles epidemic, and the spread of COVID-19.