#Body Slimming Machine Face & Body Shaping

[wettvagina]

GYM INSTRUCTOR REINER

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who tries his hardest to not stare at your ass when you're doing squats on your yoga mat, gripping tightly onto the pair of weights in his grasp as his biceps flex as he curls his arm.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who peers over his shoulder only to see you practically drooling at him, his head turns as he tries to play it off coolly, smirking to himself as he tenses his muscles, a new line of a sweat stain forming on his sleeveless, thin-fabric shirt.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who's face turned pink when you informed him you needed some help with a new fitness routine. you had recently switched from volleyball to track and you needed a workout routine which better suited your new sport

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who immediately rushed to his condo to begin your workout program, putting in extra attention and detail to your plan.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who calmly asked for your number to send you the workout plan, face flushed as you typed your number into his phone, he watched down at your small figure which unsurprisingly loomed below him.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who was persistent when texting you after sending you your workout plan, asking if you needed extra advice when adapting to it, any extra help in the gym itself or anything at all, gym-related or not.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who's face immediately turned red when you said you needed some help on the treadmill, gripping onto his phone as he eagerly awaited your next gym interaction.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who entered the gym the following day with the thinnest top he could find, the slimness of the fabric caused every muscle on his body to be outlined, his face emotionless as he walked past girls on various gym equipment gawking at him, even stopping their session to take a full look at his godly physique.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who smirked when you were no exception, shamelessly in awe as he approached you, sitting on a bench inside of the gym.

GYMINSTRUCTOR!REINER who showed you how the treadmill worked, explaining every miniscule button on the machine. guiding his hands onto your lower back as you steadily walked on the treadmill.

"Thanks so much for the help." you yawped, "They better be paying you good." you mentioned while standing next to Reiner outside of the closed elevator. Reiner let out a giggle while rubbing the nape of his neck, you watched his large pecs in front of you, and the way his biceps flexed as he moved his arm. ''You have any tips for dieting?'' you question, "Hm, tryna' lose weight or gain muscle?" Reiner questioned with a raised brow, "Hm, 'm not sure." you shrugged, "Your body looks like it's in top shape." he comments, immediately regretting even saying anything referencing your body as he didn't know how you would take it. "Ha! Says you." you giggle, "If it's anyone that's in top shape, it's you, big guy." you mention, hearing the 'ping' of the elevator as the doors slid open, both you and Reiner entered the enclosed space, clicking your designated floors on the panel. "Well, if you need help with just a balanced diet I can lend you a book." Reiner suggested, earning a nod from you, "Sure." you agreed, "I can give you it today, if I find it in my apartment." he says as the elevator ascends. "Perfect." you comment, walking out with him when the elevator stall opens to his floor. Reaching the door of his condo, he opens it using the keycard in his pocket, "Come in." he welcomes you as you both step in, hearing the door close behind you. "I think I left it in my cabinet, follow me." he says, you look around at the interior of his home, brows raised at how neat and contemporary it was decorated. You walked to his kitchen which was nearby, watching as he pulled out the book from his top cabinet. He placed the book in your hands, "Page 45 is my favorite." he informs, your hand moves to squeeze at his forearm, "Thank you." you mutter, "It's no problem." he says, you flip through some pages as he walks you out of his home, "So you can cook all of these." you ask, "Yeah, the instructions are all there." he shrugs, "Hm, you're wife must be lucky." you chirped, earning a slightly shocked face from Reiner before his lips tugged upwards into a smirk, "Nah, it's just me in this big house." he giggles, "Really?" your eyes immediately light up, you fight the smirk which was appearing on your face, hand gripping onto the book he gave you, "Well, invite me sometime, I'm lonely too." you quipped, earning a light giggle from Reiner as he blushed, "Ah- sure. You're welcomed here anytime." he says hurriedly, "Well, I'll take advantage of that." you say with a small smile, eyes lingering on his lips. He wasn't slow in noticing the way your gaze darted between his eyes and lips, almost involuntarily leaning into your figure, you tip-toed and delivered a small peck to the side of his lips, "I better get going." you mention, leaving him flustered, not another word dared to come out of his mouth as his face flushed into a bright red. "See ya'." you chimed, letting yourself out of his apartment as he simply stood there, his heavy, muscular body burning up as he looked at the closed door you just used to exit, already missing your presence.

[corruptedcaps]

First Day on the Job

Izzy Santiago took a deep breath, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she stared at the weathered warehouse in front of her. It was her first day on the job as a beat cop, and already she found herself responding to a call that could potentially define her career. The dispatch had reported illegal drug activity inside, and as she stood outside the door, she couldn't help but feel a mix of excitement and trepidation.

The moment of truth arrived, and with a swift kick, the door flew open, crashing against the wall with a thunderous bang. Izzy rushed in, her training guiding her every move, as she prepared to face the unknown that awaited her inside.

As she entered the warehouse, her senses were overwhelmed by the sight and smell of the peculiar setup. Instead of the expected drugs, she found herself surrounded by rows of strange machines and containers filled with a vivid pink liquid. The scent wafting through the air was oddly sweet, almost intoxicating, causing her to wrinkle her nose in both curiosity and apprehension.

Determined to investigate further, Izzy cautiously approached a large vat positioned in the center of the room. As she neared it, her heart pounded with a mixture of excitement and caution. Something about the pink liquid drew her attention, its vibrant hue captivating her gaze.

Lost in her examination, Izzy remained unaware of the presence closing in behind her. Silently, a figure clad in dark clothing moved stealthily, taking advantage of her distraction. In an instant, the criminal's hand forcefully pushed against her back, sending her stumbling forward. Unable to regain her balance, Izzy tumbled headfirst into the vat of pink liquid.

The shock of the sudden plunge jolted her senses, the sticky liquid engulfing her, its scent now overpowering. Panic welled within her as she struggled to resurface, but the viscous substance clung to her like a suffocating embrace. The criminal, satisfied with their ambush, disappeared into the shadows, leaving Izzy trapped and unaware of the transformative fate awaiting her.

Izzy fought against the clinging pink liquid, her body writhing in a desperate attempt to free herself from its suffocating grasp. With a burst of strength and determination, she managed to break through the surface, gasping for air as she emerged from the vat. However, the relief was short-lived.

As she stood on shaky legs, Izzy felt an inexplicable tingling sensation coursing through her body. It started at her fingertips, spreading rapidly through her veins like a surging current. A rush of heat consumed her, causing her skin to flush and her heart to race.

Izzy's clothes suddenly felt tighter, constricting against her transforming figure. Her uniform strained as her once average physique took on a newfound allure. Her muscles seemed to sculpt themselves, becoming more defined and toned. Her waist slimmed, accentuating her curves, while her hips widened ever so subtly, giving her a more alluring silhouette.

Her breath caught in her throat as her breasts expanded, her once modest bust swelling into a fuller, more voluptuous shape. She felt a surge of power and confidence coursing through her veins, radiating from her transformed body.

Izzy's features underwent a subtle yet stunning change. Her jawline became more defined, her lips plumper and inviting. Her eyes sparkled with an intense vibrancy, their color deepening to a mesmerizing shade.

She stared at her reflection in a nearby mirror, awestruck by the transformation that had taken place. Unbeknownst to her, the criminal's plan to incapacitate her had inadvertently done the opposite. She had never felt better.

As the criminal reappeared from the shadows to finish the job, Izzy's eyes locked onto him with an intensity fueled by her newfound strength. In an instant, she lunged forward, her movements swift and precise. With a surge of power, she effortlessly lifted him off the ground, her hand tightly wrapped around his neck.

"You thought you could take me down?" Izzy's voice dripped with a newfound confidence and a hint of menace. Her grip tightened, and a sinister smile played upon her lips. "You underestimated me."

The criminal struggled in vain, gasping for air as he frantically clawed at Izzy's hand. His eyes widened with terror, realizing the tables had turned against him.

Izzy's mind whirled with conflicting emotions. She relished in her newfound strength, the exhilaration of overpowering her adversary coursing through her veins. The dark urge to snap his neck, to extinguish his life, surged within her. Remorse and compassion had been replaced by a thirst for power, an insatiable hunger.

The man's choked plea for mercy reached her ears, but it was drowned out by her own craving for dominance. She reveled in the feeling of control, the rush of superiority.

A wicked smile curved her lips as she loosened her grip ever so slightly, allowing the man to catch his breath. She needed him alive, at least for now, to unravel the secrets behind her transformation.

A twisted sense of exhilaration coursed through Izzy's veins as she contemplated the possibilities that lay before her—a queenpin rising from the shadows, reigning over the town with an iron fist.

"You're going to tell me everything," Izzy hissed, her voice laced with an air of authority. "How did these chemicals change me? Who else is involved? I want all the answers."

Before he could answer, the two of them heard the wailing of incoming sirens. Backup was arriving. With a sinister grin, she swiftly grabbed the criminal's again and hooked him onto a nearby wall, leaving him suspended in mid-air. "Hang around," she taunted, relishing in the irony of her words.

Stepping outside, Izzy's confidence radiated from her transformed form. She approached the approaching police officers with a purposeful stride, her allure and newfound power at the forefront.

One of the officers, recognizing her, raised an eyebrow. "Izzy? What's going on here? We received a call about illegal activity in the warehouse."

Izzy smirked, allowing her eyes to gleam with an unwavering determination as the rest of the cops drank in her form. "False alarm, guys. Just a misunderstanding. No need to worry."

The rest of her colleagues didn’t even seem to hear what she said, they were too enamoured by her body and seemingly her scent.

"Alright, Izzy. If you say so. But keep us informed if anything changes," one of them said in a slight daze.

Izzy smiled, a charismatic blend of reassurance and authority. "Of course, I'll make sure you're the first to know. Thanks for the backup, though. Always good to have you guys on my side." She said as she put her hand on one of the officers arm and squeezed it with a wink. They were putty in her hands.

As the backup sirens faded into the distance, Izzy's heart thrummed with exhilaration. Her newfound power and persuasive abilities had allowed her to bend the situation to her will. Now, with the officers convinced that nothing was awry, she returned to the warehouse, where Izzy knew her plans were just beginning to take shape. The criminal would remain as her captive informant, her conduit to the secrets hidden within. The town would soon be hers to control, and she would reign as the powerful queenpin she had become.

[winterbuckwild]

For @babyboymunson inspired by their adorable angry farmer Steve prompt.

Today everything was pissing him off. His coffee machine pissed him off when it conked out in the middle of the drip leaving him caffeineless and adrift at 5am. The horses had pissed him off: one not wanting to go out to the paddock and the other wanting to go out a bit too enthusiastically on his two hind legs. 

The sheep had pissed him off by escaping their lambing pens running amok over the cabins front lawn and one adventurous cow had decided to investigate the commotion and took an entire fence line with it. 

Which is why at 8am Steve was loading up fence posts onto the quad trailer and cursing the fact that they ever thought farming was a good idea in the first place. 

He had just thrown the last roll of electric fence tape violently into the trailer bed when a dust trail could be seen kicking up across his unfinished driveway. 

Dust. Fuck. Now Steve was pissed off with the lack of rain and the sheer blinding effort it was going to take to drive the god damned fence posts into the hard ground. 

A familiar truck rounded the corner and he felt his bad mood lifting as a dark head came into view, curls bopping with the metal drum beat blaring out of the speakers. 

A couple of sheep startled and took off towards the cabin, most of them used to the cacophony by now and not letting it interrupt their destruction of the rampant front garden. He glared after them and studiously didn't think about where else the little fuckers could end up and what they would destroy when they got there.

"Well, that is a face." The big truck cut off as Eddie stepped out, his long, lean body loose and relaxed and a lopsided grin on his handsome, scarred face. He'd gone out early - right before the coffee incident - to pick up the feed order and there was a large hump under a tarp in the truck bed that was distinctly non-feed shaped. "Who pissed in your cheerios, princess?" 

He took a look around at the fence, the sheep and the damned cow, noticing the chaos and winced. "Nevermind. Need a hand?"

His husband skipped over, kissing him lightly on the mouth just because he could. It still made Steve go a little goofy on this inside, enough to make the whole thing worth it. Even the damned sheep. Eddie was worth everything. 

"Give me a hand with the fence?" He gestured to the quad behind him. "We can round up the assholes when we have something to put them behind."

What he actually wanted to do was drag Eddie up to their shared bedroom and give him the morning wake up that he deserved. He contemplated just ditching the madness for a full three seconds before guilt over shirking responsibilities raised it's ugly head and he sighed. Eddie must have seen the hot look in his eyes, because his smile widened and he winked. 

"Only if you give me something pretty to look at, big boy." He walked back to the truck to grab his thick work gloves and turned around to find Steve's shirt stripped off, skin golden and glowing in the morning sun. "Perfect." 

They worked slower than they could have, the flex of Steve's biceps as he rammed the posts into the solid ground distracting Eddie while the latter tried his best to tease through the whole process, brushing against his other half, pressing kisses into sweating skin as he tried to resist climbing the ex jock like a tree.

When the last post was hammered in and the stock fence attached Eddie slipped his arms around Steve slim waist and pressed a soft kiss on the side of his neck. 

"I love you." He whispered, just holding on. "I love this." 

"I love you too" Steve answered, taking a long, deep breath and melting into his husbands embrace. "I love all this." He looked over the rolling land, fields of green and swaying hay in the summer breeze. He filled his lungs with sweet air and closed his eyes, the stress of the morning almost forgotten. 

Almost. 

A loud clang sounded behind then, the loud noise jolting through them like a live wire. Steve didn't open his eyes. 

"I'm not looking." He murmered darkly. "I refuse to look. I'm comfy. You look." 

He felt Eddie shift and swear, arms dropping from around him as he darted off, cursing a blue streak. Steve turned around as his beloved chased a sheep out of the bed of his truck, the feed and mystery covered item in danger and shook his head in despair. 

"I fucking hate sheep." He sighed, "cock blocking bastards." 

***

May do a little part 2 if people like it and I can gather the brain cells....

Sorry guys should have added that I'm not able to do tag lists right now :(

Also on Ao3..

[unbrydledfury]

                                                          - - -

    The world's largest celebration of an ex-corpse turned Hollywood Boulevard into a teeming sea of cheering crowds. Countless arms pumped and snatched at the rainbow of confetti snowing from the flawless blue sky. Excited screams punctuated the trumpets blaring from mariachi musicians stationed on rooftops like heralding angels. The day was seventy-five degrees with forty percent humidity.

    The doors of the Chinese Theatre burst open and Bryan Fury stepped out into Southern Californian paradise. His audience roared with praise as he tugged the lapels of his suit jacket, his grin gleaming like the sun off his designer shades. Flanked by a cadre of slim supermodels in slimmer dresses, the cyborg descended amongst his adoring fans.

    Arms spread wide, hands brushing and being brushed by jittering, shrieking devotees, he approached the blank concrete square in the sidewalk. Kneeling before it, he thought about what to inscribe. Simple was best. With a finger he drew his name, all caps, bigger and bolder than life with underlines like missile trails.

    The crowd exploded, bodies bobbing in seismic waves as the music swelled to a crescendo. Bryan rose to his feet and thrust his fist skyward, a triumphant cry tearing from him that hundreds echoed back. Cameras flashed like starbursts while cannons cascaded streamers and silver glitter and a glowing warmth he hadn't felt in ages filled his mind. He was seen. He was known.

    A pair of arms curled under his own, hands resting on his sternum. Bryan could recognize their scars anywhere. A face pressed briefly, affectionately, into the back of his shoulder, and lips softly brushed his ear.

    "Well done, darling," Dragunov murmured.

    Despite the postcard weather and rock concert crowd, the pit of Bryan's stomach turned to frost. Never once had he heard Sergei speak. That was not the soldier's voice. That was his own.

    Pale fingers trailed over his throat.

    Fury swung a punch behind him, and the vague shape there broke apart into streams of navy mist. The sounds and smells of the Walk of Fame felt as distant as his plummeting mood. What the fuck was that? He tried for steadying breaths, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

    A heartbeat he did not have.

    He looked to his entourage. They were nothing but smears of peach and tan, brushstrokes emulating hourglass figures and beehive wigs. Whirling back around, he saw his audience was a wall of faceless blotches and stains, an endless LSD trip projected on suffocating wildfire smoke. The music stuttered and skipped. Impossible. Wasn't it playing live?

    Trying to blink the insane mirage from his eyes -- no use, it was still there, its cheers warped long and low into funerary wailing -- Bryan reached to remove his shades. Something larger than lenses stopped his fingers. Bulkier. Pulling on it, he felt it press against the back of his head. He grabbed the crown of his head, arms straining to rip his skull apart.

    CRUN--

                    -

                        --nch.

    Still breathing hard, it took Fury a moment to gather himself. He was in a small white room, standing on some sort of small round treadmill. Mechanical arms attached to the machine and hanging from tracks on the ceiling lashed cuffs around his ankles and wrists. In his hands were two pieces of some sort of helmet, cracked down the middle with technicolor wiring exposed.

    Two men and a woman in white coats stared from an observation window, eyes wide and mouths agape with fear. A fourth researcher stood in the room with him, frozen in place, laptop clutched to her breast.

    Bryan looked himself over. Left arm and right leg devoid of synthetic skin, check. Camo pants, check. Ocular HUD reporting normalizing respiration rate, adrenaline levels, and latency between brain and limbs, check, check, check.

    He couldn't help but chuckle.

    It had been a whirlwind, even by his standards. Receiving word from a Hollywood studio that wanted to tell his story was unexpected but interesting. He remembered walking into their office and shaking hands with the director -- yeah, that was him in the observation room, wearing a nametag from a private military company -- mindful not to crush his bones. They wanted to try a new technique, he said, a type of VR AI that captured and generated visuals from memories. Always willing to play my greatest hits, Bryan recalls saying. They'd strapped him in and turned it on. The next week had been a tour de force, carnage reimagined: gunning down insurgents in Middle Eastern deserts, plowing through waves of Zaibatsu even as his flesh tore like fishnets, a second extinction of the Manji clan.

    Grinning, he loosed a nostalgic sigh. The little black box between his lungs was worth its weight in diamonds. He sent it a kind, simple query: where would I be without you?

    He interpreted its response as followed: here, where you've been for the past one year, four months, and eleven days.

    The researcher inched toward a door in the corner.

    Still smiling, Bryan craned his head toward her. "Oh, you clever bastards," he muttered, and threw the broken helmet through the window, impacting the director's face with a spray of blood.

    As he slumped to the ground, the others bolted. Seconds later the room was shrouded in red as an alarm blared. The woman with the laptop had her hand on the doorknob.

    Pain exploded down her side as Bryan grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her close. She could feel his breath, hot and humid, on her neck. "No you don't," he snarled, "You have some explaining to do. Looks like I've been out of the loop for a while."

    Guards are coming, she thought, trying to contain her panic and her bladder, It's okay, it'll be okay. The guards had guns. They'd take him out.

    Yet he held her in front of him, his grip like iron. She had seen for herself Bryan's opinion on collateral damage.

    Jackboots thundered closer.

    His words like beetles in her ear: "Start talking."

[allfryam]

Sugarcoated

Andrew was an all star basketball player all through high school and he loved it. He worked out often and he had a slim body with a nice six pack.

andrew was always in shape. He loved playing sports and exercising so it was easy for him. When Andrew was almost finished with his senior year of high school, he had to pick his college classes. When Andrew was looking through the list he found a baking class. Andrew always wanted to step out of his comfort zone and maybe get into a new hobby. Besides, Andrew loved sweets so it would be free food. Andrew was always in for free food.

His whole life, Andrew loved eating. It was the only thing he liked more than working out. He had a crazy fast metabolism though so he would never gain a pound. Once, he ate an entire pizza all by himself. When he was finished he even drove out to get some ice cream. His mom always said his stomach was like a bottomless pit.

andrew’s first few weeks at college were great. His roommate was in a few of his classes including the baking class. With all of the homework and parties Andrew was going to, he almost never had time to work out. This was fine with him though because he couldn’t gain weight if he tried.

one day in his baking class, the teacher made Andrew and his roommate stay and talk to him after class. He told them he accidentally baked three times the amount of cookies he needed to bake. He was wondering if Andrew and his roommate could eat the extras so he wouldn’t have to throw any away.

Andrew thought this would be easy. How many cookies could it even be? 10? 12? “48”. Said the teacher. Andrew didn’t know what to say. 48 cookies was a lot. But he was definitely going to try.

The first few cookies were great. They were like sugar cookies but with a really rich icing on top. After about 10 cookies, Andrew’s roommate said he had to go, so he wished Andrew good luck and left.

Andrew ate the cookies two at a time, one in each hand. Eventually it came down to just two more. Andrew could barely eat another bite. With the encouragement of his teacher, he shoved the last two cookies down his throat and let out a massive burp of relief. And for the fist time in forever, Andrew could see his stomach just barely poking out from beneath his shirt.

over the next few months, Andrew started eating more and more desserts as the class got more intense. Pies, cakes, cookies, biscuits, pastries, bread, scones. And Andrew loved it. He started to notice that all of his shirts were starting to get tighter. There must have been a problem with the washing machine.

it eventually got to the point where Andrew found out he could take a lot of his classes online so he would even have to leave his dorm. Even the baking class would send him ingredients to make the pastries at home. Andrew loved this idea. And apparently so did his stomach.

andrew’s roommate eventually said something to Andrew about his weight gain. He pointed out how none of his shirts fit anymore and he could always see his new round jiggly belly bouncing around when he walked. He also told Andrew he loved it.

Andrew decided that his roommate was just playing a prank on him and he wasn’t gaining weight at all. But it got so bad that Andrew would only wear sweatpants, and he didn’t even bother trying to put on a shirt. Besides, he enjoyed the freedom of letting his belly do what it wanted.

Andrew’s roommate loved to bring home dessert for Andrew and he loved to watch Andrew eat it even more. One time he brought home an entire chocolate cake with rich, creamy icing and bits of Oreos drizzled on top. Andrew was eager to have a slice or two but his roommate wanted him to eat the whole thing.

Andrew started with the first slice. He didn’t even use a fork, just his chubby, greasy hands. He shoved the cake into his face, smearing chocolate all over his lips. He grabbed a second slice and did the same, his stomach began to stretch and expand, getting closer and closer to the counter. After the third slice, Andrew’s stomach was pressed up against the counter. Andrew was eager to finish this cake as he never gave up on a bet.

he moved to the couch and laid on his back with his expanding stomach in the air, wobbling as he laid down. He shoved the fourth piece into his mouth and was starting to feel full. He told his roommate to help him with the last two slices. He was happy to shove some more cake into his mouth. He climbed on top of Andrew’s stomach and began to push cake into his mouth like he was pushing coins into a slot machine.

by the end of the year, Andrew had completely changed. His sharp jawline now completely covered by a thick double chin. His muscular arms were more like flabby sausages now and the most significant change was his stomach. At the beginning of the year he had rock hard abs that looked like they had been carved from stone. But now, he had a large, round, hairy, ball of lard for a stomach. It completely hung over his belt and Andrew hadn’t seen his feet in months. Andrew didn’t plan on stopping either. After nearly 85 lbs of weight piled onto him, he finally realized that he was fat. And he loved it.

[firewolf-pyro]

4. ICE PLANET

Miles away from the twin peaks lies a half buried science building with a large futuristic plow pushing snow off of a runway to the left of the entrance. The front of the building is short, shaped like a half oval with big black windows on either side of the double doors. People are walking around the front of the building in full winter gear going too and from carrying boxes and crates with sample markers on them. This was the local science facility.

Anis, a tall spindly woman dressed from head to toe in a bright orange snow suit, strode towards the facility clutching a briefcase to her side. The wind was blowing snow around her and threatened to rip the briefcase away from her side even as the Siamese cat-faced lady made her way into the temperature controlled entryway of the facility. Once she was inside she stripped down to her suit and trousers, a brilliant red dress shirt paired perfectly with some slim black leggings. A bit chilly for where she worked but it was a statement she desired to make.

“Ood, come here and take this to my office, the file on the top there, take that down to the head of bioengineering. Thank you~” Anis hands the folder off to an ood dressed in the usual clothing, a dark navy blue jumpsuit. She gives a catty smirk before turning away from them. Her confidence in her research, her work environment was intense.

Anis turns away to follow the ood down the crowded main hallway down a flight of stairs. They are passed by my people in red and orange body suits. The ood heads down a few levels and crosses the white empty hallways to a steel door. They bring their translator to the keycard reader to get it open. Behind the doors stood Lesly, a short middle aged man with short brown hair and stubble. He has pudgy features and is dressed in blue and white plaid button up and jeans.

“Man. That is some serious mutation.” Lesly grumbles as he stairs into a powerful looking microscope. The lab around him is a large circular room with a desk at the center, shelves and counters around the walls and bright orange tubs with sample labels on them sat around in the walkways. There are papers and scientific journals set around the room with fridges sat on the counter. The area seems to be set up to look over liquid samples of microbiology. The ood sets the bright red folder down beside the microscope Lesly was looking through.

“Doctor Anis asked me to bring this to you.” The Ood keeps a hand on the folder until Lesly sits up to look at the folder then up at the Ood. He assumed this would have been about what she had found in the ice layers a few miles beyond their last sample’s location.

“Thanks, I’ll take a look through this in a second.”

Lesly flinches when a slight popping noise comes from one of the machines with tubes of liquid media in it. He stands and waves the Ood off, intent on fixing the pressurized device that had just become disconnected.

“On second thought, could you bring that to Bastion? I have to deal with whatever is going wrong there.” Lesly walks past the Ood to deal with the rattling popping box. The folder full of information would have to be peeled over the next available time.

“Of course, Lesly.” The Ood takes the folder and leaves the room with the folder clutched to their chest. Just down the hall was another lab Bastion would have been working in. That was where the Ood was headed. They were met with a pair of secured double doors. Stepping through them they would have to wait in a decontamination station for the misting system to finish. Once sprayed down they were allowed into the lab.

The second pair of doors opens letting them into the small square lab. The walls here are mostly barren besides some lock out shelves with vents that go up to the surface. The middle of the room has two counters in which are different pieces of technology used in studying and isolating bacterias. Bastion was busy at one of the counters carefully moving one strain into another container.

“Bastion, Doctor Lesly has told me to bring you down a folder from Doctor Anis.” The Ood steps into the room and sets the folder down on the black topped counter beside Bastion. Bastion, a blue humanoid dressed in a white full body clean gown turned to glance at the Ood. Their facial tendrils coiled up a bit to express their distaste in the Ood’s presence.

“Oh- must be about the new samples they recovered from the glades a few days ago.” Bastion sets the petri dish on the counter before tossing their rubber gloves into a biohazard waste bin. After washing their hands they take the folder from the counter. Flipping through the contents of the folder their expression deepens into one of displeasure.

“Is there anything else you would like me to deliver?” The Ood holds its translator device up a bit as Bastion picks over the folder. They slow their flipping through the pages for a moment to consider the question.

“Not currently. I will be up to meet with the two once I’ve filed these bad boy’s away.” Bastion gestures behind themself with a thumb at the Petri dishes waiting for them on the counter top. The Ood bows in understanding before turning away. With their dismissal they would return to the main floor back through the decontamination station.

On a level far above the Ood, Anis sat in her office. A small office with warm colored walls surrounded her. A large dark window to the left of her desk looks out into the snowy abyss. Her desk is a solid black wood with no real decorations on the press board. The wall to her right had a black wooden shelf with crates of folders and tube samples. The wall behind her is plain with a doctorate of hers tying her to the cat nuns. She smiles quietly to herself recollecting pictures of New, New York sent to her from her family back home.

“If we tell them now…” Anis whispers softly as her hand plays with a pen. She was rolling it over the surface of some paper in front of her. She is leaning over her desk lazily as she watches the world outside of her office. Her eyes flick up towards a ball of silver trailing orange behind it. A look of concern crosses her face as she squints at the glistening ball streaking across the sky above the twin peaks outside her window. She flinched as a sonic boom rips through the air shaking the windows - the strange silver item became clearer now as it hurtled closer and closer to the ground. It was some kind of spacecraft. Her look of concern turned to one of horror- that was a spacecraft! She ducked down as the ship vanished behind the two mountains- just in time it seemed as the crash from it shook the building hard enough to topple samples from her shelves.

“What in the Milky Way???” Anis dusts herself off as she sits up and watches the sky around the entrance point of the anomaly begin turning and swirling. She leans back as she hears the wind picking up outside as it howls against the window. The atmospheric disturbance had prompted the planet to start another snowy storm.

“Oh - oh no-“ She stands and bolts to her office exit. Out her window the smoke from the crashed ship trails up from between the two mountains. The black bleary smoke gets quickly swept away by a growing, powerful storm. It doesn’t take long for the storm to darken so much that the sky seems to go black.

[sofarfarout]

experiment start

Full Name: Clockwise the Artificer

Goes by: Clockwise

Nicknames/Aliases: old man(by Cold Steel), Rustbucket(by Cold Steel)

Gender: male

Pronouns: he/him

Sexuality: asexual

Marital status: single, not interested

Age: 53

Birthday: April 14th

Species: born an earth pony, mechanical augmentation makes him functionally an alicorn

Occupation: artificer

Past occupations: horologist and clockmaker

Alignment: Lawful Good

Family: Greasemonkey(father, deceased at age 49), Chug-a-long(mother, deceased at age 74), Nitty Gritty(younger sibling, age 48), Mila Minute(younger sister, age 41)

Relationship with family

Greasemonkey: died when Clockwise was a young adult in an accident at work, they were close and enjoyed messing around with machines and trinkets together

C: "Father was always a busy stallion. Always working, whether it was in his shop or at the factory. He saw beauty in machinery and I'm always grateful to him for sharing that with me."

Chug-a-long: was close with his mother and especially liked riding the train with her, had a shared love for mathematics

C: "Mother and I often enjoyed doing puzzles together. She was very adept at sudoku and while I wasn't bad myself, I was never as fast as her. She told me that numbers simply made sense to her. They were absolutes and did not change. That stick with me for whatever reason."

Nitty Gritty: were never that close but don't really have bad blood either, just went about their lives separately, envy each other's abilities

C: "My sibling and I are near polar opposites. They are a wonderful artist, seeing the world in all these...fantastical hues. Their work is something to behold. I, on the other hoof, seem to lack that color."

Mila Minute: was once very close with his sister but has grown increasingly distant over time, Mila no longer associates with him

C: "..."

Other relationships

Cold Steel: former student that grew disillusioned with his mentor's ideals, believed his views to be naive and childish

CS: "Holier-than-thou? No. But I am holier than you, old man."

Distinguishing physical features

-gangly build, mostly legs with a slim torso

-about half his body is composed of brass augmentations

-very large ears, comparable to a donkey or mule

-tears in left ear

-straight profile, face is neither dished nor aquiline

-eyes are sharp, almost diamond shaped

Cutie Mark: a large gear shaped clock with a smaller gear to the side

Special talent: tinkering, specializes in industrial revolution era technology

How he got it: repaired his family's most prized heirloom, a 17th century pendulum clock, got his mark later than most at age 14

Personality: brilliant, cautious, contemplative, eloquent, empathetic, enigmatic, gentle, idealistic, indecisive, kind, logical, mawkish, meticulous, nervous, passionate, passive, private, reclusive, selfless, unassertive, warm-hearted, wise

Greatest Strength: sensitivity and kindness

Fatal Flaw: difficulty opening up about his own struggles, prone to isolating himself and dealing with his troubles alone

Likes: meditation, math, crabapple jam, antiques, birds(especially owls), tidying up his workshop, hot chocolate, foals, harps, tinkering, whistling

Dislikes: public speaking, being rushed, the smell of gasoline, smartphones, being called a robot, arguing/debate, gardening, sports, heavy metal music, thunderstorms, dirty jokes

Fears: death, clowns, failure

Clockwise is a brilliant artificer working selflessly to unify flesh, metal and the arcane to improve the lives of all creatures in Equestria. He's very passionate about his life's work and spends most of his days tinkering away in his underground workshop. Being rather shy and a workaholic, Clockwise doesn't get out much and is prone to isolating himself and unintentionally pushing others out. Despite this, he's quite sensitive to the plight of others and will not hesitate to use his inventions to help another. He's something of a bleeding heart despite what his metallic body may suggest. This has come back to bite him more than once, most notably with his former apprentice, Cold Steel. A young Cold Steel had come across the fantastic brass pony one day and begged to be taken under his wing, though Clockwise didn't need much convincing after assessing the colt's talent. For years, Steel studied dutifully under Clockwise, eager to learn as much as he could, until Steel's bitterness and anger overtook him. Cold Steel believed his mentor had gone soft and grew to find his ideals and beliefs antiquated. After a heated, though one-sided argument, Steel left his mentor behind, never to return.

Any questions or additional information you want me to add? Don't hesitate to comment!

Bases- box-of-ideas on dA

[cassieuncaged]

OC: Nyx Biography Part 1: Black Dragon Ties

Name: Rachel Rogers (legally redacted)/Nyx (codename)

Age: 33

Gender: Female

Affiliation: The Black Dragon (formerly), Special Forces

———————————————

Appearance

———————————————

Skin Color: Alabaster, fair

Hair Style: long, it hangs halfway down her back

Hair Color: naturally blonde but dyed it half black and half white.

Eye Color: aquamarine. Wears red, black, and purple contacts

Body Shape:

Has an athletic, slim build with broad shoulders

Height: 5’7

Clothing: goth core, wears either black jeans or leather pants, a matching leather jacket, fingerless gloves, fishnet and mesh shirt beneath a goth rock tshirt (Bauhaus, Joy Division, etc,), and Doc Martens. Also wears a studded mask that covers the bottom half of her face.

Misc.: has an eyebrow piercing, a septum piercing, as well several on either ear (lobe, tragus, industrial). Wears heavy makeup, Smokey eyeshadow and purple lipstick

———————————————

Powers and Abilities

———————————————

Nyx doesn’t posses any supernatural powers. However, she practice karate and judo since was a teenager as well as Krav Maga. She is agile, quick, and elusive as a ghost.

Her weapons include a Sig MPX K with a silencer as well as a throwing knife occasionally as well using her Ducati to literally run over her competition.

———————————————

Personality

———————————————

Likes

Playing video games

Moshing at metal concerts

Pepperoni pizza

Rodents and reptiles

Getting tattoos and piercings

Dislikes

Kano

Being bossed around

Her job as a hired gun

Big crowds

Personality Traits

Clever

Adaptable

Independent

Fear(s)

That everything in her life was meaningless and that she’s only a killing machine with no other prospects

Those she cares about dying because of her

———————————————

Backstory

———————————————

Born Rachel Rogers on June 6th 1990, Rogers was the first born to Jill and Michael. Her early years were filled comfort and stability fueled by loving parents.

However, Michael was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer shortly after the birth of their second child, Noah. The family spent a lot of times in and out of hospitals until Michael passed away.

Rachel was devastated and became averse to hospitals because of the experience. She was quiet as a child and spent most of her time playing old computer adventure games or reading about Greek mythology. Jill had to work multiple jobs to make ends meet and often left Rachel in charge. She became very protective of Noah and even defended him when he got bullied at school.

Because of this, she began practicing karate and judo and became very proficient in both. She received average grades in high school and enlisted in the military after she graduated from high school. This was in attempt to make money and help her mother with financial stability with government granted stipends.

It was then that she discovered how agile she was as well as naturally proficient with firearms. She moved to special ops. She was discharged from active duty after three years and struggled to readjust to the world around her.

Rachel began running with underground crime syndicates as a hired gun. However, her job put her family’s lives at risk. After meeting Kano in Los Angeles, he offers her a blank slate under the condition she works for him, no questions asked.

Desperate to start over, she accepts the offer of tabula rasa and begins to work with the Black Dragon clan under the moniker Nyx.

template

[fat-hedonistic-hogs]

Kirio making sure a certain shark espada's fraccion get unable to move stuffed when the *spoiler* comes to talk about peace with the soul society. /Sorry my head moves faster than my fingers sometimes./

(No worries! Thanks for resending the ask. I quite enjoy this idea.

Thanks to Harribel's rule and the help of Nel and Roka acting as liaisons between the soul society and human world respectively Hueco Mundo has finally reached some semblance of peace. The arrancar won't attack the human world or meddle in the affairs of soul reapers and the soul society allows them to devour rogue Hollows and the humans provide them with technology and food. (Roka mostly handles the tech and food part)

Obviously not all Hollows and arrancar agree with this deal and formed their own factions. Harribel's tres bestias and newly formed espada keep them from posing and major threat to the peace treaty and the Calavera have been repurposed as security guards for the new "kingdom".

Though there was the first few months after the Quincy invasion where Hueco Mundo was in utter chaos. Many arrancar where experimented on or willing joined the Quincy not to mention the countless purged. Someone had to help strengthen the new kingdom's forces or a second invasion could likely wipe them out entirely. That's where Kirio came in. During one of the many emergency meetings held at Harribel's palace Kirio accompanied the queen to her chambers and was given the privilege of whiping her fallen tres bestias into fighting shape after a certain jailer wounded them. A quick soak in a portable hotspring borrowed from Tenjiro had their injuries healed enough for Kirio to take over.

Mila Rose, Cyan and Apacci where in critical condition with Apacci especially suffering a major blow to the chest and throat. But now that they were good enough to "train" kirio had free reign to let them stuff their faces!

Luckily the king of grain was here to help!

"EAT UP LADIES! Your queen has given me permission to oversee your recovery. You three will be better than new by the time you finish my full course meal!" Kirio laughed having poured her entire spiritual energy into a colossal sized meal slimming her down to a small though still chunky form.

"Oi! You old boar! We're still wounded! There's no way we can eat all that!" Apacci argued though was stopped by Kirio waving her spoon causing three massive pipes to launch themselves at the three arrancar embedding themselves into their mouths.

"I thought you would say that! That's why I brought this from my palace. A super sized feeding machine! You piglets won't have to lift a finger or hoof until you're turned into proper sized hogs ready for battle!" Kirio laughed and started up the machine. The thick metal pipes began pumping while a set of mechanical arms began stuffing the feast down a large funnel. Slowly but surely the mouthfuls of food reached their mouths and the three wounded soldiers got a taste of Kirio's heavenly and strength increasing cooking. "Eat it all up! There's plenty to go around." She smiled grabbing a plate for herself and taking a seat to watch the show.

"Ma-man i feel so full already! There's no way I can eat all this!" Apacci groaned as her mouth and stomach were pumped full of greasy slop. "But no matter how much I feel full... my stomach won't stop asking for more!" She said suckling down a line of sausages and lard, the mixture pushing her stomach to the limits. Rapid digestion was part of the process and soon fat began clinging to every inch of the already obese woman's frame. Hands, legs, feet, face. Nothing was free from the fattening affects of the cooking. Her belly rumbled loudly begging for more food. And the strange thing was... Appaci was starting to want more herself!

"This power... I'll be able to fight again..." Franceska smirked as she felt power fill her body, her lost strength returning to her even if it was buried beneath multiple tons of flab and lard. The lion themed arrancar roared in excitement along with her gut! She could feel the foodworking, she wouldn't fail her majesty again! Her chins doubled and belly rolls tripled, ass expanded forming her own beanbag chair beneath her body while her abs faded and became a roll of jiggly flabs proudly displayed infront of her massive room filling stomach. "BWOOOOOOOOORP!" She belched not just shaking the room but her comrades as well.

"BwoURRRP-BWAAAAAARRRRRRP!" Cyan and Apacci joined the chorus of belched each od their rumbling swollen guts sounding out like a muffled fog horn from around their feeding tubes. All three were passed immobility at this point. Arms and legs sunken in their own flab, they could barely see what was infront of them passed their own swollen cheeks and breasts.

"Oh my look how big you've all grown!" Kirio cheered as she toyed and pinched the three women's swollen faces and jiggled their rotund bellies. The pink haired soul reaper was proud of their progress but an evil glint in her eyes made the three stop dead in their tracks.

"Now that the first course is done let's have dessert!" Kirio chuckled laughing as she wheeled a humongous cake bigger than the three of them combined.

"You best prepare yourselves, this is just the warm up."

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[unbrydledfury]

                             - UNCUT -

( Hey everyone. For better readability, here's the entirety of Sons of Theseus in a single post. Please note this is enormous, clocking in at over 7300 words, so brace for a mountain of text under the Read More. If you'd like a TL;DR version, click here, though it contains spoilers, naturally.

The icons indicate separate posts. Snakes = Bryan's POV, owls = Dragunov's.

As far as content warnings go, please be aware this contains, in no particular order: canon-typical violence, brief gory depictions, lots of foul language, war, pain, and death.

Likes and comments are very appreciated! Thank you for reading! )

                                   - 𓆚 -

    The world's largest celebration of an ex-corpse turned Hollywood Boulevard into a teeming sea of cheering crowds. Countless arms pumped and snatched at the rainbow of confetti snowing from the flawless blue sky. Excited screams punctuated the trumpets blaring from mariachi musicians stationed on rooftops like heralding angels. The day was seventy-five degrees with forty percent humidity.

    The doors of the Chinese Theatre burst open and Bryan Fury stepped out into Southern Californian paradise. His audience roared with praise as he tugged the lapels of his suit jacket, his grin gleaming like the sun off his designer shades. Flanked by a cadre of slim supermodels in slim dresses, the cyborg descended amongst his adoring fans.

    Arms spread wide, hands brushing and being brushed by jittering, shrieking devotees, he approached the blank concrete square in the sidewalk. Kneeling before it, he thought about what to inscribe. Simple was best. With a finger he drew his name, all caps, bigger and bolder than life with underlines like missile trails.

    The crowd exploded, bodies bobbing in seismic waves as the music swelled to a crescendo. Bryan rose to his feet and thrust his fist skyward, a triumphant cry tearing from him that hundreds echoed back. Cameras flashed like starbursts while cannons cascaded streamers and silver glitter and a glowing warmth he hadn't felt in ages filled his mind. He was seen. He was known.

    A pair of arms curled under his own, hands resting on his sternum. Bryan could recognize their scars anywhere. A face pressed briefly, affectionately, into the back of his shoulder, and lips softly brushed his ear.

    "Well done, darling," Dragunov murmured.

    Despite the postcard weather and rock concert crowd, the pit of Bryan's stomach turned to frost. Never once had he heard Sergei speak. That was not the soldier's voice. That was his own.

    Pale fingers trailed over his throat.

    Fury swung a punch behind him, and the vague shape there broke apart into streams of navy mist. The sounds and smells of the Walk of Fame felt as distant as his plummeting mood. What the fuck was that? He tried for steadying breaths, heartbeat pounding in his ears.

    A heartbeat he did not have.

    He looked to his entourage. They were nothing but smears of peach and tan, brushstrokes emulating hourglass figures and beehive wigs. Whirling back around, he saw his audience was a wall of faceless blotches and stains, an endless LSD trip projected on suffocating wildfire smoke. The music stuttered and skipped. Impossible. Wasn't it playing live?

    Trying to blink the insane mirage from his eyes -- no use, it was still there, its cheers warped long and low into funerary wailing -- Bryan reached to remove his shades. Something larger than lenses stopped his fingers. Bulkier. Pulling on it, he felt it press against the back of his head. He grabbed the crown of his head, arms straining to rip his skull apart.

    CRUN--

                    -

                        --nch.

    Still breathing hard, it took Fury a moment to gather himself. He was in a small white room, standing on some sort of small round treadmill. Mechanical arms attached to the machine and hanging from tracks on the ceiling lashed cuffs around his ankles and wrists. In his hands were two pieces of some sort of helmet, cracked down the middle with technicolor wiring exposed.

    Two men and a woman in white coats stared from an observation window, eyes wide and mouths agape with fear. A fourth researcher stood in the room with him, frozen in place, laptop clutched to her breast.

    Bryan looked himself over. Left arm and right leg devoid of synthetic skin, check. Camo pants, check. Ocular HUD reporting normalizing respiration rate, adrenaline levels, and latency between brain and limbs, check, check, check.

    He couldn't help but chuckle.

    It had been a whirlwind, even by his standards. Receiving word from a Hollywood studio that wanted to tell his story was unexpected but interesting. He remembered walking into their office and shaking hands with the director -- yeah, that was him in the observation room, wearing a nametag from a private military company. They wanted to try a new technique, he said, a type of VR AI that captured and generated visuals from memories. Always willing to play my greatest hits, Bryan recalls saying. They'd strapped him in and turned it on. The next week had been a tour de force, carnage reimagined: gunning down insurgents in Middle Eastern deserts, plowing through waves of Zaibatsu even as his flesh tore like fishnets, a second extinction of the Manji clan.

    Grinning, he loosed a nostalgic sigh. The little black box between his lungs was worth its weight in diamonds. He sent it a kind, simple query: where would I be without you?

    He interpreted its response as followed: here, where you've been for the past one year, four months, and eleven days.

    The researcher inched toward a door in the corner.

    Still smiling, Bryan craned his head toward her. "Oh, you clever bastards," he muttered, and threw the broken helmet through the window, impacting the director's face with a spray of blood.

    As he slumped to the ground, the others bolted. Seconds later the room was shrouded in red as an alarm blared. The woman with the laptop had her hand on the doorknob.

    Pain exploded down her side as Bryan grabbed her shoulder and wrenched her close. She could feel his breath, hot and humid, on her neck. "No you don't," he snarled, "You have some explaining to do. Looks like I've been out of the loop for a while."

    Guards are coming, she thought, trying to contain her panic and her bladder, It's okay, it'll be okay. The guards had guns. They'd take him out.

    Yet he held her in front of him, his grip like iron. She had seen for herself Bryan's opinion on collateral damage.

    Jackboots thundered closer.

    His words were beetles in her ear: "Start talking."

                                   - 𓅓 -

    The Tattered Blackbird was one of many pubs in Kensington, yet as it came into view, Polya Dragunova's heart wedged itself in her throat. She cut across a gap in traffic and maneuvered past the businesspeople finished with work and waiting out rush hour milling on the sidewalk outside. The interior was worse, a veritable sardine can of twentysomething professionals reluctant to return to flats they shared with half a dozen of their peers. White collar gaggles blocked the typical pub decor from sight and a chorus of weekly gripes drowned the news on the TV over the bar. Polya didn't care about any of it. All that mattered to her was the man taking an entire booth to himself in the corner, sipping a pint like nothing was wrong.

    Her brother.

    Polya bowled her purse into the seat across from him hard enough to hit the wall with a heavy thud, and threw herself down right after. "Make it quick."

    Sergei Dragunov steeled himself in the bottom of his glass. This was never going to be painless, but she needn't start swinging right off the bat. Fine. Very well. He could do quick. He tossed a yellow envelope onto the table, trying to ignore how his sister flinched.

    She stared at it for a moment, then tore it open. The card inside was black, bordered in gold stars, YOU DID IT! printed under a paper mortarboard. Within were four salmon pink notes -- two hundred British pounds. She picked them up, watched their watermarks appear and hide in the light.

    "What the fuck is this," she said.

    Here we go, Sergei thought.

    "No, really, what the fuck is this." Polya's features darkened to an apocalyptic scowl. "Is this a bribe? Are you fucking bribing me to talk to you? You could rob a fucking bank for me and I still wouldn't give you the time of day, you fucking fascist!"

    Her volume was steadily rising. Dragunov could feel perplexed looks pointed toward their table.

    She kept going. "I don't want your blood money. I don't want you in my life. I feel fucking stupid for even looking at your text. My graduation was really nice, you know? Going out with normal people, people who aren't war criminals. But then you drop out of the blue and my whole fucking week is ruined."

    Sergei rubbed his brow, eyes squeezed shut, his other hand clutching his elbow. He had hoped otherwise, but couldn't deny the truth: this was a terrible mistake.

    She was on her feet now, face livid, tossing the pounds at him. "No contact means no contact. How fucking dumb do you have to be to not get that?" Her voice was a bitter screech, every word a needle. "You're a drone. An ant. Disgusting. All you do is destroy -- innocent lives, my peace of mind, Mom's heart--"

    "ENOUGH!"

    The shout ripped from Dragunov's soul like a malfunctioning rocket, propelling him onto his feet and his fists onto the table. His throat immediately protested, nicotine-scented phlegm knotting in his windpipe. He couldn't breathe. What little air he could reach was spent on muddy, racking coughs until he was bent double, hacking black mucus into his palm.

    A few pub patrons inched toward him, unsure about the situation but unwilling to watch him suffer. Sergei waved them off. Through blurred vision and blood pounding in his ears, he saw all eyes on him and Polya, stunned yet still trembling with rage.

    It didn't matter. It didn't matter that he was protecting his home -- protecting her -- the only way he knew how, skimming money he could have easily spent on anything else for months to wish her the best. For someone who had spent four years mastering artistic expression, she refused to see an olive branch.

    A long, loud tone blared from the TV. Breaking news. The general gaze turned toward the screen. Murmurs went up, hands clasped over mouths, cheeks drained of color.

    Across an ocean, a city burned, and a demon proclaimed the end of the world.

    Polya glanced between the broadcast and her brother. A curious paradox: he was right there, and so was the rest of the pub, yet seemed separated by lightyears. The thing on the television, the warning crawl about falling satellite debris, on the other hand, was as close as a dangling guillotine blade. And as her worldview sat on the chopping block, more than anything else, she felt very, very alone.

    She looked for Sergei. The front door slammed, and he was gone.

                                   - 𓆚 -

    The Colosseum was an apt place to hold the Tournament. No amount of time could cleanse it from a history of bloodshed. Built to commemorate imperial power, a new emperor now sat at its head, eking judgements on nations from the fists and feet of their finest gladiators.

    Not like Bryan cared. What the Colosseum needed, in his humble opinion, was some extra defacing.

    Any wall would do, really. The one he was walking past now? Perfect. Ocular lenses flaring to compensate for the low light in the hypogeum tunnels, a smirk turned his lip as he pressed his finger against the stone. Simple was best. His name, a permanent mark on the world wonder, all caps, bigger and bolder than...

    --shit.

    The cyborg dropped his hand, his amusement extinguished like a match. He'd just done that. The memory of Hollywood was still fresh in his mind, even though it'd been a dream. Right? He'd felt the sun on his face. Smelled the perfume of his entourage. Reaching out, he stroked the wall. The rock was rough under his touch. He heard the spectators in the stands above calling for the next fight. This -- this was real. This was the King of Iron Fist Tournament! This was as real as it got! Combat against the best of the best for the highest stakes imaginable!

    --which meant this very well could be an illusion too. If he could think it, there was a real possibility it was not real.

    Bryan groaned, leaving the wall to its own devices. Life was better when I just killed people, he thought, I am never dealing with those fucks at Netflix again.

    Turning a corner, he saw a group of men in military fatigues ahead. He heard the language they spoke, saw the flag patch on their shoulders. In their midst, leaning on his knees in a folding chair, uniform blue as an arctic sea, was Dragunov.

    Fury froze. If this was all scripted, Sergei was the exact person who would make an entrance at this time. What was the next play? Approaching him fell right in line with whatever virtual plot was unfolding, if there even was one, but Bryan couldn't ignore him either. Breaking this chain of events would only cause new ones to form...

    --if he was still being force-fed lies. Or was life simply chugging on?

    --shit.

    This was ridiculous. Why did it disturb him so much? Ultimately, there was no correct choice.

    But there was a fun one.

    Swaggering up to the convoy, Bryan grinned as chitchat died and hands flew to holstered guns. "Hey there, sunshine," he said, "Hah. You look like hell."

    With the weight and chill of icebergs, Dragunov levelled a narrow stare at him. Bryan didn't remember him being so pale. Perhaps it was the contrast with the dirt on his clothes, the bruises on his face.

    "Bet Shaheen looks worse," Fury continued, "Beat him half to death, didn't you. I'm sure he'll be fine. His country, though? You opened it up to the Zaibatsu's nasty little claws. A lot of people are going to die, Drag."

    Expression unchanging, the Russian picked up a canteen, took a swig of water. The justification for his indifference was obvious: better them than us.

    "Psch. Don't tell me you get your rocks off saving lives now. Wasn't that long ago you had the time of your life completely thrashing some of the very meat-bags in this ugly, old ruin. I know. I was there. Or did the thing in Vegas change your tune?"

    The canteen paused halfway to the floor. Looking back, Sergei's gaze turned to a glare aflame with acrid cold.

    That's it, Bryan thought, teeth bared in an ear-to-ear smile, There he is. "Y'know, between you and me, we could nip this whole fuckin' thing in the bud. C'mon. Kazuya is a purple people-eater, but you're an expert in that sorta shit and I'm me." He slowly shook his head. "There's gonna be no better time, Drag. We stopped a disaster before. Let's do it again."

    Deliberately, as if facing down a prehistoric python coiled to strike, Dragunov rose to his feet.

    The explosion tore down the tunnel in a shockwave of dust and pressure, knocking them all to the ground. Under the echoing roar of the blast and the rumble of ancient stone breaking came panicked screams from the crowd above.

    Sprawled on his back, covered in grit, Bryan barely acknowledged the diagnostics crawling in his eyes. His body was fine. His grip on reality, however, felt as unstable as the fissures in the ceiling.

                                   - 𓅓 -

    Dragunov, meanwhile, scrambling to his feet, had other things in mind. Survival, first and foremost, and the well-being of his men. They had taken up positions with guns out and ready, but they were clearly scared out of their wits. These were not hardened operatives. These were boys fresh from basic, a scant few the Russian Army could spare, assigned simply to escort him to Italy to represent and defend the lives of his people. A relatively easy mission, until someone or something decided they could not leave well enough alone.

    Creaking noises from above. It wasn't safe here. Grabbing his own sidearm, Sergei pointed into the tunnel in the direction of the blast and ran to take lead.

    Behind them, moaning, Bryan began to rise.

    Sounds of a stampede grew louder as they drew closer to the surface. They raced the cracks in the walls up a flight of stairs into an aboveground passageway. Despite the evacuation broadcast directing where to escape, a handful of panicked, bleeding spectators stumbled past them. Dragunov caught one, a man in a bright red Hawaiian shirt, by the shoulder, shoved him aside, and paid no heed as he plunged out of sight. For treating the fate of millions of innocents as primetime viewing, there was no salvation.

    Another shockwave rocked the Colosseum. The floor rippled under his feet and fresh dust stung his face.

    New voices ahead, shouting over the din. Sergei lifted a fist beside his face, calling his men to halt. An armed squadron corralled escaping civilians toward refuge. He could recognize their baby blue berets anywhere. They were UN.

    Ravens.

    Outrage smothered self-preservation. This went miles beyond meddling. This was escalation. The state of affairs was far from ideal, but in ruining the Saudi champion, Dragunov secured a measure of safety for Russia. Now these scavengers, these carcass eaters, jeopardized it all.

    He raised his gun. His men aimed their rifles.

    The next trickle of seconds lasted years.

    A thunderclap from on high slammed them all to the ground once more. Dropped weapons scattered in every direction.

    Horror speared his insides as the world went dark, but he was not blinded -- hellish clouds blotted out the sun and turned the air frigid.

    Footfalls and terrified cries hammered around him as peacekeepers and his own soldiers fled.

    Hauling himself to one knee, Dragunov caught glimpse of two glowing eyes. Bryan, standing at the top of the stairs, staring at him with uncertainty.

    Outside, Azazel roared its rebirth--

    --and the Colosseum finally gave up its ghost. The ceiling buckled, pouring an avalanche of stone, concrete, and steel.

    Sergei had time for one, last thought: his family.

    And he was overrun.

                                   - 𓆚 -

    "DRAG!"

    Bryan ran towards the collapse before the dust had time to settle. A nova of light made him flinch, eyes overwhelmed by brilliance and turning the world even darker. His ears clocked the accompanying snarls as louder than jet engines. Whatever was happening in the arena, he didn't care. It didn't matter. A desperate mantra dominated his mind.

    No. No. No.

    Throwing pieces of rubble was too slow. His fists smashed stone and steel asunder.

    No. No. No.

    The knuckles of his right hand frayed, revealing black alloy underneath. He kept going.

    No. No. NO.

    His tether to normalcy couldn't leave him. He couldn't.

    "DRAG!"

    There. A line of a blue sleeve amidst heaps of gray. All of Bryan's CPUs cycled faster as he tore through the last pile of rock. They would laugh about this later over drinks in a dive bar, how Fury dug him up like buried treasure--

    --sudden realization turned Bryan motionless.

    He freed Dragunov, all right, but those insides were not supposed to be outsides.

    The cyborg sank to his knees. It did not compute. It was unthinkable.

    And because it was, it was real. This was not a dream--     --this was nightmare.

    Time became unmoored this far north. The sky, full of chrome clouds, concealed the position of the sun. It could be noon, it could be half past midnight. The harbor jutting into the Barents Sea was bathed in a nondescript un-light, the snow tinged gray with the various drippings of loitering military vehicles. Two men, bundled head-to-toe against the numbing cold and carrying automatic rifles, stood at attention on either side of an enormous, circular blast door embedded in the rocky cliffside. When Bryan Fury crested the other side of the harbor, their thick snow goggles hid any reaction.

    The cyborg, for his part, felt nothing. Had felt nothing since the Colosseum. A hurricane inhabited his head. There were no thoughts, no foresight -- just a Category 5 maelstrom of barbed wire, sheared metal, and whipping winds. A complex of commands kicked on from somewhere in the bowels of his machinery and roared in animal defiance for the past twenty-four hundred miles and forty hours. He had paused only to hijack another car or truck when his latest ride fell apart, overworked and riddled with ammunition.

    His trek crossed seven countries, and all mobilized against him. It was a blur of battlefields, the stink of burning explosive clinging to what remained of his skin. His black and red endoskeleton was littered in chips and tears and coated in layers of dust, ash, and dried blood. Some part of him dripped inky fluid, forming a dark trail as he approached the door.

    Behind him dragged a rope tied to a wood crate.

    The guards remained still as he drew within twenty paces. It was possible they were robots. Bryan had faced enough of those crossing most of Eastern Europe, both Zaibatsu and G Corp made. Not even a glance as Fury wrenched the rope around, flinging the crate forward in a dizzying spin across the slush until it slid to a halt.

    His voice, with ballistic volume: "FIX HIM."

    Utter silence. Finally, in unison, the guards stepped away from the door. Locks disengaged with bangs and groans like breaking sea ice, and it sluggishly swung open.

    Bryan grabbed the rope and entered the Gold Raptors base.

    The ramp was a steady decline illuminated by florescent lamps, their bumblebee hum the only sound aside the rumble of circulated air and the scrrrrp of wood on concrete, leading to a massive hangar. All that moved were motes of dust. A single light over an elevator gleamed in the otherwise cavernous shadows.

    Had Fury still the capacity for nuance, he would have been offended at the blatant instruction, but that was long discarded back in Italy. The prime directive came closer with every step. Nothing else mattered.

    The elevator opened on its own. Bryan stepped in, crate in tow, and descended one thousand feet into the earth.

    It delivered him to a hallway. The layout was familiar -- he'd been in a containment wing before. As he walked down the empty corridor, he spared the briefest glances through the viewports on various doors. This was where they housed the horrors. A rust red boar the size of an elephant -- a ballerina in arabesque, perpetually aflame -- clumpy smoke with yellow eyes orbiting an antique stove--

    One door unlocked with an electronic buzz and click. He went in.

    Tubes and cables, some as wide as Bryan's torso, ran like entrails across the floor, snaked up the walls, and hung from the ceiling. Monitoring equipment sat in powerless consoles. Something on the other end of the cell glowed a sunset halo. Fury approached.

    At first, he couldn't tell what it was. It resembled a giant steel fennel seed, seven feet long and cherry red. It sat embedded in a nest of metal spines that seemed to grow out of the wall itself, a lattice of iron urchins dark as interstellar space. Its upper half was transparent, revealing a hollow interior full of raw chicken pink fluid.

    Suspended within was Dragunov.

    For the first time in hours, miles, and devastated countries, the storm in Bryan's mind dissipated, and clarity returned to him. The journey, his wounds, all were forgotten.

    A gentle crack, and the cradle unhinged open. Looking in, Fury noted the soldier was nude, hair floating around his face, eyes closed, breathing. Fast asleep, not a trace of tension in his body. Covered in scars.

    Beautiful, Bryan thought.

    Distant rumbling came closer, building into an electric roar. Arcs of lightning tore through the cell, bounding off the tubes and cables. Bryan barely had time to brace himself, but the surge danced around him and drove directly into the cradle itself with a deafening bellow.

    Sergei opened his eyes.

    An instant later, he wrenched himself upright, shouting in pain, pink fluid sloshing onto the floor. He clung to the side of the cradle, knuckles white, wheezing as his lungs filled with air.

    Bryan knelt so they were face-to-face. Dragunov, wet, naked, and trembling, was exquisite. More importantly: he was alive. The nightmare was over, and the world was finally, undeniably real.

    Eyes and smile glowing, Fury cocked his head playfully, chin resting on his hand. "First time?"

    Dragunov punched him in the jaw.

                                   - 𓅓 -

    Chaos. Utter disarray. There was no other way to describe it. Dragunov felt his mind had melted and he was scrambling for handholds in a titanic whirlpool of impossibilities. The Colosseum. He remembered that -- remembered an instant of crushing pressure, the familiar sound of bones cracking deafening in his ears. What happened? Why was he drenched? Why the fuck was Bryan here?

    "Welcome back."

    A single screen on an otherwise dark console burst on. The grainy picture displayed the silhouette of a man, his details obscured by the brilliant spotlights behind him. He sat in a chair, one leg across the other, hands folded in his lap.

    Sergei knew him by his voice and, despite his tremors, saluted. The man was the Major, the head of the Gold Raptors.

    "At ease," he said.

    Dragunov dropped his hand. Better to keep hold of the cradle. It was more grounded than he felt himself.

    Moaning, rubbing the pain from his face, Fury hauled himself to a seat on a wooden crate. Why was that there?

    "You have many questions," the Major continued, "I shall answer the most pertinent, as time is of the essence. At 13:44 hours CET, forty-one hours and three minutes ago, you were killed by traumatic asphyxia. Through anomalous methods at our disposal, you have been resurrected, your self duplicated from a remote biotic snapshot taken at the moment of your death. We have made some minor adjustments to your overall physical condition, including removal of the stage three tumors in your lungs and trachea."

    Oh. That explained the perfluorocarbon bath. Sweeping loose hair out of his eyes, Sergei peered over the edge of the cradle. Yes, he recognized the spines now. They'd been extracted from the bottom of the sea not far from here, come to think of it. There had been some chatter about potential cross-testing with other specimens in the past.

    -- wait, what was that last par--

    "You will be deployed immediately to Yakushima in Japan to represent Gold Raptors' interests in the area," the Major said. He leaned closer, voice graveyard cold. "Your reconstruction goes against the core tenets of our organization. That you are our best option, even in death, for combatting this threat to global security is the only reason we did so. Do not squander the gifts we have given you, Admiral Dragunov." He settled back. "You are dismissed."

    The screen blinked to black.

    Sergei's throat was tight -- with emotion. The plug was pulled on the vortex, flushing it down the proverbial drain and leaving an unfamiliar residue: fear. He palmed his heart, its two-step steady. My God, he thought. They scrubbed him out like an old iron pot.

    God, my God.

    Two men in white coats entered the room. One carried a blanket.

    What choice did he have? His mission, and he had to accept it, was abundantly clear. Once spetsnaz, always spetsnaz. Death would have him when he was no longer needed.

    Resolving himself, Dragunov climbed out of the cradle. He had a job to do.

    He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and departed the room, white-coats in tow. He wished he had a hair tie.

    With little option himself, Bryan followed, scowling as he processed what just happened. This reality was weird.

    The twinkle of moon blue grit in the cradle water went unnoticed.

                                   - 𓆚 -

    International borders again, this time on fast forward. Bryan had last been on a military aircraft that had willingly carried him two lifetimes ago. Looking out a window at the approaching island made his pistons clench in excitement.

    Dragunov, not so much. He looked fantastic in tactical armor, that was a given. Kevlar suited him, and the red beret a no-brainer. It was the scowl, heavier than usual, that soured the atmosphere of the entire cargo hold. Didn't he care about the morale of his men?

    Crossing the belly of the beast towards him, Bryan patted a pallet bristling with weaponry, gun barrels poking out at random. "Couldn't decide what to get from your boys, so I ordered one of everything."

    Nothing. Not so much as a wayward glance.

    Dragunov had no one but himself to blame for his terrible mood. Back at base, while being patched up with new synthetic skin, Fury caught him investigating the wood crate. "I wouldn't look in there if I were you," Bryan had hollered.

    Sergei gave two seconds consideration. A pointed finger dropped with sledgehammer finality. A crowbar made quick work of the lid.

    The green stench of decay bloomed over the entire medical bay. To the Raptors' credit, there had been less revulsion than Bryan expected, their doctors and nurses hardened by routine treatment of anomalous illness and injury, but heads still turned away, lunches still fought down.

    Sergei stared into the contents of the crate for a long time. The pulped tangle inside stared back.

    He waved his hand once. The lid was replaced, the crate taken away.

    There was the gurgle of a flamethrower. Barbeque scents.

    Fury looked around the hold. Somber faces on every soldier. Being a complete sad-sack had to be a prerequisite for joining the Gold Raptors. At least they all perked up when he kicked the pallet closer to the cargo hatch. "C'mon, boys and girls," he cried, "Who hasn't wanted to visit Japan? I hear there's a chance of hail. Bullet hail, courtesy of yours truly. Hey, everyone strapped in?"

    Yanking a lever on the wall bathed the hold in red warning light and drilling klaxons as the hatch bowed open. Howling wind threatened to suction out anything not battened down. The pallet spilled over the edge and out of sight.

    Bryan turned back to Dragunov. Sergei still sneered, but there was a new glint in his eye -- a let's get this done hardened resolve. Fury knew it well. He'd seen it before every fight they'd had, with or against each other. It meant someone or something was in for a world of pain. It meant Dragunov was feeling better. Feeling himself.

    He'd be fine.

    Grinning, Bryan bowed like a Hollywood actor, and jumped from the plane.

    An instant of freezing freefall, synthetic muscles bracing, then impact -- jarring, dirt and debris flying, barely tickled. Brushing off his pants -- the leather scuffed, but oh well, plenty of alligators in the sea -- he approached the pallet. It hadn't survived the drop, guns strewn like a popped pimple. No problem, it just meant he could fine tune his selection. He thought he wouldn't be thinking again soon. The storm was already blowing.

    Zaibatsu forces already took up position in a valley. G Corp had the high ground. Oh, this was going to be good. A real two-for-one deal, with Tournament morons sprinkled on top.

    Bryan lifted the Gatling gun. It was time to make new memories.

                                   - 𓅓 -

    Back in the saddle again. Dragunov could do this in his sleep. He could do this dead.

    No. No, don't think about that. Don't think about being alive for just over twelve hours. That doesn't help anyone. That doesn't keep his people safe. Focus.

    It's hard when it's this easy though. The Raptors had hardly been deployed yet. Sergei and his squad watched the battle unfold from their vantage point halfway up a mountainside. This was not their fight. At the first sign of anomalous behavior, it would be.

    He let one or two of his soldiers pick off a target every so often. Someone who looked important. Someone who would make the course of events more entertaining if they died. Dragunov spotted them through binoculars, relayed positions through gesture. These were veteran Raptors. They understood.

    A sniper rifle blasted. In the valley, a head popped. Business as usual.

    It was almost boring.

    A flash of yellow in Sergei's sights caught him off-guard. Frowning, he looked again. It was King, complete with full feathered regalia. King. Really? Was G Corp that strapped for combatants, they had to send in a Mexican wrestler? This wasn't a battlefield, this was a goddamn three-ring circus.

    It would be mildly interesting to see what kind of skull lay under that stupid mask. Dragunov pointed into the valley. It wasn't hard to determine who he wanted killed. Shifting her stance, the Raptor sniper took aim. Crosshairs centered on golden fur and black rosettes. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

    The Doppler effect broke open overhead, crashing waves of sound down upon them. A plane, black as night, Zaibatsu emblem on its sides, crested the mountaintop then dipped downward. A bombing run. Its payload hung one-handed underneath, over seven feet tall with veins of electric red.

    Sergei's pulse quickened. They had no intel on a new Jack model. Despite superior numbers, Zaibatsu forces were losing ground. That they chose to utilize it now made his hair stand on end. If this was their ace in the hole, what made it so?

    The possibility of anomalous enhancement could not be ignored. Dragunov swung his arm ahead. The Raptors moved.

    The terrain was steep and rocky, a combination that required careful planning of every footfall. By the time they had descended, the war had advanced to meet them. Blood, dirt, and gunpowder hung heavy in the air. Dragunov didn't remember combat smelling this way, itchy on his skin.

    The difference a new windpipe makes, he thought, and before that train could start rolling, something slammed hard into his side. He lost balance, fell end-over-end down the slope.

    His brain kept going after his body rolled to a stop. Until now, all he had experience had been discomfort compared to this. This hurt, and his factory settings flesh had no idea how to deal with it. Groaning, he crawled to all fours, looked up.

    Who wore a white suit to a combat zone?

                                   - 𓆚 -

    Wholesale slaughter -- now that was living. Biopics? Overrated. Celebrity? Not when you had infamy. The movie studio thing had been a novelty, sure, but the killing fields was where Bryan shone.

    He'd long lost track of his body count.

    It was incredible, really. From his perspective behind the Gat, deep amidst the torrents of bullets and bodies, the Zaibatsu and G Corp forces were schools of minnows, and he a shark. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The gun mowed them down like grass, blood spraying, severed limbs flying, their death screams music to his ears.

    He might have been laughing. He could not hear himself over the storm's hellish shrieking in his mind.

    A flash of lightning blue caught the corner of his eye. A pink-haired pixie, darting between volleys of shots.

    Fury grinned, his targeting reticules locked onto her every movement. Could this day get any better? Boots on the ground, tank shells in the air, destruction and agony and he in the thick of it, pushing the world order into a whirling blender of meat hooks and razor winds, and now this, the chance to forever exterminate a challenge to his throne of Doctor Bosconovitch's Greatest Contribution to Mankind. Forget seedy Chinese alleyways, downing fighter jets in flight with just a girder -- fuck, forget Yoshimitsu. This was going to top the charts.

    He swung the Gat around, aimed slightly ahead of her. The barrel spun up with an eager squeal.

    --then there, below her, an un-color that did not belong to nature, distracting him. Radioactive bubblegum. In the sheath of a sword. That was slashing Dragunov in two.

    No.

    Bryan froze. A beam of light burst through his tempest, rooting him to the ground. He could only watch as the old stranger's blade left a deep, steaming gouge in Sergei's chest armor. Dragunov raised his arms to block the next two cleaves only to catch the handle on the backswing with his face. He collapsed to his knees.

    Bryan dropped the Gat.

    No. No.

    Sergei craned his head up. Wiping his knuckles across his cheek left a comet tail of blood. Resurrection had placed him right back in meat. Fallible meat, as Fury knew too well.

    Dragunov tried to stand. His face twisted in agony as a leg failed to respond, stiff as a board. As rigor mortis.

    He was not fine.

    No. No. NO.

    Bryan grabbed the reins of his mental storm, willed it to his feet to fly him the twenty paces between himself and the injured Russian. Each step echoed like a hammer. A heartbeat. The sea of bodies around him dissolved their details into bruised, sickly smog. Reality was soup, and he fought time's quagmire with every carbon fiber of his being.

    The stranger lifted his sword for the killing blow.

    NO NO NO NO--

    Impact. A millisecond's awareness to brace Sergei's neck as momentum raced them onward and gravity tore them down. A dozen jolts and blows as the ground got its licks in. One last tumble before the world came to a halt.

    He'd ended up on top of Sergei. Grabbing him by the bulletproof vest, Bryan yanked him close, eyes burning with crazed desperation.

    "You fucking moron," Fury cried, shaking him, "I can't lose you again!"

    Under him, Dragunov's mouth was slack with shock, then confusion. Bryan gave him a once-over, hunting for wounds. They put him in meat, how cruel was--

    --there was a combat knife in his fist.

    Oh. OH.

    Sergei was a spetsnaz super-agent with enough CQC tactics to massacre an army, and playing possum was well within his repertoire. Just because it was the oldest trick in the book did not make it inviable. Hell, Bryan had seen him do it before. There was that time in Barcelona against father and son Laws. He'd laid on the floor of the -- bar? restaurant? dance club? Fury didn't remember -- feigning unconsciousness, and when Law the Younger went to investigate, he'd surged forward and toppled him, kind of like what'd just happened, and the look on Dragunov's face turned volcanic with rage, and then Bryan had eleven inches of sharpened steel embedded in his thigh.

    Fury howled as white-hot pain lanced up his side. Sergei shoved him off, scrambled to his feet. Bryan winced as he yanked the knife free.

    The emotions bristling on Dragunov's face were fascinating. Anger, volatile, ready to explode at any moment, lined with disbelief. He had the man in the white suit right where he wanted, doing exactly what he wanted. Now he still lived. A Raven, if the anomalous weapon proved anything, one of Sergei's killers, still lived. 

    "Oh, ex-fucking-scuse me," Fury bellowed, tossing the knife away, "If you didn't look like such a bitch--"

    Dragunov ran at the cyborg, throwing his entire body behind his fist.

    To an observer, the fight was initially any other slugfest. But as it progressed, something changed. A cadence emerged -- punches and kicks dealt with surgical finesse, energy conserved or spent with atomic accuracy, bodies moving with dancer's grace. Sergei and Bryan had done this before, helpless to resist the primordial hatred burning in their veins and cables. Neither man wanted to. It felt right. All of spacetime could crunch down to their bubble of violence; they wouldn't care. In their grimaces, their spilled blood, they were singing.

    I hate you, I loathe you, I could do this forever.

    But good things had to come to an end.

    Bryan saw it first -- a purple thorn hanging in the sky. "The hell is tha--"

    Flames rained from above, dousing everything in eldritch plasma.

                                   - 𓅓 -

    It was eerily quiet. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and soon the air would prickle with the moans of the pained and dying, but Dragunov, armor smoldering, took the opportunity to lie on the dirt. Just for a moment. There was peace amongst the pebbles.

    Behind him, Bryan coughed a cloud of dust. Time to get up.

    He wrenched himself onto an elbow, giving himself enough of a vantage point to see the aftermath. Huge, steaming fissures stretched from one side of the valley to the other. Half-melted tanks sat in piles of useless slag. Smoke billowed like parades of pallbearers into the ashen expanse. Beneath, those who remained clung to their last ounces of strength.

    A thought occurred to him: who was he kidding?

    In less than an instant, hundreds had been vaporized. How was he meant not only to compete with that, but triumph? An ant would have a better chance leveling a mountain. Once upon a time, there had been a man who could do that, his faith his shield against the devil. That man was dead. The thing that bore his name, ordered his soldiers, and defended the fate of his nation was a pale imitation in comparison. A cracked, oozing egg, rotting from the inside out.

��   Sergei sank back to the earth.

    Blessed silence.

    Behind him, again: thop-shff, thop-shff. Bryan, pulling himself over by one arm. Judging himself close enough, the cyborg rolled onto his back, loosed a harsh breath. "Hey, Drag?"

    Muffled against the soil: "Nnm?"

    "That fuckin' hurt."

    Yes. It did.

    More quiet, infiltrated by a breeze. Sergei raised his face to catch its freshness.

    "Like...how did you do that? I've been in a lot of knife fights, but that's a first."

    --what?

    Strangling the protests of his aching flesh, Dragunov heaved himself to his knees. Bryan himself sat up, pulling apart the gash in his pants to stare at the deep puncture in his leg. "You stabbed me between the muscles," he said, "Muscles that can stop bullets. If I had a femoral, I'd be bleeding like a stuck pig." He looked at the Russian, face slack with sincere awe. "You weren't even trying. You just did it. I mean, you have past experience with my thighs, but...whole armies have wanted me dead for years. You killed me two minutes ago with no effort."

    Yes. Yes, he did that. Sergei alone had accomplished something no one else on the planet could, not even the man he used to be. And as realization sank in, heat like molten iron blossomed from his chest, spreading to his fingertips and pooling in his toes. He was not damaged, he was hatching, even if he did not know what form the wings within him would take.

    It didn't matter. He was seen. He was known.

    It must have shown on his face because Bryan's expression lit up, a grin crawling from ear to ear. Just like old times, baby, that grin said, The world lies at our feet.

    A tremor tore through the ground. In the distance, a stadium-sized chunk of rock blasted into the sky, shrouded in a veil of supersonic flight. It tore past the clouds for a destination in the upper atmosphere.

    "Oh, get over yourselves," Bryan yelled. Grunting with pain, he threw a stone after it. It clattered far short of its mark.

    Dragunov, meanwhile, watched as his Raptors emerged from cover. They seemed no worse for wear, shedding their combat gear for hazmat suits. Using modified Geiger counters, they fanned out across the battlefield, searching for anomalous particles left in the wake of the purple flames, pausing only to execute anyone dying in their paths. By the number of samples they took, the results were promising.

    "So...now what?"

    Sergei didn't bother glancing at Fury as the cyborg scooted next to him. He was not actually asking for advice. He was testing the waters. Once he knew where Dragunov's mood lay--

    "Got it!" Bryan leveled a finger between Sergei's eyes. "You need a vacation. That's what I did last time I cheated death. It's good for you, y'know. Do some soul searching. Figure out what's real to you." A beat. "Uh, I'm going with you, of course. If you want."

    Dragunov let his lip curl in a small smile. Yes. He did want.

    Somewhere on the steaming wastes, welcoming the dawn of a new age, someone was whistling.

                               - FIN -

[jali44]

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Using high-focus ultrasound positioning, it can directly reach the deep SMAS layer without damaging the surrounding tissues.

Safe and non-invasive

Non-invasive technology, no damage to the skin during treatment, no skin breakage after treatment.

Lasting effect

The effect of a single treatment can last for 6-1 2 months.

Painless

Comfortable treatment, no special discomfort.

Working Principle of Vertical HIFU Machine

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Using high intensity focused ultrasound technology, the treatment focuses on a single point, generating high energy and acting on different layers of the skin, stimulating collagen growth and reorganization, effectively achieving the effect of contouring, smoothing lines and plasticity.

Technonlogy of Vertical HIFU Machine

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15.4 inch capacitive screen, sensitive touch, clear display

 German imported piezoelectric ceramic paddle, error range in ±5um, can work continuously for 10000 hours

 U.S. imported click, accuracy up to 0.01mm

 Adopting propulsion type click, 5 monitoring points are set in the click to detect the position of the click in real time, effectively placing the multi-point superposition

Applications of Vertical HIFU Machine

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Anti-aging and firming of the whole body, removal of neck lines, prevention of neck aging, back tightening and repair, chest adjustment, breast enlargement and lifting, waist and abdomen shaping, hip shaping, leg shaping, repair of mild expectation lines

Weight loss and slimming, fat reduction of the whole body

Facial anti-aging wrinkle removal, deep wrinkles, forehead lines, nasolabial fold lift, lip lift, brow wrinkles, tighten neck skin, eliminate double chin, thin face shape, crow's feet at the corners of the eyes, eye bags, tighten the surrounding skin

Private anti-aging, postpartum repair, private tightening.

[bitterarcs]

What was a smoke break without cigarettes? Stress pressed on the Turk's mind like a thumb and forefinger squeezing his brain, but he had to quit. Had to. Reno had not smoked for months and did not keep any on his person, but palms slapped against his body, feeling for the familiar shape of a cigarette box . . not even the slim rectangular of a lighter was found. Reno supposed he could eat food like normal people did with free time, but ShinRa vending machine sandwiches and energy bars packed with who knew what really were not up his alley.

Nameless, faceless ShinRa employees mingled meerily, so where the hell was Rude? The red haired Turk pushed himself off the wall he was leaning against and in the midst of his foul mood, he missed the coming approach of ebony spiky hair and steps pepped with too much energy. He thought the kid was going for the vending machines, but when attention was turned towards the Turk and the Turk alone, turquoise eyes glanced upwards at Zack's face. Whenever someone approached him who wasn't in the circle of the elite Turks, they either had important messages to pass or idiotically asked for help.

What fell from the SOLDIER's mouth was certainly more important than stupid. Actually, it was very important. Reno blinked slowly, brow scrunching together in wrinkles, and lips parted slightly in a dumbfounded expression. Taken back appearance did not last long however, and the next second Reno was slapping the other man's shoulder while laughing. Laughter was enough to rouse the attention of everyone in the room, but no one dared poke their nose in a Turk's business for too long. Reno's laugh subsided and an imaginary tear was wiped from the corner of eye.

                                        (  ❛ HOT, huh? You hittin' on me or d'ya' want fashion advice?  ❜ )

Reno had only looked at the newbie SOLDIER as a both a kid and a . . SOLDIER — a mako infused freak of nature, but the Turk suddenly looked the ebony haired man in a different light. He teasingly offered him a mischievous look as bare fingers ran along the neckline of his unfastened button down, exposing more flesh as he did so.

                                        (  ❛ I'm an amazing employee; Midgar's Man of the Year. If I wanted to wear a fishnet shirt and shorts that showed off my . . assets, they'd let me. I'm THAT good. As for you . . .  ❜ )

The Turk took a step backwards and purposefully eyed Zack from head to toe very slowly. He had never seen the SOLDIER naked or even shirtless, but his type were muscular freaks; they had to be to undertake the work handed to them and to equip their impressive weapons.

                                        (  ❛ Just get rid of the shirt altogether, or wear something like ol' Sephiroth — deep leather v-neck with straps.  ❜ )

                            "Does Shinra really let you run around like that? With your collar super OPEN?" Zack peered at his uniform, quirking a dark brow. "It seems really dangerous. Really hot-- but also really dangerous." He paused, tugging at the collar of his turtleneck. "Do you think I could pull it off?"  @nerdynanny                                                                               (   is this a love confession, zack ??  )  

[marketingbiotronix]

Biotronix Solution Forever 40K ultrasonic cavitation Vacuum cryolipolysis fat freeze cryotherapy Slimming Machine cool sculpting RF Lipo laser Body Weight Loss Beauty Salon Equipment

Application

Intensive physical led to remove fat

Excess fat cell melted

Body slimming,cellulite reduction

Smooth fatigue

Remove obstruction from channels and collaterals

Promote and accelerate the body`s metabolism

1.Fat freeze fat reducing

2.Fat reduce, loss weight, Body Slimming

3.Soften hard fat tissue, break up lipocyte

4.Strengthen and tighten skin, Body Shaping

5.Body Shaping: tighten the loose-skin of arm, waist, abdomen, and leg and pregnancy line.

Cryo Features

1. The current non-surgical medical cosmetic technologies and new hot spot;

2. More advanced than liposuction, fat melting technology;

3. Europear most popular new way to lose weight;

4. Can be up to 26% of the treatment area of new technology to destroy fat;

5. Superior RF and ultrasound fat melting technology;

6. Selectivity can be cut a fat waist, back fat and cellulite micro innovations.

Fat burning, Slimming, Body shaping

Effective promoting tissue metabolism and blood circulation, better for whiten skin

Improve orange peel organization

- Strengthen the skin elasticity

- Repair striate gravid arum

- Anti-aging for face and body

Contact us / What's app - 9711991264,9015251243,8076549111,8076205625

Website : www.solutionforever.com

https://lnkd.in/ejdC6Jy7

EMAIL : supertechsurgical24@gmail.com

ADDRESS : F-400, Sudershan Park ,Moti Nagar ,Near Gopal ji Dairy ,ND-110015

#slimmingmachines #slimmingworld #slimming #fat #fatfreezer #fatloss #obesity #weightloss #fatreduction #fatloss #fatburning #slimming #bodyshapping #weightgain #weightloss #bodyweight #fatreduction #fatredburner #fatremovaltreatment #fatfreezer #fatloss #slimmingmachines #slimmingworld #beauty #medical #technology

[biotronixcaresalesteam]

Biotronix Solution Forever 40K ultrasonic cavitation Vacuum cryolipolysis fat freeze cryotherapy Slimming Machine cool sculpting RF Lipo laser Body Weight Loss Beauty Salon Equipment

Application

Intensive physical led to remove fat

Excess fat cell melted

Body slimming,cellulite reduction

Smooth fatigue

Remove obstruction from channels and collaterals

Promote and accelerate the body`s metabolism

1.Fat freeze fat reducing

2.Fat reduce, loss weight, Body Slimming

3.Soften hard fat tissue, break up lipocyte

4.Strengthen and tighten skin, Body Shaping

5.Body Shaping: tighten the loose-skin of arm, waist, abdomen, and leg and pregnancy line.

Cryo Features

1. The current non-surgical medical cosmetic technologies and new hot spot;

2. More advanced than liposuction, fat melting technology;

3. Europear most popular new way to lose weight;

4. Can be up to 26% of the treatment area of new technology to destroy fat;

5. Superior RF and ultrasound fat melting technology;

6. Selectivity can be cut a fat waist, back fat and cellulite micro innovations.

Fat burning, Slimming, Body shaping

Effective promoting tissue metabolism and blood circulation, better for whiten skin

Improve orange peel organization

- Strengthen the skin elasticity

- Repair striate gravid arum

- Anti-aging for face and body

Contact us / What's app - 9711991264,9015251243,8076549111,8076205625

Website : www.solutionforever.com

https://lnkd.in/ejdC6Jy7

EMAIL : supertechsurgical24@gmail.com

ADDRESS : F-400, Sudershan Park ,Moti Nagar ,Near Gopal ji Dairy ,ND-110015

#slimmingmachines #slimmingworld #slimming #fat #fatfreezer #fatloss #obesity #weightloss #fatreduction #fatloss #fatburning #slimming #bodyshapping #weightgain #weightloss #bodyweight #fatreduction #fatredburner #fatremovaltreatment #fatfreezer #fatloss #slimmingmachines #slimmingworld #beauty #medical #technology