#Drone Inspection and Monitoring

[digitrenndsamr]

Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market to Record Sturdy Growth by 2030

Allied Market Research, titled, “Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market Size by Solution, Type, Operation Mode, and Application: Global Opportunity Analysis and Industry Forecast, 2020–2030,” the global drone inspection and monitoring market size was valued at $6.44 billion in 2020, and is projected to reach $35.11 billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of 16.1%. Asia-Pacific is expected to be the leading revenue contributor toward the drone inspection and monitoring market during the forecast period, followed by LAMEA and Europe.

Drone inspection and monitoring is a drone-based solution that offers aerial inspection and monitoring services. It uses aerial thermal imaging to inspect roofs, walls, and other hard-to-reach areas of a premise. Drone inspection and monitoring platform is leveraging AI to reduce the cost of drone operations by up to 90%.

The growth of the global drone inspection and monitoring market is anticipated to be driven by factors such as increased demand for safe & accurate inspection & monitoring device and rise in technological advancements in drones. In addition, surge in usage of drones as remote visual inspection tool for critical infrastructure applications, boosts the overall market growth. However, lack of trained personnel to operate drones for inspection and monitoring applications acts as a major restraint for the global drone inspection and monitoring industry. On the contrary, advances in lidar technology for commercial drones are expected to create lucrative opportunities for the drone inspection and monitoring industry.

Moreover, developing nations tend to witness high penetration of drone inspection and monitoring products especially in construction & infrastructure and agriculture sector, which is anticipated to augment the market growth. Factors such as emergence of various start-ups in drone manufacturing sector accelerate the market growth.

The global drone inspection and monitoring market is segmented into solution, type, operation mode, application, and region. By solution, the market is classified into platform, software, infrastructure, and services. Depending on type, the market is categorized into fixed wing, multirotor, and hybrid. By operation mode, the market is segmented into remotely piloted, optionally piloted, and fully autonomous. On the basis of application, the market is classified into construction & infrastructure, oil & gas, mining, agriculture, utilities, and others.

Region wise, the drone inspection and monitoring market trends have been analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA. North America was the highest revenue contributor in 2020. However, between 2020 and 2030, the drone inspection and monitoring market growth in Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at a faster rate as compared to other regions. This is attributed to increase in demand from the emerging economical countries such as India, China, Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Key Findings of The Study

The construction & infrastructure sector is projected to be the major application, followed by agriculture.

Asia-Pacific and North America collectively accounted for more than 68% of the drone inspection and monitoring market share in 2020.

India is anticipated to witness highest growth rate during the drone inspection and monitoring market forecast period.

U.S. was the major shareholder in the North America drone inspection and monitoring market, accounting for approximately 73% share in 2020.

Depending on operation mode, the optionally piloted segment generated the highest revenue in 2020. However, the fully autonomous segment is expected to witness the highest growth rate in the near future.

Region wise, the drone inspection and monitoring market analysis was dominated by North America. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to witness significant growth in the coming years.

The key players profiled in the report include American Robotics, Aerovironment Inc., Ageagle Aerial Systems Inc., DJI, Israel Aerospace Industries, Microdrones, Parrot Drones, PrecisionHawk, Trimble Inc., and Yamaha Motor Corp. These players have adopted various strategies such as product launches, acquisition, collaboration, and partnership to strengthen their foothold in the industry.

[aerospaceanddefense]

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the drone inspection and monitoring industry, evolving it from manual aerial imaging into a smart, automated, and scalable intelligence service.

[vaiswr]

Drone Inspection and Monitoring Market Size Worth USD 36.16 Billion in 2030

Global drone inspection and monitoring market size reached USD 9.80 Billion in 2021 and is expected to register a revenue CAGR of 15.8% during the forecast period, according to latest analysis by Emergen Research. Drone inspection methods are becoming increasingly popular over traditional approaches, which is one of the key factors driving market revenue growth. Current detection methods such as helicopter monitoring, scaffolding, and rope accessibility are time-consuming. However, drone inspection is both time and cost-effective. Consequently, drone inspection technology has received acceptance in a wide range of industries, including oil and gas, energy and utilities, and naval defense. Drone inspection technology has decreased the need for human operators and the risk connected with their lives. These benefits of drone inspection technologies have increased its popularity as compared to traditional approaches.

[memoiresofaneternaldreamer]

Till Death Do Us Part | Pt. 2

Pairing: Assassin! Choi Seungcheol x Assassin! F. Reader

Themes: Smut | Angst | (Fake) Marriage | Based on the movie 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' | Undercover Assassins | Hidden Identities | T.W.: mentions of blood, violence, guns

Wordcount: 13.8K

Playlist: 'Control' - CHVRN | 'Keep on Breathing' - The Glitch Mob, Tula | 'Fantasies' - Llynks | 'Madness' - Ruelle | 'Gomd' - Sickick

Smut Warnings: Explicit sexual acts - Oral (M. Receiving) - Slight Edging (M. Receiving) - Dominant! Reader - Dominant! Seungcheol - Rough play: titty slapping, spanking, hair pulling, biting, etc. - PIV - Unprotected intercourse

This story is intended for an adult audience only. Minors do not interact.

Previous Chapter: Till Death Do Us Part

Mingyu’s safe house—once just a sprawl of mismatched furniture and half-used equipment—is now a makeshift war room. Tables have been dragged together, boxes repurposed into makeshift desks, wires and monitors hooked into power grids and backup batteries. Satellite phones and burner lines hum quietly from one corner. The walls are lined with maps, a printed blueprint of Argos HQ taped alongside Lim’s Seoul office, red strings and pins ready to mark last known locations.

And at the heart of it all: an arsenal.

You and Seungcheol move slowly around the centrepiece—an open metal table now covered in weapons. Rifles. Semi-autos. Silencers. Flashbangs. Knives of every shape and finish. Armoured vests, gloves, scopes, smoke bombs. Clips and magazines neatly sorted by size. The smell of metal and oil clings to everything.

He holds up a new M1911 with a low whistle.

“Wonwoo really stocked you up,” you murmur, brushing your fingers across the matte finish of a karambit.

“Yeah,” Seungcheol says, inspecting the sightline. “He’s had a shopping problem ever since Rio. Said it’s cheaper than therapy.”

You smirk faintly and continue checking the gear. Methodical. Quiet. Efficient. Neither of you speaks much, but you don’t need to. There’s a rhythm to it—familiar. Rehearsed. Like slipping back into who you were long before this whole mess started.

Meanwhile, across the room, Reina is hunched over her own setup. She arrived just before sunrise, lugging in two black military-grade cases full of tech. Laptops, signal jammers, USB injectors, three satellite uplinks, and something you’re pretty sure was once a military drone antenna.

She hadn’t knocked—just used the side code to get in. You didn't bother asking her how she knew it.

Mingyu’s been following her around ever since.

“You know,” he says, peering over her shoulder as she boots up her third laptop. “I already had a full system here. Secure grid, scrambled line, full backup redundancy. You didn’t need to drag your entire tech department here.”

Reina doesn’t even look at him. “Yours were outdated.”

His mouth opens. Then closes. Then opens again. “Outdated?!” he scoffs. “Excuse you, this setup got us through the Jakarta op.”

“Exactly.”

Mingyu rolls his eyes, but a grin pulls at the edge of his mouth. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” she replies sweetly, “you still dream of me.”

He clears his throat at Reina’s comment and turns back to his cables, ears slightly turning pink.

You and Seungcheol exchange a glance. You don’t comment.

Instead, you turn toward the weaponry again.

“This is yours,” Seungcheol mutters, holding out a matte black Glock with a suppressor. “The grip should fit your hand.”

You take it and weigh it in your palm. “Perfect.”

He checks the mag, then hands you two more. “Loaded with subsonics. Just in case.”

You nod and pocket them. “You keeping the SIG?”

“Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Everything else—body armour, tactical pouches, spare knives—you both split evenly. There’s no talk of splitting up now. Only of surviving. Only of fighting.

A beep cuts through the room. Then another.

Reina taps a few keys on her main laptop. “We’re live.”

The screens fill—one by one—with pixelated faces.

The girls appear on the left monitor: Samira, Bora, Jiwoo. All in different rooms, different countries, some underground. Some clearly on the move. But they’re alive.

The boys fill the right screen: Woozi, Joshua, and Wonwoo.

Hyerim is the last to appear. She’s pale and looks like she hasn’t slept in two days. Woozi, on the screen beside her, still seems reluctant—but he’s here.

Everyone watches you.

You and Seungcheol stand in front of the cameras, side by side. Calm. Focused. The tension in the room is nearly unbearable.

Then Samira lets out a breath. “Holy shit. You’re alive.”

“I didn’t think I’d actually see your face again,” Jiwoo says, trying to smile, though her voice shakes.

“Same here,” Joshua says from the other side. “We’ve been locked down. No signals. No reassurances. Just... radio silence.”

You nod once. “We didn’t know who made it either. Not until now.”

Seungcheol steps forward. “We’re glad you’re here. All of you.”

He pauses, then continues. “Here’s what we know. Argos and Lim & Associates—”

“—have been playing us all along,” you finish. “Feeding each other contracts, setting us up to compete for bigger bounties. Splitting profits while turning us into pawns.”

A wave of muttering breaks out across the feeds.

“They tried to kill us to tie up loose ends,” Seungcheol says. “They failed.”

“But not for lack of trying,” you add grimly. “They’ll keep coming. And you know what that means.”

“It means we’re next,” Bora says softly.

The silence that follows is suffocating.

Then Samira speaks. “So what do we do? We scatter? Lay low? Build new identities?”

“Start hitting back?” Woozi suggests. “They want a war; we give them one.”

“We go public,” Jiwoo says. “Leak what we know to the international market. Force their hand. They won’t survive the exposure.”

Everyone talks over each other—ideas flying in every direction, voices rising with panic or adrenaline. Reina tries to corral them. Mingyu scowls and leans toward his mic.

You hold up your hand. “Enough.” Everyone quiets.

You take a step closer to the screen, eyes scanning each and every face—some scared, some angry, some simply tired.

“I know everyone has ideas,” you say. “But we need a plan. We can’t move blindly. Because each and every one of you is now at risk. And I’m telling you right now—I’m not sacrificing a single one of you to end this. Not now. Not ever.”

Silence.

Then Bora speaks, hesitant. “Then... maybe we break up. Cut contact completely. And you two? Go separate. Give yourselves better odds.”

Seungcheol answers before you can. “Mingyu already said the same thing.” He glances at you, then looks directly at the screen. “But it’s not happening.”

You step in, firm. “We’re not running.”

A long silence.

Then Hyerim’s voice cuts through it like a match-striking flame.

“Then let’s figure out a way to end this.”

The war room comes alive.

Monitors hum. Fingers fly across keyboards. Maps are spread across the walls with satellite feeds casting flickering lights over weapons and half-drunk coffee mugs. Mingyu and Reina hover on opposite ends of the room, syncing laptops, pinning strings between photos, placing red dots on global maps, and drawing lines connecting targets, histories, and lies.

It’s like HQ—only grittier.

Samira calls out coordinates from her safehouse in Morocco, eyes glued to her private satellite feed. “Director Oh just pinged in Bucharest. He’s changed IDs three times since the system crash but the credit trail doesn’t lie.”

Joshua’s already working on the second. “Mr. Kwon used one of his shell companies to rent a private jet from Rome three hours ago. Flight plan had a false lead to London but I think he diverted.” His screen blinks. “He’s in Dubai.”

“That’s two,” Seungcheol mutters beside you. He’s standing with his arms folded over his chest, tension in every line of his body. “What about Lim? Or my boss?”

You shake your head, eyes moving across the chaotic network of images and data Reina has laid out. “Too clean. Nothing in her old aliases. Nothing recent.”

“Same for Director Kang,” Woozi chimes in reluctantly. “If he’s off-grid, he’s really off-grid. No comms. No cards. He vanished.”

“They’re ghosts,” Hyerim says, frowning into her screen. “Exactly like they trained us to be.”

Seungcheol exhales through his nose. “Then we think like ghosts.”

You push away from the table and begin pacing.

“Madame Lim always had a thing for private residencies in Luxembourg. Kwon once mentioned her ties to an old estate there. Untraceable ownership but still under her maiden alias. She called it her ‘shadow base’.”

“Wait—” Jiwoo perks up from behind her camera. “You mean the one with the mirrored façade?”

You nod slowly. “That’s the one.”

“Kang has that obsession with old nuclear command bunkers,” Seungcheol murmurs beside you. “Always said he’d retire into one. He’s got property in the rural mountains between China and Laos.”

Wonwoo immediately types. “I’ve got a heat signal matching that description. Subterranean. Shielded comms. I’d bet on it.”

“Add it to the board,” you say.

One by one, the map fills in.

Red string now links Director Oh to Bucharest. Kwon to a luxury Dubai apartment. Madame Lim to Luxembourg. Director Kang to a mountain facility on the China-Laos border. Four red Xs appear in real time.

It’s already dark outside. You can see your reflection in the glass. Exhaustion pulls at your features, but no one slows down.

Then Woozi finally says what everyone’s thinking.

“So now what? We found them. What do we do next?”

Seungcheol’s voice is calm. Final.

“We kill them. All of them.”

You look at him, but don’t stop him. You feel the same.

But Hyerim shakes her head. “Killing them is one thing,” she says. “But it doesn’t erase the bounties. What are you gonna do, kill every mercenary that comes after you, too?”

A tense silence. You feel the weight of it settle in your chest.

Then Joshua jumps in. “Can’t we just remove the bounties once they’re dead? Wipe the system?”

Reina cuts him off. “Not that simple. They were posted through a specialised encrypted program. Those bounties require live biometric confirmation from the original posters to cancel.”

“So you’re saying we need to access that program,” Wonwoo says, leaning forward.

Reina nods once. “Not just access. We need them alive, long enough to scan in and delete the data.”

Mingyu groans, tossing a stress ball up and catching it again. “Damn. Who the hell built something like that?”

Silence.

Then Reina mutters quietly, “I did.” All heads turn.

You sigh, rubbing your eyes. “Of course you did.”

Seungcheol laughs under his breath. Just once.

You straighten, moving closer to the table. “Reina—can you track the origin posts? Figure out who initiated the bounties?”

She nods, fingers flying across her keyboard. “Give me a second...”

Everyone waits, watching the screen update line by line.

“Got it.” Her voice sharpens. “Your bounty, Gwisin—was posted by Madame Lim. S.Coups’? Director Kang.”

Seungcheol lets out a breath through his teeth. “Then we kill Oh and Kwon first. Quietly. Cut their links. Secure the network. Then we go for the real kill.”

“We have to be fast,” you add. “Coordinated. No screw-ups. The moment one of them gets wind, they’ll vanish for good or trigger dead-man protocols.”

The team nods.

Then Jiwoo’s voice cuts through the line—softer, but clear.

“Yeah... but even if you manage to find them, somehow disable the bounties and kill them...You two can’t take on every gun in the field already on the way to you. Not alone.”

You glance at Seungcheol, jaw tight. He’s thinking it too.

The silence stretches.

Then Samira speaks.

“What if we give the mercs something else to chase?”

Everyone turns to her.

You frown. “What do you mean?”

Samira leans in closer to her camera. “I’ve been tracking Jackal on the side. He’s still alive. Ricardo has him in one of his desert compounds. Hidden, but not unreachable.”

You freeze. Your mind starts spinning.

“Wait,” you say. “Reina, Mingyu—can you check if the original Jackal bounty is still live? The twelve million one?”

They’re already typing.

Mingyu shakes his head. “It’s dormant. Was put on hold after you both missed the retrieval.”

Seungcheol speaks then. “Can you reactivate it?”

Reina nods. “That bounty wasn’t encrypted. Global market. I can make it live again.”

Your voice is calm. Calculated. “Then do it. That should drag most mercenaries away from us. Especially if we leak intel about his location.”

Everyone falls silent again.

Then Seungcheol looks up. His voice is low.

“Let’s go to work.”

Bucharest is colder than expected.

You ride in on a black motorcycle, wind snapping at your borrowed jacket, face tucked beneath the visor of a matte helmet. The sun is just beginning to dip past the skyline, turning the haze of the city into a sheet of golden shadow. You keep to the alleys. Avoid open roads. Your fake ID has already been scanned twice, and thanks to Mingyu’s surprisingly competent alias work, no alarms were triggered.

You’ll file that under surprising things you’re not commenting on.

Much like the fact that Reina never left his safe house.

She’s now patching in from his personal terminal.

Jiwoo, however, is in Athens, and operating her own satellite rig.

“Gwisin, target is stationary,” Reina’s voice says in your comms, sharp as ever. “Upper floor of the building at coordinates 46.7691, 23.5899. Minimal guards. Two confirmed exits.”

“Copy that,” you whisper, crouched behind the gun.

You’ve scoped this place earlier—ten hours ago, to be exact. Found your perch on the fifth floor, shattered window perfectly angled toward the balcony where Oh takes his evening smoke. You’ve lined your sniper rifle up and calibrated for wind, trajectory, and velocity.

Now all you need is the target.

“Any movement yet?” you murmur.

Jiwoo responds. “Nothing yet. He’s still inside.”

You wait.

Time passes slowly in moments like these. The only rhythm is your breath, the slow clench and flex of your fingers around the rifle, and the occasional murmured updates from the girls. You watch out for Oh through your scope—his reflection in the window. Reading. Moving papers.

Then—footsteps.

You freeze.

Your breath stills, and your hands lift off the rifle slowly.

The building is supposed to be empty. You were thorough.

You immediately abandon your post, sliding silently back into the darkness behind you. You blend into it, breath stilling, spine flush to the wall.

Jiwoo’s voice crackles in your ear.

“He’s heading to the door. Looks like he’s prepping to move. You’ll have a clear—”

“I’ve got company,” you whisper, tight and low. “Hold your positions. Do not lose track of Oh.”

There’s a pause.

Then Reina says, “Copy. We’re holding.”

You draw your karambit.

Light floods faintly from beneath the hallway door.

Three shadows. Boots. You clock their cadence, their height, their coordination.

The Vasile triplets.

Mercenaries-for-hire. Romanian. Silent hitters. Raised together. Kill together. And now, they think they’re here to kill you.

The first one enters, rifle low. His head turns. That’s all the opening you need. You move like the wind, slicing your karambit clean across his throat. He drops without a sound.

The second shouts, raising his gun, but you’re already behind the nearest wall. You draw the silenced pistol at your hip and shoot once—chest shot. He stumbles, gasps, drops.

The third one charges you—clever, hand-to-hand. You duck his swing and slam your elbow into his ribcage. He knees you in the thigh. Pain pulses through your leg, but you keep your balance. You twist around him and slam your boot into his kneecap. He falls. You follow him to the floor and drive your blade through his neck, slicing upwards.

Silence falls again.

Blood pools quietly between broken cracks of flooring.

Then—

“Gwisin,” Jiwoo’s voice crackles, “Oh’s outside. He’s walking.”

You groan under your breath. “Of course he is.”

You sprint for the window. Your rifle is abandoned. So are the bodies.

You swing your leg out onto the fire escape and slide down the cold metal, the sound of your boots thudding against the wall as you descend. At the base, you toss the ladder down and emerge into an alley, breathing hard.

Your hand slips into your side pocket. A small black GPS device flashes with Oh’s blinking signal.

You speak into the comms. “Jiwoo, Reina—I need a city redirect. Get him into the northeast corner. I’ll meet him there.”

Reina clicks into action. “Hacking local lights now. You’ve got two minutes before I trigger.”

“Give me three,” you respond.

You’re walking fast now, weaving through market streets and narrow alleys, always a shadow. You guide Reina through every junction.

Traffic halts suddenly at your command. Oh is forced off his original path.

He walks. Alone. No security. You smile.

“He’s close,” you murmur. “Jiwoo, clear?”

“Clear,” she answers. “No cameras. No civilians. You’re good.”

You double back through a quieter route, entering the side street from the far end. Oh is still walking, checking his phone; his pace is fast, but he looks distracted.

You drop your eyes, tuck your blade into your sleeve, and walk straight toward him. Thirty steps. Twenty. Ten.

He passes you.

You spin, arm over his shoulder, blade slicing deep and fast across his throat in one clean arc.

His blood sprays silently across the brick walls. He collapses without a sound.

You wipe the blade on your pants, spin it once on your finger, and slip it into your jacket.

“It’s done,” you whisper into your comm.

“Confirmed,” Jiwoo replies after a beat, voice hushed.

Reina exhales. “One down, three to go.”

You walk away without looking back.

The first head has rolled.

Dubai is a city that refuses to sleep.

Glass towers claw at the sky, each one gleaming with its own brand of opulence. Gold trims, velvet ropes, and secrets buried under mirrored floors. For a man who wants to disappear, it’s a living nightmare.

Which is, of course, why Mr. Kwon chose it.

Seungcheol adjusts the cuff of his suit as he walks through the private entrance of Elara, one of Dubai’s most exclusive high-end clubs, his steps confident and deliberate. A different kind of camouflage. He’s not invisible here—not in this white-pressed designer shirt and sleek black jacket. He doesn’t blend in. He owns the room.

“Mingyu?” he murmurs, the comm in his ear catching his voice beneath the music.

“You’re clear. VIP is in the left wing. Same booth as his last visit. And yeah, Kwon’s already six drinks in,” Mingyu answers from the other end, back at their makeshift satellite station in his safe house.

“Woozi?”

“Confirming no other threats have pinged in your area. You’re solo,” comes the clipped reply. Good.

Seungcheol adjusts his stance slightly as he moves toward the main floor. The lights pulse golden. Music throbs under his shoes like a second heartbeat. The crowd is decadent—diamonds and champagne, cleavage and cologne. And in the centre of it all sits Mr. Kwon.

VIP booth. Surrounded by women.

Seungcheol signals a passing waiter and flashes a smile. “Your finest bottle of Boërl & Kroff. Send it to the gentleman in the booth. No note.”

The waiter nods, takes the cash, and slips away. Seconds later, Kwon is laughing and downing champagne straight from the bottle, frothy and bubbling down his chin. The women cheer; one of them straddles his thigh. Seungcheol watches it all unfold from across the room, a quiet predator sipping a scotch he’ll never finish.

You cross his mind unbidden. The rifle in your hands. The quiet precision of your kills. He wonders—Have you done it yet? Are you safe?

He shakes the thought away.

Focus.

Time ticks forward slowly. Kwon grows drunker, heavier-lidded. Then, finally, he rises—stumbling slightly, laughing, waving the women off.

Bathroom break.

Seungcheol downs his drink and follows.

The hallway is dimly lit. Long. Opulent in design but silent. The door to the bathroom swings open, and Seungcheol slips in a few moments later.

Inside, Kwon is already at the sink. Washing his hands like he’s preparing for a goddamn sermon. He’s humming.

When he looks up, he catches Seungcheol’s reflection in the mirror.

The moment of recognition is quick. Seungcheol is quicker.

His arm wraps around Kwon’s neck, cutting off the air, holding tight. Kwon thrashes once, twice, tries to claw at him, tries to scream—but it’s too late. His body slumps, and Seungcheol lowers him to the tile.

“Goodnight,” he mutters coldly.

The second the body hits the floor, Seungcheol straightens his suit, slicks his hair back with one sweep, and checks his reflection in the mirror. His muscles strain again. It’s almost poetic now.

He turns toward the exit. Left leads back to the party. Right leads out.

He turns right.

He only makes it ten feet before a gold chain lashes around his ankle like a striking snake. He hits the floor hard, forearms slamming into tile, the wind knocked from his chest.

The chain yanks.

He rolls—just in time.

A figure charges at him with the elegance of a dancer and the savagery of a cobra. Full force, she lands on top of him.

They wrestle—hands, knees, elbows. She’s fast. Precise. Smiling.

“Hello, darling,” she purrs, her accent unmistakable. “Still breaking hearts?”

“Varsha,” he growls. “Didn’t expect you to come crawling back.”

She slams her fist into his ribs.

He kicks upward, rolling her off. They separate, both springing to their feet at once—Seungcheol doing a clean kick-up, landing squarely in a fighter’s stance.

She twirls the chain in one hand. Her snake bracelet, coiled and ready.

“Heard you were married now,” she says, circling. “Shame.”

“Shame you don’t know when to quit,” he mutters.

They lunge at the same time.

She swings the chain—he ducks, grabs the end mid-air, and yanks.

She flies forward, caught off guard, and he spins her into the wall. Her head cracks against a mirror.

She recovers. Slashes at his face. He blocks with his forearm, the chain cutting into his skin. He counters.

A blade slides from the inside of his sleeve—his last resort.

He plunges it deep into her gut before she can wrench away. Her breath hitches. Blood trickles out of her mouth.

He leans in, twisting the knife once before pulling it out and stabbing it in again.

“Should’ve stayed a one-night stand.” She collapses.

The comms buzz in his ear, and Seungcheol finally registers the noise.

“Hyung—what the hell was that noise?” Woozi demands.

Seungcheol breathes hard, blood dripping from his hand. He wipes the blade on his pants.

“Target’s down,” he says. “And so is the unexpected company.”

“Tell me that wasn’t Varsha?” Mingyu asks, incredulous.

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit.”

Seungcheol crouches beside the body for one second, then stands.

His suit is wrinkled, blood-streaked. His forearm stings. But the mission’s done.

The second head has rolled.

“Director Kwon is confirmed dead,” Reina says, her voice in your earpiece over the static of the line.

You’re crouched on the edge of a building rooftop in Bucharest, the skyline painted grey behind you, your breath cooling in the early evening air.

“Seungcheol did it in a club bathroom—clean choke. No witnesses, no trail,” she continues.

You exhale, tension loosening from your shoulders, the adrenaline of your own mission slowly bleeding out of your system.

“Good,” you reply, voice soft.

“I’ve just updated your travel packet. New alias, new flight plan. Small private jet’s waiting for you twenty clicks out of town. That should land you in Luang Namtha before midnight. From there, quad into the jungle—Seungcheol’s safehouse is mapped.”

“That where we regroup?”

“Yeah. Wonwoo’s sending another weapons crate to the site tomorrow. You’ll need it before you move on Kang.”

“Copy that,” you murmur. “I’ll move soon.”

You’re about to kill the comm when you hear it.

A low voice in the background—Mingyu’s, unmistakably.

“I can’t believe Varsha, of all people, showed up.”

You freeze, head tilting slightly.

“Kind of crazy that she’s still breathing after all these years. Woozi, remember her? That whole mess in Tangier? And now she tried to choke Seungcheol in a Dubai nightclub? Crazy bitch.”

A pause.

Then Mingyu again, voice casual, joking—too joking.

“Guess some flings really don’t take rejection well. But at least Cheol’s still got it, huh?”

Your blood runs cold. Then hot.

Varsha.

You’ve heard the name before. Not often, not clearly—It’s been passed around the underground like an urban legend: exotic, lethal, likes to strangle her targets with some kind of metal chain disguised as jewellery. A merc. A black widow.

And apparently, your husband’s slept with her.

Your jaw clenches.

You hang up the call with Reina before she can hear your tone shift.

It takes hours to get through immigration, over the Laos border, and deeper into the jungle. Your boots are caked in water and mud by the time you reach the last marker—an overgrown path with an old iron sign buried beneath moss and vines. The GPS flashes green in your hand.

Safehouse reached.

Your heartbeat picks up as you walk forward past the thick of the trees. You push through the foliage, parting vines and leaves until you finally see it—an old concrete structure, half-buried in the landscape but clearly maintained.

And standing in front of it, looking far too calm and far too attractive in a grey tactical shirt and jungle-worn cargo pants—Seungcheol.

His eyes light up the second he sees you.

He takes a step forward, and you feel your chest tighten, all that tension from the last few days crumbling in an instant.

God, he’s alive.

He walks right up to you, takes your face in his hands, and kisses you—hard.

It’s frantic, hungry, grateful. All heat and breath and want. You melt into it for a second, eyes fluttering shut, fingers curling into his shirt.

And then—

The name echoes again.

Varsha.

You snap out of it, pushing him back with one hand to his chest.

And then you slap him. Hard.

“Ow—!” he groans, jerking his head. “What the hell was that for?”

You don’t even let him recover.

You shove him again, your words tumbling out like bullets. “Who is Varsha, huh? And how long have you been sleeping with her?”

He blinks. “What?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Choi—” You hit his chest. “Who is she? When did you sleep with her? Was it before the wedding or after? The last time you were in Dubai? How long has this been going on?!”

“Okay, wow—” he starts, reaching for you.

You slap his hands away.

“You smug, lying, arrogant—God, you’re unbelievable. You brag to your friends like some frat boy, and then just... what? Hide it from me? Your wife?”

“Babe—”

“No!” You push him again. “Don’t you ‘babe’ me. And don’t touch me. Not after this. I’ll find that bitch and kill her myself. Right after I kill you.”

He tries again, grabbing for your arms.

You swat at him like a feral cat.

“Jesus, okay, stop—” he groans, catching your wrists and holding them in place. “Stop—just—stop hitting me for one second—”

“Why? You can’t take it? Was she better? Did she use the—”

He lets out a laugh then, loud and full-bodied.

And then he pulls you flush against him, hands still locked around your waist, gripping you tight enough you can’t wriggle free.

“You don't have to kill her,” he says, voice rough with amusement. “I already did.”

You freeze.

“...what?”

His mouth quirks. “She came at me in the club. Chained my ankle. Thought she could collect my bounty. I stabbed her. Right through the gut. She’s dead.”

You stare at him, blinking.

He raises an eyebrow. “What? You didn’t think I was out there making out with her, did you?”

You open your mouth. Close it. Look away, completely mortified.

He smirks.

“Oh my God,” you mutter, avoiding his gaze. “I’m such an idiot.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just tilts your chin up with one hand, waiting until your eyes meet his again.

And instead of teasing you further, he leans down—close enough that his breath ghosts against your lips.

“You’re cute when you’re jealous,” he murmurs.

You scoff. “I’m not jealous.”

“You literally said you’d kill her.”

“That’s not the same thing—”

He laughs again.

You roll your eyes but don’t move away. Not even when he leans in, brushing his lips over yours with a feather-light touch. Not even when he whispers against your mouth.

“Trust me, baby, you’re the only one I want.”

You sigh, letting your forehead press to his.

“Good,” you whisper back.

And then he kisses you again.

The second Seungcheol’s mouth slants over yours again, something raw and almost reckless rises between you. Whatever apology you didn’t say for your blow-up burns off your tongue as your teeth sink into his lower lip instead. His hissed inhale at the sting makes something low in your stomach coil and thrum.

He pulls you closer like he’s starved. But you’re the one who can’t get enough.

The world narrows to your tongues fighting for dominance, teeth clashing and mouths bruising. You don’t even register the door closing behind you, or your boots tracking mud into the safe house. Seungcheol blindly stumbles back into the small main room, dragging you with him, hands gripping your hips like he needs the grounding.

You hit a wall. A stack of crates topples. Neither of you flinch.

He chuckles against your mouth when it crashes to the floor.

“Careful,” he murmurs, breathless. “You’re gonna wreck the place.”

You bite his bottom lip again. “I don’t care.”

Another kiss. Another half-step, and suddenly, he falls into a chair, dragging you with him.

You straddle his lap without hesitation, your thighs bracketing his hips, and your clothed core presses against the thick, growing bulge in his pants. His hands slide up your sides beneath your shirt, rough and warm, and you grind down on him with purpose. He groans into your mouth at the friction—one hand tightening on your waist while the other fists the hem of your shirt and yanks it up and over your head.

You break the kiss just long enough to let it go, arms flying overhead, before your lips crash back to his. Your hands are already at his belt, clumsily undoing the clasp, fingers fumbling with impatience as his hands work to undo your bra.

His mouth trails from your lips down your neck. “Jesus. You’re—”

“Shut up.”

He laughs. “Yes, ma’am.”

You finally get his belt open, unzipping his pants while he kisses along the curve of your jaw and down your collarbone as he pushes your bra straps down. His hips buck slightly when your hand slides inside the waistband of his boxers, brushing against his hard length. You lean back, just enough to push his chest down into the chair.

“Don’t move,” you mutter, fingers splayed on his sternum. “And don’t touch.”

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow at your warning but obliges. You slide off his lap, dropping to your knees between his legs. His eyes darken instantly.

“Baby, what��”

“Shut. Up.”

You slap his hands away when he tries to touch you, and he groans, watching as you reach for his waistband and tug everything down and off—pants, underwear, all at once. His cock springs free, flushed and thick and already hard, bobbing slightly against his abdomen.

You don’t tease. Not yet.

You lean in and envelop him in your mouth.

His strangled groan echoes around the room as your mouth closes over the head of his cock, wet and hot and needy. You drag your tongue slowly along the underside of his shaft, taking your time, then hollow your cheeks and suck him deeper, feeling the stretch in your jaw and the way his body tenses instantly.

“Fuck—” he chokes out, hands fisting the edge of the chair. “Holy shit.”

You bob your head, tongue swirling, alternating suction with slow drags, and soon he’s groaning again, hips jerking subtly up into your mouth before he forces himself to still.

You take your time—too much time.

Your hand joins your ministrations, wrapping around the base of his cock, pumping slowly while your mouth works the head. You stroke in rhythm with your lips, twisting, flicking your tongue, pulling back to suck hard at the tip before going deep again.

“God, you’re gonna kill me,” he mutters, one hand falling into your hair despite your warning.

You let him tug, guide, just enough to make your scalp sting.

He starts panting, the tension in his thighs ratcheting up.

“Baby—shit—I’m close—”

You immediately pull off. He gasps at the sudden loss of contact, body twitching at the near-orgasm, hands still in your hair.

You look at him as you start stroking him again—slow, deliberate, not letting him tip over.

His head thunks back against the chair. “You’re fucking evil.”

You smirk. “And yet, you married me.”

He groans, head turning to the side like he’s trying to focus on anything else. But it doesn’t help. Your hand never stops. But it’s not enough. Not fast enough, not tight enough. Minutes tick by. You go down again.

He jerks up so fast you nearly choke. Your lips wrap around his tip again, and you find a new rhythm—suck, stroke, lick, repeat.

He’s shaking when he groans, “Gonna come—fuck—”

You stop. Again.

“Fucking hell!” he barks, hands flying to the armrests.

You glance up with innocent eyes. “Something wrong, baby?”

“Don’t make me—” He grits his teeth, cheeks flushed and body glistening with sweat. “Do not make me beg.”

You smirk, pumping him once—twice—slowly. He groans, head falling forward. “You’re gonna pay for this—”

“Shut up and take it.”

The third time you take him in your mouth, you don’t wait for the warning.

You edge him again, stopping just as his thighs start to tremble and the base of his spine tenses in that telltale way. You pull off. Again.

A string of saliva connects your mouth to the tip of his cock.

He’s not groaning anymore. He’s whining. Your big, bad assassin husband is actually whining.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, eyes blown wide with desperation. “Please.”

You tilt your head. “Please what?” He glares. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” You stroke him just once, and he groans. “Be in control?”

His jaw flexes. He looks at you like he wants to throttle you—or fuck you so hard the walls come down.

You lean in close again, lips brushing the tip.

“You’re punishing me, aren’t you?” he rasps. “For Dubai. For Varsha.”

You lick your lips. “Maybe.”

“You’re a fucking menace.”

“But you love it.”

He laughs through a moan. You smile, letting your tongue flick out—just enough to taste him again. And then, you sit back on your heels. Completely still. You don’t touch him. Don’t kiss him. Don’t move.

He stares at you, furious and hard and on the brink of madness.

You rise slowly to your feet, running your thumb across your bottom lip and gathering the saliva and precum gathered at the corner of your mouth.

You lick it clean, smiling.

You don’t expect him to move that fast.

One second you’re still standing in front of him, pleased with yourself, watching Seungcheol’s cock throb with need between his thighs… and the next, he’s out of the chair.

Before you can so much as flinch or retaliate, you’re airborne.

“Hey—” you yelp as he picks you up, manhandling you like you weigh nothing at all, and throws you across the room. Your back hits the mattress with a heavy oomph, limbs bouncing slightly on the bed as the air is knocked from your lungs.

You manage to suck in a breath before his body crashes down on top of yours, caging you in.

“You think you’re funny?” he growls lowly, his nose brushing yours as he pins your wrists above your head. You grin. “Maybe.”

He kisses you like he wants to eat you alive.

The heat from earlier flares again, but it’s darker now, fiercer. His mouth travels fast—biting down on your jaw, your throat, the sensitive spot beneath your ear. You moan, arching beneath him, and he laughs against your skin.

You feel his hand on your chest before you register the slap—his palm hitting your breast hard enough to sting, then immediately squeezing it after.

“Fuck—” you whimper, legs twitching around his hips.

His mouth closes around your nipple in response—hot, wet, rough—and he sucks hard, alternating with his teeth. You cry out, your fingers tangling in his hair.

“Still feeling bratty?” he mutters against your breast.

He doesn’t give you the time to retort—instead, he grabs your hair, yanking your head back to bare your throat, and bites down on your neck instead. The sharp jolt sends sparks straight between your legs.

Your pants are ripped off you in the next heartbeat—tugged down so roughly they take your panties with them, leaving you sprawled naked and gasping on the bed.

He kisses his way down, leaving a trail of saliva and fire along your ribs, your stomach, and your hipbone.

When his mouth hovers over your soaked heat, your legs tremble. His breath ghosts over your core, and you meet his eyes, dark and ravenous, from between your thighs.

“Tell me what you want, sweetheart,” he says lowly, voice laced with mocking amusement. “Fingers? Mouth? Or cock?”

You blink, brain fogged with heat.

“What…?”

Seungcheol grins. “Tch. Thought so. Haven’t even touched you yet, and you’re already fucked out. You get to choose, baby. But choose wisely.” He leans closer, nose brushing your clit. “You’ll only get one.”

That finally snaps you out of it.

“Cock,” you whisper, voice hoarse and expectant.

He smirks. “Good choice.”

And then your world flips on its axis. Literally.

He grabs your thighs and flips you with a single motion. You shriek in surprise as you land on your stomach. He yanks you onto all fours.

“Cheol—!” you start, but he’s pushing your face into the mattress, his palm heavy against the back of your head.

“Shut up,” he mutters commandingly. “You asked for this.”

You feel his cock behind you—hard, hot, lined up with your weeping entrance—and then he’s inside you in one brutal, punishing thrust.

You cry out into the bedding, your fingers clawing at the sheets as he splits you open.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he groans behind you, his hands bruising your hips.

He doesn’t give you time to adjust.

He starts pounding into you from behind, hips slamming against your ass with heavy, rhythmic force. The sound is obscene—skin on skin, your wetness, your gasps and his growls filling the tiny space.

You’re moaning, whining, helpless against the onslaught of his body.

Every thrust knocks the breath from your lungs. He spanks your ass hard once—then again—and again, until you let out a sob, only to moan even when his palm lands on you again.

Your core clenches wildly around him.

“Fuck— you’re gripping me like a vice,” he mutters, voice low and ragged. “You like this? Huh, baby? Like being used?”

You can only cry out ‘Yes’ in response.

When your legs begin to shake, he grabs your hair and yanks you upright—your back slamming against his chest, his cock still buried deep inside you.

“Open your mouth,” he orders, keeping his grip tight in your hair as his free hand slides in front of your face.

You do without hesitation. Two fingers slide past your lips—rubbing over your tongue, pressing down against it.

“Suck.”

You moan as you obey, your tongue swirling over his fingers, your mouth hot and desperate, sucking on his digits like you did his cock. When he’s satisfied, he pulls them free and slides them down—between your thighs, right to your clit.

You cry out when his slick fingers start rubbing fast, ruthless circles over your pulsing nub.

“Cheol— oh god—fuck—”

“Come on, baby,” he murmurs against your ear. “Come for me. Let me feel it.”

Your fingers dig into his arm as your orgasm suddenly crashes through you. It’s violent. Wild. And takes you by force. Your body locks, clenches, and trembles as the pressure explodes and pleasure rips through your nerves.

Seungcheol doesn’t stop.

He keeps thrusting, keeps circling your clit, keeps fucking you through it—overstimulation already setting in as you scream into the mattress.

He lets you fall forward again, and you collapse bonelessly, face down into the bed. He doesn’t stop. His hands grab your hips, holding you steady as he chases his own release.

He spanks your ass again, the sounds loud and lewd.

“Shit—fuck—fuck,” he growls, hips stuttering.

And then he spills inside you with a loud, broken groan.

Three more thrusts. Shallow. Slow. Making sure every drop stays buried deep. He finally pulls out, breath catching in his throat.

You’re wrecked. Soaked. Glistening. Barely able to move.

He flops down beside you, dragging your twitching body into his arms. You’re gasping, limbs limp, brain swimming—but a giggle bubbles out anyway.

“That was…” you pant, dazed. “Yeah. I should definitely rile you up more often.”

He groans playfully, burying his face into your neck. “Let’s not.”

The jungle is still sleeping when reality decides to wake you up.

The sharp buzz of his satellite phone on the nightstand and the soft, steady beeping from your GPS tracker lighting up beside the bed wake you both from your slumber. The haze of last night’s sweat-slicked limbs and tangled sheets is still warm on your skin, but the moment is gone as fast as it came. Instinct takes over.

Seungcheol grabs the sat phone and answers without hesitation. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Wonwoo says, gruff and casual as ever. “Shipment’s dropped. It’s in the clearing three clicks northeast of you. Sent the coordinates to your wife’s tracker.”

“She got it,” Seungcheol replies, throwing a quick glance at you as you nod.

“Good. Stay sharp out there,” Wonwoo mutters. “And… don’t die.”

Seungcheol breathes out. “Right back at you, Woo.”

Wonwoo disconnects, and just like that, the warmth of the bed, the afterglow—it all fades. You look at each other for a heartbeat, and then the switch flips.

Game time.

You both get dressed in practised silence. Vests. Gloves. Boots. Every movement is efficient. Clean. Sharp. Two ghosts suiting up for a kill.

Outside, the air is thick with jungle humidity. You follow Seungcheol as he rounds the side of the safe house, stepping over vines and damp earth until he crouches down and yanks off a heavy tarp.

Underneath it—well hidden—is a weathered military-grade jeep.

“Of course, you had this here,” you mutter, lips twitching slightly.

He grins as he gets in. “Had to leave myself a ride.”

You climb into the passenger seat, pulling your GPS forward. “Take the path north, then veer right at the ridge. The drop is just past the waterline clearing.”

The jeep lurches forward, engine snarling low and quiet, and you both fall into the tense stillness of the mission. Every branch that scrapes the side of the jeep, every call of birds overhead, every bump in the road—it all heightens your senses.

It doesn’t take long before you reach the clearing.

Seungcheol kills the engine, and the world goes eerily quiet except for the rustle of wind through leaves. You step out, weapons drawn, scanning your surroundings. Then you see it.

A dark metal crate sits just ahead, nestled in the grass like a gift from the gods.

Seungcheol breaks it open with a crowbar, and your eyes widen.

Wonwoo went off.

Inside the crate lies a small armoury. Sleek, matte-black rifles. Knives with ceramic edges. Ammo in every calibre. Smoke bombs. Blackout tech. Scoped pistols. Infrared sensors. Heat detectors. New comms gear. Suppressors.

“Damn,” you mutter, running your hand across a silencer. “This is better than Christmas.”

You both start suiting up—checking each item before adding it to your loadout. Sights calibrated. Knives balanced. Comms synced.

You’re just about to zip up your tactical vest when something catches your eye at the bottom of the crate.

A flash drive.

You pick it up. Silver casing with black marker on the side: XOXO, Reina.

Your eyebrows lift. “The hell is this?”

Seungcheol is already watching you, so he throws you his sat phone, and you dial Reina. She answers after three rings, sounding distinctly out of breath.

“Yeah—hello?”

You narrow your eyes. “...You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she replies too fast. “Totally fine. Just finished working out. What’s up?”

You stare into the jungle. “Got your gift.”

Silence.

Then Reina exhales. “Oh. Right. The drive.” Her voice shifts, businesslike. “That’s a virus I wrote to scramble Kang and Lim’s encrypted program. Once you’re in, it’ll override the signal.”

You glance at Seungcheol. “Define ‘in’.”

“As I mentioned, it uses biometric access,” Reina explains. “Voice, retinal, and fingerprint. The print scan is advanced—it monitors heart rate and body temp. If either spike, a fail-safe activates. It’s basically a dead man’s switch.”

Seungcheol groans behind you. “So… a walk in the park.”

Reina snorts. “You’ll have to get Kang to unlock the system without triggering any alarms. Once you’re in, insert the flash drive. It’ll spoof the signal to Lim—make it seem like the bounty’s still live on her end, but dead to the global market. She’ll never know.”

You blink. “That’s… impressive.”

“I know,” Reina says smugly.

You start to thank her, then pause—smirking slightly.

“You know,” you say smugly, “Next time, maybe think twice when you decide to “work out” again. And do it preferably after we’ve walked towards possible death.”

More silence.

Then a very quiet, “God, you’re creepy. Can’t hide shit from you.”

You laugh. “You’re not that subtle, Reina.”

“Whatever,” she mutters, but you can hear the faint smile in her voice. “Good luck. Don’t die.”

“Back at you.” You hang up.

When you turn around, Seungcheol’s watching you with a faint smirk.

“What?” you ask.

He shrugs. “Nothing. Just something about a pot and kettle.”

“I didn’t hear you complain last night.”

He chuckles at your statement, but it fades as the moment quiets.

Your eyes meet, and the atmosphere shifts. Reality settles like a weight on your shoulders.

It’s go time.

The sun rides high above the canopy by the time the wheels of the jeep crunch to a stop beneath the thick shadows of the jungle. You and Seungcheol sit in stillness for a moment, the low hum of the engine dying out as he kills the ignition. Birds call in the distance, muffled by the density of the leaves, and the air is heavy with anticipation.

“We’re close,” you murmur, checking your GPS. “About one klick northeast.”

He nods once, scanning the tree line. “We’ll go on foot from here. We park any closer; we risk setting off possible perimeter sensors.”

Without another word, you both exit the vehicle and disappear into the green.

The jungle is unforgiving—thick vines, hanging moss, and humidity clinging to your skin like a second suit. You pull a machete from your belt, and Seungcheol does the same, both of you slashing carefully through the underbrush, keeping your steps measured and soundless. There’s no conversation, just the rhythm of your shared breaths and blades, and the silent language spoken between trained killers.

After a short climb, you reach a ridge. It crests gently above a natural dip in the earth, and below it, spread across a cleared stretch of jungle floor, lies Kang’s compound.

Modern. Sleek. Built like a fortress with luxury trimmings—glass walls, solar panels, and a central structure acting as an office or control centre. It stands out in the wild like a dagger.

You drop to your stomach near the edge of the ridge, dragging your binoculars from your pack. Beside you, Seungcheol pulls out his own gear—infrared heat sensors, a laser rangefinder. You share what you see in low, practised whispers.

“Two snipers. North and southeast towers,” you murmur. “Both posted high, rifles trained toward the outer edge.”

“Got eyes on two more guards. Heavily armed, center-left of the courtyard near the entrance,” he adds. “Looks like they’re protecting the main path in.”

You tap the side of your lens, switching to thermal.

“Seven more, patrolling inside the compound. Standard rotation—seems like they’re on a ten-minute loop. Armed, but not alert.”

“Visual on Kang?”

You scan the second floor of the compound and freeze when you find the shadowed silhouette of a tall man, pacing across what appears to be an office.

“There,” you whisper, nudging Seungcheol. “Tall, wide shoulders. Movement pattern matches. Looks like he’s talking to someone—”

Seungcheol adjusts his lens. “Confirmed. That’s him.”

You nod and reach into your pack again, pulling out the scrambler. You power it on and set the frequency, watching as the blinking green light turns steady blue.

“Alarms scrambled. Cameras looped. We’ll have a twenty-minute window before their system reboots, and he realizes something’s off.”

“Plenty of time,” Seungcheol replies, cocking your rifle and attaching the silencer and balancing it on a tripod.

You both lie flat on the ridge, shoulder to shoulder. You take the snipers. He watches for movement.

“North tower first,” you whisper.

You adjust the sight, take a breath, and squeeze the trigger. The silencer reduces the crack to a faint hiss, and the sniper in the north tower drops like a ragdoll. One down.

You shift slightly. “Southeast tower.”

Another shot. Another body slumps, this time into the rail, his body tumbling quietly over the edge into the brush.

“Clear,” you mutter. “I’ll move. You take east. I’ll go west.”

Seungcheol nods, already sliding down the hill.

You stay behind a moment longer, disassembling your rifle and pocketing the scrambler. Then you’re on your feet, slipping through the trees silently.

You move fast and low.

By the time you reach the outer edge of the compound, Seungcheol has already taken out the two guards near the courtyard. You spot their bodies tucked neatly behind a stone wall, blood blooming silently across their shirts. You nod to yourself and slip around the west side, coming up behind the greenhouse wing. A guard steps out to smoke. You waste no time.

Karambit to his throat. A gurgled gasp. You pull him into the shadows, wipe the blade, and move on.

Another guard rounds the corner, humming to himself. You take him down in two swift moves—elbow to the windpipe, blade to the kidney. He falls in a twitch.

Inside, the compound is eerily silent. The scrambler continues to work wonders—no alarms, no flickers of suspicion from the guards, still unaware they’re being hunted.

You and Seungcheol clear the floors like ghosts. He moves swiftly on the east side, the occasional thud of a body hitting the tile filtering through your comms. You press into the south corridor, slicing through two more men and dragging them into an empty bathroom.

With every guard down, every hallway cleared, the silence grows heavier. Anticipation coils tighter in your gut.

Finally, you reach the top floor.

And just like that—you’re standing at Kang’s office door.

Seungcheol rounds the corner from the other direction, his face slick with sweat, blood spatters on his cheek, but his eyes sharp. He meets your gaze, and you both press flat against either side of the door. You nod once to each other.

Seungcheol opens the door with a silent push, and you toss a smoke bomb inside.

The hiss of the release is immediate, followed by a fast bloom of dense, grey smoke that overtakes the pristine mahogany of his luxury office. The desk disappears, the floor vanishes beneath haze, and you hear the sound of a chair scraping back sharply.

“What the—?!” Kang’s voice barks in confusion.

You slip inside, silent and focused. You can hear Kang’s movements: stumbling, coughing, his shoes thudding heavily against the floor as he tries to orient himself. There’s a crash—he’s knocked something off his desk—and then a shuffle of panic.

Then silence.

Until the feeling of a cold, steely barrel of a gun chamber touches his forehead.

“Don’t move,” Seungcheol says, voice calm, firm, and ice-sharp.

He freezes.

“Seungcheol?” Kang rasps through the smoke.

Your figure melts from the shadows behind him like a ghost. Your karambit is back in your hand, its curved blade cold and gleaming. You press it to the side of Kang’s throat.

He stiffens instantly.

Your voice is quiet and cold, the edge of your breath brushing his ear. “Hello, Kang. Miss us?”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he breathes out a rough laugh, half-amused, half-appalled. “You two have really lost your minds.”

He tries to move, but you press the blade a hair deeper. A single drop of blood runs down his neck.

He barks another laugh. “The two biggest targets on the global kill list walk right into my compound. I should be flattered. Or furious.”

Seungcheol says nothing, only pressing the gun harder to his forehead.

“I underestimated you, Seungcheol. I knew you were soft, but this? Playing Bonnie and Clyde with your little wife? How’s it feel, huh? Always in her shadow?”

Seungcheol’s eyes narrow. He’s still as stone, but the way his jaw clenches tells you exactly how hard he’s biting back the need to pull the trigger.

Seungcheol finally speaks, voice low, cold. “It feels like I married the only person worth trusting in this goddamn world. And the fact you’re scared of her proves it.”

You smirk.

Leaning closer, you whisper, “Let’s see if we can keep you calm enough to survive the next few minutes, shall we?”

Kang glares. “What do you want?”

“Access,” you say simply. “To your program.”

He scoffs. “You think I’m going to just hand it over?”

You press the karambit harder into the tender skin beneath his jaw, a steady stream of blood oozing from the tip piercing his skin. “No. You’re going to walk us through it. And if you fuck around—if you even flinch the wrong way—you’ll die before the failsafe ever gets a chance to go off.”

Kang huffs through his nose, but walks to the desk with your blade still at his throat. Seungcheol stays close by, his gun never wavering. Kang’s fingers tremble slightly as he wakes up the terminal. The light from the monitor casts strange shadows across his face as he clears his throat and accesses the program.

“Director Kang Hojin,” he states, firm and loud. “Override sequence Omega Black, authorisation Sigma-One-Seven-Delta.”

The system chimes.

Voice scan accepted.

He places his hand on the scanner. Another chime.

Fingerprint accepted.

Then comes the retinal scan. He leans forward towards the webcam. The screen buzzes.

Access denied. Retinal match not found.

Your heart stutters. Seungcheol’s grip on his gun tightens.

Kang lifts his head with a smug look. “Oops.”

You grab his shoulder and force him back down. “Do it again. Don’t blink.”

Kang exhales sharply through his nose and leans forward again. This time, he holds perfectly still.

Retinal scan accepted.

Access granted.

Relief floods you, but you shove it down. No room for error now.

“Bounty logs,” Seungcheol says.

Kang navigates the system with practised fingers, moving through encrypted folders. “Here. This is what you want.”

You reach into your belt and pull out the flash drive. Kang’s eyes flicker to it.

“Plug it in,” Seungcheol says. You do.

The second the drive locks in, the screen flashes. Code scrolls, long strings of green bleeding across black. The virus is doing its job.

“You idiots have no idea what you’ve just done,” Kang growls. “You think Lim won’t find this? You think she didn’t plan for this?”

You say nothing. Seungcheol watches the screen. Progress: 82%.

“Even if you kill me, she’ll never stop. You’re nothing to her. Ants. She’ll make sure the entire world hunts you for sport.”

The progress bar reaches 100%.

Final confirmation: Bounty Deactivated — Market Update Complete.

“You talk too much,” Seungcheol mutters. Then he pulls the trigger.

The bullet hits Kang clean between the eyes. His head snaps back before slumping forward onto the keyboard, blood blooming fast beneath him. The room goes quiet.

You exhale. Slide the flash drive from the port and tuck it back into your belt.

“Let’s go,” Seungcheol says.

You’re two steps toward the door when the monitor flickers red.

On the screen, a new prompt flashes: ALARM ACTIVATED — FAILSAFE INITIATED — DETONATION SEQUENCE: 2:00

“Oh shit,” you whisper.

“Run,” Seungcheol breathes, already grabbing your wrist. “GO!”

Your boots slam against the floor as you both bolt from Kang’s office, weaving past his slumped, lifeless body behind his desk. The halls flash red—emergency lights triggered by the failsafe.

“Where did that come from?!” Seungcheol shouts.

“My scrambler!” you gasp, realisation slamming into you like a truck. “It triggered the reboot. The system finally recognised us.”

01:45.

You skid through the corridor, heart in your throat, legs pumping hard. Down the stairs—two at a time—your boots barely hitting the steps before you’re flying again. You hear Seungcheol right behind you, breath ragged, muttering a string of curses between each inhale.

You nearly slip on the last stair, but Seungcheol grabs your arm and steadies you without stopping. The two of you slam through a side exit and into the open air of the jungle’s edge.

01:02

“Too far,” you choke out. “We parked too far—”

“We’re not making the jeep,” he says, teeth clenched. “Find cover.”

You don’t argue. You veer left, leaping over a fallen tree trunk, ducking under a vine. Your legs burn. The world is loud with your breaths, your pulse in your ears, the scream of your muscles.

00:54

Behind you, the compound hums unnaturally, the kind of silence that feels like something holding its breath. You glance back—just a flash—and see smoke already leaking from the vents on the roof. The timer is real. The end is coming.

“There!” Seungcheol shouts behind you, pointing.

A rock formation, jagged and moss-covered, partially buried under tangled roots. A crevice big enough—maybe.

He speeds up. You do, too.

00:32

You’re panting. Staggering. Tripping over your own feet—but you don’t stop. You can’t.

Then—just as your feet hit the edge of the formation—arms wrap around your waist.

Seungcheol lifts you, spins, and throws the both of you behind the largest boulder.

You crash into the dirt hard, grass in your mouth, Seungcheol’s weight covering you entirely. His arms pin you down, his body a shield.

He curls around you, breath hot against your ear.

“Hold on,” he whispers.

You shut your eyes. You feel his heartbeat.

00:01.

The sky lights orange. Fire screams through the trees. The compound behind you explodes in a catastrophic blast that tears the jungle apart. Glass, steel, smoke and flame shoot into the air like a volcanic eruption.

Debris pelts the ridge. Metal thuds against the boulder you hide behind. The earth shakes.

You cry out once, but it’s swallowed by the roar.

Seungcheol doesn’t move. His arms cage you tighter, shielding every inch of you. His weight grounds you, anchors you to the earth as the fury rages overhead.

Then—

Silence.

Smoke. Crackling. The compound groans as its structure collapses.

Your ears ring. Your skin is coated in ash and dust. You blink slowly, chest heaving.

Seungcheol lifts his head first.

His hair is singed at the edges. There’s a bleeding cut on his arm from fallen debris. But he’s alive.

You roll beneath him slightly, dazed, pupils blown wide as your gaze meets his.

Neither of you speak.

You just reach up with shaking fingers and brush a smear of soot from his cheek.

Then you mouth it:

Thank you.

He lets out a dry chuckle, then shifts beside you, flopping onto his back in the grass with a groan.

The two of you stare up at the sky above. Bits of scorched leaves flutter down like feathers.

The train hums steadily beneath your feet, metal wheels grinding softly against iron tracks as the landscape rolls by in a blur of dusk and shadow. It’s your second train in two days, and the rhythm has become something almost meditative—lulling, even soothing—if not for the weight pressing down on your chest.

Munich was a blur. Quick layover. New platform. A different conductor, different glances, different whispers of German you barely registered through the haze of concentration and caffeine. Now it’s Luxembourg ahead, the final stretch before you disappear into the woods, heading toward a place the rest of the world doesn’t even know exists.

You sit cross-legged on the small fold-out sleeper bunk in your private cabin, flicking through weapons one by one. Cleaning cloths. Fresh rounds. Blade oil. The hum of the train is your only soundtrack.

Across from you, Seungcheol mirrors your movements, his back against the wall, knees up, long fingers reassembling the slide of his pistol with practised ease. It’s not about necessity at this point. Everything’s already ready. It’s about habit. Control. The illusion of it, anyway.

You glance up at him, catching the crease between his brows and the faint tremor in his thumb as he locks the magazine into place. He’s steady. Always has been. But this isn’t like any mission you’ve done before.

He senses your eyes on him and glances up, offering a small, tired smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“You ever gonna stop checking that knife?” he asks.

You twirl the karambit around your fingers. “Not tonight.”

He nods like he understands—and he does. Of course, he does.

There’s a long stretch of silence before he speaks again, this time more carefully. “Can you tell me about her?”

You pause, eyes narrowing slightly. “Lim?”

He nods. “I’ve never met her. Never even seen a photo. Only heard what Reina and Jiwoo said. But if I’m going to walk into her house with a bullet chambered, I want to understand who we’re really facing.”

You sit back, the weight of the knife still warm in your palm. You stare out the window for a beat—at the darkening sky, at the streaks of stars beginning to appear above dense silhouettes of trees and valleys—before you speak.

“She’s brilliant,” you say softly, letting the words form with intention. “And terrifying in the most elegant way imaginable. She doesn’t raise her voice. She doesn’t make threats. She makes promises. And she keeps them. Always.”

Seungcheol listens, his jaw tight.

“She recruits people like an art collector would. She studies them. Waits. Makes them feel seen. Then she bends them to her will so subtly they don’t even realize they’ve changed sides. And when she’s done with them… she never gets her hands dirty. You’ll never see it coming.”

You feel his gaze on you, but you keep your eyes on the knife in your hand.

“I watched her take down five agencies from the inside just by turning people against each other. I watched her call a kill order on a pregnant agent because she had doubts about continuing. I saw the body. The husband. The baby didn’t make it.”

You swallow hard.

“She told me once that loyalty was just a leash wrapped in velvet. She said affection was a liability… and love?” You look up now, straight into Seungcheol’s eyes. “Love was a knife people begged to be stabbed with.”

The quiet after your words stretches thin between you, taut and cold. His face is unreadable for a long beat, but his hands are clenched, and you know that fury lives just beneath his skin.

“She gave the order for me to kill you,” you murmur. “When I married you, she knew who you were. She could have given me the order right then and there. But she waited until she was sure of my feelings for you. Until she was sure it would hurt me. She was always ten steps ahead.”

Seungcheol doesn’t flinch, but you see the flicker of pain in his eyes. “And you almost did.”

You nod. “I would’ve. I nearly did. But when I saw your face…” Your voice breaks, just slightly. “I couldn’t do it.”

“So this is it,” he murmurs. “The end of the road.”

You nod slowly. “If we fail, she disappears. The whole web collapses. And people like Reina, Mingyu, Jiwoo, Joshua—they’ll be hunted. You and I?” You give a faint, dry laugh. “We won’t even be worth the cleanup effort. She’ll make an example of us.”

“And if we win?”

You don’t answer him.

Seungcheol leans back against the wall again, exhaling heavily through his nose. “This is the part where I say we can still back out, isn’t it?”

You smile wryly. “That boat in Trinidad still floating?”

He chuckles—a low, humourless sound—but you’re glad to hear it.

“That cabin in the Alps is looking mighty tempting now,” he murmurs, gaze distant. “Just the two of us. Snowed in. No names. No guns.”

You lean your head back against the window, closing your eyes for a second.

He turns toward you again, one corner of his mouth twitching. “We’re idiots.”

“Mm.” You smile. “But we’re in love. That’s worse.”

The silence that follows isn’t tense. It’s… full. Weighty with all the things you aren’t saying, all the possibilities you won’t let yourself dream about right now. Your eyes meet his in the quiet—two people teetering at the edge of something neither of you can control.

No more chances after this.

No more exits.

You sit up slowly, slide the karambit back into your thigh holster, and reach for his hand.

“Till death do us part, right?” you ask, voice steady.

His eyes soften, his fingers tightening around yours like a promise.

“...and probably still after that, too,” he whispers.

The forest is silent. Still. Too still.

You and Seungcheol move like a whisper between the trees, every step calculated, every crunch of damp underbrush softened by instinct and years of experience. The canopy above shivers faintly in the wind, moonlight occasionally slashing through the leaves in silver streaks. Your gear is strapped tight to your body, weapons close. You feel your heartbeat in your throat, steady but forceful. The weight of what’s ahead presses against your ribcage like a warning.

After nearly an hour on foot, there it is.

Lim’s estate.

It rises from the forest, glass and metal shimmering faintly in the dark. But not glass—mirrors. Massive mirrored panels encase the exterior walls, reflecting the surrounding trees and sky so perfectly it makes the entire compound look like a trick of the eye. Almost invisible. Almost unreal.

You crouch down with Seungcheol behind the trunk of a fallen tree, binoculars raised. But they don’t help. The reflections are endless. No windows to see through. No weak spots. You try the thermal sensors, the electromagnetic sweeper, even the pulse radar.

Nothing. Complete blackout.

Seungcheol’s expression hardens beside you. “We’re going in blind.”

You nod once, tension coiling low in your stomach.

At least the scrambler still works. You check the signal and feel a flicker of control return. “No alarms. No cameras,” you murmur.

“But everything else?” he asks.

You meet his gaze. “We’re caught in her web now.”

Just then, movement—a silhouette rounding the west side of the compound. A guard. Walking alone, slow, almost bored. Rifle at his side. Head turning in lazy arcs.

You both recognize it instantly: your window.

You slip over the tree, bodies melting into the foliage. The air feels colder the closer you get to the structure, like something sinister is waiting. You signal. Seungcheol nods, flanking left. You go right.

The guard never sees it coming.

One swift, clean movement—your blade slicing silently, Seungcheol catching the body before it hits the ground. You both drag him into the brush and dart to the wall. A hidden side door. Seungcheol picks the lock, fast and silent, while you cover him.

The door creaks open with a soft hiss.

And then you’re in.

The compound swallows you in darkness. No overhead lights. Just muted emergency bulbs glowing red along the baseboards. The air smells faintly of bleach and expensive perfume.

Together, you move room by room—clinical hallways, offices filled with screens, empty staircases. You kill quickly, efficiently. One by one, the guards fall. They don’t scream. They don’t even know what’s happening until it’s over. You and Seungcheol sweep the entire ground floor, then the first, avoiding the glass-walled atrium and sticking to shadowed corners.

No alarms. No reinforcements. No Lim.

You’re starting to feel a strange sense of unease. Like it’s all too easy.

Then—just as your boot hits the top of the second-floor landing—it happens.

A voice rings out, smooth and cold, echoing through the speakers tucked into every corner.

“Gwisin.” You feel Seungcheol stiffen behind you. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Your body freezes. You’d thought—hoped—you were ahead. But of course not. You warned Seungcheol yourself: she’s always ten steps in front.

The silence that follows is deafening. You look down the hallway. Then, with a mechanical hiss, a door at the end slides open.

A deep, impossible darkness yawns within.

You don’t move. Neither does Seungcheol.

“Come in,” Lim’s voice purrs. “I insist.”

You glance at Seungcheol. His jaw clenches, but he nods once. No turning back now.

You move in sync, every step echoing on the polished black floors. The office is silent, save for your breathing. Then, the door shuts behind you with a hiss of finality, locking you in the dark.

And then—

Bang.

“Agh—!”

The sound of the gunshot is deafening, sharp and shocking in the enclosed space. You scream his name, reaching out, panic clawing at your throat.

“Cheol—!”

He drops beside you, groaning in pain, clutching his leg. You see the blood, dark and hot, pouring from his thigh.

“Stop.” Lim’s voice snaps, sharp now, slicing through the dark like a knife.

“He’s not dead. Yet. But if you take one more step, Gwisin, the next bullet goes through his skull.”

Your hands lift immediately. You straighten slowly, your heart thundering, your chest rising and falling in shallow gasps. Seungcheol grabs your hand as you try to move, fingers slick with blood.

He’s trying to stay conscious. His teeth are clenched, his breathing shallow. But his eyes never leave yours.

“Don’t,” he rasps. “Don’t do this.”

You turn to Lim, face blank. “I’m here,” you say aloud, stepping forward into the dark. “I’ll play your stupid games. Just don’t touch him again.”

The lights flicker to life.

And there she is.

Madame Lim sits in the centre of the room, calm and unbothered, her white suit pristine, her legs crossed as if she were merely waiting for tea. Her hair is swept back, face emotionless, eyes gleaming with something unreadable. A table separates the chair facing hers.

Atop it: a single, silver revolver.

Your stomach drops. Lim smiles slowly.

“You remember how this works.”

You stare at the gun. At the chairs.

And for the first time in a very long time, you feel real, consuming dread curl its claws into your chest.

Russian Roulette.

And you already know—only one of you will be walking away.

Your legs carry you forward, one heavy step after the next, the sound of your boots echoing in the stillness like distant thunder. The pain in your chest doesn’t come from a wound, but it hurts just the same—coiled fury, barely contained. You can feel the heat of Seungcheol’s blood still on your hand, your breath caught somewhere between rage and terror.

The chair is waiting. Empty.

You sit slowly, your knees trembling under the weight of what you’re walking into.

Across from you, Madame Lim lounges in her seat like the queen she’s always pretended to be—composed, elegant, a portrait of detached cruelty. She eyes you with a quiet satisfaction, her red lips curling into something that’s almost… amused.

“Welcome home, darling,” she says smoothly.

You clench your jaw. The mask doesn’t slip.

“I’m here,” you say evenly. “What’s the play?”

Lim’s smirk widens. Slowly, she reaches for the revolver resting on the table between you, her delicate fingers wrapping around the cold metal like it’s a treasured artefact.

She flips it open with a practised snap, turns it so you can see—

One bullet.

She closes the chamber and spins it. The click-click-click of the revolver spinning fills the silence between you, steady and cruel.

Then she sets it down, the handle pointing to the space between you.

“Simple,” she says, voice like silk over broken glass. “We spin the revolver. Whoever the handle lands on takes the first shot. If you win, you get the pleasure of accessing my system, removing your bounty, and tearing my empire apart from the ground up… before you put a bullet through my skull.”

She pauses, lips curling.

“But if I win… I get to watch the life drain from your eyes. I get to see the anguish on Seungcheol’s face when I shoot the love of his life in front of him. Right before I kill him, too. Tragically romantic.”

Your nails dig into your thighs beneath the table, the only outward sign of how close you are to snapping. But your voice remains even.

“You forget I need you alive to access your system. So this is a waste of time. I lose no matter what.”

Lim tuts, rising gracefully from her chair. “Oh no, darling. Quite the contrary.”

She walks toward the far side of the room, the hem of her white suit jacket swaying with each precise step. You glance behind you just once—Seungcheol still lies on the ground, bleeding, pale, but breathing. His eyes find yours, and the look there nearly unravels you.

You turn back to Lim just in time to see her approach her desk and pull out a sleek black laptop.

She returns, sets it down beside the revolver with exaggerated care, and slowly opens it. The screen glows to life. One by one, she performs the biometric logins—retinal, fingerprint, and voice. Just like Kang had.

Then she leans back, smug. “Now, you don’t need me alive anymore.”

You stare at her. And she stares right back, the game finally unfolding, the trap finally sprung.

“Let’s begin,” she says softly.

She takes the revolver, gives it a spin again, and when it stops—

The handle points directly at you.

You inhale deeply, picking it up. The weight of it is intimate and horrifying all at once. One in six. You press it to your temple, finger tightening on the trigger.

Click.

Nothing. Lim smiles, pleased. You slide the revolver across the table.

She picks it up gracefully and points it to her own head, never blinking, never breaking eye contact.

Click.

Still nothing. Your turn again.

You pick it up, ignoring the burn in your lungs, the sweat forming at the back of your neck. Lim is watching you with that same gleaming hunger.

“You always were weak,” she says. “Falling in love. Letting yourself care. You would’ve ruled this world, Gwisin, if you hadn’t gone soft.”

You ignore her. Gun to your temple.

Click.

You breathe out slowly, chest tight. She snatches it next, almost eagerly, her voice rising.

“You should’ve killed him. He was never worth it. Do you know how pathetic you look, crawling around for a man who’d bleed out for you? Do you think he’ll survive this anyway? Or do you just want someone to cry over your corpse?”

Gun raised.

Click.

Still nothing. Now you know. This is it.

If you get the bullet, it’s over. If not—you win.

She leans forward, taunting, her voice a venomous hiss now.

“He’s not going to make it. You’ve already lost, darling. Look at him—pale, dying, weak. Just like your resolve. Like your entire rebellion. You could’ve chosen me. But instead, you’re nothing more than a wife in mourning.”

You cut her off, hand closing around the gun mid-sentence. Her mouth stills, eyes flicking downward as you lift it once more. You don’t speak. You don’t blink. You just pull the trigger.

Click.

Silence. Everything stops. You don’t move. She doesn’t move.

Because that was the fifth shot.

And everyone in the room knows what that means.

The sixth belongs to her.

She smiles—slow, awful, the knowing kind of smile that monsters wear in their final moments.

You gently place the revolver back down, never looking away as you pick up the laptop. You pull the flash drive from your pocket with a trembling hand and plug it in.

Lines of code scroll by. You follow Reina’s instructions to the letter.

The virus deploys.

One by one, every trace of the bounty system begins to dismantle itself. Files corrupt. Names disappear. Targets are wiped clean. You check twice, then a third time. It’s done.

You press one final command, and the entire system shuts down.

No more empires. No more Lim.

Your victory tastes like ash.

You stand slowly, refusing to look at her, and turn toward the man on the floor.

“Cheol…” you whisper, approaching him softly.

That’s when it happens.

“Sorry, darling,” Lim purrs. “Can’t let you win.”

Bang.

You freeze. But the pain never comes.

The thud of a body hitting the floor echoes behind you. And when you turn— She’s there.

Madame Lim.

Shot through the chest.

Seungcheol’s pistol clatters to the ground beside him, his arm falling limp.

He’s panting, eyes fluttering, drained from the blood loss and effort it took to raise the weapon. But he did it. He saved you. Again.

“No— no, no, no, baby, stay with me—”

You scramble to him, sliding to the floor, pressing your hands hard against his thigh. Blood oozes between your fingers. You tear at your shirt, using the fabric to make a quick tourniquet above the wound.

His skin is clammy. Pale.

“Don’t do this to me,” you plead, voice cracking. “Don’t you dare go quiet now, Choi Seungcheol.”

He tries to speak, but no words come out. His eyes close.

“NO!” you scream, pressing harder, doing everything you can to keep him tethered to you. “Stay awake. Please. I can’t— I can’t lose you now.”

You grab your comms, tears streaking down your face.

“Reina! Mingyu! Jiwoo! Anyone!” you cry into the mic. “He’s down—he’s hit! We need extraction now—NOW!”

Static. Then Reina’s voice breaks through, panicked but focused.

“We’re on our way. Hold on. Just hold on.”

You sob, forehead pressed to his as you hold the wound with both hands.

“You promised me,” you whisper. “You said even after death, remember? So don’t you dare let go. Stay. You stay with me.”

The Caribbean sun beats down from a cloudless sky, the wind gentle as it dances through the sails of the boat that floats lazily just off the coast of Trinidad. Seagulls cry in the distance, their wings cutting through the heat as waves lap softly against the hull. The air tastes like salt, and stillness, and peace. For once, the world is quiet.

You lay stretched across a sun-bleached lounge chair on the deck, skin warm, drink sweating in your hand. A lazy breeze rolls over your bare stomach, ruffling your hair. Sunglasses shield your eyes, but you’re not really looking at anything. Just the endless blue horizon.

It’s been six months.

Six months since the compound. Six months since Madame Lim fell. Since you screamed into the comms for someone—anyone—to come and save the man bleeding out in your arms.

And now—this. The boat. His boat.

The one he joked about right before you came up with that ridiculous plan to take on your bosses. The mythical exit plan. A sailboat docked and waiting off the coast of Trinidad for a day that might never come. But it did come.

You take another sip of your drink and close your eyes.

The sun presses hot against your skin. Your breathing slows.

Then— A creak of wood.

Bare feet padding across the deck.

You don’t bother opening your eyes. You know who it is.

Reina’s voice floats out from the cabin, bright and amused. “I swear, this place is turning me into a whole new woman.”

You lift your sunglasses to peer at her. She emerges wearing a bikini that somehow manages to be both functional and designer, two fresh cocktails in her hands.

She walks over and hands you one before plopping down in the chair beside yours with a content sigh.

For a long time, neither of you speaks.

The boat rocks gently, and the sea stretches out in all directions.

Reina swirls her drink, then glances at you. “You know,” she says softly, “Seungcheol was onto something, keeping this boat stashed away.”

You smile, a slow curve of your lips. There’s something bittersweet in it.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “He definitely was.”

The silence between you shifts. Not heavy, not sad. Just full. You both sit with it. With the past. With what you lost. With what you kept.

Then—

“Is that how you talk about me when I’m not around?”

The voice cuts through the stillness like lightning. Familiar. Deep. Teasing.

A shadow moves at the stern of the boat.

Then, emerging from the water with a grin and a sun-drenched gleam in his eyes—

Seungcheol.

Shirtless, drenched, water trailing down his broad chest. His swimming trunks cling to his hips. His hair is dark and wet, pushed back by the sea. His towel is slung casually over one shoulder, and his smile—lazy, wicked, alive—makes your heart skip.

The scar on his leg is visible, faint against his tan skin. He walks with a slight limp still, but he’s upright. Strong. Getting better every day.

You stare, lips parted in a grin that spreads like a sunrise across your face. “You’re supposed to warn a girl before you sneak back on deck.”

He approaches, towel-drying his face, and when he leans over, he kisses you. Softly. Warmly. His lips linger, just long enough to remind you that this—he—is real.

“I heard you talking shit,” he murmurs against your mouth.

You laugh, brushing your fingers through his damp hair. “You heard wrong.”

He slides into the space beside you, pulling your legs gently over his lap, his hand resting casually on your thigh like it belongs there. Because it does.

“When are you coming in for a swim?” he asks, nudging you with a grin. “Water’s perfect.”

“When I feel like it,” you reply, tipping your glass toward him with a lazy clink.

Reina groans. “Ugh. You two are disgusting.”

You and Seungcheol both smirk, not even bothering to deny it.

The three of you laugh, and for a moment, everything is light.

Beep.

A sound breaks from the cabin. Muffled. Sharp. Urgent.

Your heart stutters.

You’re on your feet in an instant. So is Seungcheol. Both of you race below deck, Reina on your heels. You slide into the cabin, heart already pounding in your chest.

There it is.

You recognize it immediately. One of your old encrypted devices, the ones you used when Lim & Associates was still in operation, the one on which your bounties arrived.

You reach for it, hands steady despite the fear unfurling in your gut.

The screen flickers to life. Code scrolls. Then—

A name.

Target: Kim Mingyu.

Alias: Fireball.

Bounty: 3 Million.

Your blood turns to ice.

Seungcheol reads it beside you, lips parting in disbelief. “What…”

Reina appears in the doorway, eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

You turn the screen toward her.

She sees the name. And freezes.

“What the hell did that idiot do now?”

A/N: Andddd, it's here! After how much you guys seemed to love part one, I couldn't not write this second part. Hope you all enjoyed the rollercoaster that was Gwisin and S.Coups. Are you ready for the second storyline? 👀💟

Send me your thoughts - feedback/fangirling is always welcome.

(Collage created by me. Credits to owners of the pictures taken from Pinterest)

[buckevantommy]

From the prompt list: “Breathe. Hi, we found you, just breathe for me, okay?”, please? Thanks in advance!

👀 it's gotta be injured Tommy + worried Buck to the rescue.. send me a prompt or two..

Tommy's awoken by turbulance, jostled in his seat from external forces, except..

It can't be turbulance. He can't be in the air. He's a decent pilot but he can't sleep and fly at the same time. The last thing he remembers was flying over downtown L.A, Lucy saying something about windsurfing, before—

A metallic banging snags his attention, his head throbbing and neck protesting as he tries to turn towards the sound.

The whir and grind of tools, muffled voices yelling— and then a great groaning sound and— bright lights blind his already poor vision, the voices are louder. There's a flurry of activity around him, the hurried capability of professionals doing their job, cautious touches to his body, inspection of his seat. Someone moves behind him, probably to get to Lucy—

"—Tommy?"

"..'van?.." His eyes are screwed shut against the torchlight but he'd know that voice anywhere.

"Tommy!"

"..Y're here.."

"Yeah, yeah I-I'm here— we're here, we got you— we're gonna get you out, okay? Just— just stay with me."

The other voices filter in and out of his awareness. He zeroes in on Evan: he's close, right by Tommy's ear, voice strained but beautiful. He hasn't heard that voice since..

Since Bobby's funeral. Since that night everything went to hell. Since the morning after they..

It's been too long. There's been too much complication and hurt. He misses hearing Evan's voice happy and unburdened. He doesn't want to add to his worry or stress.

As he shifts to try to move— pain lances through his side.

"Woah, woah, easy Tommy," Howie says. He must be the one evaluating Tommy's condition. Which mustn't be great, considering the pain.

"Just hold still," Evan says in his ear, voice wobbly. His hands— they must be Evan's hands— are braced on his shoulders, holding him steady.

He's missed those hands, strong and capable and eager. He'd do a lot to hear that voice again, feel Evan's touch again. Like stealing another helicopter, or..

..crashing one?

"Try not to move, just breathe for me, o-okay?"

Nodding seems like a bad idea and requires too much energy anyway— and he's so very tired —so he settles for humming in the affirmative and focusing on the grounding, heavy warmth of Evan's hands on him.

Lucy groans off to his left, reminding Tommy he's not the only one who's fucked up right now. "..Luce?.."

"..Wha' h'appen'd?.."

Good question.

"Civilian drone," says Howie.

An attack? It's not unheard of, people tend to target police helicopters but from far away it's hard to tell what's LAFD unless you know.

"Dumbass was tryin' to get an aerial shot for his stupid ass zombie movie," says Hen, condescending as hell.

Tommy's missed her, too. And Howie. All of them. He misses Evan's people, his old friends, misses being in their orbit almost as much as he misses Evan.

"Oh m' god— w're gonn' be in a zombie movie, T'mmy!" Lucy snickers as Hen chides her to hold still.

A laugh bubbles out of him, ending on a groan as another flare of pain shoots through him like a lightning bolt. Evan's hands grip him tighter.

"Chim—"

"Buck, just keep him steady— Ravi, get in here with that saw—"

Through slitted eyes, Tommy glimpses a long, metallic shard protruding from his midsection. So that explains the pain. As Ravi takes the saw to the metal, Howie and Evan hold him down.

Just before he blacks out, Tommy could swear he feels lips press to his temple, firm and desperate.

+ + +

There's murmurs and hushed conversation, but it's Hen's voice saying, "He's stable," that are the first clear words Tommy hears as he gradually resurfaces from unconsciousness.

The pain has subsided to a dull ache. He's comfortable, horizontal, and there's the telltale sign of a heart monitor beeping quietly nearby.

He's in a hospital bed. His hand is clasped between two strong, warm hands. Familiar hands. Hands clutching at Tommy like his only tether to this world.

Hen's a great medic, Tommy trusts her assessment, so if Evan was worried about him slipping away it sounds like he doesn't need to anymore. Not that he deserves Evan's concern, but he could probably let go of Tommy's hand now.

Tommy doesn't want Evan to let go. He squeezes Evan's hand.

"'m not a fan of deathbed confessions, j'st for the record," he says, voice low and raw.

"You're not dying," three voices say at once. A smile tugs at the corner of Tommy's mouth. Howie and Hen sound a little exasperated, but fond. A hint of humour colors the latent urgency in Evan's voice.

Tommy blinks his eyes open to find Evan smiling, tentative and gorgeous, blue eyes big and red-rimmed, brow unfurrowing as tension sloughs from his shoulders on a sigh, his messy curls limned by the morning sun. Evan could put the brightness of the sun to shame even when he looks exhausted.

"m' sorry, 'bout us. I shouldn'.. shouldn'..ve.. left." His brain is still a little foggy, words coming a little slow, but he can't wait for it to catch up. He needs to say this now, needs Evan to know.

And he'd forgive Evan for asking: which time? because he'd deserve the jab for being a coward more than once, for not fighting for them.

"No— I'm sorry," Evan says instead. "I didn't mean to push you away, and I-I should've reached out sooner."

Why didn't you? Tommy doesn't say, because he's not sure he wants to know the answer. But he knows for certain that Evan has been grieving Bobby's death and so doesn't blame him for their lack of correspondance following the funeral. It's a two-way street, Tommy could have picked up the phone but he didn't. Maybe he was giving Evan space after everything or maybe he was using circumstance as a scapegoat so he could stay couched in his own fears.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Evan says, eyes shining, brow furrowed.

Tommy squeezes his hand again and manages a small, sad smile. "M' neither." He wants to pull Evan in, hold him close, beg for another chance, promise to never run away again. But he doesn't know if it's welcome, and he doesn't know if he can trust himself anyway. He'd want to, for Evan. He'd do his damndest to not screw this up a third time, to stay despite his fears.

Evan adjusts his grip, strokes a thumb reverently over the back of Tommy's hand. "I've missed you."

Tommy's heart flutters. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. You were open and honest with me that night, and I-I should've said this then— I wanted to tell you, but I-I needed— and then I—" Evan shakes his head, clearing it to refocus. "In the helicopter, I decided. Afterwards, I was gonna ask if we could talk, but.."

Tommy squeezes his hand.

"Everything's been so messed up, Tommy," he starts again, "for so long—" He pauses to take a steadying breath, "I don't wanna lose you. I wanna fix this— us— because I miss you, and.. I love you." His hands cradle Tommy's. "I love you."

The second I love you — and Tommy's head spins at the words — seems to settle something in Evan. Tommy's heart is soaring. His eyes are welling up, voice cracking as he says, "Yeah?" lips twitching up.

Evan nods. "Yeah."

"Well, then.. y'should know I love you, too."

Evan breaks into a watery grin. "Yeah?"

Tommy blinks, a tear tracking down to his hairline as his own smile breaks free. "Yeah."

It's just the two of them, hand in hand and laying their hearts out on Tommy's hospital bed.

"Thought you weren't one for deathbed confessions," Howie chimes in.

Tommy totally forgot he was there. Hen tsks and half-heartedly whacks his shoulder as she and Evan both say, Evan chuckling now, "He's not dying."

Hen's eyes are glistening and she's trying to hold back a smile. Howie looks touched, too.

"Hey," Tommy tugs on Evan's hand. "What're y'doing Saturday?"

Evan laughs and ducks his head. "Uh. Today is Saturday."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. And I, uh." Evan threads their fingers together. "I was hoping to spend the day with my boyfriend."

Tommy beams. "Lucky guy."

"Yeah, I am." Evan's smile turns soft and intimate.

Tommy adores him.

Buck blinks in surprise.

"D'I j'st say that out loud?"

"Uh-huh," Hen and Chim pipe up in unison, but Tommy only has eyes for Evan.

"S'true," he says, knowing he'll say the words again with intention and feel just as content in having them known.

"I'm kinda crazy about you. Hope that's okay?"

Tommy was lucky enough to glimpse a bit of Evan's crazy during their first try at this. The thought of being the focus of that intense emotional spectrum makes him giddy. "I like y'r crazy."

"You two are sickeningly adorable," says Howie.

Tommy lowers his voice to a stage whisper. "Wan' make out in front of th' peanut gall'ry?"

Evan laughs, the sun flaring above the city skyline behind him nothing compared to his light. "Yes, yes I do."

"So this is the thanks I get for saving your life, huh?" Howie balks.

"Ravi handled the saw with expert precision, I gotta say," Evan tells him.

"R'mind me t'.. send him.. muff'n bask't.." The exhaustion is creeping back in, trying to pull him under.

"Buck's got you covered on the baked goods front," Hen adds.

"..Hmh?" His eyelids are heavy as he blinks in slow motion, trying to focus as his brain slows down again, urging him to rest.

"Just, uh. Some of my crazy," Evan admits, a shy note in his voice.

"Hm.. g'd.." Tommy hums happily as his eyes lose the battle to stay open.

There's whispered voices around him as his breathing deepens and evens out.

"Call us if either of you need anything, Buck."

"I will. Thanks, guys."

There's footsteps and rustling. A dip in the bed and a warm solid presence at his hip. Evan takes the hand covering Tommy's to brush back some wayward curls from his forehead.

Evan likes his curls. He said it more than once, but it was his hands and even his eyes more than his words that clued Tommy in.

Plush, bitten lips press a lingering kiss to his brow, Evan's hand cradling Tommy's skull, thumb scritching against his scalp.

"Get some rest," Evan murmurs between them, the gentle pressure and comforting warmth of his forehead pressed to Tommy's.

I love you, Tommy thinks, and a warm puff of air ghosts over his lips.

There's a smile in Evan's voice when he says, "Love you, too."

Tommy surrenders to sleep, his last nebulous thought being that he can't wait to wake up to this.

[stellaspectral]

Hi! So you know how rise donnie off handedly mentions he can read lips? What if his s/o mouths something sweat to him?

A/N: Ah yes. And how casually he slips it into the conversation, too. 👀

Enjoy! 😊

A Surprisingly Useful Skill (fluff)

💜 ROTTMNT Donatello/Gender Neutral Reader 💜

CWs: Fluff, kissing. All characters are aged-up.

Jupiter Jim’s Galactic Gladiators: Remastered and Re-Exploded Director’s Cut blares from the speakers—a bombastic mix of laser blasts, dramatic synth swells, and one-liners that, by now, you’ve all practically memorized.

No one, however, is truly watching.

Leo insisted on movie night, but it quickly devolved into everyone doing their own thing in the same vicinity. Sprawled on the beanbag chair closest to the screen, he scrolls through his phone. Raph, at one point, had been trying to follow the plot. But he’d dozed off halfway through. Mikey sits at the foot of the couch, preoccupied with drawing in a sketchbook.

Donnie is beside you, and he’s not watching either. Computer in his lap, he’s typing away, his brow furrowed in concentration. His foot restlessly twitches as he works on complex schematics only he understands. He’d tried, initially, to engage with the film, offering a running commentary on the scientific inaccuracies of Jupiter Jim’s photon torpedoes. But he seemed to have gotten bored with it.

You watch him for a moment, a familiar warmth spreading through your chest. The way his tongue sometimes peeks out from the corner of his mouth when he’s really concentrating, the frown lines that appear between his brows—it’s all endearing. Ridiculously so.

For a couple of beats, he looks away from the computer. His gaze is distant, fixed somewhere beyond the wall, and you can practically see the lines of code and intricate blueprints behind his eyes. Then suddenly, he sighs and closes his laptop before he stands and heads for his lab.

You watch him go, but don’t follow. Not yet. The movie drones on, Jupiter Jim now delivering a rousing speech about the importance of friendship. But the room feels emptier without Donnie. You give it another ten minutes, pretending to be invested in whether the space hero will escape the clutches of Klag Beastnar (spoiler: he always does.)

But the pull towards the lab is strong.

You slip off the couch unnoticed amidst a volley of laser fire, murmuring a soft “be right back” that gets lost in a loud explosion and head off to Donnie’s lab. The door hisses open at your approach, and you step inside, the quiet a welcome change.

He’s there, of course, already deeply engrossed in a project. His goggles are down, magnifying his eyes as he meticulously solders a delicate connection on a circuit board. He hasn’t noticed you yet. So you simply lean against a sturdy workbench, content to just watch him.

The way his brow furrows, the pout of his lips when a wire refuses to cooperate, the almost reverent care with which he handles his instruments. There’s a quiet grace to his movements when he’s in the zone, a focused intensity that’s a compelling contrast to his sometimes-spiky social persona. It’s the visible manifestation of his brilliant mind at work, and you find it endlessly captivating.

He finishes the connection, inspects it with a critical tilt of his head, then looks up at one of his many monitors, his eyes quickly scanning lines of code, cross-referencing something. His profile is sharp against the glow of the screen. It makes an idea spark in your mind.

You remember something he mentioned off-handedly weeks ago. It was a casual, almost throwaway comment he’d made about picking up lip-reading. It was just a blip in his usual info-dump, but it stuck with you. And when you asked about it, he remarked it was a “surprisingly useful skill” and waved it off as just another tool in his extensive arsenal.

You had filed the little tidbit away into your mental Donnie-pedia for future reference.

He’s so wrapped up in his coding, muttering something under his breath about optimizing algorithms. You want to reach him, right now, in his bubble of concentration, but without shattering it. Words feel too loud, too intrusive for the delicate balance of his focus.

So you wait. Observing the subtle shifts in his posture, the tensing of his shoulders as he hits a technical snag, the almost imperceptible sigh of satisfaction when he solves it.

Finally, he pauses and leans back in his chair, stretching his neck with a faint crack as he pushes up his goggles. Momentarily, his eyes leave the monitor for a brief second as they drift towards you, taking a micro-break.

This is your chance.

You don’t speak. Don’t whisper. You simply look right at him, a soft smile tugging at your mouth. Then, deliberately, you form the words, making sure your enunciation is clear even without sound:

“You’re amazing.”

Feeling bolder, your lips shaping each syllable with care, you add:

“I love you.”

The silent words hang in the space between you.

For a full second, maybe two, there’s no reaction. His expression doesn’t change, though his eyes remain on your face. You think, for a fleeting, slightly deflating moment, that he missed it, too lost in his own world. You almost turn to busy yourself with something, a little shy now.

Then, the change comes. His eyes, which had been unfocused, snap into sharp clarity, fixed intently first on your lips, then darting back up to meet your gaze directly. The furrow between his brows smooths out, replaced by a widening of his eyes that’s less surprise and more recognition. He swallows, a faint movement in his throat. The corner of his mouth quirks upwards.

“You know,” he says, his voice a low rumble, a teasing lilt coloring his tone, “I can read lips, right?”

A hot blush creeps up your neck. You offer a slightly sheepish, entirely happy grin. “Yeah,” you manage, your voice a little breathless. “Kinda was banking on it.”

A slow smile spreads across his face, a genuine, heart-melting curve of his lips that crinkles the corners of his eyes—the kind of smile that makes your heart flutter and makes you feel like the only person in the universe. He abandons his project, swiveling in his chair to face you fully. He taps a finger to his own lips thoughtfully. Then, with exaggerated care, mouths back:

“I love you, too.”

You push yourself off the workbench, drawn towards him as if by an invisible current. He doesn’t break eye contact as you approach, his gaze warm and full of an affection that mirrors your own. “So,” you begin, “all those times I was silently mocking stupid lines in movies, you knew?”

He chuckles lowly. “Every single syllable. And might I say, it was far more entertaining than the actual dialogue.” He pauses, his expression softening further. “Though not as compelling as your more recent pronouncements.”

He reaches out, his fingers lightly tracing the back of your hand where it rests on the arm of his chair. The touch, though light, sends a pleasant shiver up your arm. You instinctively turn your hand, lacing your fingers with his.

“For the record,” he says, his voice losing its teasing edge and becoming sincere, his thumb gently stroking your knuckles, “your enunciation was perfect.”

“And for the record,” you echo, leaning closer, your heart swelling with a dizzying happiness, “so was yours.”

He leans forward, too. “Good,” he murmurs, his gaze dropping to your lips for a moment before returning to your eyes. “Because I meant every silent syllable too.”

And then, he kisses you.

You sigh into it, your free hand coming up to cup his cheek. The world outside the lab ceases to exist. There’s only the steady beat of your hearts, the warmth of his lips.

And the overwhelming, joyous certainty that this—right here—is exactly where you’re meant to be.

[liesonmytongues]

Hornet Hybrids x FTM reader pt. 2

Summary- What's next after you're kidnapped by a hornet colony, made into their king, and successfully save them from dying out? Repopulation, of course.

Warnings- Trans male reader, obviously, reader's genitals are referred to by 'dick, cock, cunt, hole', mildly possessive hornet people, yandere if you squint, cunnilingus, p in v, breeding, worship (receiving), somewhat rough sex, weird genitalia, monster fucking, let me know if I missed anything

Word count- 2,500

A/N- I wanted this to be realistic in terms of how the hornets looked? For some reason? I don't even wanna talk about how many times I looked up 'bee penis', but they're fucking weird looking. Also, if you want a visual on what I think the hybrids look like, check out the ants from the webcomic 'Hiveheart'. Like that, but with wings and lower back abdomens w/stingers.

It was the next thing to do once the hive was sanitized and rebuilt (and dead workers were removed, and the few remaining larvae were disposed of to prevent another breakout, and comb was re-waxed, and your attendants dispersed your scent through the hive…)–you needed to breed.

It started with some chatter, whispers of excitement at the prospect of new eggs to care for–the strength the new king would bring to the hive, the expectation that numbers would soar–but grew into something very real very quickly.

Workers in charge of the nurseries had been idle for nearly a month with no young to coddle–their clicks and buzzes of discontentment were making everyone stir-crazy, and it was clear as your job as king that you needed to fix things.

Really, with the help and support of your courtiers, all that boiled down to was the actual act of being bred.

Fairly simple compared to everything else you’ve had to do, and with the added bonus of being pampered extensively–an abundance of fatty meals, fruits, nectar, honeydew, and meats laid before you daily; warm baths, soft, soft linens and bedding they stole just for you–the prospect became less another task, and more like just another way your girls could bring you pleasure.

It took weeks to find drones that your attendants approved of–they had to be strong, healthy, introduced to your scent and monitored in temperament. They had to be sanitized in and out, inspected in every possible aspect–plenty embarassing when you were asked for your dick preferences–scrutinized on every flaw.

They were to be worthy of you. They were perfect. They were…a lot larger than you expected.

Your largest subjects, your soldiers, were already massive by any human standards–most of them 7 feet tall, some bigger, with broad, bulky bodies and thick chitin you honestly weren’t sure a gun could get through.

These boys are bigger. Not as hard, not as rough, and lacking the stinger that had you nearly pissing yourself the first time you saw it–but Jesus Christ that is a big insect.

You did your best to keep your composure when they were brought before you in your chambers–you are a king after all–but your girls still noticed the change in your scent. In an instant you were flanked by attendants clacking their mandibles together in worry, petting any skin they could reach in an attempt to calm you down.

“It’s alright my King, they would never cause any harm. They were made for this–for you. They live to give you pleasure.” One wasp comforts, nuzzling you softly and beckoning a drone closer.

The one closest to you–with near-black armor accentuating his sheer size–practically scrambles to your feet, kneeling until his forehead touches the floor in a show of complete reverence. Not quite submission, but worship.

“You are…beautiful, my King.” The drone rumbled, his antennae twitching as he took in your scent up close–followed by a full-body shudder that had his fists clenching and your dick twitch in interest. God, they have that much of a reaction to just…smelling you? What an ego boost…

“Please, allow me the honor of mating with you.” He just barely lifts his head up to see your reaction, and out of the corner of your eye you can tell the rest of the drones are equally as interested–their cocks starting to peek out of slits in their chitin while guards keep a watch, making sure they don’t get too rowdy in their excitement.

“...Alright.” Your voice comes out more hesitant than you would have liked, but you correct it before your attendants can worry, “Ok. I want you to…mate with me.”

Half of you expects him just to pounce as soon as the words leave your mouth, something rushed and aggressive, but you should’ve known better–should’ve anticipated the way he crawls over to your makeshift nest while his wings twitch until he’s close enough to nuzzle your calves.

You can see his own cock–practically clear, looking half like an inflated balloon, with claspers on either side and a large bulb sitting as his tip–more clearly now that he isn’t practically molded to the floor, The drone’s movements are slow, spreading his mandibles so he can freely kiss up your legs to the soft skin of your inner thighs, and god you just want to pull him closer–make him get to it already, make him-

You didn’t even realize your hands were in his hair until he shuddered, clenching the blankets and dipping his head. This is a good opportunity to…

“I apologize my lord, I’m sorr-” He’s really only a couple inches away, so despite how fucking big he is, it doesn’t take much real effort to tilt his face up against your cunt where your dick is throbbing for attention.

Maybe your couriers slipped you something to make this easier, maybe it really does just turn you on this much seeing someone reverently kneeling before you, but when your hornet pulls his head up a bit to look at you, strands of slick come with him.

Fuck.

He looks confused for half a second, but it’s quickly overshadowed when he takes another breath, mouth dropping open far enough to see the adductor muscle peeking out of the corner of his cheek, and shoves his face back down with a guttural moan.

There’s absolutely no skill or tact, the attendants next to you buzzing uncomfortably at the sudden ferver, but the sheer size of his mouth means that each desperate lick and suck easily drags over every inch you need it to.

And god he’s almost pulsing, everything in him clearly trying not to thrust his hips against the ground, to focus on lapping at your dripping cunt like a man starved.

Your dick throbs against your partner’s lips, drawing a moan from both of you. He takes the way your legs relax as the perfect opportunity to slip his tongue inside, stretching your walls for his cock whether or not he realizes that's what he’s doing.

Probably not. You don’t know much about queen hornet anatomy, but you doubt they need to be stretched like you do, size difference and all.

“Please my Lord- I don’t want to waste my seed- allow me, please...” He doesn't even bother with pulling away far enough to be fully coherent, rumbling and nipping at your thighs with his pincers, leaving marks that could pass as hickeys to anyone else.

And with the eager buzzing from all around you, how could you say no? Not that you would anyway, which is…mildly embarrassing.

“Yeah- hah -yeah, please. I wanna,” the sentence is broken up by attempts at getting air into your lungs “I want you inside.” His slow pull away from your cock, the wet pop of his tongue sliding out of your cunt, is teasing in the worst way possible. You have half a mind to command him back down-

The view makes you stop. Aren't wasps cold blooded? How can he flush like that? Are the first things that come to mind. Or, more accurately, the only things that come to mind, as the sight of slick and spit webbing, soaking his face and dripping down his neck causes you to draw a blank.

He sits back on his knees for a moment, heaving gulps of air, digging his nails between the armored segments of his legs while he just…stares. Takes in the view, or whatever it could be called with his eyes so glossed and clearly out of it.

One of the other drones mumbles something along the lines of ‘if he won't do it, I will’ to his companions, but the slight shuffle you do to look over at them snaps the cause of your blocked view out of his odd trance.

He's still gentle when he crawls over your body, pushing his face into your throat even as his back is forced to arch just to bring his hips closer–anything, anything to be as close as possible.

“May I-”

“I already said yes-!” Your voice lilts up when he pushes forward, the tip of his cock slipping against the slick and spit coating your cunt, knocking into your cock a couple of times before he manages to push forward-

And shit, is it even gonna fit? You saw it, you already knew it was, y'know, proportional, but fuck, actually feeling him try to push past the ring of your cunt is quickly making you question if this was a good idea.

But then he shifts, shuffles his hard thighs under your back and raises your hips up into his lap, and you feel his cock…shift? Almost like it's making itself fit.

Er…maybe not almost. You give the best attempt at looking between your bodies as you can manage with him pressed so close, and suddenly the whole balloon analogy seems fitting. He is shifting to make it fit, the seemingly inflated sides of his shaft condensing to push inside before they expand again.

It makes you want to moan and cringe in equal parts–the near painless way he pushes at your walls mixing with the weird body horror of seeing his dick act like a fucking water wiggler–but hey, you're having sex with giant bees, so…

“Jesus-” You grunt as a couple more inches slide in painstakingly slow, your drone’s attempt at letting your body adjust allowing you to feel everything. Every dip and abnormality, every press, every slip against the parts of your cunt that makes your toes curl unconsciously–it only takes a minute before he's bottomed out as far as he can go.

Soft tip(s?) unable to move any further, you can almost feel the way he leaks inside you, strands of his own obvious arousal sticking, stretching, snapping as he pulls back just as slowly until just the head stays spreading you open.

“Oh, god…” A deeper sound escapes his throat, mandibles clicking in a way you don't totally understand yet while he takes in the sight of slick–your slick, his Lord, his King, blessing him–drenching, dripping down his shaft, collecting where his balls would be before plopping to the floor.

“Can't believe I'm really…oh my Lord, I've waited so long for this, so long–I’ll fill you, I promise- I’ll-” Is something…wrong? Is what you were going to ask- had the air not been suddenly knocked from your lungs in a startled moan, his hips audibly slapping against your soft things hard enough to make them jiggle under the force.

It might have been easy to forget just how strong these things are–only holding back for the sake of your ‘frail, human body’ as you'd once been described. You suppose any human would be frail to them.

“Control yourself!” One of your attendants barks, attempting to separate the drone's upper body from yours even while he latches his arms around your head, the only sign that he heard her at all being how his thrusts smooth themselves out, keeping just enough of his throbbing shaft outside your body that he doesn't barrel directly into your cervix.

It might be the best sex you've ever had.

Your girls get more anxious the more fucked out you look, bearing their stingers at the man above you in a threat while you attempt to wave them off. Not exactly the easiest thing, what with your whole body caged in and the desire to move in the next couple days quickly draining out of you.

“‘s fi-ine.” Very convincing.

“But he's-! He's being too rough!”

“Don't argue!” A second attendant hisses quietly at the first. “The King knows what he can handle- don't insinuate his weakness!”

Despite her words, she doesn't completely put her stinger away, only moving back enough to glare disapprovingly at the drone. The way they talk about him like he's not there would've been funny in any other context–the obvious difference in hierarchy not even attempted to be masked–but with your brain currently melting out of your cunt, it's a little hard to think at all.

Your partner barely even seems to notice–too caught up in breeding your hole just as good as he promised to spare any attention at someone other than his beloved King. He's huffing against your neck, interspersed with desperate moans that you swear you can feel vibrate down his mandibles.

The gentleness is almost completely gone–still considerate, still conscious of his size, of giving you pleasure, but not…willful. Whatever instinct is filling him now can't be pulled away from the slickness of your hole long enough to so much as properly breathe.

Which is why when a hand smoothly caresses up your thigh, dipping between your legs and rubbing at your aching cock in practiced strokes, you're a little confused.

“Does that feel alright, my King?” A smooth, much more feminine voice than you expected to hear breathes right next to your head, making you whip towards the cause on instinct.

“Can you feel him? Can you tell how close you are to repopulating us?” The sharp features of yet another aide are suddenly only a matter of inches away from you, smiling as she works you towards your orgasm.

Your drone lifts his head up in a hurry at that, finally speaking up outside of dog-like panting. “Yes, I'll give you su-ch strong young, let me show you, I'll show you, I'll show you.” The desperation in his voice and the erratic pace makes you clench, gushing around his cock in a way that would be embarrassing if you could gather the thoughts.

You hadn't even spoken properly in the past 5– 10? –minutes, but you clearly don't need to. The tightening around his cock was plenty for your drone to buck uncontrollably into your poor cunt, thrusts stuttering as he tries with the last strands of willpower to make you cum before him.

Luckily your attendant understands, speeding up the flicks of her wrist until your body finally, finally relents to the pleasure–stomach tightening and cunt fluttering around your partner's cock.

You aren't sure if you've ever cum that hard before–with your legs shaking and your brain foggy and hips jerking with the aftershocks like your body wants to prolong it just a little more–and only a moment later are you being pumped full, your lover's cock distending before contracting again, just like it had done earlier to fit inside you.

The deep, guttural, desperate sound he makes could've had you cumming again, clenching a second time and milking his already overstimulated cock. Between already being close just from eating you out and the near-vicious pace he'd held, it's a miracle he lasted as long as he did–holding on just to give you the pleasure his King deserves.

At least, that's what he thinks while he flops his head onto your shoulder again, mandibles softly nipping the skin and nuzzling affectionately.

When you look over his massive expanse of a back, the other drones are buzzing–you snort a laugh at your own pun–with anticipation, stroking their own cocks while they wait. A couple tease themselves, the others treat their bodies roughly, squeezing at the sides until the clear sacs bulge part either side.

Well…time for round 2 apparently.

[gghostwriter]

Hi. I am the anon that asked for the Spencer x Reader, where he hallucinate that reader as his wife, and I love it so much. Thank you 😊 ❤️

Also, if it is not too much to ask... what if it was on the contrary. Fem!Reader gets hurt and belives Spencer is her husband, but they are friends. So cute, you know? (Happy ending again, pretty, please 🙏🏻 🥺)

Spencer Reid x BAU!Fem!Reader Trope: Friends to Lovers; Fluff! Just fluff Warning: Medical inaccuracies A/N: Anon, i’m glad you loved it enough to request another!! It’s a bit shorter than your first request, really tried to not have the same plot line as the other but I hope you enjoy! Main masterlist

Phantasmagoria. // Spencer Reid

The team was split into two after the takedown of the unsub—Hotch, Rossi, and JJ were back at the station, wrapping up the case while Spencer, Emily, and Derek were stationed outside of the hospital room, waiting for permission to be let in. You and Spencer were partnered up, as always, going around town and asking the locals for any additional information regarding the last sighting of the unsub at a gas station. Completely unaware that the unsub, riding a motorcycle, was steps away from the duo. He opened fire, causing the agents to take cover but not before you were hit by near shoulder. As you were rushed to the hospital, the remaining members quickly convened, located, and captured the serial killer. 

The nurse in charge stepped out of the room to face a set of three federal agents, eagerly asking for an update. 

“Surgery went fine. The doctor was able to remove the bullet fragment, intact,” she droned on. “We need one of you agents to collect and sign a form for the release of the bullet as evidence—”

“I’ll do it,” Emily volunteered. 

“Great. The patient is awake but she’s still a little loopy from the local anesthesia. We suggest not crowding her so we will only allow one visitor at a time—” she clapped her hands together. “Now which one of you two fine gentlemen—” she gestured at Spencer and Derek. “—is Dr. Spencer Reid, her husband?” 

Emily and Derek both swiveled to Spencer, eyes dancing with glee as they tucked that information for teasing ammo in the future. 

“I—I am,” he stuttered out. Unsure if he should correct the nurse but if it gave him special privileges to see you first, he’d let it pass. After all, he was there when you got shot. He wants to see you alive and well. 

The nurse smiled at him and nodded her head. “Your wife’s been looking for you.”

Face going crimson red, he thanked her and entered the room, avoiding all eye contact from the remaining two agents outside. 

Your relaxed smile was the first thing he registered—that and how tiny you looked tucked in your bed.

“Spence! Love—where were you?” 

He approached your bedside, noting your glassy eyes ad slurred speech, effects of the anesthesia. 

“I-Y/N, you’re body is still processing out the anesthesia. You’re exhibiting disinhibition—a temporary loss of inhibitions caused by outside stimuli and I-I’m not your husband.” Not that he didn’t want to, he added to himself.

You giggled. “You silly nerdy agent, of course you are. We got married recently and my beautiful—” you gasped as you inspected your hands. “—my ring. Where’s my ring?” 

The monitor picked up your distress. Your eyes going watery and a pout was beginning to form, breaking Spencer’s heart. you looked at him like he had all the answers in the universe and that caused him to fumble out an answer, anything to stop those pretty eyes from crying.

“I’ll ask the nurse okay, no need to worry,” he stroked soothing circles at the back of your hand.

You smiled at him adoringly. “I—can’t believe you said yes.”

He furrowed his brows. “Say yes to what?”

“To our first date.”

He smiled, wanting to see how your imagination got you and him together. “And—and what was our first date?”

“Uh—phanta—during Halloween,” the medicine was starting to pull you under. “I got us tickets and Penelope—” your voice trailing off as you fell back to sleep.

Halloween was this weekend, his neurons actively fired up at that information. Could it be—is it? He grabbed his phone out of the pocket and dialed BAU’s very own tech analyst.

“Go, from Penelope Garcia,” she greeted out.

Spencer cleared his throat. “Uh-hey Garcia. I-I need to ask you something.”

“Ah yes boy genius, tell me your wish and I shall grant it—wait, how’s my baby girl over there?”

“A-actually that’s why I’m calling,” his voice going up an octave. He wanted to ask as normal as possible but the words normal and Dr. Spencer Reid are never linked. “Did she by any chance—have Phantasmagoria tickets this weekend?”

Silence. That was a first from Penelope Garcia.

“Why’d you ask?” she tried to nonchalantly ask.

Spencer bit his lip, unsure on how to explain this whole situation. “I-well-I actually got two tickets and was planning on—” he paused. “—asking her out?”

He quickly moved the phone away from his ear to save his hearing from the high pitched squeals coming from the analyst. 

“Ohemgee, yes!! Finally, my couple!! Please ask her out, please!!”

He awkwardly laughed. “She’ll say yes?”

“I can’t spill any details ‘cause of girl code but yes!! Yes she will!” Penelope gushed out.

“Thanks, Garcia. I’ll—i’ll ask her out,” he hurriedly ended the call as a knock on the door echoed inside the room. It was Morgan and Emily.

With an eyebrow raised, Morgan appraised the giddy smile on Spencer’s face. “What’s got you so happy, pretty boy or should I say Mr. husband?”

Emily laughed. “Yeah, Reid. How is Mrs. Reid?”

He dropped his face to his hands but not before squeaking out a ‘shut up’ to both agents. If the jokes was a by-product of getting to ask you for a date, he’d take it. He just hoped he’d get to ask you first before the duo corners you with their teasing.

My inbox is currently open for any more fluff requests! Comments and reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[edutainer2022]

In commemoration of the recent bomber drone hit on Chornobyl  reactor sarcophagus, I absolutely had to do a thing. The GDF ask Scott to step out of his comfort zone and are shady, undeclared wars loom treacherous and deadly amid Global Peace, Jeff is dealing with memories worse than I expected. The Radioactive Trio are my bosom darlings, so maybe there will be a Part 2.

Always hugs and thanks to @janetm74 for talking all the wayward ideas through with me.

DÉJÀ VU

His father's face was somber and taut in the bluish hues of the wrist com - a rare occurrence after his return to them. That alone made Scott speed up the jog back to the villa.

It wasn't unusual for Dad to be up early lately, to see Gordon off to his first swim of the day and to catch Scott back from the morning run. They'd share a coffee (decaf for Dad), a chat about orders of business for the day, maintenance or training plans, and a centering, tentative sense of normalcy that had just ever entered their routine on the island before Zero-X ripped Dad away from them for years. Things weren't the same - Scott was the one with more information now and a decisive vote on the agenda of their family, but it was a start. For the first time in almost a decade Scott felt like the day ahead wasn't about to swallow him whole, like he could share at least some of the burden without apprehension or guilt. Almost without, that is.

The pit of unease and worry was growing in his stomach now. Dad would never have called him through the run without good reason. At first Scott panicked it was Dad's health, still very far from pre Oort Cloud bottomline, but the monitor and Eos would have alerted him sooner. Dad's face was inscrutable, his words clipped and dry. He needed Scott in the study ASAP, not the lounge, for some reason, so Scott accelerated up the rocky path back to the villa. Shower was obviously not an option, although he was sweating buckets. Years of growing up in Jeff Tracy's household, however, made him pause a second in front of the door, wipe the sweat away with the hem of his old Yale t-shirt and attempt to comb fingers through the hair, damp and curling in spikes every which way. Not that it helped much.

The study, which first Jeff, and then Scott favored for important conference calls and other business matters that couldn't withstand the bustle and hustle of the lounge and other communal areas, was now dominated by a hologram of Colonel Casey. Dad's face was positively grim as Jeff stood up to greet him. The maw of anxiety was by then snapping with teeth of steel in his gut.

Dad clasped a hand over his shoulder, a brief but welcome comfort, as he steered Scott to take his place at the desk. Scott nodded in a brief greeting as his father repositioned himself with an effort in the armchair by the wall, suddenly looking older than he usually did in the mornings. It didn't help that Aunt Val's face was serious, edges of her face hard and sharp.

"Colonel Casey."

"Scott! I need to request your help."

"Sure, what's the situation?"

He glanced across the room at Dad in mild bewilderment, as typically the GDF would not hesitate to forward initial data and rescue specs to John up in Five. The need to know was beginning to unnerve him.

"There's been a localized breach in the dome of the outer protective sarcophagus over the fourth reactor of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant."

That was... not good, by any yardstick. The abandoned and sealed reactor had been a radioactive hotzone for almost eighty years by then.

Colonel Casey droned on, as if reading off a script.

"The repairs require high altitude certified responders with experience in contaminated areas."

Yep, that sounded like a job description for him, alright. Fly in One, seal the dome up top, submit radiation readings from the patch for inspection, fly back. If he left now, he'd be home on the island in time for breakfast. Worst case scenario, he'd have to wait around for Virgil in Two to help with putting out the fire. The hardest part would be to wake Virg up this early. He glanced up with a ready smile, but Colonel Casey wasn't meeting his eyes. His father was sitting ramrod straight and still, hands gripping the cane.

"There's something else, Scott."

There always was! He gave the Colonel room to continue with an expectant silence.

"I know you made your stance very clear on NOT deploying International Rescue as law enforcement and I respect that."

For some reason it felt like Casey was addressing his father more so than himself.

"But under the circumstances, I have to request that you assisted the GDF investigation on site".

The pit in his stomach grew wider.

"Under the the circumstances?"

Colonel Casey paused, as if weighing her options one last time. Jeff's death grip on the cane turned his knuckles white and skeletal.

"We have reasons to believe the breach didn't occur by natural causes... or a local sabotage."

He was about five when the Big War erupted the first time. He'd been to a warzone since then - memories he'd rather not touch willingly. He knew the dill. If it wasn't wear and tear, or a disgruntled extremist with a dynamite pack... it was...

"We suspect the dome was damaged due to a collision with a high velocity unguided aircraft."

A drone. To breach the layers of concrete, designed to contain radiation for centuries to come, the drone had to carry a hefty payload. To direct a bomber drone at the one object under protection of the Global Peace Treaty for the exact purpose of avoiding a continent-wide nuclear catastrophe meant one thing. A war.

Scott squeezed his eyes shut against a rapid onset of a headache and a creeping panic. He caught a glimpse of Dad doing the same in his chair. Five rhythmic breaths later - one for each brother and Dad - he ventured to face Colonel Casey again.

"How can I assist the GDF investigation, Colonel?"

Surprisingly, Aunt Val's face softened in a shadow of a smile.

"I need you to oversee our investigators and be a liaison between the GDF team and the local authorities and rescue services."

"Liaison?"

"Translator, Scott. You speak astronaut Russian and..."

Colonel Casey paused, but it was his godmother Val, who went a shade paler. Scott himself stifled a chill, although the study was perfectly climate controlled. He also spoke Bereznikian. He was semi-fluent, through no will of his own, in the crude amalgamation of Ukrainian, Polish and Hungarian. That Place was still reaching back to haunt and taunt him. To reassert its grip.

In the chair across the room his father hunched in on himself.

"I don't have to tell you any findings of the investigation are strictly classified. We need to keep it all under wraps, for now."

He could guess as much. Same as he was having a very good hunch who the GDF expert investigators in the radioactive exclusion zone would be. Maybe Aunt Val expected him to do a bit more than just "liaise with local authorities". "Keep an eye on young Cameron and make sure Marion doesn't do anything hasty and reckless, that could cause another Global Conflict", more like. Easier said than done. But he had never backed off a challenge in his life.

"Copy that, Colonel! Forward me the rendezvous coordinates and I'll be there in One. It'll be fastest."

Aunt Val was obviously pleased he was quick to read between the lines.

"You'll meet Leutenant Van Arkle and Corporal Ortíz at an airbase in Katowice, then fly from there to Chornobyl."

Scott frowned for a second. His father's face a mirror of his own concern. The GDF were willing to draw attention to the impact site with One of the IR fame swoooshing in over the megapolis to the Exlusion Zone, but not advertise the involvement of their own officers. That could never point to anything comforting. Two tagging along for the ride was out of the question now too. So Scott would have to prepare for any eventuality without backup.

He was up on his feet in time for Colonel Casey's hologram to blink out. Dad was getting up too, a lot slower. Jeff's eyes were ill, haunted, hoarse voice thick.

"You don't have to do it, son. You don't have to go there."

As far as Scott was concerned, he didn't really have a choice. Someone attacked a still hot, faulty nuclear reactor. Scott wanted to reassure Dad it wasn't That Place. Only it was a demilitirized zone in Eastern Europe, several miles away from the border with a rogue dictatorship, in the middle of a forest still rigged with field mines and littered with undetonated missiles, with multiple unknown hostile factors and agents on the ground. The parallels were hard to ignore, so his own fingers were going numb with long repressed dread.

Scott stepped around the desk and gave his father a swift, fierce hug. For a brief moment it felt like Dad wouldn't let him go. But arms, suddenly frail, fell back and Scott hurried out. He still needed a shower before heading to his macabre destination. "No thieves or dangerous radiation" was, apparently, not in the cards. Again.

[bubblegumrabbitwriting]

Late chapter 1 snippet

Hi all,

Hope you're all having a good one. I'm thinking I might post some weekly snippets while there aren't any updates just to keep you guys up to date. The below is a snippet from near the end of chapter 1. It won't be in the next couple of updates but should be in the game by the end of next month. Slight spoilers, so if you don't want anything spoiled, I would recommend skipping.

Your world is completely black, leaving you unaware of your surroundings. A crescendo of sound hits your ears, a wheezing breath drones underneath, and a segmented beeping punctuates it. Familiar voices drift through the noise, but you can't match the faces that they belong to; they periodically call out numbers and commands followed by clicking and clanking.

Forcing your eyelids open, you are assaulted by blinding white, causing you to seal them shut once more. As you try to protest, the sound of bubbles is the only thing generated.

You tentatively open your eyelids again, letting the light saturate your eyes slowly. It takes a second before your vision focuses and acclimates to the new sensation. The sting that was previously present grows worse as the liquid that surrounds you hits your naked eye, causing you to wince as you fight to keep your eyes open.

You stare bleary-eyed into the room, willing them to focus as your surroundings come into view. The grime that cakes and sticks to the wall is visible even in the dim light provided by the monitors and machinery around you.

You try and force your voice out again, only to be met with another cascade of bubbles that dance into your vision.

When your previous attempts at using your voice fail you, you try to move instead. As you aim to move your hand, it feels like you're moving in slow motion, your actions weighted down by whatever liquid you're floating in. You work against the weight of the liquid, straining to lift your arm only for it to hit some sort of transparent wall surrounding you.

You inspect the container you're floating in; now that you know it's there, you can see the slight rust and filth around the edges. A sickly green light illuminates below you, diffused by the water and tinting the clear liquid. Pushing against the syrup-like liquid again, you slam your palm against the wall with all the force you can muster, drawing the stares of those within the room and stopping any conversation in its tracks. Your attack against the container leaves a faint smudged handprint upon the surface and produces a muffled slap sound.

[aerospaceanddefense]

The drone inspection and monitoring market size is witnessing robust growth, driven by advancements in drone technology and increasing applications across various sectors. According to recent market research, the global drone inspection and monitoring market size is projected to expand significantly over the forecast period.

[creeperkiwi]

02 — cool night

When someone notices you exist, the days feel lighter. They become fleeting, as if time decides to run faster when there’s something—or someone—that makes life brighter. Brooke had found that in the computer lab, among the abandoned machines, and in the teacher who didn’t know him as a Reeve, but simply as Brooke. Over time, that spark of curiosity ignited within him grew, lighting paths he never imagined possible.

Several years had passed since that first lesson—eight , to be exact. Brooke now walked through the school halls with a calmer, more focused demeanor. He no longer desperately tried to fit into his family’s mold or sought his siblings’ approval. He had learned to let go of the silences and glances that never came, reducing his interactions with them to the bare minimum. Instead of chasing after them, he had poured all his energy into something far more fascinating: creating.

In the computer lab, the atmosphere had changed. It was no longer a forgotten space; it was now his sanctuary, an improvised workshop where ideas came to life. The old monitors and keyboards, once covered in dust, had become tools for designing and building. Brooke had spent countless afternoons assembling small gadgets with recycled parts he found in thrift stores or salvaged from tech waste his teacher allowed him to take home.

One of his first achievements was a pair of night-vision goggles. Though clunky and rudimentary at first, they worked. Brooke had designed them after listening to his parents and siblings talk about nighttime patrols and the challenges of operating in the dark. The goggles became a constant reminder that he could contribute something, even if no one noticed.

Then came the small robots. The first was a simple automaton that could move in a straight line, but over time, Brooke began programming more complex movements. He spent hours fine-tuning circuits and writing endless lines of code. When the robots started responding to his commands, he felt an indescribable satisfaction. There was something magical about seeing those lifeless pieces come alive under his hands.

Though Brooke preferred to stay on the sidelines, he couldn’t help but feel excited when presenting his projects in class. There was something about his classmates’ expressions of amazement that gave him a small dose of the validation he had stopped seeking at home. The fact that his first awards were for his own creations and not because of his last name made him feel whole. However, he never revealed much about his personal life. To them, he was just a talented boy with a fascination for technology.

Mr. Mark, who had been his mentor from the beginning, continued to guide him through the process. Even though Brooke had surpassed many of the basic lessons, Mark always found ways to present new challenges.

“How about working on a drone?” he suggested one afternoon as they examined an old fax machine Brooke planned to dismantle.

“A drone?” Brooke repeated, his eyes lighting up with curiosity.

“Yes, a small one. You could use it for exploration, or even for surveillance. It would be an interesting challenge.”

The idea stayed with him. That same night, in his small room, Brooke began sketching the first designs. His space was filled with tools and electronic components, most of which he had bought with the few savings he managed to scrape together. Though it wasn’t an ideal workspace, it was enough for him.

Brooke found in his projects a peace he couldn’t find anywhere else. In those moments, it didn’t matter that his family barely noticed his existence or that his last name didn’t carry the same weight for others. What mattered to him was that the machines responded, the circuits worked, and his ideas took shape.

The drone became his obsession.

After his conversation with the professor, Brooke spent several afternoons searching for inspiration and pieces for his project. He ventured into second-hand stores and tech fairs, inspecting every dusty shelf for motors, sensors, and batteries that he could repurpose. At a local market, he found an old remote control that barely worked; at another, a batch of small propellers originally designed for plastic toys. Everything was second-hand, worn out, and often defective, but to Brooke, each piece had potential.

In his room, which now resembled more of a workshop than a space for sleeping, Brooke began assembling his drone. There were stickers on the walls with handwritten formulas, sketches scribbled on loose sheets of paper, and boxes filled with tangled wires. With each screw he tightened and each wire he soldered, he felt the project starting to take shape.

But things weren’t that simple.

The first time he tried to make the drone fly, it barely lifted off the ground before spinning out of control and crashing into the wall. Brooke carefully picked it up, examining the damage. One of the propellers was broken, and the main motor seemed to have failed. Though he had anticipated problems, the setback discouraged him more than he expected.

He spent the next few hours reviewing the design, looking for mistakes in his programming. Sometimes, the numbers and codes seemed to dance in front of him, confusing him even further. "Maybe I'm not good enough for this," he thought as he rested his head on the table.

That night, as he tried to sleep, negative thoughts began to flood his mind. "My knowledge is limited. Maybe I’m trying to do something too big. Maybe it's just not for me," he repeated to himself. But at the same time, something inside him resisted letting go.

The next morning, he returned to the computer lab with the drone in a box. The professor watched him with curiosity as Brooke sat down in front of one of the computers and connected the drone to check the system.

"Problems?" the professor asked, stepping closer.

Brooke nodded, frowning.

"I don’t know what I'm doing wrong. I think the motor doesn’t have enough power, but it could also be a problem with the code."

The professor looked at him silently for a moment before speaking.

"Let me tell you something, Brooke. Every successful invention is built upon a mountain of failures. If something doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean it’s not meant for you. It means you're learning."

Brooke blinked, letting those words sink in. With a sigh, he refocused his attention on the drone.

The following days turned into a whirlwind of tests and adjustments. Brooke replaced the broken propellers, reinforced the structure with pieces of recycled plastic, and fine-tuned the balance system in his code. Each night, after hours of work, he felt the temptation to give up, but something stronger than exhaustion pushed him to keep going.

Finally, one afternoon, the drone lifted off the ground. At first wobbly, like a baby taking its first steps, but then, with increasing stability, it began to float in the air. Brooke held his breath as he guided it with the remote, moving it back and forth, gently turning it.

"It works!" he exclaimed, not realizing he had said it out loud.

The professor, who had been watching from the door, smiled with satisfaction.

"I told you, Brooke. There’s no failure in trying over and over again."

Brooke let the drone land carefully on the table, his chest swelling with pride. For the first time, he felt he had accomplished something significant, something that didn’t depend on anyone else but him. His face lit up with a smile that had been hidden for a long time.

The cold night air surrounded the Reeve terrace, a large and gothic space with wrought-iron railings that Brooke had explored only a few times. That night, however, he was determined to push the limits of his invention. With the drone in his hands, he looked toward the city lights that gleamed like distant stars and felt the excitement building in his chest.

It was the first time Brooke felt so confident in something he had created. The drone, with its new propellers and improved structure, seemed like a reflection of his efforts. "Today will be different," he thought as he powered on the remote control and watched the small device begin to hover.

The drone ascended slowly, its hum barely audible in the night wind. Brooke smiled, moving it side to side, testing simple maneuvers before sending it farther away. From the terrace, he followed it with his eyes as it crossed the street, passing over rooftops and shop windows. "It works perfectly," he said to himself, filled with pride.

As the drone flew farther, Brooke adjusted the range on the remote, surprised at how well it responded even at long distances. He guided it toward a nearby park, watching how the lampposts’ lights cast dancing reflections on its structure. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, and for a moment, Brooke imagined a future where his inventions truly made a difference.

But then, something changed.

It started with a slight wobble in the drone’s flight, as if it had lost stability. Brooke frowned, quickly checking the settings on the remote. "Maybe it’s the wind," he thought, trying to adjust the commands, but the wobbling worsened. Suddenly, the drone stopped responding completely, its propellers spinning erratically before diving straight into a dark alley.

"No!" Brooke cried out, his voice filled with desperation.

He dropped the remote on the railing and ran down the stairs, moving as fast as his legs would carry him. The streets were quiet, only lit by the dim light of the streetlamps. Reaching the alley, he found it: the drone was lying among piles of trash, a broken propeller, and part of the body dented from the impact.

Brooke knelt beside his creation, picking up the pieces with trembling hands. His heart pounded in his chest as he examined the damage. Part of him tried to convince himself it wasn’t so bad, but the truth was undeniable: the drone was destroyed.

"Why does it always...?" he whispered, feeling a lump form in his throat.

The weight of his past failures returned like a flood, filling his mind with doubt and self-criticism. He had worked so hard, pouring hours and all his energy, only for it to end like this. Sitting in the alley with the pieces of the drone in his hands, Brooke felt tears beginning to fill his eyes.

"Maybe it will never be enough. Maybe it doesn’t matter how hard I try."

His heart raced as he carefully picked up each damaged part, examining them with trembling fingers. But something didn’t fit: an important piece, the central control module, was missing.

He furrowed his brow, searching through the debris with a growing sense of panic. "Where is it?" he thought, looking around. It was then that he heard a sound. Slow, firm footsteps, approaching from the shadows at the end of the alley.

Brooke looked up, and his body tensed as he saw a dark figure emerging from the gloom. It was a tall man, dressed in worn clothes, with a menacing gleam in his eyes.

"What do we have here?" the stranger said with a twisted smile, advancing toward Brooke.

Brooke instinctively backed away, clutching the pieces of the drone to his chest. "What do I do? Where do I run?" His mind was filled with confused thoughts as the man closed the distance.

"You don’t have to be scared, kid," the man continued, though his tone was anything but reassuring. "I just want to see what you’ve got there."

Fear gripped him, paralyzing him, when a quick movement from the roof of the alley caught his attention. A shadow descended rapidly, landing between Brooke and the man.

"That’s enough," a firm, young voice said.

His agile figure and black mask, along with the red suit and yellow cape, made him recognizable to anyone, especially someone within the hero system.

The man immediately stepped back, cursing under his breath. "Don't follow me!" he shouted before disappearing into the shadows of the alley.

Brooke stood frozen, unable to believe what had just happened.

"Are you okay?" Robin asked, turning toward him while placing one of his batons back into his belt.

Brooke nodded slowly, speechless.

"It looks like this guy had something of yours," Robin continued, extending a hand. In his palm was the missing piece of the drone, intact.

"Oh..." Brooke exclaimed, taking the piece with trembling hands and examining it carefully.

Robin smiled faintly. "I saw it fall when that guy bent down. It was a stroke of luck. I had been chasing him for a while, but the noise from your drone falling distracted me just when I was about to catch him."

Brooke lowered his gaze, clutching the piece in his hand. "I'm sorry... I didn't know I was interfering."

"Don't worry about it. If it weren't for that, I probably wouldn't have made it in time to help you," Robin replied, shrugging.

The young vigilante pointed to the pieces of the drone that Brooke was holding. "Is this yours?"

Brooke nodded. "Yeah, I built it myself... but it failed. Something went wrong, and it fell."

Robin studied him closely, noticing the clear effort that had gone into building the drone. "Can I?" he asked, extending a hand toward the pieces. Brooke hesitated for a moment before nodding.

Robin carefully examined the drone, turning it to inspect every detail. "This is impressive, especially for someone who clearly doesn't have access to a lab. But here's the problem." He pointed to one of the internal connections, where several wires had come loose.

"Your design is good, but the power distribution is unbalanced. When you tried to increase the range, the motor overloaded the system. That's why it failed."

Brooke looked at him, surprised. "How do you know so much about this?"

Robin smiled. "I have my own toys. I've spent more time fixing them than I'd like to admit."

Brooke lowered his gaze to the drone, reflecting on what Robin had said. "Do you think... it's possible to fix it?"

"Of course you can," Robin replied, with a confidence that surprised Brooke. "You just need a little adjustment and maybe more durable materials. If you made this, you can make it better."

Brooke felt a warmth in his chest, as if those words had sparked something that had been dormant. He looked at the drone with new eyes, seeing not a failure, but an opportunity to learn and improve.

Brooke looked up, still surprised by what had happened, and said shyly, "Thanks..."

Robin smiled and crossed his arms. "You know? My night patrol just ended. Maybe I could help you improve that drone, if you have a place to work."

Brooke's eyes lit up. No one had ever offered him something like that before, and the idea that a well-known vigilante would want to help him filled him with a mixture of nerves and excitement.

"Really?" he asked, almost not believing it.

Robin nodded. "Sure, but I'll need tools."

Brooke looked at the drone pieces in his hands and then at the alley surrounding them. "My room... I have some things there. We can work there."

"Perfect. Where do you live?"

Brooke pointed toward a nearby street, and Robin followed him. As they walked, Robin's tall and confident figure contrasted with Brooke's light and quick steps. When they finally reached the gothic mansion of the Reeves, Robin stopped, impressed by the imposing facade lit by the dim moonlight.

"You live here?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow.

Brooke nodded, trying not to seem embarrassed. "Yeah... but it's better if we don't use the main entrance."

Robin looked at him curiously, but said nothing as Brooke led him to a side door hidden between tall bushes. Brooke unlocked the emergency door and pointed to the spiral metal stairs that rose along the back of the house.

"These stairs lead straight to my room. It's faster and... well, we avoid my family," Brooke explained with a nervous smile.

Robin followed him without asking questions. When they reached the small window that led to Brooke's room, the young man carefully opened it and entered first, holding the window so Robin could pass.

The vigilante looked around as he straightened up, expecting to find an improvised workshop or something similar. But what he saw took him by surprise.

"This is your room?" Robin asked, confused as he observed the small space. There was nothing more than a small bed against the wall, a desk cluttered with tools, and a shelf full of inventions and sketches.

Brooke nodded, placing the drone pieces on the desk. "Yeah, it's small, but I have what I need."

Robin didn't respond at first. His eyes scanned every corner, stopping at the small, ingeniously built gadgets, the detailed drawings of machines, and the prototypes that seemed more complex than he'd expect from someone his age.

"Did you make all of this by yourself?" Robin finally asked.

"Yeah," Brooke replied, shrugging as if it wasn’t a big deal. "I like inventing things."

Robin smiled, picking up one of the sketches from the desk. It was a design for a drone propulsion system. "You’ve got talent... um."

"Brooke... my name is Brooke."

"Brooke. A lot of talent." When Robin said his name, "Brooke," with that mix of astonishment and admiration in his voice, the boy felt like the world stopped for a moment. It was different from how his brothers or parents said it, where it always felt like a word thrown into the air with no purpose. This time, it sounded genuine, full of interest, almost as if Robin was impressed by him. Brooke lowered his gaze, feeling his cheeks flush and his breath quicken. Robin, a well-known vigilante, someone people respected, not only knew his name; he was saying it with a tone that implied something more.

Nervousness swelled in his chest, mixing with a strange emotion he couldn’t quite describe. He tried to occupy his hands by passing tools or tightening a screw, anything to distract him from the fact that someone like Robin was giving him compliments, smiling at him, and recognizing what he did. It was too much, but at the same time, it was everything Brooke had quietly wished for over the years.

The emotion in his eyes was impossible to hide. "Thank you... it means a lot that you say that."

They both got to work on the drone. Brooke pulled out tools and parts from his collection, and Robin helped him dismantle the remains of the device with precision. For hours, they adjusted the design, reinforced the electrical connections, and repaired the motors. Robin suggested adding a camera to the drone, and together they installed a small lens, connecting it to an improvised monitor that Brooke had built months earlier but had never finished using.

"This should improve its usefulness. Now it doesn’t just fly; you can see what it’s recording in real-time," Robin said, pointing to the screen on the controller.

Brooke smiled, feeling a wave of pride. For the first time, he wasn’t alone in one of his projects. Someone was helping him, and more importantly, believing in him.

When they were finished, the first light of dawn began to filter through the window. Robin stood up and stretched his arms, admiring the fully restored and upgraded drone.

"This little guy is going to do amazing things," Robin said, giving Brooke a pat on the shoulder.

The boy looked at the drone with eyes full of determination.

Once they finished assembling the drone, Brooke held it carefully, admiring its compact shape and the small improvements he had achieved alongside Robin. The camera installed on the bottom looked almost professional, and the screen on the controller flickered, showing a sharp image of the surroundings.

"Ready to test it?" Robin asked with a smile.

Brooke nodded, his nerves and excitement mingling in his chest. They went up to the rooftop again, where the cool night air welcomed them. Brooke placed the drone on a flat surface, took the controller, and took a deep breath.

"Here we go," he said quietly as he activated the motors.

The drone lifted with a soft hum, much more stable than in his previous tests. Brooke looked at the screen on the controller as he guided the device over the rooftops of the city. The camera captured everything with impressive clarity: streets lit by streetlights, cars moving in the distance, and small flashes of light in the windows.

Robin, standing beside him, watched with his arms crossed. "Not bad, Brooke. Stable flight, good resolution... I think this is more than just a simple project."

Brooke smiled shyly, focusing on keeping the drone in the air. He decided to test its range, flying it a bit farther, crossing a park and heading toward an area with small shops. It was then that he noticed something strange on the screen: two hooded figures were running out of a store, carrying what seemed to be bags full of products.

"Is that...?" Brooke started to ask, but Robin was already in motion.

"It's a robbery," Robin confirmed, his tone firm. He took a step toward the railing of the terrace and turned to Brooke. "This has been a good test, but I need to take care of this."

"What? You're going now?"

Robin nodded, quickly adjusting his mask. "It's what I do. Thanks for tonight, Brooke."

Brooke felt a mix of pride and sadness as he watched Robin disappear into the darkness, leaping from rooftop to rooftop with impressive ease. He looked at the drone, still floating in the air, and then turned his attention back to the screen. He watched as Robin swiftly approached the robbery site, his silhouette gliding between shadows until he intercepted the criminals.

Brooke deactivated the drone and carefully guided it back to its position. As he picked it up, a smile formed on his lips. For the first time, his inventions weren't just a hobby; they were a useful tool, something he could contribute to the world with. Though Robin was no longer by his side, his words still echoed in his mind, sparking a glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, he could accomplish something big.

previous m.list next

[fragaria-imagines]

can we have first kiss with Hallritt and Tuxam plsss?? I really like Tuxam's "No way" voice line😭😭

Ahh thank you for the request! I liked Tuxam’s voice line as well :33!

“You missed a spot there Y/N! Lord Tuxedo Sam would be here any minute now and I don’t want to see a speck of dust in these chairs, when he arrives! This dining room needs to be spotless!” Tuxam chastised you, pointing at the rows of chairs that you just finished dusting off.

When Tuxam asked for your help to set up the dining room for the upcoming dinner with Lord Tuxedo Sam, you happily accepted, not thinking much of it, and was just happy to help a friend out.

What you didn’t expect was for you to do most of the work, whilst the Tuxam was monitoring and hovering all over you, all while critiquing your every move under the guise of giving you helpful advice. Suffice to say, annoyed couldn’t even begin to describe it what you felt.

“I already dusted those chairs! You saw me dust those chairs, and they’re fine! They are more than fine!” You snapped at the short blue haired knight, exasperatedly waving around your feather duster, to fully emphasize just how fine those chairs were.

Taken aback by your sudden outburst, Tuxam stepped back and didn’t say respond for a while. Though it may have not been very gentleman like to keep on questioning you, he couldn’t help but have his doubts if what you’re saying is true.

“I understand that but what about-”

“And the floor is clean if that’s what you’re asking! I mopped it like six times, which you would know because you made me mop it six times!”

“Well yes, but is it clean enough where you-”

“-Can see my own reflection? I promise you if every mirror in this castle were to be stolen, the floor would make a very good substitute.”

“What!? Someone stole all of our mirrors!” Tuxam exclaimed loudly, seemingly ignoring everything that was said after you said the word “stolen”.

“What? No! That was just an exaggeration to make a point! Nobody stole-”

“This is a serious matter, Y/N! We need to alert the security and the knights about this intruder! I’ll call Lord Tuxedo Sam and inform him about the sudden turn of events, unfortunately that means we’ll have to cancel our dinner, but for the sake of our kingdom and for ours and Lord Tuxedo Sam safety, we have no choice but to…”

As Tuxam droned on and on about a intruder that didn’t even exist, you knew that no amount of words would get through to him in this state. So without thinking, you marched towards him, putting your hands on his shoulders, and planted a light kiss on his lips to silence him once and for all.

His words immediately got caught in his throat as soon as your lips met his, all thoughts about chairs, intruders, Tuxedo Sam, all went out the window, as he melted in your kiss. Only once you pulled away and were met with Tuxam’s bright red face, did you realize what you have just done.

“I-im sorry…! I-I don’t know what came over me, you were just freaking out and I just thought…” The annoyed look you wore earlier, quickly got replaced with a bashful expression as you stumbled over your words. Too embarrassed to even say anything, much less look at his direction, the blush that was settling in your cheeks was definitely not helping your case.

“N-no it’s fine, really! You were right, I got way too over my head and w-well you know…!” Tuxam squeaked out, his overbearingness and strictness from earlier was no longer there, if the blush in his face was anything to go about.

For a while, you two stood there in awkward silence, too embarrassed to say anything. Eventually though, Tuxam broke the silence, when the initial embarrassment and shock settled down.

“So… about those chairs-”

“Oh my god-”

“Oh Y/N look at this! This is perfect for Lord Kitty, don’t you think?” Hallritt asked, holding up an apple shaped earring for you to inspect.

With Lord Kitty’s birthday just around the corner, Hallritt decided to take you shopping to look for her birthday gift, one month in advance.

You were more than happy to tag along, not only did you adore Lord Kitty, it also gave you the chance to spend more time with Hallritt. With Hallritt’s being a knight in training, you didn’t get to see him often as much you wanted, since he was so busy on most days.

“Oh those do look cute! But don’t you have enough apple related gifts in your cart? I really don’t think Lord Kitty needs an apple shaped earring, an apple shaped watch, an apple watch, an apple plushie, and a apple necklace” You tried to reason, pointing at the mountain of a shopping cart that carried more apple related gifts than you can count.

“Nonsense! There’s no such thing as too much apples when Lord Kitty is concerned!” Hallritt proclaimed, waving your concern off, as he put the apple shaped earrings in the shopping cart. You playfully rolled your eyes at him, knowing whenever he has his mind set on something, there is no one that could convince him otherwise.

That’s how the rest of the day followed, with Hallritt buying out every single store that crossed your paths, while you halfheartedly tried to convince him to cut back on the expenses. By the end of the day, you were positive if you put anymore items in your shopping cart, the cart would break down due to sheer physical and mental exhaustion from carrying so many gifts.

“I think we’ve done enough shopping for today, our shopping cart looks like it’s on its last leg, so how about we call it a day, sound good?” You suggested. Truth be told, as much as you were glad to spend the day with Hallritt, you were really using the shopping cart as an excuse to take a break as your feet were getting soar from walking around so much.

Hallritt didn’t respond to you, in fact it looked like he wasn’t even paying attention to you, but rather looking past you, as if there was something more interesting that was going on behind you. Turning your back to see what exactly was captivating Hallritt’s attention, you were met with a large red booth that carried a variety of plushies, one of them included a red apple plushie.

With a soft chuckle, you turned your body towards Hallritt, who was still paying attention to the booth, already knowing where this was headed.

“Would you like to go the booth, Hallritt?” You asked softly. Your question seemingly broke Hallritt out of his trance, as he stared at you sheepishly.

“If that’s alright with you! I know you’re tired from walking so much, so we don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“Nonsense! It’s for Lord Kitty’s birthday, how can I say no to that” You replied earnestly, giving him a bright smile. He smiled back, happy to have your approval.

Once you made your way to the booth, the vendor explained the rules of the game. All you had to do was toss a ring and have it land around the bottle, it was pretty simple, and you had confidence that Hallritt could easily win the plushie in one round alone.

“Oh no! I lost again!” Hallritt dejected voice filled the room, as he lost another round of ring toss.

Well… you were confident that he could pull it off. But the sad truth is, Hallritt didn’t seem to have any luck winning the apple plushie, no matter how many rounds he played, no matter how many different ways he tossed the ring -left hand, right hand, from the side, from the back, from the front-, it didn’t matter, the ring refused to go around the bottle.

Seeing how upset Hallritt was getting, not to mention that time was quickly catching up to them, you wanted nothing more than to encourage him and to keep on going. But words didn’t seem like it was enough, and with how little time you two had left, there was only one solution that you could think of that would give him the encouragement he needs.

You slowly walked up to him, face red as an apple, fully aware of what you were going to do. Hallritt, who was fully concentrated trying to plan his next move, broke out of his train of thoughts, when he saw you walking towards him.

“Hm? Is there something wrong Y/N?” Hallritt asked curiously, a bit confused as to why your arms were around his neck.

Embarrassed by his oblivious nature, you were tempted to back off and not go through with it, but you already came so far and were committed to following it through, even if it did cost you your pride, at least it would satisfy your growing curiosity about it.

“I-I’m trying to give you encouragement…!” You lamely said, not even bothering trying to hide the deep blush that was forming in your face. Hallritt, still confused, titled his head to the side, not quite sure what you meant by that.

“Oh yeah? How so?” Hallritt asked, you blushed even harder, internally wondering if Hallritt was genuinely confused or was he just teasing you. Though you already knew the answer to that, as Hallritt didn’t have a mean bone in his body.

Taking the fact that he hasn’t pushed you off yet as an incentive to keep going, you pressed your lips against him, deciding to show him what you mean instead.

You heard Hallritt gasp in the kiss, but the shock quickly faded, as he returned your kiss, holding your waist tightly. You could feel him smiling in the kiss, which gave you a case of butterflies in your stomach, overjoyed that he seemed to be enjoying it as much as you are.

The kiss ended way too soon for your liking, though as he pulled away, you could see a faint blush on his blush. You gave him a small smile, knowing you probably looked worse than him in that regard.

With a sheepish nod, he stepped towards the booth, giving you a bright smile and a small wink, before turning around and tossing the ring onto the bottles, successfully winning a round of ring toss once and for all.

He ended up winning the red apple plushie, but to him, your kiss was the best reward he could ever ask for.

[carionto]

It's too big

Part 1 2 3

"How's the Captain holding up?" the overqualified Haespar Kraus asked Trisha, who was just leaving Knoslark's quarters, with a very fine braid he noted.

"Awful, he didn't ask a single thing about sea turtles. It's like I was talkin' to a brick wall, that can knit. I mean I was literally starin' at a wall, but it's like there was nothin' behind me either."

"Well this won't cheer you up then. We need to go on another expedition."

"Already? No way is Ying up and about already, and this" she points an irritated finger at the sign on Knoslark's door, "stupid thing is technically an order from our superior to not do a damn thing."

"Quite. Another technicality is that we will not be leaving the ship for this journey. Remember how the warp jump fried all our quantum gear, as well as numerous sub-systems and left us with one running reactor? That list also includes the internal ship-wide scanners and most monitoring sensors. And the drone controls."

"No way. She can't be serious." Trisha's face began to pale at the realization of what they were about to embark on.

"I'm afraid so."

"TAMEKI!! DO YOU KNOW HOW BIG THIS STUPID SHIP IS! WE'LL BE GOING THROUGH IT FOR WEEKS!"

"Closer to three months. I did the math." Haespar said with a glint of smugness. He loved being right with numbers to back him up. Though it quickly faded as he was also part of this tour of the Radiant Dusk, "At least the turbo-lifts work, so at most we will be a seven hour crawl from everyone else at the furthest nook we have to inspect."

"Woooow, you really know how to cheer a girl up, y'know."

"Even better news then - we can't lift off into space on one reactor in this gravity, AND we don't know if there are any radiation or coolant leaks. Suits on at all times."

"Greeeeat! Now tell me the local aliens are building a giant box around our ship. That way I can be triple packaged."

"Well, they are pelting the ship and trying to get in, but unless they are keeping advanced metallurgy a secret, they won't succeed."

Trisha just rubs her hands over her face before slapping her cheeks: "Right. Okay. Fine. Imma take a nice long bath first. And eat a cake while I talk to Emily about the underground catacombs of Paris. You're NOT invited."

[chuckle] "Hey, I'm just the messenger."

"Well I hate messages, so nyee."

_______________________________

Human ships are big. Seemingly pointlessly so, but there is a reason for everything. Sure, it's not the best reasons, but they're legit.

You need big engines to carry a lot of stuff into space.

You need big power generators to have enough thrust.

You need bigger cargo holds since the generators are taking up too much space.

You need a stronger, thicker hull to keep it all together.

You need more powerful engines now to move all that extra mass.

You need additional lift chutes and corridors to connect all the parts of the ship

You need an army of drones to maintain all of everything.

You need a bigger cargo hold since everything else is taking up the previously allotted space now.

You need...

And it just goes on until somebody finally decides that a 10 kilometer long ship that can transform into a circle is enough engineering for one day. Then you hand it over to a crew of 27 and let them do whatever, you installed a few thousand redundancies and safety features (adding a few hundred thousand meters of wiring, piping and code and a million tons of matter and bumping everything else up a size category in the process, but who's counting) what could go wrong?

Nothing! You're an engineer who thought of everything, not an architect who draws ugly shapes.

So yeah, you try exploring every street and building and attic in your city. Then do it five more times because in space you can just build in every direction. Oh and take notes and pictures of everything, because if you don't, you might miss a loose cable.

And if you happen to be neglectful and try to turn on your star creating power reactors, you might end up with a permanent tan.

Continue->

[panopticonrpg]

EVENT 02. PART 1: THE DRONES

After the General Meeting, a group of four prepared for a trip into the wilderness. Their goal: to explore outwards, see what they could find of the rest of this strange place. They used walkie talkies at first, reporting back to the others on the beach some findings: lots of trees, an incline, huge volcanic boulders, a waterfall. A plateau. More caves. Something else...then the walkie talkies cut out, as to be expected. The exploration team was out-of-range.

Two days passed.

It started late evening, with a hum that at first only Baskar Klein could hear, given their ability. Something akin to a hum, a buzz in the air with a slight tic tic tic underneath it.

In the morning, a light mist hovered over the forest; and instead of the usual sunrise, the sky remained darkened and mottled over the tree canopy, like angry clouds. What appeared through the mist, however, was much worse than a storm: giant hornets.

A whole swarm - hundreds, perhaps thousands. They flew out of the wilderness like a flying army, invading all the spaces people inhabited. Each hornet is about as long as a person's arm, with a big wingspan. This was, without a doubt, an attack.

You didn't need too close of an inspection to realize these hornets were not prehistorically large living insects. Instead of eyes and mandibles, each hornet's head was affixed with a staticky, reflective, small TV monitor as their face.

Their stingers though, seemed ready to strike.

[tw insectoid image under the readmore]

OOC INFORMATION:

Robo-hornet attack! NOTE: The hornets will not attack people unless provoked.

Example of the robo-hornets:

This event is great chance for your characters to work together! Fend off the hornets, discover more about what makes them tick, and/or use their special powers against the flying horrors. Below is a list of more information that everyone is free to interact with!

Their TV faces will sometimes show flickering video feed of things recorded on the island: other characters, locations, your character's face staring right back at them....

A small swarm tries to attack the Warehouse. Who will stop them?

Another swarm tries to attack the Medicentre. Who will stop them?

The swarm breaks off into smaller groups, with intent.  

One murder hornet specifically goes for the generator that @alexpanganiban bled on to destroy it!

A swarm attacks a giant dog-tiger that comes pelting out of the trees, trying to defend itself. It's the same beast that attacked @chancedarling!

A few hornets go after the Odyssey to partially decimate it

Sometimes the hornets will hover over something as if in thought, and then change course to attack something else.

Paired-off hornets go after certain people, ignores others completely. Seemingly random, but if you want your character to have hornets try to sting them, leave a react in the discord announcement!

Hornets can be destroyed. They're all robotic inside, filled with a weird reddish oily blood-type substance....and something else?

[narrativeglitch]

PANDORA EDUCATIONAL OUTPOST: STUDENT Take over

BEA Program | Bureau of Education & Astrobiological Advancement CONFIDENTIAL: Authorized Student Access Only Prepared for Incoming Cohort 07- Made for Students, by students

ARRIVAL & ENTRY ZONE

Landing Pad & Docking Bay

Primary shuttle drop-off and departure point.

Remain in your designated zone until cleared by a BEA field officer

[VIX scribbled: “Unless you really want to get hit by a supply drone. Darwin Awards start early here.”]

Airlock Tunnel + Decontamination Chambers

Transition zone from Pandora’s atmosphere to interior oxygen-controlled systems.

Includes basic health scans, air pressure checks, and emergency mask lockers.

[LEO wrote: “Smells like space feet and burnt plastic. 0/10.”]

Cryosleep Recovery Suite

Used for post-thaw monitoring.

Nearby med support will assist with nausea, dizziness, or emotional disorientation.

[JESSICA wrote gently: “Try not to panic. Everything feels wrong for the first hour. Then... just weird.”]

BASE LAYOUT – CENTRAL HALLWAY

The Main Spine A long glass corridor connecting all wings of the outpost. Bioluminescent flora grows in isolated root chambers outside. Emergency oxygen lines run inside the wall system.

[VIX: “Glass tunnel = fun during thunderstorms. Also, the plants do watch you back.”] [LEO: “Found a leaf that wasn't a leaf.”]

HOUSING QUARTERS (EAST WING)

Student Dorm Pods

Private, climate-controlled sleeping pods. Clear ceiling panels for stargazing.

Personal terminal and storage built into each unit.

Pods are inspected monthly.

[VIX: “‘Inspected’ = Melissa popping her head in and judging your underwear pile.”] [LEO: “Bring snacks. These pods don’t come stocked.”]

Common Lounge & Cafeteria

Communal area with couches, holo-screen, food access, and comm terminals.

Meals are semi-scheduled; vending units available during downtime.

[VIX: “The vending unit once ate my lunch”] [LEO: “Don’t let Alex near the playlist. Ever.”]

Staff Quarters

Restricted to program faculty and senior science staff. No entry without clearance.

[VIX: “Where Henning goes to do Evil Academia.”]

EDUCATION & RESEARCH WING (SOUTH WING)

Lab Classrooms

Used for xeno-biology, botany, cultural anthropology, and ethics modules.

Gloves and visors must be worn when required.

[LEO: “Ethics class: Where we pretend the RDA doesn’t exist.”] [JESSICA: “Please don’t eat anything from the samples table.”]

Tech Bay

Drones, scanners, and remote observation tools.

Access granted after passing safety protocol.

[VIX: “Watch Leo crash three drones and suddenly become the tech guy.”]

Sample Processing Rooms

Sterile zones for plant, water, and wildlife samples.

Do not enter without clearance.

[LEO: “It’s like a space crime scene for flowers.”]

Conference Pod

Used for Earth calls, debriefs, and remote lectures.

Schedule time in advance via your terminal.

[VIX: “Used mostly for Alex to argue with Henning while pretending it’s a ‘discussion.’”]

MEDICAL WING (NORTH WING)

Med Bay

Two-bed unit for minor injuries and recovery.

Dr. Amsel is your primary medical contact.

[LEO: “Kind of grumpy. Might secretly care about us though.”]

Isolation Unit

Reserved for exposure to unfiltered air or unknown pathogens.

If you end up here, someone probably broke protocol.

[VIX: “Name names.”] [LEO (arrow pointing to Vix’s note): “Was definitely her.”]

Supply Storage

Locked room for oxygen masks, IV kits, suit repairs.

Students do not have access unless cleared

[JESSICA: “Unless it’s an emergency. Then break everything and explain later.”]

OBSERVATION & INTEGRATION WING (WEST WING)

Glass Dome Observation Deck

Panoramic forest view. Popular space for quiet observation and emotional decompression.

Open hours posted near entry.

[LEI : “Best place to think when everything’s too loud.”] [VIX: “Also the best place to hide from Alex.”]

Cultural Archive Room

Na’vi-approved holograms, videos, and interactive recordings.

Handle archive tools with care. Do not tamper with field notes.

[LEO: “Surprisingly cool. Don’t let Henning catch you watching the mating rituals log on repeat.”]

[VIX: “That was one time.”]

Spider & Melissa’s Alcove

Shared desk where student liaisons track village interactions and assist with questions.

Field etiquette briefings happen here.

[VIX: “Melissa knows everything. Be nice to her or she’ll assign you toilet filter duty.”] [LEO: “Spider will answer your questions. Then roast you for them.”]

UTILITIES & SUPPORT STRUCTURES

Engineering & Mechanics Bay

Overseen by senior engineers. Don’t touch anything you don’t understand.

Axel and Ender both hang around here. For different reasons.

[VIX: “Axel vibes. Ender... calculates your soul.”]

Greenhouse Dome

Cultivated crops for supplements, healing herbs, and test samples.

Sometimes assigned for student service hours.

[LEO: “Watch out for the moss. It fights back.”]

Water Filtration System

Pulls and purifies stream water for use. Do not tamper with systems.

Maintenance log updates weekly.

Air Supply Hub

Centralized canister refill and filtration system.

You must check your oxygen levels every morning before leaving the base.

[VIX: “If you forget, Melissa will lecture you like she’s your mom.”]

Security Posts / Satellite Tower

Passive defense towers (non-lethal deterrents only).

Satellite access is restricted to senior staff.

[LEO: “Translation: Henning’s private panic button.”]