#IT'S STRANGE HOW WE DECORATE PAIN ;; rocket

[decks-writing-blog]

Emotional Support Gnome

Summary: Alyx helps transport the gnome.

[A/N] In my recently completed play through of the HL2 Ep 2 VR mod I found the gnome (I didn't in my play through of the normal game) so I decided to get the achievement. It was fun until I reached the car but then it got better when I figured out how to glitch the gnome into being much more secure in the car. Also, I didn't know you could leave the gnome behind when going off with the Vortigaunt to get the stuff to save Alyx (I only know now because I looked up tips for the car bit which only kind of helped and skimmed through and found that tidbit of info) and thus because of the way climbing ladders works in the VR mod, getting it out of the pit that you fall into in that part of the game was a bit of a pain but I managed. While I was there I came up with the idea to write a fic about Gordon transporting the gnome in which Alyx and the Vortigaunt helps him with said gnome because that's a neat idea. It provides some nice championship opportunities which Gordon desperately needs.

Also, Lamarr gets dragged out of the rocket because I'm sad she gets sent to space. I love her with all my heart and soul and want her to live. Gordon probably doesn't like her but Kleiner is his pal so he saves her for him.

~

After hanging up the call, Alyx turned to face Gordon again. Whatever she’d been about to say vanished from her mind at the sight of him though. “Is that a garden gnome?” She’d seen garden gnomes before so it wasn’t that out there but turning around to see him of all people randomly holding one made it a bit more strange.

He looked up at her for just a moment before turning his gaze back onto the gnome in his hands. Taking one hand off, he lifted it to sign a, “Yes.”

“Where’d you find it?” She would’ve noticed it if it were out in the open. It was fairly big and even with the faded paint, it was eye catching.

Gordon pointed to old rickety bed frame, angled down a bit. So under the bed. An odd place to find a garden gnome since one would think they mostly resided in gardens but with how messed up the world was why wouldn’t one somehow end up under a bed?

She almost stepped over and bent down to see if there was anything else interesting under there but… they had important stuff to do and the Combine were who even knew how close to finding them? They didn’t have time to goof off and look for hidden lawn decorations. “Uh, okay. We should probably get going.”

Switching his hold on the gnome to one armed hugging it to his chest, with it faced outwards, Gordon started for the door. Apparently the gnome was coming with them. With a shrug, Alyx followed. Who was she to question Gordon Freeman? Maybe he just liked gnomes. They were kind of cute after all.

And even if the situation was rather urgent it was good to see a less serious side of him finally. Before all this she’d have never thought she’d meet someone as cool and badass as the Gordon Freeman. But now they were somehow good enough friends for him to relax around her a little. How cool was that?

***

The fall shouldn’t have killed the Freeman. He’d survived much worse many times. And if his time were to ever come it wouldn’t be at the bottom of a pit. But still he was taking an awful long time to come back up. Time they did have – the others could keep the Alyx Vance stable for days if need be –but it wouldn’t be wise to push it if they could help it, especially with the Combine on the hunt for the Freeman and the Alyx Vance. … Perhaps the ladder didn’t descend all the way down and thus he needed assistance.

Abandoning the watch for antlions – none seemed likely to be coming anyway – they made their way over the edge to look down over it. … The ladder did seem to descend all the way to the watery bottom so that wasn’t the issue. Instead it was the little statue the Freeman had been carrying since they’d met up. He held it to his chest with one arm, twisting his wrist so he could grasp the ladder, allowing him to let go with the other and raise it to a higher rung. Not much higher though, too far and he’d likely loose his precarious grip on the statue. As a result, his progress was slow, he wasn’t even halfway up yet.

“Do you require assistance, Freeman?” They were not going to ask him to drop it. It was clearly important even if its purpose was beyond their comprehension.

The Freeman flinched at their raised voice, freezing in place. He then tilted his head to look up at them. But alas with his hands busy and his voice seemingly nonexistent, he had no means of giving an answer. Oh, if only he could connect to the Vortessence, eliminating the need for such paltry forms of communication.

“I will lower down a rope with a loop for your statue.” The least they could do for the Freeman was assist him in what was clearly an important endeavor.

Finding a rope long enough was surprisingly easy. Upon tying a loop at the end of it big enough to allow the statue to fit – all the Freeman would have to do was tighten it to prevent the statue from falling out – they lowered it over the edge. The Freeman had made it up a little further but not by much. Ever intelligent and dexterous, he managed to get the statue into the loop and tighten it while remaining on the ladder.

As he started climbing properly now, they slowly pulled the statue up, careful not to bump it against the wall. As a result, the Freeman reached the top a few seconds before the statue did. He stood by as they finished pulling it up to hand to him.

Before accepting it, he lifted his hands to sign, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” For humans repeating something meant emphasis, meaning this was quite an important statue indeed.

“We are glad to be of service. Now let us continue.”

***

There were not one but two giant fucking antlions. Did the deterrents work on them too? … Hopefully because Alyx was about to find out the hard way as the pain radiating up from the freshly healed wound in her back and abdomen made the prospect of continuing forward into the fray proper a very unappealing one. Lucky for her she had a vortigaunt and Gordon on her side.

Speaking of Gordon, he turned to her, his gaze intent. Checking on her? … No, to shove the gnome into her arms, giving her almost no option but to accept it. He then immediately turned away, pulling his shotgun off where it was magnetized to his HEV suit as he rushed towards the antlion guardians.

“What am I suppose to do with this?” She called after him.

He didn’t even turn back to look at her.

“One would assume he wishes you to keep it safe while we deal with the antlions,” the vortigaunt said as he blasted one of the braver antlions that had dared to approach a bit closer than the others.

Damn it. She wasn’t good for much else in her current state so she’d been put on gnome guard duty. “Fine, whatever.” Only because Gordon had asked her to though. At least she wasn’t completely useless; she could keep a garden decoration intact, no problem.

~

After the battle, Gordon returned to her. “You okay?”

“As okay as I can be.” She was still weaker than she’d like and would’ve appreciated a chance to sit down but they didn’t have the time to so no use complaining. “I kept your gnome safe too. See? Completely intact.”

“Thank you.”

“Can I ask what’s the deal with it though? I mean like… no judgment of course just… it’s a bit odd. Not that that’s a bad thing, nothing wrong with being odd, some people think I’m a bit odd and that’s fine. But like… you know.” She was messing this up real bad. Way to go her. “There’s a lot going on and it’s a bit much to carry around and stuff.” She’d have assumed he would’ve left is somewhere as soon as carrying it became inconvenient.

Gordon lifted his hands as if to answer but held them there for several seconds before finally doing so. “I don’t know.” He then took the gnome from her with the gravity gun before turning away and continuing.

“Wait. What do you mean you don’t know?”

He didn’t turn to respond. Odd as the gnome was, that answer was even odder. How could he not know why he was carrying around a gnome even despite all the problems keeping it intact was already causing? He was running around without a proper weapon out for Pete’s sake, there had to be a reason for that. But… they didn’t have time to sit around and talk about it. So with a sigh, she set into a light jog, about as fast as she could make herself go currently, to catch up.

~

Well if Gordon was wondering off into a toxic filled pit while Alyx was stuck up here… “You want me to keep the gnome safe for you?” The amount of times it had almost taken damage had seemed to cause him some distress. Not that he was easy to read, especially when he had the HEV suit’s helmet up, but he had looked the gnome over rather closely every time something almost happened to it.

He turned to face her, the gnome held by the gravity gun in his hands. Seemingly he thought about it for several seconds before nodding and lifting it up for her to take.

“I promise I’ll take good care of it.”

He lifted a hand to sign a quick, “Thank you,” before turning and heading through.

After closing the door behind him, she turned to the vortigaunt. Some of them came up with names for themselves that humans could pronounce, some didn’t. She’d have loved to have a name for this one after everything they’d done for her. Would it be rude to ask for one? … Possibly so for now she wouldn’t. Instead… “What do you think might be Gordon’s deal with this gnome?”

“It is clearly of great importance.”

“Well yeah, but why?”

“It is not my place to question the Freeman and what is important to him or why. Besides, you are both human. I feel your ability to understand him far exceeds mine.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair.” Understanding other people was never something she’d been particularly good at either though. She’d spent too much of her time growing up working in the lab to waste time getting good at interacting with people. “It’s just… at fist I thought it was for fun. Like it was something that was silly and not a big deal. That he thinks it’s cute or something so he wanted to carry it with him for a bit. But now I’m not so sure. And I’m not sure why but it just feels really weird. Like maybe it’s… not necessarily a bad thing but uh… like I should be worried about it or something.”

“Ask him when he returns?”

She could and maybe even should but… “We don’t really have time to stand around talking about stuff.” And she wouldn’t at all know how to ask without it perhaps sounding like she was suggesting he abandon the gnome which would be rather rude. “And it might be nothing, just him being a little weird. Which I think he’s earned the right to after everything he’s done for humanity.” She hadn’t thought about it before but he’d had an awful lot of weight resting on his shoulders for a while now. Even if he could bear it well and had so far fulfilled those expectations, it was probably still stressful. So why shouldn’t he be entitled to a little weirdness and an emotional support gnome?

~

Naturally, when climbing into the car with Gordon at the wheel, the gnome ended up in Alyx’s lap. She was quickly becoming just as much this thing’s protector as Gordon himself was. That was fine though. Even if it was a bit inconvenient at times, it was the least she could do. It still struck her as vaguely worrying but… probably it was just stress from the whole almost dying thing and the Combine being after them. Gordon was just a bit weird, she could respect that and it was rather charming.

~

Despite Gordon having been the one to almost end up as the Advisor’s meal – or whatever it had planned to do to him with its long tentacle tongue thing – he was the one helping Alyx to her feet. He had the HEV suit, yeah, but still.

“You okay?” he asked, his hands moving fast enough that she’d doubt she’d have been able to read it if it had been signs she wasn’t as familiar with.

“Yeah, I think so. What about…” She cut off as he turned and hurried away. Had he heard more Combine coming or… no, he was looking for the gnome. Which did at least mean he was probably okay… physically at least.

It didn’t take him long to find it. The bit of its hat that had been chipped off at the tip was a bit more pronounced now, the whole tip had broken off, noticeable even from over here. Gordon rubbed his thumb over it as he stared it.

“It’s mostly intact,” Alyx said as she joined him. “It’s got a flat tip now so uh… we could maybe paint over it later and it’ll look fine.”

He looked up at her for a moment, his face utterly unreadable, before looking down at it again. What he might be feeling was impossible for her to even guess but it couldn’t be good, could it? The gnome wasn’t just a silly fun thing if he’d been that worried about it. Before she could ask him about why it was so important to him though, a familiar thud of boots came from uncomfortably close to the room they were in, coming their way. “Combine.”

Gordon turned and quickly found a hiding spot for the gnome, turning back around just in time for said Combine soldiers to burst through the door.

~

A clatter and a familiar headcrab call drew Alyx’s gaze up to the rocket. Gordon was at the hatch, pulling Lamarr out of it. She wasn’t going easy but fighting and struggling the whole way. To no avail though, Gordon was far stronger than her, forcing her out without seemingly much effort at all. Then, holding her to his chest, he jumped down over the railing, landing with a clank that betrayed how heavy the HEV suit was. He then made his way back over to them and extend Lamarr towards Dad, clearly wanting him to take her as she squirmed and shrieked as loud as she could. Which was just loud enough to be annoying.

“Get that thing out of here or make it shut up,” Magnusson called from over by the control panel.

Dad let out a long suffering sigh as he accepted Lamarr from Gordon. She didn’t like to be held by him either but did calm down a little bit. “I suppose I’ll get her out of her before Manugsson gets any more insistent about it. I’ll finish catching up with you two later, okay?”

“Sure thing, catch up with you more in a bit.” Alyx might’ve gone with him but her curiosity about what Gordon was up to as immediately upon his hands being freed of Lamarr he’d turned head back up to the hatch again, was too strong. So as Dad left for the elevator, she followed Gordon.

There being only room up there for one she couldn’t follow him up it and thus couldn’t see what he did as he reached into the hatch. “What are you doing up there?” Was he doing some kind of super smart fix the others hadn’t caught? … Probably not. Likely he was just fixing whatever Lamarr had disturbed.

Either way he didn’t reply as he pulled back and shut the hatch before jumping down again, once more not bothering to take the safer way down. Hopefully once it came time for him to take the suit off, he’d remember to not do that anymore. For now though, she wouldn’t say anything as he sat on the railing surrounding the rocket. Instead…

“Where’s the gnome?” She looked around but… it was nowhere in sight. Gordon had brought it in as always and of course he’d had to have to put it down to grab Lamarr. But he should’ve picked it up again immediately like he’d been doing. Of course they were in a safe space now so maybe he was more okay with not holding it as much as possible but it still had to be nearby, right?

As she looked back at him for an answer, he pointed up towards the top of the platform by the rocket’s hatch. The gnome wasn’t up there though so… “In the rocket?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, uh… why?” That was the least safe spot for it around here.

He lifted hand hands and held them there for several second before replying. “I’m sending it to space. It’ll break if I keep carrying it around.”

Finally he was leaving it, making things easier for both of them. But… “Why don’t you just leave it here? I’m sure Dad would gladly keep it safe for you.”

Another long hesitation before Gordon answered. “I need to cut ties. It’s not a person so I need to stop and get rid of it but I don’t want to throw it a way or break it. Sending it to space feels right.”

Alyx’s hunch that the gnome had long ago ceased being a small fun thing was right. Whether it was a sign of something she should be worried about was still unclear. She leaned back against the wall as she lifted her hands to sign back. It meant she spoke a bit slower as she was still better at reading sign language than forming her own sentences in it but Magnusson was still on the other side of the rocket and if they finally had some time to talk, she wanted to do it without him overhearing if she could help it. “It’s okay to care about objects. Nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know but… this isn’t that. It’s not normal. I need to stop.”

So… it was something to be worried about? Gordon certainly seemed to be implying it was but he was just so hard to read. His face was impassive and his hands as he signed weren’t particularly expressive. … He looked tired. She was too. Everyone was, right? Who couldn’t be tired when all of this was happening? They were getting closer and closer to freeing themselves of the Combine and that was great but as far as they’d come, there was still a lot to do. But he’d done the most out of any of them and was likely to do even more. And he was only human.

Everyone put him up on a pedestal, expecting so much of him. Even she had, how could she not after growing up hearing the ways people talked about him? After seeing from a distance the things he’d done that seemed almost inhuman? But the more time she spent with the more obvious it became that he was just guy like the rest of them. Smart and strong and blessed with a seeming endless supply of luck but still just a man. One who’d been through a lot. After the Black Mesa incident he’d been put into stasis and dropped into all of what was happening now.

“Are you okay?” How had she never thought to ask that before? She’d always assumed that he was despite how obvious it was was in hindsight that he might not be.

He lifted a hand but paused for a few moments before forming it into a, “No.” Sighing, he lowered it again, offering no further explanation.

Alyx pushed off the wall and walked over to stand next to him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered because she didn’t know what else to say. Putting a hand on his shoulder, the HEV suit’s metal was surprisingly somewhat warm, probably because of the power running through it. “Do you… wanna go find a place to sit down and rest a bit? We don’t have to talk about it or… anything if you don’t want to. But I think you’ve earned a rest.”

For the first time perhaps ever, certainly since she’d met him, his mask cracked, revealing the same kind of look a dying man gave a potential savior. “Please.”

Keeping her hand on his shoulder, offering whatever little comfort it could give when he probably couldn’t even feel it, she started guiding him back towards the elevator. Before they were even halfway there though, alarms started blaring as lights flashed, making both of them flinch.

Magnusson cursed, damn he was still here. “Gosh dang it. Gordon, since you’re still here, go make yourself useful and deal with that. It’s probably just crows again but maybe you can use your smarts to figure out how to make it stop going off all the time.”

Gordon’s face hardened once more as he pulled his crowbar off his chest and turned to obey. Alyx wanted to protest, insist he deserved a rest, let someone else handle it for once. But if it wasn’t a false alarm, he was still the best man for the job. It wasn’t fair but… life wasn’t fair.

~

[A/N] I imagine the way Alyx interacts with him following this is a bit different but ultimately the events would play out the same and this is about the gnome so I decided to leave it here.

[womanweapon]

TAG DROP ;; part three

[rp-repliforce]

Closed starter

@formerchaoslord

It was an overcast day over Ironedge City. Elegant skyscrapers stood tall over the cobblestone-like pavement, and the streets were interspersed with decorative broad-leaf trees. The air was populated by the occasional flock of birds or swarm of drones, though not all was well and peaceful... (OOC note: I basically ended up accidentally writing a drabble-sized starter here, so I had to put it under a read more. ^^; Don’t worry though - my replies will be way shorter from now on.)

A car laid overturned in the road, and shattered glass was strewn about the pavement. Many white tents were pitched in groups as the air was filled with fearful murmurs of civilians and the occasional crying of a small child. An ambulance pulled up to one of the tents to drop off an injured reploid for repairs and a virus checkup. In the distance, the thunder of combat could be heard. A canon fired, sending a subtle shockwave through the ground.

After a moment, all the guns gradually went silent. It seemed the maverick mechaniloids had stopped coming... for now.

Meanwhile in the infected zone, General listened closely for any sound. He tuned into his electrosense, but he wasn’t able to detect any nearby movement. He activated his com-link.

“All battalions: are we clear?“ He asked, seeking confirmation that there were no more enemies. “Clear.“ Each Captain repeated, one after another. General nodded slightly. “ADVANCE.“ He boomed. The air was filled with the sound of a thousand reploids marching, as well as the roar of hundreds of military vehicles revving their engines. General strode ahead, leading his company forward. Lieutenant Colonel Spark Jackrabbit wasn’t far behind, riding inside a hovering tank.

General knew that the source of the virus shouldn’t be much farther now. His men had completely secured the perimeter of the infected zone, and were now closing in on what he hoped to be the last few pockets of mavericks. If there was any intelligence behind this virus, he suspected they would be guarding themselves with the toughest mechaniloids they could find.

After half a minute of walking and picking off a few stragglers from the previous wave, General suddenly stopped - raising his hand to signal the others to halt. “WAIT - “ He paused. “...I sense something large up ahead... As well as another swarm of mechaniloids. They are approaching us rapidly.” General turned to his troops. “PREPARE TO FIRE!” He commanded. The captain started barking orders to the soldiers and directing them to take positions. The tanks raised their beam-turrets and began to charge up their shots. As the mechaniloid swarm rounded the corner, General could more clearly see what they were up against. Maverick self-driving cars charged out in front. While they weren’t much of a threat on their own, they were filled to the brim with smaller, more dangerous mechaniloids. They were the fastest, so they would be fired upon first. In the center of the swarm was a huge construction mechaniloid that had a body structure resembling that of a giraffe or agile sauropod. As it galloped toward General, it unleashed a metallic scream and thrashed its head, violently swinging the wrecking ball attached to it into a nearby building, causing half of it to immediately collapse. General aimed his rocket-fists toward it, waiting for his moment to strike.

“FIRE!” General bellowed, prompting a deafening explosion of plasma bullets to be released on the swarm. The RPGs made short work of the infected cars and the machine guns quickly took out their contents. A few well-placed rounds of artillery also took out a few chunks of the swarm’s bulk. Yet, the gaps were filled in almost as quickly. General noted that this swarm must have been twice as large as the one they fought previously... General couldn’t allow the giant mechaniloid to get too close to their lines. He knew it would easily devastate their formation, especially with how fast it was approaching with it’s wrecking ball.

“FOCUS ALL FIRE UPON THE SWARM! I WILL TAKE THE GIANT ONE - AS BEFORE!“ General shouted above the chaos.

Once his target was in range, General launched his fists at it, one rocketing toward its head, and the other toward its underbelly. To General’s surprise, it dodged the first and knocked the second out of the air with an incredibly precise strike from its wrecking ball. It seems this one was very high-end... Not wasting a second, he started rapidly firing plasma bubble projectiles at it. It’s plating was damaged, but his attacks did nothing to slow its advance. 

Seeing that his time was running out, General started priming his thrusters. He knew that if he took to the air, it wouldn’t be able to reach him. However, his thrusters had to be warmed up before they could even carry his weight. He didn’t want to use his beam attack, but it seemed he had no choice. He charged up for a moment, then fired from both arms at once. Direct hit. The mechaniloid shrieked as its basic plating was melted through, causing it to stop in its tracks and stagger. Seeing his chance for a direct attack, General charged - his titanic strides leaving craters in the pavement. As he crashed through the swarm, many mechaniloids were crushed underfoot while others pelted him with dozens of attacks. However, their various projectiles only bounced off of his thick hyper-metal armor, chipping the paint at most. As he ran, his fists returned to his arms and securely locked themselves back in place in preparation for his next attack. With a powerful burst from his rockets, he took to the air and punched the giant mechaniloid in the side of the face, causing its whole body to rear up and twist away from the sheer force of the strike. It’s face plating shattered, exposing the mechanisms inside. To General’s surprise, it was still alive. To his further surprise, it started to run in the opposite direction. This was the first time he’d seen a maverick mechaniloid with a sense of self-preservation... He would have pursued it, but he realized that would take him too far behind enemy lines, and he knew that would NEVER end well. still, if it was abandoning the swarm, he knew the other battalions nearby could make short work of it. He spun himself back around, and tried to fly back to where his men were holding the line. It seemed they were doing quite well, thanks to Spark Jackrabbit’s leadership no doubt.

Just then, he sensed that the giant mechaniloid behind him had stopped running. He couldn’t look for himself since his limited degrees of head turning prevented him from doing so. However, he felt he still wasn’t quite at a safe enough distance yet, so he kept going. Then, he noticed that the mechaniloid had started to spin. He thought it strange until he realized exactly what it was doing. The whooshing sound followed by the deafening crashes from collapsing buildings confirmed his suspicions... Just as he turned to face it again, it’s wrecking ball struck him square in the ribs, having built up enough momentum from spinning to knock him right out of the air.

The blow sent him crashing into a building, causing rubble to rain down on top of him. While he wasn’t injured, he had the wind knocked out of him, and his side was burning with pain. The giant mechaniloid approached him, limping from it’s injury. Shards of it’s faceplate were still occasionally falling from it’s head, and it made a threatening, low-pitched wail as it drew close. Once it was standing over him, it reared up, preparing to stomp on him.

[wlw-lovestruck-fiction]

Hello, I loved your fics on Vivienne. So I want to request a Vivienne fic where MC is pregnant, and she with the Poppy is having dinner in a restaurant. But, she got served with spoiled food, so she got food poisoning. Make it a bit angsty and end it in fluff as possible. Thank you!!

“So, whatcha say, MC? You’ve been craving shrimp anyway, so this is as good of a chance as any!” Jett stares at you expectantly, chocolate eyes practically sparkling.

“Yeah MC, you didn’t go to Dinner Club yesterday, so you absolutely need to come today!” Zoe follows, and her smile is as sweet as a midnight drink.

You roll your eyes, laughing.

“Eager, huh?”

“Not our fault Vivienne’s been hogging you all week,” Leon says, dimly amused.

“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll go today.”

The cheer than erupts draws in Vivienne, Remy, and eventually Nikolai, all three of them curious. After a brief explanation — and Vivienne’s feline satisfaction at monopolizing your attention — the Poppy agrees to go a restaurant Zoe had found recently.

All in all, the restaurant has a calm ambience, filled with little decorations here and there: a fish tank by the corner, a myriad of colors you had stared at in awe for a good minute; several paintings adorning the walls, charming and simple; the light warm and relaxing.

The food? The food ended up being a different story all together, though you discover that later.

Both Remy and you had started feeling weird as soon as you got back to the Poppy’s hideout. Remy had shrugged it off as exhaustion, and you had done the same at first, waddling towards the bedroom, ready to nap for a while.

Vivienne had gone with you, not willing to admit it to the others but eager for a cuddle. She had noticed how clammy your skin felt, how strangely warm it was — even under the covers. Her first instinct had been to hover a hand over your bump, as if wanting to check on the baby first, but then she had moved to whisper your name against your skin, gently shaking you awake.

It had taken a worryingly amount of time for the world to focus once you opened your eyes, and the first thing you had noticed was the startling pain in the back of your mind, that seemed to multiply once you had acknowledged it until your head was throbbing.

“I think I have a headache,” you mumble, miserable, and Vivienne’s body slumped against yours in a second of pure relief.

“For a second I feared…” She trails off. You can feel her shaking her head, as if trying to shrug off some wayward thought. “Never mind. Is there anything specific you’d like for dinner? I’ll bring you an aspirin while I’m at it.”

“Oh, I—I’m not really hungry.”

“No?” Vivienne’s voice is filled with disbelief. “Not even a craving? Nothing?”

You laugh, teasing at first. “You make it sound like I’m always hangry. No, I’m fine for now.”

You can tell her worry returns in the tell-tale way she falls silent; in the way she tenses again, fingers curling around your shoulder, squeezing briefly. “You’ve been hangry all month.”

“Pff, not all month, just—”

It’s a dull sensation, still faraway, but your stomach feels off. You can feel the contents swirling angrily, like a wave about to crash. The image stays with you for a second, and you frown, because what is this sensation, why are you thinking about water, hadn’t the morning sickness stopped already? Why…

“Oh. Oh my god.”

“What?” Vivienne whispers, panic rising in both of your chests like a rocket.

“I—the food—something must have been spoiled, I—I think I’ll—the nausea is not strong yet, we should go to a…”

She is already moving before you can finish, moving to the door like a madwoman to yell out the news, before returning to you and helping you up. Her hand presses reassuringly at your lower back, her expression frozen by worry and fear.

Jett announces Remy is also feeling nauseated, and the Poppy splits like they had planned it beforehand, like they weren’t just improvising. Leon drives Vivienne, Remy and you to the nearest hospital, while Nikolai and Jett go back to the restaurant to go full Karen against them. Zoe stays behind to make sure all records from the hospital are wiped afterwards.

The car makes the nausea worse. Remy slumps against his seat and groans, while you close your eyes and focus on taking deep breaths, occasionally rubbing your temple and wishing for the headache to disappear. Vivienne alternates between checking on you and Remy, though he insists that she only watches you and the baby.

And the baby, God, the baby. You rest a hand on your bump and hope against hope that the baby doesn’t kick, that they will be okay. There are a few moments where you feel your stomach is about to empty its contents, the desperation you feel churning inside you like an icy blade and making everything worse.

Vivienne puts her hand over yours. You don’t need to open your eyes to see hers deep with worry, shining like a shattered jewel.

Two blocks away. One.

It only ends up being okay because Vivienne had noticed as quickly as she did. If you had waited until you got more symptoms… well. That’s a thought you’d rather put away.

As expected, Vivienne is ready for anything you ask, be it more water or more cuddles. She’s patient and attentive, her relief palpable in the way she sighs against your bump and gives it a loving, feather-soft kiss.

[sassyhobbits]

16. "I can't believe you're making snow angels at a time like this!"

and here we have the ONS christmas special!! my last xmas fic this season and i hope you all enjoy! have a great holidays everyone!! <3

~~~

Aelin Galathynius loved Yulemas.

She loved the smells, the sights, the foods. She relished in spending time with her closest family and friends, giving them gifts she knew would make their faces light up. She loved laying by the fire and reminiscing.

This was Aelin's third Yulemas with Rowan. She fell more in love with her husband everyday, and always enjoyed spending the holiday with him. The only thing that she could have wished for this year was that their daughter had decided to join them.

Aelin was heavily pregnant. Their daughter was about a week late and Aelin wanted her out, out, out already. It wasn’t only that her feet were always swollen or her back ached constantly, but also that Rowan had become terribly overbearing. There wasn't a single thing Aelin tried to do that her husband didn't attempt to do for her before she could. At the beginning of her pregnancy, she enjoyed it. She liked when Rowan would grab the remote or get out of bed to fetch her slippers if she asked. But by now, it was beginning to lose its charm.

It was Yulemas eve. The palace was filled with their friends and family. They had even invited some of Rowan’s cousins to Orynth. Arlene and Isolde were excited to enjoy their first northern Yulemas. 

They had all spent a few hours lounging in the parlor, indulging in wine and other spiced holiday drinks. Aelin sipped on a hot chocolate, cuddled into Rowan’s side, his hand a steady weight on her belly. It had all been wonderful, but after a while Aelin began to feel a bit warm with the fire and the bodies stuffing the cozy parlor

"Hey, Ro?" she whispered to her husband.

"What is it, Fireheart?"

"Will you take a walk with me?"

He smiled and nodded. "I'd love to."

He helped her off the couch, grabbing her boots and her coat and helping her slip them on. No one noticed when they ducked out of the parlor, walking down the halls towards the entrance to the gardens. 

They had become a wintry wonderland in the recent days, covered in a fresh blanket of soft snow. The night was silent, the sky clear and beautiful. Aelin held Rowan’s arm tightly as they meandered slowly over the snowy path. 

Suddenly, Aelin hissed in discomfort, placing a hand over her huge stomach as their baby girl fussed.

“Is everything alright?” Rowan asked, brows knitted in concern.

“Fine,” Aelin assured him, not wanting him to go full mother hen mode. “She’s just making herself comfortable, apparently.” 

Her husband sighed heavily. “It seems she likes it in there.”

“Well, it’s cold as hell out here so I don’t blame her.”

Rowan released a bark of laughter. “I was hoping she’d be with us by now.”

“Me too.” Aelin pouted down at her belly. “I had some adorable little Yulemas outfits for her.”

“I know you did, love.”

They continued their trek through the gardens, admiring the lights that had been strung up and other holiday decorations. Aelin always enjoyed decorating the palace. It was one of her favorite parts of the season. 

The princess was just about to suggest they go back inside when she felt something strange. A sensation she had never endured before; a little pop followed by something decidedly wet between her legs. Aelin didn't have to be a rocket scientist to realize what, exactly, that feeling was.

"Rowan?" she rasped, tightening her grip on her husband's arm.

"Hm?"

"My water just broke."

"Your water just what-?!"

Rowan’s head whipped towards her, eyes wide in shock. In his bewilderment, her normally graceful husband wasn't watching where he was going, stepping on a slick piece of eyes. His feet flew out from under him, tumbling back into a fresh bank of snow.

Despite herself, Aelin released a laugh. Rowan leaned his head upwards, flakes scattered in his slicer hair, arms spread on either side of him like a star.

“I can’t believe you’re making snow angels at a time like this!” the princess cried playfully. “We’re having a baby!”

Rowan blinked once, a slow smile spreading on his lips. “We’re having a baby,” he repeated in a whisper. “We’re having our baby!”

Aelin could only grin.

…

It didn’t take long to head back inside and gather the things they needed to make the trip to the hospital. Aelin had thought Rowan was being ridiculous earlier, but it was nothing compared to his actions now. He was everywhere at once, not allowing her to pick up anything or even open a door for herself. Yet, Aelin was too nervous to even really scold him about it. 

She and Rowan were already getting into a car in the garage by the time they let their other friends and family know what was happening. Before she knew it, they were on the way to the hospital.

Aelin knew that she likely still had a fair share of time before things would get serious, but her mother had faced many complications when giving birth to her. Aelin’s entire family had agreed to play it safe. 

There was a private, secure suite waiting for Aelin by the time they pulled up to the hospital. She was only just starting to feel the first of her contractions when she slipped into the shapeless hospital gown. 

Aelin spent a few hours speaking with nurses and doctors, getting poked and prodded and questioned. She spoke with her friends and family over the phone, convinced Rowan to read to her even though her husband seemed much more nervous than she did. 

As the night wore on, Aelin’s contractions grew stronger and more frequent. A little after one in the morning, the doctor came in and informed her that it was time to start pushing. It was then that Aelin felt those first twinges of fear. 

“Rowan?” Aelin squeaked, looking to her husband who was seated beside her.

He reached out, brushing a strand of her hair from her sweaty forehead. “What is it, Fireheart?”

“I’m scared.”

His lips tightened a fraction of an inch, grabbing her hand and giving it a firm squeeze. She could see in his eyes that he was frightened too, but he would be strong. Strong for both of them, and the little girl they were waiting to meet. He leaned close and kissed her flushed forehead. 

“I’ll be here every step of the way, Aelin. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

…

The birthing process wasn’t easy, though no one was expecting it to be. Aelin felt as though she was being torn in two, her throat raw from screaming in pain. Even through the haze of the agony, she could tell that Rowan was beyond stressed and seeing her like this was likely shaving years off his life. It was a good thing his hair was already silver, because this experience probably would have turned his hair gray anyway. 

Still, he was nothing but supportive: whispering words of encouragement, letting her grip his hand as tightly as she needed, dabbing her sweaty forehead with a cool cloth. 

It was the wee hours of Yulemas morning, the sky turning a buttery yellow as the sun rose above the jagged peaks of the Staghorns. Aelin was beyond exhausted. She had been pushing and screaming for hours. All she wanted to do was sleep.

A ragged cry tore from her throat before slumping back on to her pile of pillows, tears streaming down her cheeks. 

“I’m so tired,” she sobbed, voice hoarse and crackling. “Ro, I’m so tired.”

“I know you are, love. You’re doing so good. You’re almost there.”

“I don’t know if I can do it.”

“Yes you can, Aelin.” Rowan squeezed her hand tightly. “You’re the strongest person I know. Just a little bit longer. I know you can do it.”

“He’s right, princess,” the doctor said from his position between her legs. “Your daughter’s nearly here. Just one more big push. Can you do that for me?”

Aelin clenched her jaw and nodded. She had survived much worse than this. She could do anything. The princess sucked down one last deep, bracing breath, preparing herself before giving a mighty push.

Aelin wailed as she put everything she had in her into this last push, sure she must have been breaking the bones in Rowan’s hand with how hard she was gripping it. 

And, where one cry ended, another began.

A shrill shriek that did not come from Aelin filled the air just as her own voice failed her. Her strength left her body, collapsing against the pillows just as she saw the doctor hand a screaming, bloody, wiggling thing to the nurse.

Her daughter. That was her daughter. 

Aelin forced herself to sit up straighter as the nurses carried a bundle of pink blankets towards her before carefully placing it into her arms.

The tears wouldn’t stop flowing as Aelin held her daughter in her arms for the first time. Her face was red, and her little face was pinched up as she cried, but she was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. 

“Hi,” Aelin rasped, giving another tiny sob. “Hello. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

Rowan was a warm presence at her side, looking down at his daughter in wonder. “She’s beautiful. She’s perfect.”

“I’m so in love already it doesn’t feel possible.”

The doctor smiled at the little family before them. “Have you picked out a name for the little princess yet?”

Aelin nodded, tracing the shape of her daughter’s nose. “Eliora. Her name is Eliora.”

The doctors and nurses took a few steps back, giving them a bit of privacy as they grew acquainted with one another. 

“Happy Yulemas, Eliora,” Rowan whispered to the newborn. 

“It is Yulemas, isn’t it?” Aelin asked. She had lost track of time during the birthing process. “It looks like we’re gonna have to wait to do presents.”

“No offence, Fireheart, but I don’t think you can out do yourself now.” He ran his fingers over Eliora’s silvery-blonde hair. “This is the best Yulemas gift I’ve ever could have asked for. Thank you. I love you. I love you both so much.”

Aelin looked up, beaming and kissing Rowan quickly, scooting over so he could sit beside her on the hospital bed. He perched himself on the corner, tucking Aelin under his arm and holding both her and their daughter close.

Now Aelin Galathynius had another reason to love Yulemas.

[jungnoir]

destiny | 09;

⇢ summary: you’re just about ready to give up on life altogether; your love life is in ruins, you’ve lost your job, and your family couldn’t care less about you… and then you meet your blushing guardian angel, and maybe life isn’t so bad after all.

⇢ relationship: jeon jungkook/reader, min yoongi/reader.

⇢ genre: supernatural, angel!au, demon!au, romance, thriller.

⇢ words: 6.5k words.

⇢ warnings: mentions of depression, violence, vomiting. slightly nsfw toward the end.

previously |  next

a/n: happy new year! I know it’s been quite a while (literally an entire year since I’ve updated) but I’ve had this chapter pretty much ready in my drafts and just hadn’t gotten around to finishing because. everything. regardless, I hope this sort of makes up for it. love you all! hope you’re doing well. also WOW I swear a lot in this one.

His hand on your neck is meant to silence any screams that might slip out. He applies the perfect pressure to avoid crushing anything vital (and just by the feel alone, you know he’s got quite an amount of strength to pull that off) while simultaneously stealing all your air and forcing you to cower in fear. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to know this guy isn’t someone to be fucked with, and all you can think about is the fact that Jungkook is right outside and has no fucking clue what’s going on. The very thought fills you with dread.

“Then again, you’ve got someone helping you.” What once was just a particular, calculated press against your skin becomes a deliberate act of violence as he begins to choke you harshly. You know the pain of his grip might last for weeks, and that’s only if you don’t die in the next minute. “Just makes me wonder what���s so special about you.”

“Nothing!” You rasp out, clawing at his hand now in some weak attempt at breaking away. If you could make enough noise, enough commotion, surely someone-

-but the stranger has already stopped you quick. You aim to throw the door open or something but his free hand quickly apprehends you until you’re just a squirming mess on the verge of passing out. Even your legs are pressed firmly to the wall by his own body, holding you fast so that you can’t help letting a few tears fall. There was no doubt in your panicked mind that this was Seokjin, the angel who’d been trailing you from the shadows for what felt like centuries. His grand act of approaching you, something you’d dreamed up to be a major climactic brawl in a battlefield made for a spectacle, turns out to be so simple. Perhaps that’s what you got for thinking biblically. Why go through all the trouble when he could just squash the problem the minute a chance presented itself?

Now, all you can think is “I can’t die like this”. A sobering thought of pure contempt. Drowning in the river was preferable to this.

You muster what breath you can, eyes blazing, “How does it feel… being God’s lap dog?”

Seokjin is, funnily enough, stunned for a moment. All bravado slips through a teeny crack in his demeanor when you say that, and even though it’s a low blow, it’s also enough for you to thrust a semi-powerful kick to the dressing room door to make the entire thing shudder like an earthquake. That sound, coupled with your comment, makes Seokjin release you in a panic. You hear some gasps from outside, a few people inquiring if you’re alright. An employee sounds most worried amongst the voices. You’re just shy of swinging the door open and forcing Seokjin to be revealed or to disappear all at once, but then he’s grabbed the back of your collar as you scream in frustrated fury. Seconds later, you’re no longer in the dressing room anymore.

Instead, you fall flat on a rough, sandy surface. You’re overwhelmed with nausea, pain, and fear, so your whole body is struggling to pick up on the most important things outside of that, but you do realize quite fleetingly that it’s sweltering. It takes you a few seconds as you curl up on the ground to peek behind your hands that shield your face and discover that it’s blindingly bright where you are, almost like a…

For fuck’s sake. “Of all the places…” You whine with a sore throat, coughing right after from the strain.

Seokjin stands above you and uses his foot to kick you onto your back so that you’re staring up at him and the baby blue sky. His hair color plays against it in an unfittingly gentle contrast, “I thought we might need somewhere safer to discuss things. Oh, and speaking of discussion,” he waves a hand near you and you instinctively flinch back before you feel the pain in your throat subside. You wait a few seconds, but it seems whatever he’d just done had no effect on the rising bile in your throat, so you assume that’s something you’ll have to deal with on your own. What an ass. “Feel better?”

“Fuck you! Maybe if you hadn’t choked me out in the first place-”

“You’d have listened?”

“Maybe if you hadn’t hunted us down to kill us, we would have!”

Seokjin frowns, “I didn’t bring you here to talk about you and that boy, I brought you here to talk about you. I am only concerned with you.”

Whatever that entailed did not sound good in the slightest.

You scramble to your feet and immediately regret the movement as it makes you sick again. The more than 100 degree weather does nothing to fix that either, the sun beating down on you and bouncing off the dusty white sands directly into your eyes. You’re feeling something nasty rising up from your stomach, ready to projectile…

Just as the scene changes, you paint a Victorian rug with streaks of your vomit.

Seokjin immediately groans out loud, placing a rough hand at the back of your neck like one would grab the scruff of a kitten. You’re far too weak to protest, rubbing at your mouth with the back of your hand, so you let him toss you into a chair. The jerkiness of the action should have sent another eruption out of you, but you recognize the relief that has overwhelmed you from the touch of his hand. Had he fixed that too?

“Never the matter,” the angel growls, waving his hand and making the mess evaporate from the very fibers of the rug, “you’re all very fragile. I should have prepared you first.”

“How can you do all that…?” You couldn’t recall Jungkook or Jimin showing off any power like that, and whether it was because of Seokjin’s status or their modesty (and adherence to rules), you were unsure. Most likely both.

Instead of answering right away, Seokjin reaches forward a moving cart and you finally notice there’s a glass pitcher of water (hopefully) next to an array of empty glasses. You take the time he spends pouring some water for you to examine your surroundings.

It looks like a secret room in an old English manor house. The walls are painted a deep charcoal and with the absence of natural light, you could mistake it for the void. The only light that does exist is a strangely dim white light coming from the ceiling. What looks like a rather ornate shell of a skylight (sans the window to actually reveal, well, a sky), seems to hide said white light somewhere in it. It’s such a vague glow that you can’t pinpoint if it’s coming from a lightbulb or magic.

The rest of the room is just as ornate as the “skylight”, filled with deep oak bookshelves, golden artifacts, and shining decorations that already look like they cost more than your house. It doesn’t really matter the longer you think about it. All of it has to be an illusion… right?

A glass is placed into your hand and you break out of your thoughts to make eye contact with Seokjin. He hovers over you with narrowed eyes and when you look back at your surroundings again, you notice all the little decorations have disappeared. Why had he- “We can negotiate those bits of the deal later if you so wish.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” You ask, hesitant to drink the water despite how much the heat of the desert had made you crave it.

“Like I said before, I brought you here to discuss you. I’ve been watching you and lover boy for a while and it has become clear to me that you’ve been pulled along for quite the ride. I’m sure it’s all very daunting.”

“It wouldn’t have been so bad if you hadn’t shown up.”

“How much do you know about our Lord and Savior?”

It was tricky to say the least. You’d grown up on tales of him, an over-powered being of immense stature. No one could come close to him, not even the devil. However, you’d learned bits and pieces from Jungkook, Yoongi, and the others to the point where your ideas of the figure had become skewed. There was no linear understanding of him. You honestly had no idea, “Probably not enough.”

Seokjin huffs, taking a seat from across from you in a chair similar to yours. Crossing a leg over the other, the angel stares you down, “Do you know why I’m after you both?”

“You want to kill Jungkook. Because he committed your sin.”

“Jungkook is my main target, yes, but it wasn’t my sin. My sin was sullying myself with a demon. Jungkook’s sin was sullying you.”

You frown, “He did no such thing! You had a fucking child! Jungkook saved my life!”

“You mean to say he ruined it. You were supposed to be dead a long time ago.”

You’d known that much, Jungkook had told you already. Even if he hadn’t, that had always been the plan. “It was… it was my choice and I wanted it then, I admit it. But I was hurt. I was overwhelmed. I wanted it because I was scared there would be no reason to keep going.”

The angel angles a brow upwards, “And the fallen was that for you? A reason to keep going?”

“It was- it was a lot of things. I was reminded that I existed, and that there are people who can love me the right way,” frustrated at the situation, you glare at him, “what the fuck? Is this some fucking therapy session?”

He has the gall to smile, “God knows you need one. I’d like to be the one to get inside that mind of yours.”

Shit. What if you’d given him just the right information to use against you?

You snap your lips shut and sink back into your chair, bubbling with more dread. He notices your sudden resolve and appears to want to ease your worries, “I’m not doing this to break you. Unlike God, I find you, as a person, quite redeemable. A gentle, pained soul who fell victim to the perversion of her guardian angel. It’s all very sad.”

So God did think you were a lost cause. Jimin had been right after all. However, you don’t want to keep talking when you’re so close to getting the information you’ve been waiting for. It seems even Seokjin isn’t fazed by your silence, continuing on without missing a beat. “You see, usually these angel and human matters can be chalked up to the angel getting too big for their britches. They think they can change things like fate: God’s very flawless plan from the beginning. They are simply… glitches in the matrix, you could say? That’s where I come in. I make sure these issues are handled and that everything goes back to normal. You see, God loves his humans. Truly. He has a bit of a temper, but it’s justified, you know? He loves you all so very much that seeing you stray from a holy and righteous path is heartbreaking for him. He can only excuse so much.

“So he doesn’t. But… sometimes I help him. I change his mind. Even Jesus had to convince God not to blame his executioners. The big guy gets real impassioned about those he loves. It’s all part of the territory of being in heaven’s sovereignty,” at this, Seokjin shrugs, “you were an unfortunate casualty of it. However, I brought you here because I think that you could be saved. You’re simply confused. I’m sure I could convince God to rethink... his punishment for you.”

Your eyes widen, nearly dropping your glass, “He’d do that?”

The angel nods, pleased, “Of course! After all, he just wants you to repent. If you show that you will, well, I could put in a good word for you. He and I are very close.”

“But only for me.”

Seokjin’s smile dims some. He was so sure he’d had you on the hook just then, “Well… yes. There isn't much I can say about angels. Humans are born sinful, but angels are born knowing better. If they succumb to sin, I cannot do anything about that. But… if you feel that you’d be leaving Jungkook behind, and if that would cause you to feel guilty, I can assure you that that would be taken care of. Your memory of him would be wiped clean and you’d receive another guardian angel in an instant. You’d be granted everything you ever wanted. You’d be able to live out a new path of life contrary to the one your fallen so selfishly carved out for you.”

At this, you begin to frown deeper than you ever have. It’s not out of confusion but deep, deep understanding. Seokjin’s deal was asking you to sell Jungkook out and in return… he’d make you happy. You’d forget all about what had happened and carry on a new person, virtually safe. You could only assume that meant forgetting Yoongi too. Everything you’d accomplished so far would be rearranged until the you that you’d become would be so unfathomable you wouldn’t ever consider it.

What scares you the most is that you actually consider it.

This all could end right now and you’d get out alive, maybe all the ordinary people you knew would get out alive too. You’d be completely removed from the situation. You’d just have to forget Jungkook.

“You asked me how much I know about God,” you start, thumbs twiddling, and Seokjin perks up, “the stories humans told of him always kind of scared me. He’s so powerful… he knew everything before it was even created. Nothing can get past him. And yet, he let humans have free will and the right to choose what their path in life would be. That part always boggled my mind. God’s supposed to love us unconditionally, but if we don’t return the favor, we suffer eternally. It seemed like a pretty big plothole in the otherwise ‘flawless plan’ you claim he made.”

“Yes, well, it’s not God’s fault that Lucifer’s so conniving.”

“But it is. Isn’t it? God created him. Lucifer is the one who brought sin upon the world but God is the one that created him. If he knows everything, why make him in the first place? It’s a fallacy,” Seokjin’s eye twitches just a bit as you lean forward, “that God knows everything. Isn’t it? He wouldn’t be so stupid. He had no fucking clue what he’d made when he made Lucifer.”

“I’d watch your tone. God hears all.” The angel’s ominous reply is all that you need to hear. He doesn’t tell you that anything else you’ve said is false or not. Of course not. You know as well as he does that you’re spot on.

You’re so stunted by the arrogance of it all that you have to laugh, “Allegedly.”

In that same moment, the white light above begins to flicker. A distant rumbling sounds from somewhere and that fear you’d felt earlier comes back with a vengeance. Seokjin looks annoyed, if anything, “I only have so much time to sit here with you to chat.” He stands up and walks over to you, seizing you by the arm, “So I’m telling you now that you still have a chance. No one else has to die. Do me a solid and make that a reality.”

Did he really not want to kill you? He’d had so many chances to. Even now, he could just… what did you have that made him hesitate? “You think I believe that?”

The ground rumbles underneath you and then you fall through, Seokjin’s grip slipping off your arm… or maybe being pried off.

Where you land next isn’t as disorienting as the last few times, but it doesn’t feel any better to be ripped away again without so much as a warning. For a moment before you land, you halt, almost floating. Then your feet make contact with stone and then your knees follow under the sudden press of gravity. A quick look around tells you that Seokjin is nowhere to be seen… and that where you are looks vaguely familiar.

The stone continues up the walls to the ceiling, creating a naturally cold room that expands no more than the size of a restroom (no toilets in sight, however). The furthest edge of the room from you is completely dark, while the other is helped by a fire stretching from one long, narrow wall to the other. There is no wood crackling beneath it though, nor is there an actual controlled area for it to burn. Flames simply lick up the bottom of the wall as if commanded by magic. While the rest of your body feels chilly, the warmth of the fire keeps your head warm like a fever.

You lay crumpled up on your knees and hands, staring into the flames with the most bemused expression, wondering what to do now. You’re definitely not intent on travelling to the other side of the room in fear of being met with something sinister you can’t see, but the fire only illuminates so much of the place and there doesn’t seem to be a door in sight. If Seokjin wasn’t here, you doubted this was a place he wanted to be.

Maybe he was torturing you? Intending to keep you in a dark, scary room in order to break your resolve? You didn’t know the extent of power he was allowed to wield but this whole transportation thing was starting to get really annoying. You chance a meek, “Hello?”

Your voice doesn’t echo like you expect it to. It sounds like it’s right up against your face, like you’d spoken into a pillow, the sound eaten as soon as it came from your mouth. Where the hell were you?

“...not exact, okay?!”

You pick up on a voice to your right and turn over with such speed that you land on your ass. Some stones move on the narrow wall, and then the room is illuminated from an entirely different source of light. It takes you a few moments to gather your bearings as your eyes attempt to adjust. Voices are frantic and coming closer, you can hear that much. You pick up on one instantly, “Jungkook.”

Your voice is weak with relief just as he comes into view. He looks an absolute mess as he throws himself at your feet and wraps you up into a bone-crushing hug. The strength of his hug doesn’t even bother you as you cling back with just as much force, grateful tears beginning to gush out of your eyes. You didn’t realize until then just how terrified you’d been, really. It was always there underneath the surface, but something about Jungkook’s sudden presence makes the reality of it all hit much harder. He smells like your shampoo still.

After a couple of minutes in his embrace, you pull away to examine his face, “Are you okay?”

He laughs and the way his tears have clogged up his throat make it sound more like he’s choking, “Who cares about me? Are you?”

You smile, tucking some of his hair behind his ear, “Better. With you here. Where are we?”

“Limbo, hell’s limbo.”

You’re not sure what to say in response to that. After what you’d been through in the last… however long it’d been, that seems the most plausible to you. “Is that like purgatory?”

“No,” another voice speaks from above you and only then do you realize that Yoongi is here too. He looms over the both of you but his gaze is fixed heavy on your face, “purgatory is where the dead go on their way to heaven. This is where the living come on their way to hell. Was a hell of a ride trying to get your ass down here.”

“Yoongi…” You peel back from Jungkook and stand up, a little wobbly as you lean against the wall, “...thank you. How did you do it? The places Seokjin took me… I felt like we were in a dream.”

His upper lip ticks up in a snarl, “It was. The place where you were is a void, heaven’s version of limbo. It’s where angels bargain with humans on the edge of death to repent. It’s an open playing field for angels to present themselves to their humans without them having to be dead or breaking a rule… not like the latter really applies to Seokjin, though. It’s only as strong as your will to be there,” with that, Yoongi reaches toward you and brushes what feels like sand off your cheek, or perhaps he just meant to touch you to make sure you were really here with the way it lingered, “and that’s the only reason I could pull you out.”

It was a lot to digest. You still couldn’t totally understand how he’d pulled you from heaven’s limbo if he was a demon, but that was beside the point. Right now, you just wanted to get out of this creepy box of a room for good. And it seemed you would be getting your wish.

Another figure became clear to you through the doorway, though this figure looked much more intimidating than the two by your side. Dressed immaculately with a sly smile that felt strikingly familiar, a man makes his way into the room, pressing a hand to his chest and bowing his head to you, “He had my help too, of course. A pleasure to meet you (Name), I’ve heard very little about you.” The man holds out a hand to you and you can feel both Jungkook and Yoongi stiffen on either side of you, but neither makes a move to stop him. This had to be another demon, no doubt.

You take his hand and shake it firmly despite your nerves, “T-Thank you for your help as well. May I ask who you are?”

The man grins wider, “You can call me Lucifer. Are you hungry?”

An entire array of human food is set out before you but you don’t have much of a stomach to touch any of it, though Jungkook seems right at home as he fills up his own plate. You can only guess he’s enjoying the hell out of having so much food at his fingertips without having to pay for it.

You can hear his delighted sound effects from the left of you as you both sit on one side of a long table. Lucifer sits at the head of the table to the right of you, also refraining from really eating anything. Yoongi sits right across from you on the other side with an annoyed expression on his face, fingers tapping the heavy oak table top in a rhythm you can’t decipher. It couldn’t be any more awkward.

“No appetite?” Lucifer asks, pointing to the food. There’s meat and vegetables and cheeses that you know and don’t know but none of it seems particularly appetizing to you at the moment.

You shake your head, “No. Actually, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you.”

“Ah, bet you’re bursting.” He chuckles and takes a swig of something you think might be wine. “Go ahead. I’ll try to recap the last couple of days as well as I can.”

“Days?!” You don’t mean to yell, you really don’t (especially not at the king of hell, but-), “It’s been days?”

Jungkook stops chewing to give you a concerned look, “Of course… how long was it for you?”

“Barely… half an hour, maybe more? But not days.”

“Yes, well,” Lucifer sighs, tucking his hands together in front of himself, “time works much differently in heaven and hell than it does here. Especially for those who end up in heavenly limbo. It’s essentially cut off from the rest of the universe which makes it that much harder to track those who end up there. Seokjin was smart in bringing you there than somewhere else on earth.”

Your head is throbbing at this point. If days had gone by, you could only imagine how much had changed since you’d been gone… “So… what has happened since then?”

“Apparently quite a bit, seeing as I was a last resort.” Lucifer’s tone almost sounds irritated. Like a petulant child, he glares over at his son with an unspoken tension that you would like to delve into much, much later when the important things have been moved out of the way. “These boys have been pretty busy trying to get you back. But we are all eager to know what happened while you were with Seokjin.”

Jungkook places a gentle hand on top of your knee under the table. For whatever reason, you note that his grip feels stronger than you’d grown used to. You’d thought the hug was just because he missed you so much, but even this simple touch was- “He… he found me in the dressing room, cornered me there and told me he’d been trying to get me and Jungkook alone. Somewhere he could really do some damage.” You recite all that you readily remembered, some details slipping as you focus on Jungkook’s touch. Yoongi’s eyes never stop boring into you. “He said a lot. He… he said he wanted to give me a second chance.”

Lucifer raises a brow at you, “At…?”

“Life. He said that if I… if I ratted out Jungkook, he’d work things out with God to set my life back on track. Memories wiped, a new guardian angel, the works.” You can feel Jungkook stiffen next to you.

“And did you take him up on it?” Lucifer inquires.

“No! No, I would… I would never. But he was so insistent… It sounded like he really wanted me to say yes. I don’t think he was planning to betray me if I took him up on it either.”

Lucifer heaves a heavy sigh. Folding his hands underneath his chin, the king of hell spares a glance at Jungkook, “He’s got a thing for innocents: those he believes did no actual harm in a situation. He’s always been soft that way. He has more of an affinity for humans than I ever did, but I have more reason to loathe humans than he does, so I guess it’s understandable.”

“He did… mention that none of this was my fault.”

“Of course! You were only following the path life laid out for you. It was the fallen angel you have beside you that decided to shake things up, and aren’t you lucky he did? It doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’re still alive. You’ve done nothing but suffer the consequences, it seems, against your own will.”

“But what about the demon he fell for? Or his child? Weren’t they killed so he could keep his spot in heaven?”

Lucifer leans forward, “I’m assuming your friends haven’t made it known to you yet, but they aren’t dead. They are both very much alive. In fact, the child in question was one of the people that helped in tracking you down. The mother… she is here, in hell, meant to stay imprisoned for all eternity. Or at least until the rapture,” with that, Lucifer drinks again, maintaining eye contact with your shocked stare, “but it was best that no one knew of their whereabouts. Only a handful of people even know that Inhui still exists. It’s become something of a legend amongst the demons and angels, shrouded in confusion. None of the angels would care for the mother, but the child would start an earthly war if they knew one still walked the earth. As far as they’re concerned, the child probably died from the natural complications of being an abomination.”

You frown, “How is that possible? An angel for every human on earth… that’s billions of angels and no one has even noticed the guy?”

“I was wondering about that, actually. He told us that he’d been walking the earth for a while now. Surely someone would have taken notice, right?” Jungkook speaks next, having abandoned his food entirely.

Yoongi snaps out of his bored stance, “Tae’s an anomaly. He’s forgotten everywhere he goes. His impression barely lasts long. Those people he encountered early on considered him a dream, or a hallucination, or a possession of the mind. His actual presence is… hazy. It’s easier to remember him by his name or his number, but everything else is-”

“Intangible.” His father finishes with a flourish. “No ordinary angel or demon could ever put a face to the name, only a feeling. Along with the rather excessive amount of glamours he employs when amongst the public, it is no wonder no one has sounded the alarm. Go ahead and recall his face in your mind, fallen. I’m sure you couldn’t piece it together even if you wanted to.”

Jungkook’s face screws up a little as an attempt, stricken dumb moments later when he can’t utter a thing. Your stomach churns at the thought, soiling your appetite even more.

It seemed like there was more to that story than you were being told, but you imagined that it would be quite a lot to relay to you in more than one sitting. After all, you still had no clue what you’d missed since you’d been gone, and it only hadn’t terrified you senseless because you were at least certain that the biggest threat to everyone’s lives had been right there with you the whole time.

“If you’re not planning to eat anytime soon, is there anything else you’d like to know? It’s not every day a mortal like you gets to talk to Lucifer.” With a small flourishing wave of his hand, Lucifer smiles at you, charming as ever. It was so strange. Yoongi acted nothing like his father, and yet you saw every bit of him in his expression.

You imagined Yoongi felt the need to distance himself as much as he could from his father’s intimidating image and had ended up creating his own in the process. Where Lucifer was inviting, however, Yoongi was… not for everyone. Even as he stares over the table at you, eyes hooded with what appears to be indifference rather than lasciviousness, you can’t help but see the other in him.

“I suppose not,” you murmur, “but now that I have the chance, I don’t really know what to say.”

Lucifer continues to smile, “Don’t fret! I’m sure after the doozy you’ve been in, you’ll need to rest up. You’re more than welcome to stay here until you feel it’s safe to go back topside.”

The thought of treating hell like a hotel to stay in was tickling to say the least. The minute you rise, Jungkook follows suit, nearly knocking his chair over in the process to follow you. “I’d appreciate that. Is there… perhaps a room I could cool down in? Maybe a bathroom?”

Lucifer had deposited both you and Jungkook in a rather nice room, fitted with all the things you’d find in a nice resort room overlooking somewhere like the Bahamas. The dark, brooding colors of Hell follow you even here, and what little light you are allowed in the room comes from fire or mysterious ambience. Still, it’s enough to splash your face with (what you’re definitely sure is) water in the ensuite bathroom.

Jungkook sits at the foot of the bed, watching you, “I missed you.”

Since the moment that the Lord of Hell and his son had left you to your devices, you’d become increasingly aware that something was off about your angel. You had imagined that it had been from the sheer worry he felt over you, but it was starting to feel different from that. Something not so easily explained. If only… if only you could figure it out.

You pat your skin dry and look over at him, measuring him up and down. Appearance wise, he still had the same haircut, same clothes, same shoes. It was the aura that felt different.

Slowly, you approach him from the bathroom and wish that there would be more light in the room to examine him with. In that same moment, what appeared to be a ray of warm light halos above you both, giving you exactly what you had wished for. When Jungkook looks up, he looks… radiant. “I missed you too…” You whisper, reaching out a hand to cup his jaw. At your touch, he shudders, melting into you, and those eyes then laser focus on your own. “Are you okay?”

“I am now.” He answers without hesitation, then turns to kiss your inner palm with such a sensual drag of his lips that you grow hot instantly. The surprise makes you yank your hand away and you swear you hear him whine at the missing contact.

“Y-You just look different.” You squeak, holding the aforementioned hand to your chest as if he’d burned you.

Jungkook’s bushy brows furrow. “Do I?”

When Jungkook had been an angel, he’d had a distinct glow about him that set him apart from others. It was cliche, but it made sense then. You knew that you were dealing with someone from another world. When he’d turned human, he’d felt softer, normal. He didn’t glow in any particular way lest the light hit him through the window just right. But now… that glow was back. In a way that didn’t feel familiar.

You reach your hand out again, but this time you let it wander. You push his fringe back from his forehead, then behind his ear, then down his neck to where a sweatshirt hides his collarbones. In a daze, you fall to your knees before his seated frame and push the fabric back some. You find… nothing. You don’t even know what you’re looking for. A vampire bite? What is so different?

Your hand starts to fall mindlessly as you wrack your brain, but it’s all for naught when Jungkook catches hold of it and intertwines his fingers with yours. His grip is warm and solid. But it’s still- “I thought he’d hurt you.”

You look back up into Jungkook’s eyes as he now leans over you with an intense stare. His hair curls around his cheekbones and twists away from his face at the nape, each strand fluttering as he inches closer until the longest ones are touching your face. “Not much. He healed what he did anyway.”

At that, your angel’s eyes narrow in their scan over you, “What did he do?”

You instinctively swallow. Perhaps because you remember the feeling. Perhaps because Jungkook looks like he could kill. “He… he had to get me to limbo. He had to…” You touch the skin of your throat the same moment you break eye contact, feeling the ghost of Seokjin’s fingers there. It wasn’t so long ago that it had happened after all. You could honestly still feel it.

The silence grows until it’s nearly unbearable, you eventually finding that Jungkook will say nothing while you continue to avoid his gaze. Against your better judgement, you chance a look up at him.

You don’t get very long to look. Jungkook takes both sides of your face and lunges forward like a man possessed and you are forced to follow. In your surprise, you stumble back onto your elbows and Jungkook slots himself between your legs, latching onto your lips in a searing kiss. It’s hot and fast and immature, the kiss of a person who has never kissed before and may never get the chance to kiss again. Youngho had never kissed you like this.

A gentle whimper escapes your mouth but Jungkook inhales it into his own. You feel something primal burn inside you when Jungkook growls out, crouching over you now like a predator cornering his prey, and he’s practically consuming you when you start to kiss back. Can you blame yourself? You easily fold into the feeling because it’s Jungkook and goddamn if you hadn’t wanted to kiss him badly before.

His inexperience does very little to dissuade from how good it feels too, and as you start to take over to guide him, he is all too eager to feel your reciprocated passion. The heady feeling he gives you in his sudden attack pushes all thoughts of Seokjin or the last few days out of your mind like a fast-acting asprin. All you can think of now is how tightly coiled you’d been and how Jungkook is loosening you up one press of his lips at a time.

He lays you on your back and you happily oblige, no cushioning found on the hard floor but you couldn’t care less. Jungkook is careful not to be too rough, aware of your needs as much as his own, and it’s jarringly sweet the way he cradles the back of your head to keep you from hitting it on your descent.

When he’s had enough of your lips (as if he could ever), he starts attacking your neck. He’s lapping at your skin and biting away as if he’s trying to remove all traces of Seokjin’s hands… as if he’s replacing the feeling with him and him only. “I’ll kill him,” Jungkook whispers, a foreign fury in his voice that makes your haze disappear in an instant while he continues to work at your neck, “I’ll kill him for ever touching you.”

Your hand shoots to his hair, feeling your heart beat faster from more than just the kisses, “Kook-” But any attempt at sobering up washes away when, to your surprise, he ruts against you. Youngho had never been that good at using his hips like that either. There was something definitely off with Jungkook.

As much as it pains you, you grab at his hair and yank back, ignoring (or trying to) the filthy groan that he gives in response before peeling away from your skin. You gasp for breath, absolutely winded, “What is going on?”

Jungkook pants past wet lips, “What do you mean-”

“Did Yoongi do this to you?” The sudden heated moment is over when you say that.

Jungkook’s blood has run cold. You have a very strong, haunting feeling that your mounting suspicions have proven correct. His eyes… as gentle as they always were when they looked at you, told you everything. He was not the same Jungkook you’d come to know. Something had happened to him. Something irreversible. You touch his face again and this time Jungkook does not move to embrace it. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world. “Why?”

In an attempt to escape your pitiful gaze, Jungkook’s eyes flutter shut, cutting you off from seeing him vulnerable any longer. It breaks your heart the longer he stays silent. There’s no denying it now.

A tear of his touches the palm of your hand instead of his lips this time, “How else could I protect you?” He chokes, weak, “I’m not your angel anymore. I can’t be like you. This is the only way... the only way I could stand to look you in the eyes again.”

[changingourdestiny]

Beyond Light Finale: Darknebula

Summary:

Rae has found herself separated from her fireteam and alone against Eramis. To finally put an end to the Kell of House Salvation, Rae finds herself calling upon a new power. But not the one she was expecting...

Previous Part: Here

Epilogue: Here

Rae could hear the muffled yells of Marcia and Tif as they banged against the forcefield behind her while Eramis approached her. “I know what you and your fellow pawns were up to. Did you really think I’d just let your stasis-wielding friends to help you?” Eramis chuckled, “How pathetic. The machine-spawn beloved by all; a hero among them, shaking like a pitiful worm.”

Rae glanced down at the auto rifle in her hands. Sure enough, her hands were shaking. ‘Why?’ Rae thought, ‘Ghaul, Xol, Panoptes; I’ve fought on my own before. So why am I so scared?’

“I can sense your fear.” Eramis continued, “You’re terrified of this power. The Darkness was not meant for you!” Eramis sent a wave of stasis spikes surging towards Rae who just managed to dodge them by gliding into the air but was knocked down by a blast from Eramis’s gun, “You do not understand this power!” Another wall of spikes came towards Rae as she got to her feet. But in a moment of quick thinking, she blasted it into a cloud of powder with her rocket launcher. Suddenly, Eramis emerged from the cloud and, before Rae could react, backhanded the Warlock, sending her flying back-first into a wall. “I will destroy you, your once Great Machine, and everyone you care for!” Eramis growled as she slowly approached Rae, who struggled to get to her feet, “Your chains are showing. All that power, wasted serving false gods. Allow me to help you break free.” Rae, getting increasingly frustrated, dashed at Eramis, preparing to summon her Dawnblade, when suddenly she froze in place. Eramis had used stasis to freeze her feet to the floor. Rae struggled to break free as the stasis began to climb up her body. “Ghost!” Rae exclaimed, straining against the effects as Ghost appeared beside her. “This is…I…I can’t- I’m sorry-” Ghost was cut off as Eramis blasted him with stasis, freezing him instantly as he fell to the ground. “No!” Rae eyes went wide in terror. She went to grab for her splinter, but it was snatched out of her hands by Eramis who crushed it with ease, “Look what I’ve one for you. No more Light. No more Dark.”

The stasis kept climbing up Rae, slowly freezing her in place. She felt her breathing become uneven as she started to become desperate and a million thoughts began to race through her head.

‘No, no, no! This can’t happen! I have to stop this! I have to save everyone! I have to-!’

“What about what YOU want?”

Rae heard Marcia’s voice echo through her head followed by Elsie’s words.

“Look within. Focus your power.”

‘I want…’

Rae felt her breath even out as it felt like time slowed around her.

‘I want…this all to end already. I want to be able to do things without having to worry about what other people think! I want to do things my way.’

Rae found herself glancing down at the frozen Ghost and then Eramis.

‘I want to make her pay for what she did. I want to make her feel pain tenfold. I don’t want to kill her. I want to rip her apart. Marcia was right…’

Rae felt a surge of energy swell up within her, but it was different to what she first felt with the shard. Eramis noticed a strange blue and black glow around her, “How interesting…”

The feeling became stronger and stronger until it felt like it was going to explode.

 ‘…I HAVE been holding back!’

 The stasis surrounding her exploded outwards, causing Eramis to stumble backwards in surprise. The explosion allowed Ghost to break out of his stasis prison, gliding back up as he shook off a few leftover crystals. He turned to Rae, about to ask if she was alright, but gasped in a mix of surprise and fear at what he saw. Rae’s helmet lay shattered on the floor. A pair of icy, skeletal dragon wings with cracks of Darkness emerged from Rae’s back, and a pair of icicle-esque horns emerged from her head. Her eyes were completely black aside from blue slitted pupils as Darkness dripped from them. “The only thing we have to break here…” Rae growled, “Is you.”

“Come then pawn. Show me what freedom has given you.” Eramis replied. Rae held out her arm as Paragon’s Fang appeared in her hand. Except it had changed. The plum and gold hilt was now blue and black, and the plum gem had dark cracks in it. The golden glow that once surrounded the blade now was a pitch-black colour. Rae let out an ear-shattering roar as she soared towards Eramis, skeletal wings spread wide. Eramis summoned a wall of stasis to block her but Rae crashed through it with ease and right into Eramis, sending the kell flying over the table and across the room. ‘This…’ Eramis thought to herself, ‘This is stasis but…it’s different. What the hell is she?’

Eramis didn’t have much time to think as Rae lunged for her again, attempting to slice at her with her falchion which Eramis blocked with her gun. As the two pushed against each other, Eramis managed to get a good look at Rae. Her teeth were bared and the fear and panic that once filled her eyes were replaced with rage. “I will tear the Darkness out from inside you.” Eramis growled. “I’ll tear you apart!!” Rae roared as she pushed Eramis back with a hearty shove. She held her falchion up high as shards of stasis appeared in the air around her. Eramis’s eyes went wide as Rae swung the blade down and the shards went flying towards her. Eramis managed to dodge some of them but got hit by the last few with one of them knocking the gun out of her hand. Rae could sense Eramis becoming desperate as the kell cursed under her breath in Eliksni before turning to the Warlock, “You are not special. The Darkness is MINE!” Eramis began sending out wave after wave of large stasis spikes, “This power was meant for me and the Eliksni! Not scum like you!”

“You’re lower than scum!” Rae yelled back as she swerved between them with relative ease before soaring upwards slicing through the air with her falchion, sending slices of stasis shooting straight down at Eramis. The kell could feel her movements slowing as Rae’s stasis began to have an effect on her.

“Who’s terrifed now?”

Eramis looked up and her eyes went wide upon seeing stasis crystals surrounding Rae’s falchion, forming a larger, icy blade as Rae glared down at her, “Who’s pitiful now?!”

Rae raised the blade and went shooting down towards the ground, slamming it against the ground which caused a huge wave of spikes go surging at Eramis, hitting her dead on and causing her to tumble across the floor. Rae slowly walked towards Eramis, her hate-filled glare transfixed on the kell as she struggled to get up.

“It will not end this way.” Eramis grunted as she got to her feet, “It can’t!” All of a sudden, Eramis felt a strange sensation in one of her arms. She glanced down and saw that her entire body was being frozen. “What?” Eramis gasped in horror. She briefly glanced at Rae who just glared at her with an unwavering, hateful expression. She desperately reached out for the Pyramid in the distance. “Nooo…!” her desperate cry for help was cut off as the last of the stasis consumed her, leaving her as a solid ice sculpture still reaching out for the distant Pyramid. Rae let out a sigh of relief as the falchion, horns and wings shattered into tiny particles and her eyes reverted to normal. She heard the sound of something deactivate behind her followed by the sound of running footsteps. She turned around to see Cayde and the rest of her Fireteam running towards her but stopping a few feet away. Cayde glanced between Rae and the frozen-solid Eramis before his concerned expression turned to one of relief. Rae let out a weak chuckle in response.

 The last thing she heard was Cayde calling out to her as everything went black.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 “…ugh…”

Rae groaned as she tried to block out the throbbing pain in her head. As she tried to sit up, she noticed she was in what seemed like a sleeping bag. She glanced around and realised she was in Elsie’s campsite. She saw Marcia with her back to her, looking over a tablet while Cayde stood leaning back on one of the crates. He looked up upon hearing the rustling of the sleeping bag and his eyes widened seeing Rae had woken up. “Rae!” Cayde ran over to Rae, grabbing Marcia’s attention in the process. Rae stumbled a bit trying to stand but was helped up by Cayde. “You okay?” He asked. “World’s…worst…brain freeze…” she muttered with a smile. “Hey, the bad jokes are my thing!” Cayde chuckled, “Glad to see you’re alright, Sunrae.”

“Eramis…” Rae began, “Is she…?”

“She’s currently an ice sculpture in Riis-Reborn.” Marcia smirked, “Drifter’s tempted to bring her aboard the Derelict as a decorative piece.”

“Please don’t.”

“Ah, don’t worry. Eris is keeping an eye on him.”

Rae let out a sigh of relief as Marcia continued, “Speaking of Eramis. I know I said stop holding back, but I did NOT expect…whatever that was!”

“So that really did happen…” Rae muttered.

“Yep. Saw the whole thing from behind that forcefield Eramis put up to separate us. It wasn’t a corrupted form like Darklight, but it wasn’t exactly Starlight either. I’ve no idea what it was. Been tryin’ to figure it out ever since we brought you back here.”

Rae looked around the tent, “Where are the others?”

“Outside.” Cayde replied, “They’re having a celebratory-”

*SPLAT!*

A pile of snow hit the tent door followed by Tif’s distant voice yelling, “Missed me!”

“Snowball fight.” Cayde finished with a chuckle. “I better go let them know I’m alright. They seem SO distraught.” Rae rolled her eyes jokingly as she, Cayde and Marcia left the tent.

“She’s up!”

“Welcome back, kid!”

“Fire!”

Rae was pelted in the face by multiple snowballs. The snow slowly slid off her face to reveal a very unimpressed expression as Cayde burst out laughing, leaning on Rae for support, as Marcia chuckled at the sight. A few feet away from the door was Blaze, Adam, Tif and Drifter. “What did you think of our welcome back gift?” Blaze grinned. Rae smirked and went to make a snowball when she noticed Elsie motioning for her to come over to her. “When I get back, it’s on!” Rae warned as she jogged over to Elsie. “How are you feeling?” Elsie asked. “Better.” Rae replied with a shrug, “Still have a bit of a headache, but I’m not dead.”

“Always a plus.” Elsie gave a small chuckle before turning serious once more, “But you see now. Darkness resides within, beckoning you, as it has many others. Across lifetimes…timelines. Beyond ours lies another world. One pervaded by Darkness. Where Guardians abandoned their Light at the call of temptation. In that world…you and your friends were no exceptions.”

Rae seemed to be taken aback by that as she briefly glanced back at the others who had gone back to their snowball fight with Eris remaining at the fire and Drifter occasionally joining in by tossing a snowball here and there. “But here, in this world,” Elsie continued, “Light and Dark swell within you, side by side, giving you strength. Remember that when you step onto the Ziggurat once more. You’re there for one reason and one reason alone: to fully harness the Darkness within you.”

Rae glance down at her hand, remembering the surge of energy that rushed through her when she faced Eramis; how her fear gave way to anger; how she attacked Eramis without holding back or giving anything a second thought, or even a first thought for that matter. “I’ll admit,” Rae began, “When I first tried Stasis, I was…terrified. It was alien and didn’t feel right. But when I took on that form while fighting Eramis – when I stopped thinking and just let loose – it felt…right.” Rae turned back to Elsie, “I’m done being scared. I’m done holding back. From now on,” Rae smirked, “I do things my way.”

Elsie nodded before handing her Eramis’s splinter, “It’s time now. They’re expecting you.”

 Rae walked up the steps of the Ziggurat, alone this time. Oddly enough, the whispers didn’t seem to faze her anymore as she approached the final shard. She held her splinter up to the shard. However, instead of the expected surge of energy, Rae found herself teleported to a very familiar room. “This is the inside of the Pyramid…” she muttered before walking up the steps at the end of the room. “Hey, Rae?” Ghost began, “I just want you to know…I’m here with you. Through Light or Dark…we’re partners. Always.”

“Thanks, Little Light.” Rae smiled, “I’ll never leave your side either. I promise.”

Rae approached the top where she saw a statue, similar to the one she saw towering the artifact she found on the moon. Taking a deep breath she walked up to the statue and stared up at it, “If you can hear me, I want you that no matter what happens, I’ll never give in to you. I fight for the Light, for my friends, for me. And that will never change.” Rae held the splinter up high as she felt stasis energy begin to surge through her and in a flash, she was back on the Ziggurat with an icy staff in her hands and energy coursing through her.

 Blaze went to throw another snowball but jumped backwards as an orb of stasis went shooting past her. She spun around to see Rae twirling her staff before dismissing it.

“Aw yeah! Rae’s joined the stasis gang!” Marcia cheered.

“Yay, Rae!” Tif added.

“How do you feel?” Adam asked.

“Pretty good.” Rae smiled.

“Nicely done, snitch.” Drifter gave Rae a thumbs up, when she noticed he had a black eye. “Uhh…why do you have.”

“Threw a snowball. Hit Moondust by accident. You can figure out the rest.”

“While it wasn’t my intent to hit Germaine’s eye,” Eris began, “I can’t say it wasn’t well deserved.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait.” Cayde interrupted before turning to Drifter, “Your name…is Germaine?!”

Cayde burst into laughter as Drifter just glared at him before turning to Marcia, “Now you know why I don’t like him.”

“You’re the one who thought Germaine was a good cover name.” Marcia shrugged.

Blaze walked up to Rae while Cayde tried to calm down from his laughing fit.

“Well this is gonna be an interesting report to give Zavala, huh?” Blaze sighed.

“Yup. I don’t know how he’ll react to Guardians using Darkness.” Rae replied, “But I’ve faith that we’ll use this to our advantage rather than be corrupted by it. Plus I still need to figure out what Darknebula actually is.”

“Darknebula?”

“It’s what I’ve named it. For now anyway.”

“I like it! Sounds cool!”

“Well,” Adam began as he walked up to the group, “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to go back to the nice warm Tower.”

“Yeah. I need to get back to base and help Misraaks deal with the newcomers.” Tif added.

“Well, let’s not stay here any longer freezing our butts off.” Rae smiled.

 “Let’s go home.”

 Epilogue Coming Soon…

[blueberrylemontea-fanfic]

Burning Poison

Peter Quill x reader

When Y/N gets stung by a strange plant on a deserted planet, the task of saving her falls to Peter. The only catch, the only way to save her, is sex.

Smutty smut smut and fluff at the end.

I'm a sucker for post-sex conversations so I apologize for the extremely cheesy endig.

Enjoy xx

Quill had picked you up when you were just a scared 16 year old kid.

He rescued you from a gang whose leader wanted to make you his wife, much to your dismay.

When the guardians rescued you, you couldn't have been more grateful. You finally found a family...

They were more than family, really. You actually got along great with all of them, which is more than most families can say.

They all became great friends of yours, but especially Peter. You blamed it on the fact that when he found you, you were a teenager and he acted like he was one.

That was almost five years ago now, and in that time, you and Peter had gotten closer than you ever imagined you could get with someone. He knew every last one of your secrets -well, except for the fact that you thought he was absolutely gorgeous and you had quite the crush on him- and you'd liked to think that you knew more about him than anyone else.

You were pretty set on never actually acting on this crush though, you were pretty sure it would ruin the amazing bond you two had going on. The universe, on the other hand, turned out to have other plans about that.

You were on a mission to explore an abandoned planet, your main goal was to see if you could find the reason it had been deserted.

You had gotten a bit ahead of the other guardians, intrigued by a bush of pink flowers decorating the near-empty field. The closer you got to it, the more entranced you seemed to become by it. It was like the plant was drawing you in somehow.

When you got close enough, you could smell the sweet nectar radiating from its flowers. It was bewitching, luring you closer and closer until finally you reached out your hand to touch one of its petals.

The second you touched it, you knew it had been a mistake.

You pulled your hand back like the plant had zapped you and your entire hand burned. You felt the burns radiating through your entire body, feeling like you could just combust at any moment.

You jumped away from the pink poison that had just pricked you and called out for the others.

"Guys! I need help!" You cried, immediately worrying the guardians, who came rushing over to you as fast as they could.

"Y/n, what happened?" Gamora was the first to ask.

All you could do at this point was gesture towards the plant and yelp out in pain. By now the fire had spread, mainly to your more sensitive areas, it was like it was trying to burn you, choke you and make you aggressively and painfully horny all at the same time.

"Mantis, check her out!" Quill ordered.

Quickly Mantis placed her hands on your temples.

"She's in pain, so much pain" she said worriedly "and she's arroused too, but it's too much, it's so bad that it's hurting her. She needs release, and I think she needs it really quickly"

"Are you tryin to tell us that to help her, we gotta get her laid?" Rocket quirked his eyebrow. Gamora hit him in the arm "Don't be crued"

"Actually I think that might be the most effective way to fix her, if not the only one" Mantis piped up.

"I-I think she's right" you groaned.

You were trying your best to stay upright, but you were trembling violently, clawing at your skin to try and relieve some of the pain and aching. Everyone stared at you in shock, this wasn't exactly the kind of problem-solving they were used to.

You could barely hold yourself up anymore and the burning was getting worse. Your vision began to fog over and your head was getting cloudy.

"Shit, guys, I need someone to fuck me right now"

They saw you writhing and trashing and knew there was no other way.

"Quill, I think this is more your area of expertise" Gamora said "We'll head back to the ship and you take care of her, okay?" She said sternly and directed the others towards the ship without waiting for an answer.

"But, what?"

Quill was just standing there completely perplexed, the colour had drained from his face. I mean sure he'd thought about it and he liked you so incredibly much, but this seemed insanely wrong.

"Quill" you moaned as you collapsed against him. "Please, I -I need you"

He swallowed thickly, completely torn over what he was supposed to do.

"It hurts so bad, Quill. I think it's killing me" You pleaded as you pushed yourself up against him. Just touching him took away a bit of the burning feeling, just a bit though.

"Shit" Peter muttered as he held you close.

"Shit darling, what am I supposed to do here? You don't know what you're saying with this shit in your system, it's messing with your brain. I can't just go and sleep with you when I'm not sure you want me to! You're barely 20 for god's sake, you're a kid... And shit sweetheart, you're a virgin, how can I possibly do this to you?"

You looked up at him, eyes blown with lust as well as pain.

"Quill, please, I'm begging you. I want you, hell even if it weren't for this shit I'd want you."

You were rubbing yourself against him, feeling horrible because it was so abrasive, yet getting so much relief from it.

"What?" Peter asked suprisedly.

"What do you mean?"

"Peter you are the most gorgeous man in the galaxy, you're funny and amazing and I want you, I NEED you right now. You know I'm ready"

He did know that. You'd told him in one of your late night drunken conversations, the same one in which you'd told him you were a virgin.

You snapped him back out of his thoughts abruptly "Quill, I'm burning up, this is killing me! So please, unless you're not up for it, please fuck me."

You begged for him as a shooting pain shot through your stomach, making you collapse and cry out in agony.

Quill caught you quickly, holding you up as gently as he could. You looked back up at him with tears brimming in your eyes.

"Please help me" you croacked.

That did it.

Peter couldn't stand watching you suffer any longer. He couldn't help but be a little worried about how much he wanted you too, worried that he shouldn't be doing this after all, that he'd lose you because of this.

But on the other hand, jezus did he want you. You were gorgeous and he'd thought about driving his cock into you so many lonely nights on the Milano. He liked you so much that it hurt and he never imagined you would be into him, mostly because of the age difference.

But he had no time to worry about that now.

He swept of his coat and put it down on a flat peace of ground, then he swept you up in his arms and kissed you tentatively.

You gasped with relief as he touched you and kissed back hungrily, tugging at his shirt and belt buckle. Peter laid you down on his coat and pulled his shirt over his head quickly.

You waisted no time clawing at his abs and his back. "Fuck, Quill, I really need you to get me off now" you panted.

He nodded shakily and peeled your clothes off of you. The cool air felt amazing against your skin, you hadn't realized just how hot you were getting.

Peter couldn't help but stare at you, you were unbelievably gorgeous, but you still looked like you were in terrible pain.

"Shit" you gasped loudly as Peter rubbed your clit with his thumb. You sat up a little to scratch and bite at his neck, leaving your marks on him but feeling so much better in the process of it.

"Fuck Y/n" Peter let slip. "Shit you're so wet" he realised as he slipped a finger inside of you. He pumped in and out of you slowly, trying not to hurt you but you weren't having any of it.

"Quill, please, more!" You groaned. He added another finger and quickened his pace. He thought maybe this would be enough, still unsure if you were really up to sleeping with him.

"Peter... Fuck... it's not enough. I need you inside of me now, please fuck me" "Are you absolutely sure, Y/n?" He asked one last time.

You nodded vigorously "Peter, I want you to do this. I want to feel you inside of me. I need you, my Star-Lord"

When he heard you call him that, he knew for sure that you were all in on this. You'd never call him Star-Lord unsarcastically otherwise. And Quill would be damned if it hadn't turned him on.

He pulled of his own pants and boxers and lined himself up with your entrance.

"Are you ready, darling"

"Fuck yes" you sighed, and slowly, Peter pushed himself inside you. He held still for a little while so you could get used to him, but you started grinding yourself on him quickly, urging him on.

He started thrusting into you, making sure not to go to hard. He was so torn between making sure he didn't hurt you on your first time and desperately wantig to screw your brains out.

You groaned at his pace, needing more. "Fuck, Quill, come on already!" You sneared at him and he dared pick up the pace a little, sinking into you deeper, revelling in the feeling.

"Hmm shit, that's better. Fuck me like you want to fuck me, Quill, like I know the real Star-Lord can fuck" you purred at him. And fuck, did he hear you this time.

He threw your right leg over his shoulder, pounding into you now like he'd wanted to for the past year. His hands cupping your breast, toying with them. Playing with your hardened nipples, teasing them as you yelled out for him.

He kissed you everywhere he could reach you, biting your bottom lip, your neck, your collarbone, your pulse point, until finally he had his mouth clamped around one of your nipples. He licked you and teased you as he kneeded your other breast with his hand.

The stimulation was getting to you, finally removing some of the fog in your head and the burning in you limbs.

"God Peter, you're amazing" you mumbled when your head was completely clear again. "You feel so fucking good, making me feel so good"

Quill groaned loudly "Shit, Y/n, if you keep saying stuff like that this is gonna be over a lot quicker. You're so gorgeous, baby, so fucking gorgeous"

He looked in your eyes intensely before crashing his lips down on yours. You touched his cheeck softly as you worked your mouth together with his.

It was the first moment that you hadn't touched him in the poisoned frenzy, the first time you hadn't clawed at him and left blotchy scratchmarks on him. And eventhough he was still pounding into you, it suddenly felt kind of lovingly intimate.

Most of the burning was wearing off and it no longer felt like you were choking, you still needed him, but you were also starting to feel some actual pleasure instead of just pain relief.

You moaned through the kiss, making Peter throw his head back in near despair.

"Fuck, that was hot, sweetheart. If you're not careful, you're gonna be the one to kill me."

You chuckled and ground yourself down on him, trying to match his rhythm. "God Peter, I'm so close" you moaned.

Peter brought a hand down between your bodies and started rubbing circles on your clit again. You gasped and arched your back up.

"Shit, Y/n, you're so sexy... Let go for me babe"

"Mmm Peter, keep talking" you panted breathlessly, writhing underneath him.

"You like it when I talk to you? Like it when I whisper in your ear sweetheart?"

The nickname made you squirm, it felt so overwhelmingly nice. You weren't used to the incredible sensation, but you sure as hell could get used to it. You nodded softly, entangling a hand in his hair.

"You gonna cum for me darling? Gonna let me see that beautiful face as you cum around me? Come on baby, you can do it, let me take care of you, Y/n"

It was all too much, Quill was still slamming into you at a relentless pace, his thumb taking care of your clit and the sweet, slightly obscene whispers in your ear.

You'd dreamed about him saying those things to you and it was so much better in real life.

You felt the coil that had been building up in your stomach suddenly uncoil as you felt a very new sensation take over you.

You threw your head back gasping "Fuck, Peter, oh my god Pete, shit!" Your mouth raced as you slurred out curses.

"Jezus, Y/n, I can't take it any longer" Quill moaned as he came inside of you. "Fuck" he moaned as he slowly pulled out of you with shaking legs.

He laid down next to you and pulled you close to him. You snuggled closer to him, even though you felt slightly awkward for having just slept with him.

"Are you okay, Y/n?" You nodded. Quill looked at you, slightly concerned "Hey, are you sure you're okay with what just happened?" He tilted your face up a little so he could look at you.

"I'm a little embarrassed" you blushed. Quill's heart sank a little "Why?"

"The entire crew knows we just had sex here, also I feel like you were kind of obligated to sleep with me, you know? I hope you're okay with this... I hope we can be okay after this"

Quill hugged you a little closer "Sweetheart, I'm very much okay with what we just did, if anything I was worried about you being uncomfortable with it. I've wanted to do this with you for quite some time, to be honest"

"Me too" you whispered

"So where do we go from here?"

"I wouldn't mind having you beg for me some more in less life-threatening situates" he grinned smugly.

You hit him in the arm playfully "Shut up Quill, that was purely the poison talking"

"Yeah? How bout at the end there hm? I heard something about you loving it when I talk dirty to you?"

You blsuhed even harder "That may have been me"

"See now that i could get used princess"

He leaned closer to you and whispered huskily in your ear "I could also get used to having that thight little pussy of yours wrapped around my cock"

You couldn't help but chuckle, there's the Quill you knew back "That can be arranged, my Star-Lord"

He laughed with you, knowing that the two of you were gonna have a lot of fun from now on.

"One more thing babe," Quill smiled at you

"I really do like you a lot"

You smiled back a him and pulled him in for a soft, languid kiss.

"I like you a lot too, Peter"

"Oh thank God" he sighed and kissed you again.

"So, euhm, how was that for a first time?"

He was blushing for crying out loud, you never thought you'd see the day that Peter Quill, Star-Lord, guardian of the galaxy, would blush over a girl.

You smiled up at him lovingly "The burning poison was kind of a bummer, but you were amazing"

"And I, euhm, I didn't hurt you or anything?"

"Once again, the burning poison kinda hurt" you joked, making him laugh a little.

"You, though, absolutely did not. In fact you relieved a lot of my pain, thank you Quill"

"Anytime babe"

"Hey! Lovebirds!"

You heard yelling coming from behind you. When you looked up you saw Rocket standing next to the Milano. You scrambled to cover yourself up a litlle

"You two gonna keep drooling all over each other or can we go already?" He growled. You couldn't help but laugh.

"Get your ass back on my ship and leave us alone will you? We'll be right there"

Rocket went back inside as the two of you got dressed. Once you were ready, Peter kissed your forehead and draped his arm over your shoulders.

"Let's go babe" he smiled brightly at you, and you knew right then that you two were going to be just fine.

[wereallydobevibing]

Even The Gods Are Not Immune — Thor x Reader [Part 2]

Prompt — You, Thor's wife, despite being powerful and extremely admirable, had been dusted in the snap. Now, you make a comeback.

[ Tags: @whos-too-bi @bukoandcoconutsarelife ]

Warnings — pretty sad, mentions of sex, cursing, endgame spoilers

Your beloved husband had attempted to keep it together once he had beheaded Thanos—keep the drinking to a minimum, rule over the remainder of his Asgardian people as you would have pushed him to.

But it was proving to be difficult, and these days, he only truly found comfort in playing Midguardian video games with Korg and drinking bottle after bottle. One, to hide his shame, and two, to numb the pain of your absence.

He no longer slept in your previously shared bedroom. It smelled too much like you, was decorated exquisitely by your hand, everywhere Thor turned, all he saw was you. Almost as if you were haunting him—hating him from beyond the grave for not trying harder to keep you and his people alive.

The guilt was slowly killing him.

Thor attempted to bed a common whore one night, only to find himself emptying his stomach of that night's dinner. But he hadn't vommited out of drunkness—it was out of guilt, sadness, self-hatred. This woman was not you—her hair did not feel so smooth, or even smell as nicely as yours. Her skin was not as soft, her kiss was not so loving.

This was not the woman he spent thousands of years loving, no woman he'd ever meet would ever be you.

When Bruce came to gather him, Thor had clearly lost it. His gut protuded from his stomach of what used to be rock hard abs, his hair wild and untrimmed. He was disgusting—dirty and horrid smelling.

"Your wife is gone, you have the chance to bring her back, but instead of fufilling her wishes of you acting as a king like she would've wanted you to, all you do is sit around, drink and play video games?" Bruce exclaimed—he had developed a relationship with you overtime.

You had been kind whenever he Hulked out, always supporting the big green monster and treating him with your gentle nature—unafraid. Both Bruce and Hulk found comfort in you, he too was devastated when you had been dusted, Hulk even more so.

"You mustn't mention my wife in my presence, Banner, it is unbecoming of you."

"Maybe what you need is to be reminded of her," Rocket intruded. "Doesn't it mean anything to you? Doesn't it mean something that your wife could be resurrected? You could have her back!"

"You're afraid—" Bruce concluded, but was quickly kicked aside.

"Afraid? Why would I be afraid?" Thor challenged. "I was the one that killed Thanos, I have nothing to fear."

"You're afraid of her seeing you like this." Bruce finished—Thor fell silent. "You're afraid of what she'll think, that she'll be dissappointed in you. You're not the only one that lost her that day, Thor. Y/N—"

"Don't say her name."

"—She was important to all of us—Steve, Tony, Nat, me. We need her back just as bad as you do."

It took a while for Thor to come to terms with it—that he couldn't be afraid of you, because you weren't that kind of woman. He would fix himself up—return himself to the man he once was and put pride in your name and the two of you would rebuild the Asgardian kingdom together.

That is, of course, if bringing you back was even possible.

He'd dreamt of you that night—bare naked, squirming underneath him as your baby soft skin glowed golden under the dim lighting. Your lips were swollen and pouted, eyes struggling to hold open as they fluttered shut in pleasure. Thor always loved you like this, weak and submissive beneath him. And he'd awoken in sweat, looking around his bedroom for any sight of you being there that night, because that dream had been so real.

He'd broken down in a mess of tears after realizing you were still gone with only a slight likelihood of you returning.

Finally, the team had gathered every last stone and returned back to their original time. Tony had constructed a metal glove that would work as Thanos' had.

"I'll do it," Thor spoke almost immediately—he had to make sure that of among all people, as selfish as it was, that you returned before anyone else had.

"No offense, Thor, but—" Steve ushered toward the nearly empty bottle of beer lingering in Thor's finers. "—I'm not sure you should."

It had been Bruce—who, at the moment, was a strange hybrid-being mixed between his human self and Hulk.

Thor was anxious, what if it did work? What if everyone was brought back, but somehow you were left as nothing but dust in the wind? Or what if you came back too and no longer loved him the way you had before—or was dissapointed in his ungodly appearance after being gone for the last five or so years.

These thoughts quickly left his mind when Thanos opened several unworldly portals, summoning his army of alien invaders from deep within the galaxy. Wizards and monsters alike standing behind Thanos and ready to officially destroy the Avengers, and then their entire universe.

They were ultimately screwed—with only a small handful of them to defend their planet against an entire army. They'd never get out of this alive, not ik their own.

Bruce had made the snap—so where was everybody? Had it all just been some dream they had hoped would come true? Had they somehow failed?

I'm sorry, Y/N, Thor's heart ached, his face in the ground as hot tears trailed his cheeks.

He'd failed you when you had been dusted, failed you when he had fallen into a horrid drinking habit and to hold together the remainder of your kingdom, and now he was going to fail you once more. He hadn't been able to bring you back—and he was too weak to protect the planet of Midguard; a planet you had adored with everything you had. A planet of smaller beings that you thought to be interesting, beautiful, even.

I'm sorry I didn't turn out as good a man as you had hoped I would.

"What are you doing on the ground, my love?"

Thor turned, snapping his head in a direction behind him.

A circle of golden sparks, man-sized and creating a pathway was sizzling with heat. It framed a bright, white light—too bright for such a dark setting. He recognized this to be Stephen Strange's foreign magic—but, hadn't Tony announced his dusting all those years ago?

From the light, a figure appeared—features shadowed due to the bright light shining in her background. But Thor could make out the curves he spent so long studying, memorizing, and making love to. He knew that voice better than he knew himself—for he had heard it so many times.

It was you—in a war dress that an Asgardian goddess would wear for protection in battle, whether she was fighting or not. Silver armor protected your chest and waist, expensive Asgardian fabric shaded the same red he wore drifted over your legs. Of course, there was a high slit on the right, exposing the sweet, soft skin he once caressed on a nightly basis.

Your hair was pulled back into a tight braid, daggers sheathed at your sides as you approached your husband. To him, it felt as if it'd been hundreds of years, but for you, barely ten seconds. It was like a power nap for you—time didn't effect you whatsoever when you were simply dust.

"Y/N?" Thor breathed, slowly lifting himself from the rummaged ground.

A wide smile merged onto your face at the sight of your husband, running into his arms and pressing a passionate kiss to his lips. Joy sprouting in both your chests, tears of both sadness and relief spilling down your faces as you embraced one another so tightly it hurt.

"You've changed, my love," you whispered against his lips, and you meant it. His body was softer, now—larger. He smelled terribly like alcohol and his hair was wildly unkempt. He was a mess, but you couldn't have blamed him.

Thor didn't know how to respond to your statement—were you disgusted?

"These last few years could not have been so terrible?"

Thor smiled, still pained, tears still rolling down his face. "These last few years without you were torture."

His hands continuously roamed your body—feeling your baby soft skin, absorbing the warmth that radiated even through the metal on your waist. His thumb gently ran over your bottom lip, the other hand subtly slipping through the slit of your dress and gripping your thigh.

The two of you were never opposed to PDA, after all. Not when it came to each other.

You pressed your lips to his once again, "when we are done here—I would like to make love."

It was Thor's turn to smile widely, a chuckle vibrating in his chest beneath his armor.

"As you wish, my queen."

"Avengers," Steve Rogers called from the front of the army of revived heroes—Wakandan soldiers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Valkrie woman and Avengers who had fallen in their last battle against Thanos. They all stood proudly, faces inked with anger and dedication to finally rid the universe of the army of aliens.

You made eye contact with the Wakandan woman you had attempted to save when the battle had first raged in Wakanda; both sending each other a nod.

You and Thor turned, weapons at the ready, eyes lingering on one another for a second longer before narrowing them at the enemy. You were ready—more ready than you would ever be to take back what you had lost in the fire.

You awaited Roger's signal, a raging fire burning in your gut. You were ready.

"Assemble."

[thecomicsnexus]

Aftershock

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #11 FEBRUARY 1986 BY MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PEREZ, JERRY ORDWAY, CARL GAFFORD, LEN WEIN, ROBERT GREENBERGER AND TOM MCCRAW (RE-COLORED VERSION)

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

Creation occurs. One universe is born. In Metropolis, Kal-L, Superman of Earth-Two, wakes in an apartment at 344 Clinton Street. He has dreamed of the end of all Earths. Now he finds the decor of his apartment changed and Lois gone, and so he leaves for work. He enters the editor's office of the Daily Planet, where Perry White asks him to leave. Clark Kent enters, and rights the situation. Realizing that he must be on Earth-One, the Earth-Two Superman accompanies his counterpart to the "warp zone" between Earths in New York, so Kal-L can return home, but once there, they find the zone is gone. When they ask a cop what happened to it, he says that nothing was ever there.

They decide to visit the home of Barry Allen in Central City, to use his Cosmic Treadmill. There, they find that Central City and Keystone City (formerly of Earth-Two) now exist side-by-side. When they reach the home of Jay and Joan Garrick, she recognizes the Superman of Earth-One, but not the Superman of Earth-Two, who had been a fellow Justice Society member of her husband. Jay Garrick recognizes both, and takes them into his lab, where Wally West waits. Jay tells them that the world still knows about the other Flash, Barry Allen, and remembers his trial, but that everyone also maintains that he, the original Flash, has lived on this Earth all his life, Wally changes to his Kid Flash costume, and Jay assumes his Flash identity.

Then, with the two Supermen, they board the Cosmic Treadmill, and reach the correct speed and vibration rate to enter Earth-Two's universe. However, they behold an endless sea of blackness where a cosmos had once existed. Feeling lost, without a past or a homeworld, Superman of Earth-Two tries to leap into the void, but his counterpart holds him back, as the Flash and Kid Flash bring them back to the lab.

In the timestream, Rip Hunter's time sphere, carrying Rip, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Animal Man, Atomic Knight, and Adam Strange, emerges in space near Brainiac's craft. They board it, and find the robotic villain slumped in his command chair. Of these heroes, only Rip remembers the multiple Earths.

At Titans Tower in New York, the Teen Titans host an assembly of heroes who formerly occupied six different Earths. Captain Marvel and Uncle Sam report that they have tried to return to their home worlds, but found them nonexistent. Slowly, they come to grips with the fact that only one Earth now exists, not many.

Suddenly, Harbinger appears. She has regained her powers with the rebirth of the universe, and states that many realities have been changed. When Kal-L asks why he still exists in the new universe, while his Krypton "never even existed," she tells him that he was spared because he "stood before the rebirth." The Huntress, shaken by her experience, tells of how she found herself without a law practice, an office, an apartment, or even a recorded identity on the new Earth. Robin of Earth-Two says that the only Dick Grayson of whom he could find records was 19 years old, and lived in Manhattan, not in Gotham City. Even the grave of the Earth-Two Batman was missing from the cemetery. Harbinger explains that a new universe, not a Multiverse, was born from the battle against the Anti-Monitor. There is, and was, only one Earth, one history, even only one World War II, in which Uncle Sam led the Freedom Fighters to victory over the Axis. Krypton exploded and Kal-El came to Earth. Only one Batman came to exist from the murder of his parents. All the heroes are stunned by this revelation, and none more so than the Earth-Two Superman. Not only did his Krypton never exist, but now his wife is also gone forever. He soars off in frustration and anguish, and Kal-El follows him.

Somewhere in a spirit dimension, Deadman and the Phantom Stranger watch over the Spectre, who was rendered immobile after the battle with the Anti-Monitor.

In Las Vegas, a detective convention is interrupted when Angle Man's body is found, along with his Angler weapon.

In Salem, Dr. Fate and the Demon magically observe Amethyst being attacked as a witch by a mob. Dr. Occult stops them, but then shadows appear and attack. Dr. Fate and the Demon join in the battle. However, Amethyst has been blinded, and when Fate looks into her eyes, he finds something incredible, and takes her back to Gemworld. Above New York City, Kal-El has succeeded in calming the older Superman, reminding him of his own loss with Kara's death. Kal-L weeps, not knowing where he belongs.

Back at Titans Tower, Wonder Girl tells of how Queen Hippolyta reacted when the Earth-Two Wonder Woman and her daughter Fury appeared on Paradise Island. None of the Amazons remembered the Multiverse, even though the "new" Paradise Island had elements from both Earths.

Power Girl questions why she is remembered, but her cousin forgotten. Harbinger replies that she does not know yet. Batman appears with the younger Robin and Alex, and tells the assembly of their recent interview with Lex Luthor in prison. Luthor had no knowledge of participating in the crisis, and angrily denied that he would ever help super-heroes. Therefore, says Alex, none of the villains remember fighting alongside them. However, danger still besets the Earth, as shadows continue their assault, and the uncanny weather persists.

Far below the surface of Peru, Cave Carson's crew reports an awesome flux of energy, and transmits the news to Titans Tower. There, the heroes observe the electrical storms becoming worse, and Pariah feels his pre-teleportation symptoms again — but, with no place to teleport to, he remains in painful stasis.

Alex glows with the anti-matter effect, and the Earth is drawn into a titanic space-warp. On a rooftop in New York, the Supermen realize that the Earth has been drawn into the anti-matter universe. Then, they are confronted by a huge image of the Anti-Monitor, welcoming them to his home, and to their deaths.

NOTORIOUS FIRST APPEARANCES IN THIS ISSUE

New Earth

NOTORIOUS DEATHS IN THIS ISSUE

Angle Man

REVIEW

While this is the beginning of New-Earth, most of it doesn’t count as canon yet. The prime example would be Kara’s death being remembered even though only one rocket survived Krypton. The same applies to many other characters like Huntress, and even Jason Todd, who will be reworked as an annoying brat, eventually.

This issue is low on deaths because our heroes have been hit by defeat. The death of the Multiverse is a huge deal for these characters, imagine knowing you have been retconed (well, Wally did after Rebirth).

More visual cues that this Earth is not final, the Galaxy/Daily Planet building, anything involving Wonder Woman (as new earth’s version hasn’t appeared yet), and of course, Lex Luthor being in prison.

There is a point in the issue when Wolfman gets too repetitive. We already understand that the Earths are gone, but we keep getting tales about our heroes discovering these changes. The reason I don’t think this is so important, is because most of these tales will not remain canon a few months after.

If you thought Thanos’ snap was a depressing defeat for the Avengers, imagine the whole history of a universe being replaced and your past no longer existing. And not being able to come back to that ever again. As far as defeats go, this one was unprecedented (at least for 1986).

To be continued

[lopships]

hypnic jerk - ch. 1

ive been wanting to write this since i rewatched Who Killed Markiplier/Warfstache, and now that DAMIEN is under my belt, i finally had the motivation to get it out there!

now if only i can find the motivation to write the rest ;w;

chapter: 1/4

pairing: bambi (me)/da(mien)rk/wilford

word count: 2,232

warnings: drowning, hypothermia, guns, corpse mention, death implied

You considered yourself a fairly normal person. You were partial to pastel colors, desserts with too many edible decorations, glittery acryllics, and combat boots. You worked, pet cats, sweated and bled just like everyone else. And when you slept, you normally dreamt.

As of late, those dreams were becoming increasingly… abnormal.

In your reoccuring dream, you woke up in the middle of a snowy forest. There was nothing but barren, dead trees as far as the eye could see, creaking in the shrill winter wind. The cold bit through your thin t-shirt and underwear like teeth through flesh, and immediately you’d double over and clutch at yourself for warmth.

The snow drove like tiny nails through the soles of your feet and you had no choice but to walk. Flakes of ice whistled through the wind, fingers through your hair as you trudged onward and onward, nothing but the darkening grey sky to provide the illusion of time passing.

By the time you heard his voice, you were near to collapse from exhaustion. From the trees came the loud shout of a man, echoing off of each trunk and bouncing through the forest back to you.

He sounded panicked, his shout peppered with pants of effort.

“Celine!”

You froze (nearly literally and metaphorically), your eyes instinctively scanning the trees for the source of this voice, fruitless. For a moment, there was only creaking from the branches, and you were left to your own theories. Then, again, this time with genuine fear edged in his desperate tone:

“Celine!! Can you hear me?”

You moved forward without real reason, and began to run deeper into the woods, trailing after the voice with desperate compulsion. The snow crunched with every footfall as you pounded through it, numb to the knees.

Bony fingers of trees slapped your face and you knocked them aside with a pumping arm as you looked around, desperately trying to find the voice to call out to the caller. But it was though the cold had frozen your vocal cords, too.

You ran, ahead and ahead, until your aching muscles strained in your legs and you could barely breathe. Sweat beaded and instantly froze on your brow, and you collapsed forward onto your knees at the bank of a wide, frozen lake.

The world had yawned and ice had wedged itself between its teeth, cracking in some places to make way for the black slush. The water went down and down, no sign of life under the thick mask.

For a moment, it looked like there was nothing under the ice.

Normally, in your dream, you reached forward as if to crawl onto the ice. The moment your hand touched it, it cracked beneath your weight, and you pitched forward into the black water to the sound of someone crying out your name, a voice that didn’t at all sound like the man from before.

The world yawned, and this time, you fell between its teeth.

But last night’s dream was different. The scenario had changed, and you’d woken up more puzzled and intrigued than ever. Everything was the same up until the moment you collapsed at the bank of the frozen lake.

Staring down into the dizzying nothingness, you pondered turning around rather than falling in, before a man burst from the treeline just opposite you. You looked up, seeing him on the embankment, scanning the width. He was scruffy, with a heavy, black, fur lined coat, and shaggy hair. His eyes fell upon you, and then moved on, as if you weren’t even there.

You blinked, rising to your weak feet and immediately collapsing back into the snow. You struggled to catch yourself, looking up only to find a large crack in the middle of the lake. The man gasped, and then pitched forward onto the ice.

“Celine! Celine, I’m coming, just hold on!” He shouted, his boots pounding as he closed the distance. You watched the cracks in the ice spread and spread under his footfalls, near gracefully like a spider forms its web, like a broken mirror.

He looked into the hole in the lake, reached between the teeth of the world and grasped something. You watched in abject horror as he pulled a corpse from the lake, frozen in your spot.

Then, the ground caved in beneath his feet, and he was plunged into the icy water. On instinct, you rocketed forward and cried out as if to help him, and you met the same fate.

The water stung all over as you collapsed into it, a thousand pricking needles all over your body that tensed every muscle without mercy. You drifted down and down, further and further, struggling to find purchase but to no avail.

The grey light from above the surface grew dimmer, darker, farther away. There were muffled voices, as if you were listening to a conversation from the bottom of a pool. Your heartbeat pounded in your ears, slower and slower.

You couldn’t hold your breath any longer.

The moment you sucked in air, an icy rush of cold hit your chest and you felt like dying. The arc of pain was enough to wake you, cresting into what you thought was consciousness, but only cresting… something else entirely.

You found yourself in a warm pool at a mansion you didn’t recognize, staring into the face of a man you didn’t know. He was broad shouldered and dark haired, wearing strange multi-lensed glasses, with a large moustache and yellow button up.

When you blinked, however, for an instant, he seemed much… brighter.

“Who are you?” You asked him, and he only grinned at you.

“Funny. I was about to ask you the same thing.” His arm extended for you to take, and you declined, sinking back into the pool. “Come, now. You’re going to catch your death if you stay there.”

You watched him for a long moment before linking your arm with his, letting him pull you from the water. You shivered as the cold hit you, the tips of your fingers and toes turning a deep blue. The man frowned as he observed the pale of your lips.

“Was the water so cold as to create these effects?” He was already removing his outermost layer for you, throwing it over your shoulders with a flourish and leading you towards the house. “I take it you didn’t come here on purpose, my dear?”

“I don’t know where I am… I thought I was asleep.” You shiver, hugging his jacket around your arms. The man chuckles and leads you a flight of stairs to the deck. You begin to understand how weak your legs are with each passing step.

“Yes, that is the case more often than not.” The man opens a door for you, gently leading you inside. The moment you cross the threshold, you end up in a large bedroom rather than an open den. You blink in shock the moment your stinging feet (coming out of numbness was worse than coming into it, you found) hit the shag carpeting.

You whirl around to find the man had changed appearance, now sporting a pink mustache, and satin shirt of a similar shade. You began to stammer, questioning this before he laid a finger over your lips and shushed you.

“Ah, ah, ah.” He simply shook his head and moved to the dresser, pulling it to and producing a large nightshirt and wool socks. You watched him, more confused than ever.

“But--”

“Shh.” He shushed you again, closing the drawer and approaching the bed. He laid the clothes and turned to the open bathroom door, stepping inside. You hopelessly followed, hovering in the doorway and gaping.

“How--”

“Shhhhh.” He shushed you more insistently, warming a towel with hot water in the tub. When he looked at you, you could have sworn you caught a glint of pink in his eyes. “Now, then.” He said as he rung out the towel, stepping forward and holding it out to you. “Use that on your extremities first. I’ll provide a warm drink to raise your core temperature.”

“I…” You turned away to face the rest of the room, only finding him suddenly sitting on the bed, holding out a steaming mug.

“I’m sorry that took so long, I couldn’t find my cocoa powder.” He simply smiles, as if reality weren’t warping around you. You felt dizzy, like you were dreaming within a dream. You ignored his offer, simply collapsing onto the bed and staring into space.

“What is going on…” You breathed.

“That is the question!” He bounces to your side, staring at your profile with a friendly smile. “Here, take this.” You automatically take the mug from him, the warmth burning your numb fingers. “Oh, and this.” You do the same with the pistol he hands you, not processing what it is.

“Who are you…” You look up at his face, eyebrows knitting together. The man stops mid-breath, looking at you for a moment and frowning.

“You don’t remember me?” He asks, and you shake your head stiffly. His frown only deepens, as well as the notch in his brow, confusion evident on his face. Then, it washes away in a wave of calm. “Of course you don’t… Silly me.” He chuckles, then tilts the mug back with the tip of his finger, pushing it closer to your lips. You automatically sip it. “I’m confusing the timeline again… We haven’t met yet, have we? Present, future… It’s all the same.”

“What are you talking about…?” Your confusion is edged with frustration. He sighs deeply, taking the towel in his hands and leaning down to wrap it around your feet. You’re grateful for the warmth, but you want these icy clothes off of you. As if on cue, he stands and turns away.

“Go ahead and change, I won’t watch you!” He folds his arms behind himself, turning instead to the framed photos on the cherrywood nightstand. “I am a lot of things, but I am not a peeping tom.”

You stand, your knees still a bit wobbly, and slowly pull your freezing shirt over your head. You feel warmer somehow without it than when you wore it, and are now eager to do the same with your panties. After, you slip the satin nightshirt he’d given you over your shoulders, noting how it drapes around your thighs, practically a dress. As you button it up, the man picks up a photo of himself and two other men who look… strikingly similar to him.

“Those were the good ol’ days…” He mumbles to himself, his eyes filled with stars as he scans the frame. You look at him over your shoulder, more curious than anything, before taking the socks to pull onto your cold feet.

“I’m decent.” You say as you sit back on the bed, burrowing your toes under the warm towel and burying your face in the mug. He turns back to you with a friendly smile, placing the photograph back down on the dressertop.

“Wonderful. I’m sure you feel much better now, don’t you?” He’s at your side in an instant, taking a sip of a hot drink himself, produced as if from thin air. “Oh!” He picks up the pistol from the bed, laughing and putting it back in a gun holster you didn’t realize was there. “Silly me, I’m sorry. I realized I never introduced myself. I’m called Warfstache, that is, Wilford.”

“I… see.” His peculiar name raises more questions than answers and you look up at him through your damp lashes. “And I’m Bambi. Thank you for the help, though you haven’t answered a single one of my questions.”

Wilford smiles, and it nearly reads as… sad. He sits aside the mug he held, turning on his heel. You watch him as he approaches the door to his bedroom, waving you after him.

“Where are you going?” You stand, sitting aside your own mug and watching as it disappears without your touch. The bed does the same, crumbling away into nothing, as if it never existed. The space it took up simply… isn’t there. You blink, somehow processing this as normality, and turn back to him.

Everything is blinking away, everything but Wilford, and the door. He opens it for you, holding it like that and looking back at you expectantly.

“I will be here again, soon.” He extends his arm for you to take. “And I may answer your questions then, but for now, it’s time for you to wake up.”

“I was asleep?” Your voice is strangely distant, but you link your arm with his, allowing him to pull you forward. You can’t explain what is beyond the door in simple words, but somehow you know that it is your bedroom.

“Suffice to say.” He chuckles. “I’ll see you soon. Stay warm.”

Wilford gives you a strong push, and you pitch forward through the door and straight into consciousness with a hypnic jerk. A gasp leaves your throat and you twitch, staring up at the brightened ceiling of your daylit room with weary grogginess.

You’re barely aware of your fan blowing, static in the background, and the crunch of your cat eating her breakfast. You roll over onto your side and find a familiar looking mug on your bedside table, wisps of steam curling from the rim.

[thestovetops]

Humor

This is how it starts by rinnya

Steve Rogers and The Winter Soldier meet for the first time in 2014 during the canon divergence events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

It starts like this: this is how they fall in love.

On My Radar by sprinkle_of_cinnamon  

The Winter Soldier first noticed it when he was on the helicarrier.

The blonde’s shoulders were broad, incredibly broad.

They stretched the blue uniform in a wide span, drawing down to a narrow waist. It was a distinctly triangular silhouette. It was entirely improbable. And somehow it was strangely familiar.

The Winter Soldier raised his gun and fired. He didn’t have time for distractions, or Steve Rogers’ shoulders.

So, You’ve Adopted a Fruit by Nejinee

Steve knows that Bucky’s trying his best to stay whole in this new modern world. Then Bucky finds a struggling little scraggly creature and decides immediately to wrap it up in his open heart and take it home. It’s a bit bizarre seeing a former assassin taking to something so small and helpless, but to Steve it all makes sense.

new traditions by bornes

At noon on the twentieth of December, Bucky rolls over on the couch and asks, “When are we gonna do the decorations?”

Steve, half slipped into a food coma due his inability to stop eating once there’s still food on his plate, and Bucky’s inability to calculate raw pasta portion size correctly, says, “Whuh?”

Slide To Answer by relenafanel

“What do I do?” Steve appealed into the phone.  “I’m freaking out.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.  It lasted so long that Steve pulled the receiver away from his ear and frowned at it. Pay phones were old.  Maybe this one wasn’t working despite the obvious dial tone when he picked up.

“Ok,” a stranger’s voice said over the phone.  “First acknowledge the fact that you dialed the wrong number, but be quick about it because my cab is a few blocks away from my own plans and I’m about to drop some truth bombs on you.”

The Art Of Trolling by Odsbodkins

Since everyone thinks they can ask all kinds of intrusive questions about Captain America, it’s Bucky’s duty to troll the hell out of them.

5 times Bucky and Steve were Unnaturally Comfortable Around Each Other, and the 1 Time They Weren’t  by WhatTheBodyGraspsNot

"Steve gently tosses his book to the side and then places his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, kneading thoroughly against the impressively tense muscles. Bucky sighs, his eyes falling shut and mouth dropping open in a mixture of slight pain but mostly relief.

“Oh fuck,” he groans, leaning into the touch.

Clint snickers quietly, trying to busy himself with pouring milk into a bowl of cereal before one of his trademark sarcastic comments can escape him and make the situation more awkward than it’s already quickly becoming.”

OR: Five times Steve and Bucky should have been uncomfortable but weren’t, so Tony and Clint devise a plan to prove that they’re sleeping together (even though they aren’t, they’re just really really oblivious).

Mistake on the Part of Nature by  idiopathicsmile

Steve takes in Bucky’s betrayed look and Sam’s confusion, follows Sam’s gaze to the pile of mangled fruit in the trash can. Sudden comprehension fills his face.

“Oh,” he says. “Bucky found out about bananas.”

In which an American icon is mourned. But probably not the one you’re thinking of.

Unusual Weather by novembersmith

Bucky’s been at the Avengers Tower for three weeks before he finally gives in to Steve’s gentle coaxing and Stark’s cheerful waving of fistfuls of circuits, and lets them scan the arm.

It doesn’t go well.

Steve Rogers at 100: Celebrating Captain America on Film by eleveninches, febricant, hellotailor, M_Leigh, neenya, tigrrmilk

“Heil Hydra,” the enemy agent shouts. 

“Heil this, motherfucker,” says Captain America, shooting off a rocket.

Steve and Bucky find out Hollywood has been busy since they went away. A historical survey, including but not limited to: one set of exploded genitals, a brief interlude in France, Mel Gibson and other masterworks of casting, eight Academy awards, several dinosaurs, and something Tony Stark has ominously dubbed “the masterpiece.” Art included.

ETA: Hello, I fixed this by taking it out of all collections. Apologies to those of you who had marked it in open or public ones, someone put it in a private collection and it disappeared, prompting a floor of despair in my inboxes on multiple platforms. If this has appeared as a new work, that’s just AO3’s default move for revealing ‘unrevealed’ stories. It has not been edited, save for this note. P.S. If you are adding works to collections please make sure the collection is public! – Nat (Febricant)

[funnygirlthatbelle]

Grief and Ashes- an MCU fic

                                SPOILERS FOR INFINITY WAR

Tony and Nebula return to Earth where Tony must face a world without his pride and joy. Post Infinity War angst, mainly featuring Tony, Steve, Shuri, and Nebula.

“All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one’s heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”- Cormac McCarthy

Nebula pressed a pale blue button, putting the ship she had procured on auto-pilot. Much like the ship, she herself had been on auto-pilot for the past several hours. She had been on auto-pilot when she had contacted Kraglin to pick her up on Titan, she had been when she ignored his questions about Quill and the others, she had been when she stole the abandoned ship they had found in order to cover their tracks on their way to Tarin, and she had been that way as she used the raccoon’s tech to set coordinates so they could meet up with him. And she did all of that while dragging along the only other survivor from Titan the human who had somehow earned Thanos’ respect. 

Stark sat in the corner of the ship, clutching his hands to his chest, desperately holding on. He was almost completely silent, occasionally whispering the name of the child he had brought with him or a quiet ‘why.’

He had gone into this state of shock minutes after everyone around them had crumbled into dust. She could not help but grow frustrated with his uselessness. After all the years she had served Thanos, she still hadn’t earned his respect. But this man, supposedly one of Earth’s mightiest heroes who could not even contain his grief, had gotten the respect she had so desperately fought for? Yet there was something about this man, with his complete shutdown, that she oddly respected. In her line of work, emotion was stomped out of you as soon as possible. Emotion made you vulnerable, and vulnerability led to mistakes. But to see this man so completely overcome with emotion, it reminded her of the scared little girl she had once been. 

“We will be arriving on Tarin in six hours,” she informed the two men onboard. Kraglin grunted in appreciation as the man behind them clung even tighter to what was in his hands.

“We should prob’ly try an’ rest up before we get there,” Kraglin suggested. She nodded tightly.

“That would be wise.”

                                                    ***

Lightyears away in Wakanda, the few remaining Avengers sat in Shuri’s lab, drinking tea as they lamely discussed strategy. 

“We don’t know where he is or how to beat him; we’re stuck,” Bruce said helplessly. 

Suddenly, a phone began to ring. Or, at least, what sounded like a phone. The device Rocket the Raccoon pulled out looked like no phone they’d ever seen. 

“Hello? Nebula? How’d you get this- alright. Where’d you find- were you with- okay. I’ll tell them.”

“Well?” asked Steve Rogers, sitting in the corner.

“One of my friends is coming with one of your friends.”

                                                   ***

The whole crew of Avengers, Wakandan soldiers, and Rocket went out to meet the ship as it landed. The first to step out was a strange looking man with a metallic red mohawk.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly.

“Have you heard from Quill and the others?” Rocket asked quietly. He shook his head.

Next was a blue woman who looked more mechanical than organic.

“Hey, Nebula,” Rocket greeted half-heartedly. 

Then the third and most shocking member of their party unboarded.

“Tony?” Bruce whispered. 

Steve stepped forward and clasped his former friend’s shoulder. 

“Are you alright?” he asked quietly, examining the dark circles under the genius’ eyes. 

“Well, I got a moon thrown at me,” he offered lamely. 

“An entire moon?” Shuri gasped, her eyes alight with excitement for the first time since the battle.

“Nope, not happening. We are not bringing kids into this,” Tony all but shouted, a trembling hand pointing at the princess.

“Hello, pot,” Rhodey called out, “How old is Spider-man?”

“What happened to him? I haven’t seen him since New York,” Bruce commented. 

“Wait, we were fighting a kid?”

Tony’s slight trembling turned into full-on shaking. His eyes, which already had had a sheen to them now threatening to overflow. One hand still desperately formed a fist clutching at his chest. The knees of the genius billionaire began to buckle underneath him.

“Oh my god,” Steve whispered, “Tony.”

No sooner had his name been spoken than Tony passed out in Steve’s arms.

                                                     ***

Tony was fast asleep in bed, his arm wrapped around Pepper. Suddenly, he heard the sound of tiny footsteps heading towards their bedroom.

“Daddy! Daddy!” a tiny voice squealed. 

He opened his eyes to see a baby girl running towards him. As she jumped into his arms, he felt all his tension melt away. As he hugged his little girl, he heard another set of feet running towards them.

“Morgan, I told you to let him sleep! Sorry, Dad.”

Tony looked up from Morgan’s embrace to see Peter standing in the doorway. Smiling, Tony gestured to the bed. 

“Room for one more.”

Peter, with a small dorky smile on his face, also jumped on the bed, finally waking up Pepper.

“How’d a guy like me get such a great family?” he wondered aloud, squeezing Pepper’s hand as he did so. But as he held it, he felt her slowly slipping into nothingness. To his horror, where Pepper had been now only had a pile of ash on it. He turned back to see that his lap, which had previously held his little girl, now also had a pile of ash.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good.”

He barely had enough time to turn before seeing his boy crumple at his feet. 

“Why didn’t you save me?” Peter whispered before becoming nothing more than dust. 

                                                   ***

“Tony! Tony,” he heard an all-too familiar voice whispering to him, dragging him out of his nightmare. 

“Steve?” he muttered as he opened his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s me, Tony.”

Finally, he had the wherewithal to look around and try to figure out where he was.

“We’re in the palace in Wakanda,” Steve began to explain, but Tony didn’t care. He had noticed that his palm was upturned and empty. 

“Pete,” he whispered, “Oh my god.”

“Sh, sh, sh,” Steve reassured him gently, placing a hand on his chest, “You’re okay.”

“No, I’m not. I’m not fucking okay. I lost my-”

“You didn’t lose him, Tony. After you passed out, we took the ashes.”

Tony stared at him in utter shock. Steve sighed and, from under his blue shirt pulled out a necklace Tony had never seen before. The chain was vibranium and the pendant was a red star made out of stone.

“Sargent Barnes-”

“Into ashes, like your kid. T’Challa’s sister Shuri has been making them out of the... for us.”

Tony nodded, his throat tight.

“So, who all-”

“Bucky,” Steve interrupted, “And Sam. Wanda and Vision, too. T’Challa as well; that’s-”

“Captain Rogers!”

It was the young girl from before. 

“Tony, this is Princess Shuri.”

“Your Highness,” Tony said, sitting up as he did so.

“Mr. Stark,” she said with a nod, “I made this for you.”

She handed him a necklace with a tiny black pendant shaped like a spider. Tony fought back tears as he stared down at what was left of his pride and joy, the comfort of his age, and hope for the future. 

“Thank you,” he said, looking up at the girl as tears began to pour, “And I’m sorry about your brother.”

“Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Shuri replied, tugging at her own necklace. The center had a black cat’s paw with the chain was gold with what looked like decorative claws. “And I’m sorry about your son. That we cannot save him.”

Tony took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he did so.

“No, but we can damn well avenge him,” he said, standing as he did so.

“Let’s go,” Steve said.

The three of them walked out together, more determined than ever. From the dust of their loved ones, some good would rise.

[fandomsentertainment]

Iqi: Chapter Five

The applause broke off sharply as the curtains opened and I stepped out into the light. I was atop a giant staircase that lead to an extravagant banquet hall with tables of surprised humans. I didn’t know what to do. Well, yes, I did. I had to walk down the stairs, along the wide open space between the tables, climb the stage then give my speech. But I would rather do anything but make that silent journey as the humans gawked at me. I scanned the sea of faces for a familiar face and caught eyes with Hermione. She made a motion with her arms as if telling me to unfurl my wings once again.

I took a deep breath, smiled politely and began my descent, nervously unfurling my wings as I went. Audible gasps went up in the crowd as I completely unfurled them and reached the bottom of the stairs. They began to clap as I walked - slightly faster than President Tapiwa would have liked. I sighed internally, this wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The humans smiled at me when I made eye contact with them and I smiled back at them.

Except for one. She had long dark hair and beautifully smooth brown skin. She had decorated her hair with red ornaments that matched her lips and silky dress. She was beautiful and she frowned at me, her hands reluctantly clapping. I tried smiling at her but her expression didn’t change. The human man standing next to her rolled his eyes at her and gave me an encouraging smile as I made my way to the stage.

I began to close my wings as I climbed the stage. The woman who announced my arrival beamed as I stepped towards her.

“Let’s give another round of applause for Iqi!” she cheered into her mic.

The crowd gave a roar of applause that quickly died down as I shook her and and gave her a small embrace. She then left the podium to me and the crowd stayed standing waiting for me to speak.

I cleared my throat. “Please sit, don’t stay standing on my behalf.”

The crowd quickly took their seats eagerly waiting to see what I would have to say.

“Thank you for welcoming me here on Earth and here in the City of New York. I am called Iqi. I am the child of the Human Maia Floros and the Darite Fi’rtnite. As for the moment I am just visiting Earth in the hopes of finding a stable home to settle down on. The welcome I’ve received here makes me hopeful that my search may have ended. I look forward to living among you and learning more about this strange planet my mother called home. Thank You.”

The crowd cheered and clapped for me despite how short the speech was. I was beginning to think Hermione was right when she said they would love me simply for putting on my shoes.

The woman who introduced me came back on stage.

“Thank you Iqi, for being here! We are just as thrilled to have you among us! Now President Tapiwa will…”

The night dragged on like that for about an hour. Different humans of varying importance stood to give small speeches and give me welcome as I sat at my sister’s table between her and Willoughby.

Finally the last speaker climbed the stage. It was the girl in red, watching her now I could see she was rather small in stature compared to the other humans. She stood nearly a full head shorter than most but she had this air of confidence that seemed to gather her respect. She approached the podium and for the first time I saw her smile.

“Good evening everyone! My name is Katherine Ahuja and I’ll keep this short since I know you all want to get to the eating, dancing and hounding poor Iqi with questions,” the audience laughed heartily. “As you all know I am the co-CEO of SOUS a company I know you have many questions about and I promise they will all be answered in the coming months. I suppose I can thank Iqi for providing the well needed distraction my PR people have been praying for.”

Again the crowd laughed, I had to smile at the joke as well. Perhaps this girl didn’t hate me.

“Iqi before I make you the subject of anymore of my jokes I’d like to say welcome to Earth,” she gave a pause as the audience clapped for him once again.  “You are a symbol of humanity’s ability to survive, thrive and multiply in any situation,” the crowd roared at that joke, even Hermione cackled next to me.

“We hope you will choose to stay with us when choosing your own home planet. We look forward to seeing your growth, your humanity but most of all you being really really confused about everyday Earth things,” she beamed at him as the audience gave one last roar of applause standing for him as they clapped.

I blushed quietly as they cheered for me excessively. The announcement woman took the stage again.

“Thank you Katherine for an entertaining speech as always,” Katherine stopped halfway to her seat and gave an exaggerated bow which gathered more laughter. “Now let’s eat!”

The food served as delicious. I enjoyed tasting the different Earth flavors. Hermione and Willoughby managed to sneak me food from their plates as well, against the wishes of the President and Captain Ki’rnne who had elected to stay behind to let me “enjoy” this moment. There were two other people at our table. Roger Jackson who was the CEO of the largest producers of rocket fuel in this country and his wife Mary-Ann Jackson who was very pregnant with their third child.

They were interesting enough but I found it difficult to keep up with the conversation. Hermione, Jasmine and Willoughby were happy to explain things to hme but I didn’t want to be too much of a bother.

When the desserts had finally come out I felt a sudden tug on one of my lower wings which cause me to unfurl them in surprise. You could have a pin drop in that banquet hall, I could feel my face burn. I turned around slowly to see a small human child standing frozen behind me her hand still outstretched. We stared at each other for a beat before I saw tears began to swell in her eyes.

I quickly closed my wings and took her hand in mine, trying to think of what an angel would do in this situation.

I smiled softly at her. “Don’t be afraid. I’m sorry I frightened you.”

She sniffled slightly and looked up at my face. I put my hand on her head and patted her softly. I think humans like stuff like that? She sniffled again but she was visibly more calm. She reached up to touch my ear and I leaned down to give her better access. She smiled at me and touched my nose and her own. I realized she was comparing her different features to mine and smiled back at her.

She pulled back and looked at my wings again. “Can I have one of your feathers?”

I was surprised. I was under the impression that very young humans could only speak gibberish and a few proper words. I was also surprised at the request. Why on Earth would a young human want a piece of my body?!

“Yes,” I found myself saying. I opened one of my wings again and fingered for an old feather, one that was due to fall out. I got a good grip on it a plucked it with a wince. I handed it to the girl and she stared at it with awe. She looked back at me.

“Did it hurt?” She asked.

“Only a little, it’s like pulling out hair,” I explained.

She contemplated that for a bit turning the feather around in her hand. One a moment I thought she might give it back, but what use did I have for it now? Finally she reached into her thick coily dark hair and yanked out one of her own strands. She handed it to me with a smile. I took the little piece of her strange hair and felt an emotion surge up in me that I could not place.

“Thank you,” I said quietly holding the hair.

She nodded now that our little exchange was over and wandered back to wherever she came from. I sat up straight examining the little hair she gave me. Did she give it to me because she saw it as equal in value? Or did she do as an apology for the little pain I felt when I plucked my own feather?

“Iqi?” I heard Jasmine say softly.

I looked up at her and abruptly realized that every eye was on me in that moment. Not just every eye, but every camera as well. I could feel the blush rising in my cheek and I carefully placed the hair in my chest pocket.

“Alright shows over, go back to your overpriced desserts everybody,” Hermione said.

Surprisingly they listened, but I saw the way they looked at me beforehand. They approved of me, not just me the angelic looking son of hero Maia Floros but me as an individual. Me as a human.

[ambiguouslyliterate-blog]

Respawn Point Ch. 4: Kill it with Fire

“I think that’s everything...” I sighed, looking at the pair of empty chests and bare floor.

The Desu Skull incident was only the other day, but it was more than enough to convince me to leave. This place was turning out just like Vanillakings. And I knew I’d had to leave here too. Why wait to screw up or get burned alive when I get get a head start, y’know?

I'd decorated the small room with nick-nacks, all of which had made their way into my pockets. Patches of carpet I could buy around town with the little bartering items I had. A dead tree from the desert just outside the server's northwest wall. A record player with no records. I smiled, looking around at my mess. I would say that it was a partially intentional, an "organized" mess, but that almost made it worse. Occasionally as I packed, San’s smile tried to push its way into my mind and Slenda’s patient gaze alongside it, calming me. But behind their soft gazes were the cold stare of a swordswoman, the crazed eyes of a weaboo boxer, a pair of glittering skull stickers, and a pair of flaming orbs, all baring down on me. Shaking my head, I punched the button next to the door. The iron swung automatically in front of me and I strode forward, nearly crashing into the figure lingering in the doorway.

“Hello Cyrus.” Teeth glinted from the figure. The lights in the hallway were dark, like the power had gone out, but I failed to notice at that moment. The figure stepped closer. I stumbled back, bumping into the foot of my bed. “H- Hi Roxxie,” I stammered, placing a hand on the end the bed to look natural—my hand slipping--“What’s up?”

Her eyes traced the room, taking note of the empty chest by my bed and the expression on my face. It felt like being caught in the eyes of a jungle cat, her claws digging into the ground, teeth bared. Ready to pounce. I started sweating.

“I’m going to cut to the chase, since it looks like you’re heading somewhere,” Roxxie sighed, leaning against the doorway. Her eyes were cold like ash, her voice heavy. She offered me her hand, which I couldn’t help but stare at. “This server is a mess. Always has been, there’s no point in denying that. But I was thinking that we could potentially start it over. Hit the reset button, y’know?”

The tips of the hair on Roxxie’s ponytail burned like the ends of cigarettes, ashes gently falling from the tips of the charred lengths. It burned like that when she was thinking deeply sometimes, or when she was irritated. Sometimes I thought it was a side-effect of her powers, but now I couldn’t help but think she was using it to intimidate me. The conversation she was making now felt like an echo of the past few days. Whether I ran into the others or not, I could always count on Roxxie tracking me down, asking me how I felt. What I’d do to change Weebtown. It was strange before, but never this eerie. Whatever she was planning on doing, it was close. Why can’t I ever meet anyone normal, I thought, With a normal agenda, like killing mobs or finding treasure? Why deranged griefers obsessed with pranks and corrupted officials with ambiguous “big plans?”

“So,” She smiled at me, perching a hand on her hip, “What d’ya say? I mean, you must be getting pretty tired of all the weeb jokes at this point, right?”

As much as I wanted to go with her, I felt like it wasn’t my decision to make. The weebs here were a little wild, sure. I thought a lot of them were nuts, but then again, I didn’t feel like it was my place to decide whether that should change. If being nuts works for them, it works. I could barely make my mind up for myself half the time and I wasn’t about to start making decisions like this for others.

“Nah.” I breathed, my teeth clenched as I spoke, “I just don’t think I’m your guy.”

The operator tried to force a smile as she pushed up away from the wall, the fire in her eyes sparkling. “That’s fine, no worries.” She moved her foot away from the iron door she’d been propping open, the heavy steel swiveling closed behind her. I shot her a concerned look, wondering if she was really just leaving, but she just popped off a pair finger guns, her fingertips smoking, “Take care of yourself alright, streets are dangerous.”

Her face disappeared behind the pane of iron, the small rectangle of light closing, an anxious smile left smeared on my face. For a second I forgot what I was doing, that I intended on being gone by now. I figured it would be fine though. Roxxie was certainly up to something, but it was probably fine right? I’d leave the spawn town, descend the long stairs to the ring of high schools and be long bone before she does anything. A tremendous crashing sound shook the air around me, and the building. Roxxie was angery, and it was my time to leave. With shaking legs, I hit the button next to the door and took a long step forward, my arms swinging… Only to meet a street filled with flames.

The hallway of the building was gone, the open street and the sides of neighboring buildings filling my vision. Fire lapped against and spilt from the insides of a giant wool creeper in the center of town, spreading across the wires and paper lanterns that intersected the spawn town’s buildings and leaping to the other buildings in the square. Homes, shops, benches, and even some of the weebs were ablaze as the world spun in a wild, hot panic. The sides of the opening were molten, still burning wildly as if a burning drill had just bore through the wall. Large masses of magma thrashed through the streets, like the claws of some flaming beast, the streams of molten rock smashing the foundations of buildings like they were blocks of sand. It was like a demon tearing through the server; its cry was the roar of the fire and the screams of weaboos and its claws the streams of molten amber that tore through everything in sight. My body shook, my head a mess of fear, frustration, and heat.

The gatekeeper Zolo burst through the side of a nearby building, bricks blown in every direction as she flew through the air, smoke trailing behind her. Before I could question it, I saw the belt-covered gatekeeper Jortaro step out from the crater left in the building, his boxing glove smoking. He looked forward with a hungry grin, launching from the ruins of the structure less like a human and more like a rocket, flying towards the battered swordsman. I fell back into the door to my home, head banging against the warm steel. “What.. In the Nether--!”

“You think you’re better than me?!” Roxxie shouted from the rooftops above. I looked up to see her standing on top of the creeper statue in the middle of town, the blaze surrounding her like a burning frame. She brought a hand up, nearly white from heat, and pointed her palm in my direction. The beast reared its head; the flames tugged by her every movement like they were tied to her fingers with invisible strings. A bile of magma spilt forth from behind a nearby building, like a beast’s maw open and screaming with the roar of the fire, filling my vision as it barreled towards me towards me.

I leapt back onto a nightstand as the magma poured through the street and consumed the entryway to my room, forcing its way in. I scampered back on a pile of books, my back slamming against the back wall. Before I knew it, I was watching my bed sink inot an amber sea. I took time from my escape to stare disapprovingly at the smoking mass where the bed used to be. Back to my old server if I die here, I thought, This day just gets better and better. Though at that point, going back to the old server almost seemed better. If only for a moment. The ground began to rumble and I instinctively dove for the window, smashing it just as the room behind me was ripped in two, the magma like a blade erupting from the ground. I rolled into the alley outside the window, hoping that the side of the building or the building’s shadow between would keep me out of her sight. All I had to do now was find a way out of the alleyway and to the stairs that would take me down from the spawn town. I’d probably get a little lost in the high schools, but at least it was better than burning to death.

As I took my first steps towards the alley’s entrance, I heard Roxxie’s laugh echo through the air like a clap of thunder, magma quickly spilling into the alleyway. Of course! I couldn’t just get away safely. That would be LAME.I swung in the opposite direction of the fiery flood, running towards what I quickly realized was a dead end—the end of the plateau. The middle of the server was like thick raised cylinder, the only way down being the long staircases that connected the spawn town to the ground. Well, the only way without taking fall damage that is. Before me was a wide blackened sky with cherry blossoms at its feet, a drop of hundreds of blocks below, behind me a wall of lava, roaring at my back. I felt the flames licking at my heels and inched forward, mentally preparing myself for the drop below. Was I willing to risk the pain from fall damage to escape the fire? Maybe once I reached ground level, if my legs weren’t too broken, I could run away. I could drill my way through the outside walls and get away from here. Away from all of this. I took a deep breath, the magma ready to make the decision for me.

A sound cut through the air as the building across the alley from mine burst open, the wall blown open by a glowing steel blade. The green-haired swordswoman appeared from the dispersing smoke, offering me her hand and literally pulling me from the fire. More lava began to pour into the alleyway as Zolo pulled me up the stairs of the structure, the fiery mass beginning to chase us.

“Nanishiterunda, baka?!” She cried in her weeb language.

A warm grin filled the space between my cheeks. “Trying my best!” I answered, figuring she was asking how I was. She flashed a weary smile and grabbed my arm, pulling me forward once more. Her face was so much brighter when she looked at me, but still flashed back to her dark, dutiful stare when she ran forward. I could just barely see her eyes behind her long bangs, but I could see the determination in them. The anger. Her dark anger was no longer directed at me, but at the real danger to the server. At the fire, and at the server’s operator. Magma rushed up the staircase below us like water filling a well, my pace quickening to match Zolo’s. We could hear parts of the building crumble beneath as Roxxie’s burning hands swiped through its foundation, our footing uneven and rushed as we reached the top.

The rooftops above the blaze were cracked, smoke pouring up through them and fire clawing at their insides, desperate to reach the surface. Flame clamored around the building below us, stray embers stinging my skin and licks of flame biting my legs. It was like standing on a tree trunk as it burnt below you, except I was looking across an entire forest. In the center of the square, atop the head of the building-sized creeper effigy, the only human shape stood surrounded by pillars of smoke and amber waves. Her silhouette  was hazy, the black fading into the rage that surrounded us. I swallowed hard. Her back was to us, but I wasn’t sure how long that would last. Beyond the square, I could see the high schools surrounding us in a grand circle, all ablaze. Explosions burst through the burning alleys, the screams of the inhabitants scarcely rising above the roar of the fire. Some screamed in weebish tongues and others in english, all scattered and frantic, all trailing into the smoke-filled air. As I tried to get steady, explosions rocked the ground. Sudden bursts of smoke came from adjacent streets and the mass of high schools that encircled the server. I wondered for a moment if San was the source; if everyone but Zolo, Slenda and I were working to destroy this server. I thought of Zolo earlier and how she was fighting against the other guardian, the belted weirdo. Was he on Roxxie’s side? Just how many were working with her? I looked at the swordswoman standing beside me. And just how many has she taken down?

Zolo glared at the dim silhouette in front of us, her eyes burning furious and green. A flourish of yellow flame leapt from Roxxie's ponytail, her hands clapping gleefully as she spoke to herself, "We’re finally going to see Weebtown at its full potential. Rebuilding without all its unnecessary infighting and underage idol worship,” She placed a cobblestone slab on the charred surface of the effigy below her, plopping down onto it like one would a park bench. She let out a long sigh, looking out over the destruction, “…I hope.”

The swordswoman growled under her breath, words crunched between grinding teeth. A click resounded through the air as she unsheathed a sword, then a second click as she pulled another, one after the other until she had at least four, no, five, no—ten swords pointed towards the operator. She had them clenched in the bridges of her fingers, squeezed in the joints of her elbows and knees, and she had at least two held in her teeth. The yellow trails from the operator’s ponytail turned from yellow to a cold blue, her body pivoting on the slab. Her expression was obscured behind the flame, the cerulean streams pouring around her face, only the pure white-hot pupils inside of them visible. She stood up, and I could swear the fires in the streets below rose with her, their roars now deafening. The green-haired weaboo ran towards the operator, bouncing off of each rooftop in the square, bouncing across every concentric ring undaunted as she flipped and spun through the air, her body like a ball of angry shrapnel.

Just as Zolo neared the operator, an explosion shook a building behind Roxxie, a bulky form emerging from the smoke, climbing from the hole in the building with a grunt. It was San, her turquoise blue hair glowing as smoke pulled away from her form. Roxxie turned towards them, away from the approaching Zolo and away from me, the color of her fire changing again to bright auburn. As she ascended, another figure came with her, San’s free arm pulling her up through the crack in the structure. The second figure slammed a book onto the rooftop as they clambered up, their glasses crooked on their face and sweat streaming down around their furious violet eyes. “So glad you could join me.” Roxxie giggled, rising to her feet. Slenda glared at her. The operator stuck out her right arm, pointing backwards towards the nearing Zolo. Before any of us could react, a pillar of fire erupted from Roxxie’s palm, scorching the front of Zolo’s body, then enveloping it, the swordswoman disappearing in the sudden river of fire. Unable to stand, I fell backward on my hands, horrified. I was right, my mind screamed, I’m not ready to do this. She isn’t just some bully like from my old server. She’s a monster.

"Now, I know what you may be thinking, Slenda…” Roxxie laughed, hand on her hip, speaking to the admin. I felt the fire below us grow cooler, the fire on her head changing again to sunlight yellow. Her face had turned away from me, but I could tell by her voice that she was wearing that same smile she always wore. The smile of a predator, “But  This is what I’ve been talking about. It’s just like what we did at Goldenworks, we destroy everything and start over. But we don’t have to run away from it--”

"THAT’S NOT THE POINT!!” Slenda cried back, tears in her eyes. Roxxie recoiled slightly, “The server deserves so much more than this! We can’t just throw away everything they’ve worked for and built here if we don’t know how to rebuild it ourselves. Stooping to griefing doesn’t make us revolutionaries, Roxxie, it just makes us jerks!!!”

Roxxie's white hot grimmace creased burned against the blackened sky, the curls of her flaming maw arcing up around her face, the fire around her arms stirring and growing. Even from behind her I could feel her white hot malice  burning towards San and Slenda as if they’d fed a thousand trees into her fire. “I guess I’m just a troublemaker then…” Roxxie breathed, her sigh broken by creeping laughter. Her flames began to change once more, passing the soft yellow of a campfire and passing the amber of a house fire, passing even the searing blue of her rage, her flames now pure white, “After everything I’ve done, everything I’ve set up, everything I’ve been planning to fix this server, that’S ALL I AM!!”

Slenda’s eyes snapped downwards to her book of usernames, clutching San tightly, “BAN XxFieryQueenRoxx--”

Roxxie spun atop the creeper head, a wave of magma following her arm, buildings smashing in a row as the claws of her invisible beast tore through them, shattering the ground beneath San and Slenda. San managed to grab onto a nearby windowsill, clinging for dear life as burning bricks and stone ricocheted off the building around her. She turned to see Slenda, engulfed in flame, collide with the building next to her, tumbling into the abyss below with the admin’s tome. San reached a hand out, cursing as she grasped at the air, her eyes desperate.

“Just let her fall…” Roxxie smirked, her voice a cold growl as Slenda disappeared in the fire, “Our deaths don’t matter anyway! do they? We all respawn. She’ll just waking back up in her bed soon. And if it burned, she’ll go back to Goldenworks where everything’s normal and terrible. Just how she likes it.”

I felt something stirring in my gut, white electricity surging through me, straightening out my shaking limbs. Smoke was filling my lungs, scraping my throat, but I still yelled as loud as I could, “MAYBE SHE WOULDN’T TRY TO STOP YOU IF YOU WEREN’T BEING SUCH A DICK!”

Roxxie turned to me, her eyes white hot, edges tipped with blue fire, as if an entire forest had been fed to the fire inside her. I didn’t realize at first that I’d even spoken. That I’d snapped at a blaze in human form. I really didn’t bring my survival instinct on this journey. Molten masses broke through the rooftops around us, spiraling into the air. The crests of their flames were like spines, their serpentine bodies dripping magma that seared the buildings below. My foothold shook as more molten forms broke through the buildings next to me, closing in too quickly. Roxxie continued to laugh, "Go home, Cyrus."

My eyes creased, and I saw Bernadette. I saw the others from my home. And I was angry. As she began to shift her weight and the burning maws sped through the air, an explosion shattered the atmosphere, causing her beasts to destabilize. An explosion that struck Roxxie in the back. Roxxie and I turned to see San on the rooftop nearby, blocks of TNT in each of her hands. She lobbed another block of TNT at Roxxie, then another, then another, the creeper girl sending a volley of explosions at the flaming operator. Roxxie quickly whipped magma streams of magma around her, the streams creating a half-cage of flame that blocked any blocks heading her way. She seemed impenetrable. Invincible. But I saw an opportunity. She was completely focused on blocking San’s volleys, and her back was turned to me.

The events that had led up to this moment began to replay in my mind, from being kicked out, to finding San in the forest, to talking with Slenda, to the fire-- everything seemed to be pointing me towards this moment, towards this fight. Spawning Zolo's swords in my hands, I felt for one strange moment that everything had been planned, that my foolish desire to fight against people like Roxxie would actually be paid off, that I would actually be able to help a server, rather than just being some stray element of it. That I would have somewhere I truly belonged. I finally had a chance to protect an entire server from a bully and do it right. And I wasn't going to run now. I couldn’t run now. No disappointing Bernadette. No killing some innocent idiots. Cyrus would be the hero today, and I needed to do was stab her in the back.

My feet stomped across the rooftop, the shaking in my legs beginning to disappear as blood properly rushed to them, my body feeling hot somehow, even when I was surrounded by fire. I pushed off the end of the roof, the building crumbling as my body left it, the next building in my path coming up under my feet as if it was flying up to catch me. Searing air pushed against my body but I pushed forward, my body moving naturally, automatically, running and kicking off of another rooftop, clearing another ring of buildings as I approached the center and approached Roxxie. I saw Zolo in my mind, leaping towards the burning figure, struck down without a second thought.

I started screaming as I ran across the last building. It was just as stupid as it was vital, the intensity of the moment and the intensity of the fire spiraling around and within me as the operator’s white flames filled my vision, her cries reverberating in my mind as the world around us grew silent. The fire on her body died as I burst into her, the world fading from white back into the charred cityscape of crumbling stone. The towers of magma began to topple around us as I and the operator lay in a heap on the creeper’s head. Little was left but its brutal steel frame and every part of me slammed into it at once. Pain throbbed in my limbs and my chest was heavy, my mind fading in and out with my breaths. The oxygen in my lungs felt completely depleted. Maybe I shouldn’t have done so much screaming... I thought for a moment, joking on my breath, incredulous. 

Roxxie began to rise however, a sword still jammed in her back. She spat out some blood onto the rooftop, grunting with a visceral frustration. The hairs on the ends of her ponytail burned like cigarettes, the fire creeping up them, quickening, crawling closer to her head. The fire in her eyes spraying out from the sides of her face like geysers, her head lighting up completely in a mane of pure, unadulterated, blazing rage. A scorching eye locked onto me, sword still lodged in her crooked abdomen.

“You… You too?”

As she raised a hand already covered in a mane of fire, the embers of the air swirling and collecting around it, adding to its fire, we both heard a voice from somewhere. A voice as stoic as it was livid, the growling of a mother bear.

“BAN…” The voice began, the fire on Roxxie’s body growing weak and cold. She spun to see Slenda, covered in ash, a book in her hand.

“Slenda!” San called out, beaming. There were tears in her eyes. Slenda’s admin command continued, her eyes trained on Roxxie, the flames glowing in transparent images on her lenses, “XxFieryQueen--”

“NO!” Roxxie ran for the edge of the rooftop, the flames on her body going out, her voice frailer than before. The monster in her gone as she was chased into a corner. As she was trying to jumped from the top of the creeper’s charred skeleton, a figure leapt up from below, shooting from the charred streets below like a sniper’s shot.

“Omae wa.. Mou shindeiru.” Zolo murmured, her eyes burning with anger, her tunic spattered with blood. She drove three more swords through Roxxie, pinning her in place. Roxxie cried out, broken. Nailed to the rooftop. Realizing all too late that she was trapped, fire sparked on her arms in a futile effort to escape. Slenda pushed her sleeve up against her eyes, failing to dry them, finishing her command, “RoxxiexX--!”

Roxxie was ripped from the air between Zolo’s two swords, her blades and mine tossed as the air burst around us, like we were being sideswiped by a jet, her screams echoing through the air. I coughed on the smoke as it filled my lungs and choked the corners of my vision. The swords… Did they kill her, too? I raised an arm weakly into the air, my sight blurring, dimming as my heartbeat slowed to a crawl. Roxxie had been sent farther than the edge of the server, she’d been sent back to her spawn, back to whatever distant server the admin and operator had come from. I barely managed to let out a weak, “Wooooo!” my voice cracking as my head fell, my lungs closed and my consciousness gone as I made contact with the cold, charred steel.

Time stirred as light flashed in front of my eyes, the world flickering back to me. There was a mass of blue and green moving in front of my eyes between front of the sun’s light. Sounds from around me began to come into focus, San’s concerned voice echoing in my ears. As my vision cleared, I began to recognize her features and her smile. I felt her pull me close to her chest. My mind was racing, filled with sentences, questions, images. I remembered San fighting on the rooftop. And I remembered fighting with her. Fighting with Slenda.

My words came out slowly, my body still waking up, “The admin… Is she okay?”

“I’m here...” Slenda grunted, her form pushing out from behind San, her shadow towering above us. She looked around us, body pivoting as her shoulders fell, “I’m here.”

My eyes rummaged the smoking ruins around us, my heart sinking with the admin’s. Only the frames of some buildings were left, but that couldn’t be said for all of them. Slenda glared with hollow eyes, both irritated and broken, looking as if she was searching for something.  Her body slumped, leaning into San. So much had been happening, it was hard to keep my head straight. But now that I knew we’d taken down the ringleader, there was a strange twinge of pride in me. And I didn’t even get kicked out of a server for it.

"HEY YOU!!"

A voice broke from the ashy cloud that seemed to spread from every block of charred ground around us, a weeb striding out. He was barking accusations at San, Slenda and I, and was followed by others. Right on cue…

"Are you gonna do anything about this?!" A weeb screamed, pointing at Slenda. She shrunk behind San, “Your operator caused this, didn’t she?!”

Another shook his fist from the back of the mob. “We’ll have to rebuild almost two-hundred high schools, two-HUNDRED!”

“I bet you don’t even like anime!” One barked, stomping towards us.

“And what if I don’t?!” Slenda shouted back, a fist immediately meeting with her face, breaking her glasses and sending her falling into San’s arms. The creeper girl’s eyes surged with bright blue lightning.

San pulled a sword as Slenda reached for the book in her back pocket, but the two of them cringed with pain, both unsteady. The fires of the town had not gone out, but rather moved into the eyes of the weebs as they encircled us. Fires that wouldn’t go out until we were killed. And killed again. And again. But yells began to split the crowd, and soon we saw heads further away from us duck under the wall of bodies. Weebs yelped as they were thrown to the side, blood spilling upwards as players were forced aside. A head of green hair in a messy ponytail pushed out from the wall of bodies, her swords and eyes shining. Zolo put herself between us and the other weebs. She started screaming at the crowd, her voice pleading, foreign words spilling from her mouth like a river, tears pricking her eyes.

Slenda rose to her feet, taking San by the arm. She looked at the both of us with concern in her eyes, "Zolo's trying her best to defend us, but it's only gonna buy us time.” Zolo looked back over her shoulder, the burning eyes of the mob digging into her, and into us. Slenda gave an exasperated sigh, clutching her admin book tightly in her hand.  “Most weebs only pretend to know Japanese… There are only about 3 people in this mob who know what she's saying."

Slenda leaned towards Zolo, placing a hand on her shoulder and whispering into her ear. The weeb turned to us, face strained in confusion, but Slenda slipped away before she could respond, leaving the book of usernames at her feet. Slenda quickly broke into a sprint, yelling for us to follow her as the mob picked up speed. The three of us ran towards the edge of the server, escaping through a hole in the outer wall left by the griefers’ assaults. The mob screaming behind us split around Zolo like a river parting around a stone, the swordswoman struggling to hold them back, even with her sword.

We soon cleared the forest, but kept running, running onwards until we ended up into a jungle, then crossed over into the sandy shores of a desert. We kept running until the shouting of the crowd faded into the trees behind us and we were almost sure we’d lost them. My body had already been on the verge of exhaustion when we left, so at the first sign of relief, my legs crumpled, my body splashing in the sand.

“So what,” I gasped, “Are we supposed to do now?”

Slenda fell to her knees in the dirt beside me, her hands sliding down her head and pulling on her face. San rested a hand on her shoulder, a worried look in her eyes. She didn’t seem nearly as crushed by what had happened, her legs straight and her arm moving softly, caressing the admin. But her face still twinged with a certain sadness and her eyes were moist. It wasn’t the world crashing down around her, but the loss Slenda had gone through, the broken expression on her face, that’s what was getting to her.

“You can do whatever you want… Roxxie’s a jerk, and you’ve seen the damage you can do. I need to… I don’t even know, I need to find her. I need to talk to her. Something.”

San blinked, looking as if she was trying to search for something to say, but couldn’t. She didn’t seem to know Roxxie as well as Slenda did. Pain throbbed in my sides, but I pushed myself from the sand, offering Slenda my hand.

“Well, whatever it is you’re end up doing…I’ll go with you.”

[lillaxtrigger]

Young Hope: Chapter 33

A soft and cooling gale blows down a steep and rocky solid, traveling down through a lush valley of elm sitting along the very base of a giant mountain; the gentle breeze breaking off whatever leaves remain loosely attached to the twigs to ride the descending mountain winds. Right underneath these very twigs do the pair of angels causally stroll along the woodland grounds, the blue haired boy among them taking in a nice refresh breath of the mountain breeze that bellows through. “Ahh...Nothing like a little nature hike through the woods to loosen up and mellow out, all with comforting nature sprawling all around. The gentle cool breeze brushing past, the last of the birds echoing their song as they prepare to take off to the south, the actually bearable temperatures that don’t make you feel like you’re in a humid hell hole; and best of all, not a single swarm of bugs itching to pierce through any part of my skin. Heck of a better change of scenery from the thick southern tropics. Not that I’m hating this nice nature hike here, Mall; but why’d you take me all the way over to the base of a mountain? If you’re wanting climb to the top of the world, I know some that are way taller than this one.” “Dear lad, can you think back to when I told you of how the Kybr hold countless foe’s in this universe?” “Uh, yep. Ain’t like we all don’t make a few enemies in our lives. We could’ve just flown out here in just several hours; but what is about the Kybr that those guys want us so dead that we gotta hide?”

A few moments of silence pass between the two as Mall remains silent, left to ponder upon the young angels curious question. Breaking this pause does Mall finally answer him with: “Those very foe’s we’re once determined to pick through the entire universe and sentence my kin to imprisonment within an outside dimension all out of a single primal drive: fear.” “Fear?” “A deep and palpable fright over the power we could hold over the very dominion that they shared with us. A fright so desperate that they were willing to hunt down and cast away human’s who have ascended thanks to our kinds blessing; a blessing that you have clearly been bestowed; my boy.” “Whoa, really! You know what this blessing is?” “Hmm. Those humans that have proven themselves to the Kybr were gifted with their lineages very souls the path to their greatest potential; to awaken the blessing we have bestowed upon the swathes of humanity and unlock the potential to change and control an aspect of this very reality.”

“So does that mean that all humans could have powers like mine?” “I imagine with the countless eon’s that have passed, the Kybr’s very blessing lingers deep within the very soul of humanity itself by now; left unnoticed and forgotten to the march of time. Of course, this is something that we have naturally prepared for. And in our eager preparations for this, my kind have constructed several cities and utopia’s designed to house young blooming human gifted with our blessing. Left to grow and discover what piece of this vast universe they held control over. And though a good number of them were occupied by those very humans, those that had made it their home were swiftly flushed out and dumped within my kin’s dimensional prison like the rest. However, their imprisonment came before all of them could be even occupied. A couple of these cities remain untouched; preserved in a snapshot of time for countless millennia and away from the universe’s prying eyes or hands. But today is the very day that one of them shall be unlocked and opened; all in pursuit of what we had searched for; one of the search nods that I had snatched away and hid within this very city. And since nothing but Kybr were allowed within this metropolis; it remained one of the perfect places to hide it.” “So why’d we bring the Halo here if you knew where it was?” “Well, would you wish to trek through the tropic’s again to go back and retrieve it?” Just hearing this very questions leaves the boy’s face stiff and silent; Tore grasping the places where his arm had been bitten. A jesting chuckle escapes from the cosmic angel’s lips, taking his silence with: “I think not then.”

Strolling right out from the elm forest, the angelic duo begin to climb up from the very base of the mountain; the grassy grounds beneath their feet slowly replaced by the rough and course rocks decorating the ascending sides. Gazing up towards the peak of the mountain, the blue boy sees nothing out of the ordinary; the solid stone inclines slowly covering with more pure white snow the higher to the peak it ascends. “Ain’t really seeing any buildings here. You sure that this is the right place?” he questions. “Certainly.” Mall answers as he leads him right to the very entrance of a dark cavern no far from the base. “Simply just through this tunnel.” “I...Oh! Now I get it. You put the city inside the mountain to keep people from finding it.” “Precisely, my young man.” As soon as the two of them set foot within the rocky cavern, Mall suddenly takes off down towards its depths; his wings glistening among the advancing darkness. Tore then rockets on after his spacial partner, his white wings illuminating the void as he catches right up to him. “Kinda wish we could glide somewhere that wasn’t so tight and rough.” he then complains. “Fear not, young ward, for soon you shall fly freely through the air like the open sky itself. We have constructed these cities to be as open and wide so that the young human’s blessed with our gift freely practice their skill and craft. You shall soar as freely as the wind its-”

Before the cosmic man could finish stating this to the young angel tailing him, Mall looks on ahead and stops dead in the air; Tore having little time to stop himself before unintentionally tackling straight into the guys backside and right onto the rocky ground. Letting out a little pained groan, Tore rises right off the cosmic angel and shakes off the little crash; asking him: “Why we stop for? We taking a piss break?” “This can’t be...” “Huh?” Upon hearing his space bound mentor utter this disbelieving statement, Tore looks back to witness Mall rocket further down towards a light at the end of the tunnel; a pair of what seemed to be open doors set along the sides of the exit. “Mall!” he exclaims, taking off after the worried angel and piercing right through the illuminating end of the rocky tunnel. After dashing right through the end of the passage, Tore stops to cover his eyes as they adjust to the heavenly glow shinning before him; slowly lowering his arms as he squints out to the site that remains spread out before him.

The blue angel’s eyes suddenly widen when beholding dozens, if not hundreds of buildings and structures that all float through out the vast and hollow inside of the mountain; their bronze, silver, and gold surfaces all left twisted and warped into unimaginable and unique shapes. All of them sat hovering above dozens of rainbow colored crystals that glisten in the sunlight that shines through the rock above; glistening a myriad of lights and colors. Decorating the air between these buildings be dozens of distorted art pieces and sculpture reminiscence of abstract artistry; warped and curving outwards to strange shapes. Sprouting from the crystal be miles of long and warped wood vines that sprawl out in almost every direction imaginable; baring plump fuchsia fruit baring black strips that end right at the base. Above all of it could he see the cloudless blue sky through the transparent ceiling; all with countless animals, bugs, even a couple of travels could be see waltzing right over with next to no idea of the shining utopia below them. Wow, all this look so shiny and strange. All the twisted buildings, glistening against the colorful rocky underneath. And everything above; the very sky so clear to gaze up to. What sort of city did the Kybr try and build for the human’s back then?

Breaking his amazed gaze away from the near overwhelming site, the blue angel discovers is cosmic escort refusing to take in the entire site with him; simply just weaving right past all of the art, sculptures, branches, and buildings to instead rapid ascend towards the very top of the hovering utopia at breakneck speeds. Jeez, he doesn’t seem like he’s in much of a mood to take in the scenery. Then again, he did look pretty panicked when coming to the way in. He didn’t even welcome his new guest to the untouched city or anything. Wonder what got him so high strung?

Concerned with the cosmic angels rash ascent up towards the top of this shimmering utopia, the blue boy rockets right up after Mall; rising up towards a whole gallery of floating art pieces up ahead. A circular figure with dozens of points stretching out form the middle, a twisted pillar decorated with stripes of pure light, a frozen spurt of silver with a bronze angel standing atop, the warped wood stretching out from between the colorful crystals, every one of them he swerves right by without so much as a passing glance; keeping his eyes glued straight up to his retreating mentor. Ascending right beside one of these towering tree’s, the blue angel brushes the palm of his hand against the curving chocolate brown surface; the smooth, but hard bark of the wood feeling a tad familiar to him. Feels a lot like birch, but the bark seems way too darkened; and that isn’t even going into the fruit that seems to be growing off of it. Doesn’t look like any sort of other fruit out there. Guess that the Kybr grew these fruit personally for the humans they blessed to eat. As tempting as it is to take a juicy bite out of one, there’s hardly any time for one. Gotta catch up to Mall and see what’s got him so worked up.

With the floating buildings around them turning from gold to silver, soon enough does the young angel start to catch up to the cosmic Kybr; Tore gliding over to his side and requesting that: “Mall, slow down! What’s got you so wound up?” “The gate...It was opened.” “What?” “The gates weren’t meant to be left wide open like that. The Kybr and the humans we had blessed are the only beings in this entire universe that can unlock their seals. And were the only two that know of this city’s existence.” “Well, maybe there are others, you never know.” “Tore, if there were others, I would know. Something else barged its way into this sacred untouched utopia and had stained it with their hands.” he claims with trembling anger, suddenly speeding further upwards towards the very top of the city. As Tore continues to pursue the racing cosmic angel, the afternoon sun shines its ray’s right through the translucent roof of the city and reflect off the surrounding floating structures; their hue turning from silver to bronze as the boy continues to rise.

Eventually does the blue angel follow his spacial comrade all the way up to the theoretical crown of the shimmering city, seeing Mall finally stop right in front of the small bronze building perched at the very top; the cosmic angel zips through the hole set through the front, with Tore following right in after him. As the blue boys eyes start to adjust to the mild bronze light reflecting within the abode, he starts to make out spots of bright blue littering the smooth curving walls. Fluttering up through the first room, the blue angel discovers a piece of furniture standing atop one of the bronze platforms; a fancy empty bookshelf holding mahogany carved dragons ascending along the sides. Damn, that bookshelf be looking real good. Wonder why they have something like this here? While pondering this do his eyes trail up to the very top of the bronze room, where he witnesses his spacial mentor gliding up through an open hole in the ceiling without so much as saying a single word. The blue angel ascends right after the speechless Kybr through a thin darkened bronze tunnel, the glow of his wings lighting through the darkness on his way up. The young angel finds the starry glow of his mentor’s wings glistening through the hole atop the vertical hallway, Tore zipping past the other ports decorating the side and gliding straight upwards.

Soaring right through the hole, Tore rises up into a much smaller room then that he entered from below; more of those blue panels from there littering the curving bronze walls and flat platforms. Gazing throughout the chamber does the blue angel discover Mall staring down to what seemed like a tiny luxury carved bed, all with more dragons and Chinese symbols decorating the frame and sheets. Touching this elegantly carved bed with just the tip of his finger, it swiftly dissolves before their very eyes, every bit of it retreating into the blue panel that lied underneath. “Uh, are you...” Tore reaches out to him with. “This was meant to be her home. A home she could raise her own family in.” he hears the spacial angel growl out.

“Mall?” he meekly calls out. The cosmic angel begins to calm himself upon hearing his blue pupil call, letting relaxed breath from his lungs as he quells his shaking fury; he then turns back towards the boy and apologizes with: “I-I’m terribly sorry you had to see my rash behavior there, Tore. With the seal closing off this glimmering utopia from the rest of the world broken, any living creature could just walk right in and prowl about like it they owned the place; caring little of what it meant to those who had left it locked tight.” Gazing around the small bronze chamber, Mall’s fist start to tremble as he remarks with a furious contempt: “And of all the places they could have meddled in.” Taking a quick look around the chamber himself, the blue angel is left to question his mentor: “Was this your home?” “It was meant to be for my daughter.” “I-You-uh-Whoa! Wait, you have a daughter!?” “Had...A human woman who I had bestowed a part of my own self with had given birth to a baby girl. The very moment that she had come into the world, a powerful and palpable emotion surged throughout the depths of my very soul; one that I had never felt in this extraordinarily long lifetime of mine. That feeling magnified 10 fold watching her grow up and passing the trials. The countless possibilities started racing through my very mind, wondering what roads she could possibly take in her life; such thoughts piercing through my subconscious overwhelmed me to flowing tears.” The cosmic Kybr slow turns back towards the blue panel that the small dragon decorated bed once stood, where he reaches a single finger out to the glowing sky blue as he continues with: “I had personally foreseen the construction of the very abode that we hover in, all equip with to help live out her life and raise her own family if the time ever come.” Gently tapping the blue panel does it suddenly glow alight, the luminescence starting to take shape before the two angels very eyes; the light starts to slowly fade to reveal a freshly formed baby crib of bronze left with a soft and fluffy pillow. “All if it perched high above this utopia, with her own personal view of the very stars above.” Gently touching the freshly made crib once again does it suddenly shatter into pieces, the shards of light returning to the bright blue panel whence it came.

“And before I knew it, she was taken away from me; stolen from this very reality like the rest of them. All of those utterly overwhelming emotions that had blossomed within the depths of my soul now left hollow and empty. Those few precious years that I had watched her grow now remain nothing more than a torturous memory that haunt the countless millennia within my existence. And yet despite it all, I had failed to grasp what I felt really was. Was it something that had laid dormant within me all this time, or was it something inflicted by her very presence? I just never knew what to call it.” “Love?” “What?” the spacial angel utters as he glances back towards his blue protege. “That feeling. It was love. You loved your daughter. That’s why it hurt so much.” “Hmm. I suppose that would be the closest to what I felt.” he responds with a soft grin and a tear in his eye.

“How long has it been since all that even happened?” Tore curiously questions. “Oh, I could never recollect how much time has passed; all the countless eon’s just blur together for me. All I can really remember from it all that my daughter was around...15...16 years I wanna say. Close to your age really.” A hint of doubt waves through the blue angel’s eyes, his eyes wandering away from the man as he attempt to claim how: “Mall, I don’t know if your daughter might be-” “But, we didn’t travel all this way for nothing, did we? No, we’ve come to correct this horrible atrocity and bring our fellow kin back to our side once more. I swear to you, Tore; with them back to this reality, nothing in the universe will ever separate us again. Nothing...” After promising this much to the blue boy, the cosmic angel starts to flutter down through the port that he had glided in from; a slight worry starting to form in the back of Tore’s head as he follows the man back down.

The two angels descend down through the dark vertical tunnel down and return to the front room of the bronze abode, quickly discovering one of the blue panels left on one of the flat perches broken into tiny shards. Landing down upon the perch to investigate, the blue angel picks one of these shards right off the bronze floor, turning to every side of the broken piece of bright blue and questioning: “What do you think this could’ve been?” “It could’ve been practically anything anyone wanted it to be.” “Uh, xcuse me?” Tore then utters out, glancing over to his cosmic mentor. Picking up one of the broken pieces himself, Mall explains to the boy how: “This was once part of a Kybr constructed panel that we had made from a distant morph matter; a material that could reconstruct and reshape itself into whatever creature touching it thinks it to be. A chair, a bed, a set of sharp blades, an arcade cabinet, whatever sort of thing whoever laid a hand on it thought of, no matter the depth or detail involved. That very bookshelf over there even, with how unique and complex the carvings are can be creates in mere seconds.” Glancing back to the broken panel from the shelf, he continues to claim how: “This one however seems to have been attempted to be uprooted from the floor and was left shattered to pieces; perhaps by the very same ruffians that had barged their way into this sacred city.”

Tore then leaps away from the broken mess and lands right next to the shelf adjacent to them, slapping the palm of his hand right on the side of the dragon carved bookcase. Before the boy’s very eyes is the Asian piece of furniture enveloped in a bright sky blue light, the angel backing away as its very form twists and writhes about; Soon does the light begin to reform itself into what the young boy had wished it to be and starts to curve outwards. The light that had wrapped around the piece at last dissolves away and reveals what had been changed underneath; a gleeful smile stretching across his cheeks as he beholds an odd chair made from technicolor bricks and a leather cushion in the middle. His smile still wide, Tore starts to repeatedly tap his finger on the piece of furniture and watches it transform into whatever he pops in his mind. A fridge in the shape of a huge jeep, the front and passenger doors being the freezer and fridge respectively, a dinning table with legs carved in the shape of dolphin flippers, a lamp with the cover of a smiling face, and then then right into a decorative statue of Marlin Brando wearing a telephone pole as a costume. “Tore!” he then hears the cosmic angel suddenly exclaim. “Uh, yeah...” “Come along, we still have business matters to take care of.” “Right, sorry.” Jumping right down to the bottom of the chamber, Tore and Mall glide right out from the hole that they had entered the abode from; neither of them seeing the broken panel above let out sparks of a sinister lime green.

Out from the shinning bronze abode, the two Kybr descend down around the rest of the small twisted and pointed shaped homes; Tore taking the moment of peace between them to ask: “So, you know exactly where the nod we’re looking for is?” “Indeed I do, but I have some business to attend on the way down before we can get it. The very fact that this hidden utopia has been discovered still brings me worry. I’m hoping to find out what sort of trespassers dare soil the grounds of this sacred city.” “So how you gonna go bout finding that out?” “We shall study the library that have been built within this utopia.” “How are some books gonna help us figure out who broke in here?” “Oh ho ho, the archive we have crafted here pales in comparison to the one’s that humanity have built for themselves. While theirs as humble and quaint as they are, their tomes of paper and leather, ours constantly gathers information from every corner of this very planet.” “So it’s like the internet.” the blue boy compares. “Excuse me?” “That’s pretty much how our internet works. People around the world record new things and post it online for all the world to take a look at. It’s how I found out how most non human mammals eat their baby’s afterbirth...wonder what that must taste like?” “Yes...Well our archives work differently than that, all with a powerful light that draws in knowledge from every corner of the globe; spoken or otherwise. Certainly more advance than what human’s have made for themselves. All that and with the plus side of not being overwhelmingly brimming with smut...Just a tad less of it really.”

Moving past all of the small bronze homes, the buildings that hover all around them drop their shiny brown surface for a far more shimmering silver; boasting more complex shapes the further down they go. As the blue boy gazes along his descending surroundings, he asks his spacial teacher: “So, how will we know when we found the library?” “Fear not. I still remember the distinct shape that it was crafted to even after all these years. The archives should be housed within the most remarkable structure within the silver section of the city.” “Kinda like that one over there?” the young angel asks, his finger pointing out towards a part of the silver city. “Oh, yes. That’s it.”

The twisted structure that the blue boy points out boasted a design of more geometric structure; the top sporting a point with a glowing halo set to the tip that draws in bits of light being drawn into it. The triad sides boasting angular corners that bend up and point towards the buildings top; their bottoms curving out until meeting back up dead center at the base to create a sharp tip. Held between the trio of rising points be an oval egg; the light from the halo pulsing through the surface like a heartbeat. The structure of the entire surface sporting a beautiful coat of shinning silver; the traveling light reflecting off the metal shell. From the very top of the egg, the two angels glide right down along the glimmering silver side and towards the hole along the bottom; the two of them gazing upon their reflections within the silver as they drop down. Gazing up do they find the pulse of light traveling down towards them; the two hovering away just inches from the silver wall as the light passes right in front of them.

Both of them then glide right through the front hole leading right inside the silver egg, where upon Tore once again feels himself flying right against the spacial angels backside; the pair of angel left to tumble down the curving bottom of them inside. Once they finally stop sliding along the smooth silver surface, Tore starts to crawl out from underneath his mentor while advising that: “Ya know, it wouldn’t hurt to give a little warning before you suddenly stop like that.” “Tore, underneath the entry port.” the cosmic angel utters. Peering over to where Mall had directed, the blue boy looks right under the way they came in to find large pieces of silver left scattered along the side of the curving floor; all of it pieces of what seemed to be a table and chaired decked with sharp silver blades. “What is all that?” “It was one of the defense systems set up as one of the research tables left to guard the archives. Why is...Why is it left in pieces like this?” Noticing a lime light glimmering right behind them, the young Kybr glances back for shock to suddenly strike him; stating how: “I don’t think that’s the only thing we should be worried about.”

Peering over towards the blue boys direction, horror and astonishment are painted across the cosmic angels face when beholding the cases of the archives flashing out spurts of lime green; rectangular slats holding holograms comes spewing out from the shelves and sporadically fly off in different directions. The show of absolute chaos and mayhem sends waves of panic crash through the spacial man; Mall left to utter: “No...No!” “What’s with the flying circus act?” “Something has wormed its way into the intelligence flow and has infected the entire system! All of the knowledge tablets have gone haywire from the corruption! If nothing is done about this, the disease festering through the system will corrupt all the gathered intelligence and will cast it into the void of obscurity.” “What!? Is there anything we can do!?” “I may know where the source of the infection may stem from, but we need to act fast. Follow my lead!” With his cosmic trainer demanding such, the blue angel follows Mall as he and Tore take off down towards the archives up ahead.

Thrusting themselves straight into the storm of haywire tablets, the pair of angels weave around the rectangular slats that frantically careen and fly about. When noticing a couple of them daring to dart straight in their direction, the blue boy smacks both of them away moments before they could strike the angels. “Tore!” the cosmic angel shouts. “What!?” “Do not damage these slabs in any way while we navigate through this chaos. We still don’t know how much of it can be salvaged from this mess; just keep evade.” “Right, but...how you think were gonna dodge all that?” the blue boy wonders, pointing out in the direction they fly in. Gazing on ahead, the two discover a thick flock of knowledge slabs all blocking their flight through; Mall offering with a determined smile to: “Let me take care of that.” Gliding a little ways towards the sea of swarming slats, Mall thrusts his finger tips right between the thicket up ahead and starts to push both of his hands away through the air before them; the cluster parting ways as his hands separate. Rocketing right down the freshly open path, Tore glances through the tunnel of tablets to find not one of them able to pierce through the space that Mall had made for them. Beyond the whole storm of frantic slabs, the two angels finally make it to the back of the front hall; both of them immediately racing to the far left and heading straight down a tight oval tunnel leading deeper within the library.

Out from the main hall of the library do the two Kybr start gliding down a tight oval hall of glimmering silver; the glow of their wings reflecting off the curved walls. The duo continue to fly forth and come across another obstacle obstructing their way, discovering an entire mess of spikes and swords all constantly popping out and withdrawing from the very walls of the oval hall; all of their sharp edges and points covering every bit of space that they could fly through. “I ain’t seeing anyway through. Let’s back track and find another way.” Tore suggests. “No need. Simply creating another opening shall do.” his mentor denies with. Hovering out to the front like the swarm of tablets before, Mall places both of his balled up fists back against one another as they approach the impenetrable wall of stabbing blades. Its then that he begins to slowly uncurl his fists to let the air within open right up, the wall of deadly silver in turn bending itself open for the nearing angelic duo. The two causally proceed through that very hole that had seemingly bend itself open, Tore left amazed of how the stabbing spikes and swords simply curved away from them rather then thrusting straight through; as if they’re redirected around the very space the two of them occupy. Flying past the thicket of silver blades and pikes, Tore see’s his cosmic teacher take a sudden turn right into a glowing hole left in the wall; the blue boy following the spacial angel right on in.

Flying straight into the room do the two of them discover the source of the illumination, a towering pillar of pure colorful light beaming down from the roof of the chamber; sparks of lime green overshadowing the colors that descend down into the floor. “That right there! That is the source of the chaos that plagues this very library. We must reach into the stream of knowledge and pulling the infection right out to stop this madness.” the cosmic angel declare. “You mean with our bare hands? How we gonna do that?” “Simple really, just follow my lead and I shall instruct you to-” Just moments before his spacial mentor could finish explaining how they will fix all this, a set of silver bubbles all expel out from the walls of the chamber; their tops opening up to reveal curving turrets aiming their barrels at the two. “Just a moment.” Facing the armada of silver spherical guns, Mall holds both of his hands out between the entire fleet of silver bubbles and swiftly clasps them together; every single piece of the silver armada crushed together into a mess of scrap. The crushed together silver crashes right before the two angel’s; Mall hovering right over the scrapped silver as he suggest that his blue pupil: “Come along, we have no time to waste.”

Following after his starry mentor, both Tore and Mall each land on opposite sides of the glowing pillar; the blue angel hearing his cosmic teacher explain how: “Right, so what must be done is that we shove our hands straight through this light and attempt to extract the corrupt infection from its very bowls. I shall isolate the energy and keep it from escaping, all while you reach in and pluck the source right out.” “Gotcha.” Out of the two does Mall first thrusts his arms straight into the pillar of light; a small hiss escaping his teeth as he shuts his eyes tight. “Nnn...There! I have it cornered! Now Tore, reach in and root this infection out!” “On it!” the blue boy exclaims, swiftly piercing through the glowing column with his own pair of hands.

As soon as the young angel shoves his hands straight into the stream of knowledge, he could feel the light forcing itself through his body and delve straight into his very brains; countless pieces of random information and thought flood and overwhelm his mind as he keeps himself within the stream. “Aggh! What’s going on!? My brains feel like they’re about to explode!” he wails out. “I still have the source of the corruption trapped! Just fight through the pain and grab it!” Like his cosmic mentor encourages, Tore bares the blistering headache while he feels around for the energy that Mall claims he has trapped. The blue angel soon starts to feel something amiss among the constant onslaught of light and grabs hold as tight as he can, feeling the corruption refusing to move as he tries to jerk it right out. With every bit of strength he can muster does the blue boy start to uproot the lime green out from the streaming light; slowly pulling the green away from the center of the pillar. After a few moments, the blue angel finally tugs the source of the corruption right out from the column of running knowledge; careening back to the end of the chamber once free from the pillar.

Withdrawing his own arms from the stream of knowledge, Mall swiftly glides over to his blue wards side; witnessing the boy rise from the floor with what seemed to be blob of lime green. “Tore, are you alright?” “Yeah, just gotta take a few minutes for this migraine to go away. But what I’m wanting to know is what exactly I pulled out?” he answers, the blobs glowing on his face as he stares deep into it. “Whatever it is, the flow of knowledge should be troubled no more once we destroy this dastardly power.” “I’m not sure if we should go that far.” “Why? It’s caused so much chaos.” “I know, but...Something about it just seems oddly familiar to me. Don’t know how well I can explain it, but it feels like a friends that I’d briefly met popping into say hello...I kinda wanna say hello back to be honest.”

In that very moment of acceptance does the blob suddenly seep itself right through the palms of his hands, worming its way through his arms and straight into the center of his body; every bit of lime green dimming until none of its luminescence was left to shine. “Hello...What was that all about?” the blue boy questions. “Curious indeed. Perhaps its your very soul beginning to bloom out and reveal what part of this reality it can control.” “Same thing happened when I held some parts of flesh and plants back inside the warp gate. Think that might have something to do with it?” “Perhaps...In any case, the library should be calming itself from having that piece of infection removed. Hopefully, we can check who exactly had the nerve to prowl around within this shinning city. Come.” While the two angels start to glide back towards the port they had fluttered right in from, Tore takes one more look to the freshly restored stream of information flowing behind him; still left curious as to where he had felt the power he had uprooted from it before. It just felt so familiar…

Hovering back into the main hallway of the archives, Mall lets out a relieved breath to find the countless slats that were once fluttering amok now neatly organizing themselves once more; each rectangular tablet sliding itself back into the shelves in an orderly fashion. “Now this is far better. Seems like only a tad bit of the information stored here had been destroyed, quite relieving to find most of it left intact.” Mall admires. “Wait so, if only a little bit of it was lost, then how long it was going bonkers like that?” “I imagine not very long at all. If that’s true, then who knows how long the gate might’ve been open.” “I can’t help but wonder who might’ve left them open?” “That’s what we’re about to find out.” the cosmic angel claims as he drift off towards one of the massive bookcases, with his ward following after.

Out from the countless sets of tablets that stand within the bookcase of pure silver, the cosmic angel slips one out from the shelves and hovers it before him and the blue angel; pinching the opposite corners to pull and enlarge the slat. The holographic screen glows alight when Mall lightly taps his finger upon its surface, the light from the tablet slowly forming together into a cohesive picture; revealing to them who dare trifle through the air of this metropolis. The blur finally clears up to show them a pair of figures that race through and combat what was the defense table; a small teen girl firing out green flames and a grungy teenage boy donning in a torn suit and dressed in bandages. “Hang on...” Peering closer to the boy in the video, the pieces start to fall together as he glares upon the green shaded glasses on his face. “I know that guy! Ha ha, I thought that the power we pulled out from the pillar felt familiar.” “You know them?” his cosmic mentor questions. “I know one of them. That guy in the suit and wraps, he was running an underground superpowered teenage fight club in the underbelly of town I went and busted. God, I still remember trading blows with the guy in an all or nothing fight to the death. He was running around blasting lightning, transforming into animals, wrapping me in bandages and slamming me in the floor; I think he turned into a girl at one point and kicked my rib cage open. Good times.” “You...enjoy fighting like that?” “Yep, have ever since I was about 7 or 8.” the blue boy remarks with a hint of perverse glee. “Hmm, you’re a rather strange child aren’t you?” Mall remarks with a smile.

The pair of angels glance back to the holographic screen to review the rest of the footage left within, watching the boy battle against an odd winged foe within a glass dome arena, the girl gliding through and trashing a tunnel with a bunch of spherical robots, both of them prying through the bronze abode they had visited before. All the evidence stacking together leaves the cosmic angel all the more angered, Tore looking over to see his fist trembling in bottling fury. “Do these ingrate have no respect? Do they know not the sacred grounds they trudge?” “M-Mall...” Upon hearing the boy behind him call his name, the starry Kybr withdraws his heated fury with a calm breath; his fist trembling less and less until uncurling into an open palm; where he turns back to the blue angel and claims that: “I’m sorry you saw that. There shall be another time to enact revenge for this travesty. For now, descending down to the citadel and retrieving the search nod is paramount. I can only plead that their meddling has only caused chaos here.” That very statement instantly backfires upon hearing a resounding boom echo from outside the archives; the pair of angels look towards the open port to witness a powerful explosion blast just right outside.

As soon as the pair of angel flutter right out of the archive, they come to behold the chaotic site that had caused the explosion; an all out war between two armies that destroy all that lay before their eyes. Hordes of hovering living armor decorated in golden swirls and diamond shell fight back against hordes of silver orb droids; the robot’s silver shells glistening a hue of bright green as they fly utterly rampant and haywire. The panic in Mall’s face continues to grow as he watches the battling armies wreck what parts of the city stand in their way; the carefully crafted sculptures and décor, the twisted and warped tree’s that tower up towards the top of the city bent and on the verge of breaking like twigs, even the hovering buildings are dented and busted up as the armies slam right into their sides. “No no no no! Has our intruder influence spread even to the repair sentinels!? Their minds have been left utterly scrambled and deranged from their power.” the cosmic angel tells. “Okay, but should we be worried about the living armor fighting them?” “They are the reason why this city hasn’t been reduced in pieces by now; those sets of armor are partially designed to be this utopia’s defenses; utilized to not only protect the metropolis, but to train blooming Kybr in their powers. Our uninvited guests must have awakened them from their sleep.” “So, the armor’s just gonna stop all this, right?” Tore wonders. “I’m afraid they can only do so much. If we wish for this skirmish to end, then we must hurry to the sentinels manufacturing tower and flush whatever causes the automatons plight.” “Alright, lead the way.” Stating this does the blue angel follow his cosmic mentor as they take off towards the onslaught ahead; piercing straight through the army and weaving around the combatants.

Just when nearing the end of the two warring armies, the two angels discover two whole hordes of armors and sentinels on the verge of clashing right between them; charging out towards them at breakneck speeds. Everywhere the pair looked, be it from above, below, or somewhere in between, neither of them could find any sort of escape from the approaching armies; the angels hovering back to back as they prepare for the clash. Facing the nearing army of living armor, Mall thrusts the open palms of his hands out towards the platoon, halting the armada with a wide wall of solid space before they could advance any further. “I’ve stopped the defense force! You take care of the sentinels!” he demands out of his ward. “Gotcha!” Upon this order does the blue boy rocket away from the cosmic angels back and out to the cluster of frantic spherical droids, firing out beams of bright white out towards the army. Though his rays blast away a couple of the circular robots, it does little to quell the overall armada; left with little choice but to race right in and pound them all away. With kicks, punches, headbutts, and knees, Tore attempts to beat away whatever droids attempts to approach; leaving sizable dents upon each of their glistening silver shells. Yet despite successfully beating back some of the sentinels, their numbers begin to overshadow him; the blue angel swinging and shooting frantically about just to keep them all away for just a few moments longer.

While busy holding the army of living armor back, the starry Kybr glance back to witness his blue pupil struggle against the numerous sphere droids; left only to watch as the boy struggles to fight back against them. “Tore!” “Ah! Mall! Help!” “Tore, listen. Every aspect that a kybr has the potential to control exists within everything in this universe. You must tap into that part of reality you can command!” When told this piece of advice, Tore tries to think back of what that part of reality he had used before; really only one recent example coming to mind. The dimensional warp gate looked like a steel machine, but was really made of living flesh on the inside; all it needed to fix itself was a little boost to change itself back to normal and get rid of the parasite. All of it was alive, the machine was alive; which must mean…

Remembering his revelation he had back then, Tore decides to test something and clutch his glowing hands to two out of the dozen sentinels that pin him down; the multicolored light from his hands seeping right into the bubble body of the droids and spreading through to the nearest others. The lime green hue that haunts their insides is quickly consumed by the radiant rainbow power that invades their body; that entire chunk of the cluster glowing a brilliant radiant light that reflects off the dented and broken buildings and art pieces nearby. The bright light show soon comes to its dimming conclusion as Tore’s power fades away and leaves the sentinels to return to their natural silver sheen; every droid orderly spreading apart and deploying themselves out to the very pieces and builds they had broken and bent.

Shaking off the cramps and bruises that the sentinels had left, the blue boy looks over and watches them all repair and fix the damage they had done; bending the surfaces of buildings back to normal, spraying a lush goo onto the splintered trees, even reassembling the broken pieces of art left hovering in the air. Feeling a firm hand grasps his shoulder, the young angel glances over to find Mall right at his side; praising him with: “Nice work. But we have very little time to celebrate. If those sentinels had come from the production tower, then the core that had breathed life into them must be tainted as well. If we wish to end this for good, then we must travel to their origin and cleanse the power infecting the very heart; else this nightmare shall never end.” Declaring such, both of the angels take off down towards the edge of the wide and open utopia; the sets of living armor gliding right behind the tails of their wings.

Soon enough do both the pair of angels and the living sets of armor behind them come to witness a spiraling silver set along the very wall of the city; soon witnessing a myriad of shining lime green droids all pouring out from the sides. The army of living armor that trails at their backs suddenly dashes out from behind them to meet the approaching incursion head on; the Kybr watching as their forces clash with the sentinels as Mall states how: “The core of creation lies just in the very top of the chamber. We just need to peer through the roof and let ourselves in.” The angelic duo speed straight through the two clashing armies and towards the very top of the spiral, weaving themselves around every skirmish that breaks out between them.

Passing right through the dueling armies do the angels roost right atop the very tip of the spiraling down, Tore glancing back to discover a couple of corrupt sentinels charging their way. “I’ll hold them off, you find a way inside.” he offers, ready to face the approaching droids. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll just create one.” “Huh?” Glancing back to his cosmic mentor, Tore watches as Mall waves his glittering wings down upon the face of the tower; several feathers from his wings showering down and piercing straight through the silver surface to take a circular pattern. Thrusting his open hands down towards the starry feathers, each one of them flattens out on the silver rooftop and connect together to form a complete circle. The gold between the feathers dissipate to let the lime green light within shine out. “Quickly!” the spacial Kybr demands as he jumps down into the light.

Without question does the blue angel jump right down into the freshly made space after his cosmic mentor, hovering down to discover a giant pale white orb shimmering within; a swirling green flame left churning in the middle of the light. Landing right along the side of the chamber, Tore quickly looks up to find the pair of repair droids still racing after; Tore warning that: “They’re gonna crash right in!” “No they won’t.” Mall denies, holding his open palm out to the hole he had made. While the spacial angel closes his hand up, the open space he had left agape shrinks away in tandem as the pair of droids close right in; the hole fully closing before they could dash right inside after. A booming crash echoes from above them; Tore gazing over to his mentor with an eager smile and mentioning how: “You gotta teach me how to do that.” “Another time. Right now we have business to attend to.” Mall claims as he glares over to the source of the lime green glow.

As the two of them slowly approach the glowing orb of pale white, Tore can’t help but cover his eyes from the overwhelming luminescence; remarking how: “Jeez, this thing is hella bright. Almost like staring at the sun.” “Well, that’s what to expected from directly looking at a star with your naked eyes.” Taking as much of a closer look as he could stand, the blue boy notices the surface of the orb is left littered with cracks of lime green stretching out from the flame burning within. “You remember what we did with the pillar of knowledge back in the library?” “Yeah.” “We’ll do the same thing here. I isolate and corner while you grab and pull.” “Gotcha.”

While continuing to look away from the insanely bright glow, Tore shoves his arms right inside the core alongside his starry mentor; Mall looking over to his ward and informing how: “You need to look right into the light if you want to grasp the scourge within.” “I can’t! it’s burning right through my eyelids!” “Gaze past the blinding light and behold the power within.” Like his cosmic trainer instructed, Tore aims his head towards the shinning core and slowly opens his eyes to it intense light; almost instantly does he feel the glow’s burning pain as he fixes his gaze upon it. Even with the light before him continuing to sting his site, he remains ever focused to the illuminating core as he searches for any traces of lime green within; his eyes welling with streams of tears as he continues to search. Moments before his pupils could give out on him, the blue boy finally finds the green flame burning within and immediately reaches out for its blazing glow; feeling the fires warmth as he tightly clutches it. “I got it!” As soon as he feels the flame crackle in his hands, Tore jerks himself back to try and uproot the fire from the bright core; the pyre losing more and more ground with each tug. Finally are the flames pulled away from the center of the core and back into the open air; Tore falling on his back as he tightly holds the flames in his hands.

Mall pull his own hands out from the bright core and hover over to his young ward’s side, helping him right off the floor as he asks: “Tore, are you alright?” “Yeah, but where’d you go?” “Wh-what are you talking about. I’m right in front of you.” “I don’t see you...I don’t think I can see anything.” the blue angel exclaims, he once pupils left utterly pale and lifeless. “You can’t see a thing!?” Aiming his fogged gaze down towards where he feels his hands are, something pierces through the void that overshadows his eyes; staring upon the blaze of the lime green flame he pulled out from the core. “I’m seeing this little fire here. It’s not like the blob of green from earlier...It honestly feels way more spoiled than that.” “Excuse me?” “Buts that’s just on the surface. I’m feeling something else here, something deep inside. It almost feels insecure and...alone?”

Right before the young angel could go into any further detail, the burning green flames suddenly leaps out from the gentle palms of his hands and right into the blue boy’s blind eyes; crying out as the embers seep through his sockets and worm their way into his head. “Tore! What happened!? What’s it doing to you!?” Mall cries out, watching as the blue angel covers his eyes. As the indigo angel slowly uncovers his eyes to the world, a colorful gleam could be seen shimmering along the surface of his oculars. He then shakes his head about as he rapidly blinks, his site returning as the blue in his eyes do. “Hey, I can see again. Alright.” “I-...That fast? How?” “Don’t know. I’m usually healing myself from injuries all time. Guess my body must’ve learned to do it on an instinctive level.” “Hmm...How peculiar… I-In any case, now that we have purified the creation core, the sentinels outside should be calming from their frenzy and should be repairing any damage that they have done.” Floating a bit away from the freshly healed indigo angel, the cosmic Kybr swings his wings upwards and flings his starry feather up towards the roof above; the tip of those feather piercing straight through the silver ceiling. Like before do they connect together to form a whole circle and opens up a hole leading right out. “Right now we must descend down to the very bottom of the city and enter the citadel. That is where I’ve hidden one of the search nods we seek.”

Hovering right out from the spread apart port are they greeted with the site of the droids patching up and fixing the damage they had done to the surrounding hovering buildings and structures. Among them all floated the living pieces of armor that had fought by their side, each of them showing their silent thanks and respect by bowing to the two as they continue their descent down.

During the pair of angels descent further down the metallic utopia, the surface that makes up the art pieces and buildings scattered around them start to replace their silver sheen for a for more dazzling color; gaining a more golden hue the further they drop. Among all the golden buildings are they soon able to make out the colorful crystals that litter the very base of the city; their rainbow glow reflecting off the bottom of the shinning structures that hang just above them. The closest to these rocks hovers a massive upside down crown, the outer walls of this glistening castle decked out with shinning jewels of all colors and shapes; columns and pillars sporting elegant carvings and depictions of mighty warriors.

Hovering right beside these very etchings, the blue angel takes the moment to admire the depiction of them fighting up against ferocious beasts and people; armed with nothing but the power they wield in their hands. “Whoa. Wonder what those guys might’ve done to get their pictures on the wall?” he ponders aloud. “Those, my young boy, were some of the earliest humans that had been bestowed with the Kybr’s gift. Those who were granted with our power used it to fight off the scourge of their very world and charted a course for humanity to follow in; taking the very world they dwell in and molding it in their very image of nirvana.” “Wow. What sort of monsters did all of them fight against?” “Well, if you truly wish to know, then the treasures of their exploits are proudly displayed right in the entrance hall of this very citadel.” “Really? Yeah!” the indigo angel exclaims, suddenly rocketing right through the nearest port leading right inside the crown; all with Mall hastily following after the eager lad.

As the spacial angel flutter right into the entrance hall, his warming eagerness is shattered when seeing the inside; waves of shaking horror crashing through his body as he finds the golden inside to be dented and bent asunder. Littering the very bottom of the curving tunnel could both Kybr find rare and numerous artifacts of all shapes left spilled onto the floor; with nothing but shards of glass surrounding them. The hollowed out remains of a frog; its entire body covered head to toe with glistening, almost dragon like scales. An elongated gecko tongue made out of shining diamond. A pair of predator eyes left as black as darkness itself with nothing but a white slit peering through the void. The mysterious floating remains of a detached heart, still left to beat to the rhythm of life. A cluster of brains all stitched together by a line of bright string, constant electric pulsing from its very cerebrum. A pair of cat like paws with claws that constantly burn out red hot flames; Tore feeling the heat emanating out as he hovers his palm over the blaze.

“This stuff looks pretty crazy and all, but ain’t it meant to be in like some sort of case.” the blue boy remarks. “What...what could’ve caused this horrible mess? All these artifacts meant to inspire the future generation of Kybr, left broken and littered thoughtlessly on the floor like garbage. Did the rogue repair droids worm their way in here?” Watching as his cosmic mentor slowly lands on the curved floor of the hall, Tore flutters to Mall’s side as he drops to his knee’s; reaching to his shoulder as he utters: “M-Mall?” “Such hopes were dashed before any of them could flutter even a wing through these halls. All that was left for these items were to be reminders of a prospectable age. Can they not even be left as that?” “Hey, uh. If it makes you feel any better, I think these treasures are pretty neat. Can’t imagine what sort of adventures must’ve been had getting them. Maybe hope isn’t as dashed as you may think.” Hearing such words from his young pupils starts to perk the distraught Kybr up, rising off the curved floor and hovering in the air once more. Before another word could be said between the two, a powerfully loud bang echoes out from deep down the golden halls up ahead. As the loud crashing keeps sounding off, the two of them dash out towards the tunnels ahead and deeper through the citadel.

Just a little further ways down the golden hallway, the pair discover the very source of the loud and violent commotion. Before them to the angelic duo behold several mounds of pure liquid gold constantly thrashing through the halls; the pile constantly shape shifting into humanoid warriors, animals, and objects as he tosses about. “What the hell is all that!?” the young angel exclaims. “That right there is meant to be the citadel’s very own security system. An amalgamation of living gold left anchored to this very building, bound by duty to combat any intruders that dare trudge through these sacred halls. Considering what all we found today, finding like this surprisingly isn’t shocking.” “No problem, we just find and clean up the core controlling it and the rest will just sort itself out, right?” Tore guesses. “I’m afraid that this rogue system runs not any central core. Rather that, this golden liquid is controlled by the souls of those fallen. Given another purpose in this very existence in the form of this very citadel. Something has clearly left them angered and confused, no doubt thanks to the meddling of our uninvited guests.” “I think I can fix it.” the indigo angel offers, suddenly dashing over towards the unstable glob of pure golf. “No!”

“Time to see what this power of mine is capable off.” Racing out to the mushy mound of shinning gold flailing out before him, Tore dodges the countless sharp weapons and claws that come popping out from the face of the blob; weaving around swing axes and maces and paws, stabbing swords and horns, even whipping away whips and tongues that all come out. Once getting close enough to the mound of liquid gold, he casts his palm out to the mounds very face and smacks its smooth surface with an audible squish; the liquid waving about from the suddenly blow. With his hand smack in the middle of the monstrous gold, Tore spreads his own energy throughout the inside of the mound; commanding that: “How bout we take a little break here?” Despite his orders, the lob of shiny liquid refuses to calm down by even a little hair and continues to mindlessly to rampage like a wild animals; expelling out a loud roar as it flails it forming weapons and limbs. “What!? But why-” A massive hammer from the collection of freshly formed weapons is swung against the young boy and sends him careening straight into the solid gold wall beside them; the impact causing the entire hall to tremble and quake. Recovering from the unexpected blow, Tore opens his eyes just in time to witness another of the golden mounds swinging out a scythe arm right towards him; its fresh golden tip ready to pierce through his head. Right when the scythe was moments away from stabbing straight through the young boy, its tip halts just mere inches from his very head. The monstrous golden blob wails the scythe repeatedly to the indigo angel, each of its swings stopped by the invisible barrier. Turning over to where he had flown from, Tore discovers his angelic mentor commanding the space between him and the beastly gold; giving the chance for the boy to pry himself off the golden wall.

Once pulling himself off the side of the tunnel, the blue boy leaps right back to the cosmic angels side; the duo facing the approaching globs of liquid gold as Mall elaborates on how: “I’m afraid this security shall not be easy to sway as the droids, its made from the countless other souls of the fallen and will not be as willing to obey the way it’s acting now.” “Well what can we do then?” “I wonder that myself. Just what have those interlopers done within the citadel that drove this golden security so mad?” While ponder this does the golden blob before them start to charge forth, roaring out a quaking screech as starts to lunge out to the two. While thinking back to the footage that he had reviewed of those two children, the answer suddenly hits him; whispering out: “That’s it.”

From the palm of his hand, the cosmic angel fires out a powerful star shaped blast towards the nearing pile of liquid gold; the star splattering the beastly blob in an explosion of twinkling glitter and drips of gold. Despite being blown to dozens of bits, the pieces of gold almost immediately begin to pull themselves back together from across every inch of the smooth tunnel; each of the pieces gathering before the pair of angels. “No good. It’s just coming back together.” Tore remarks. “Nevermind that. I know how this whole debacle can be fixed.” “Really? How we gonna do that?” “Both of us are going to race past all these misshapen fiends and split off towards the fork in the tunnel ahead. While I race off to retrieve the search nod, you shall descend down to the very bottom of the citadel and fly straight to the chamber of reflection. There you should find a golden throne perched atop the middle of a glass dome overlooking the crystals underneath. You must take the seat and affirm that the Kybr still live.” “Why can’t you sit on it then?” “The throne shall only respond to those Kybr that are still fresh in this world. I’d say about 38 years should be the maximum.” “That is surprisingly generous. Alright, sounds like a plan to me.” As soon as the spacial Kybr hears his young blue ward accept his plan, both of the angelic duo take off down the tunneling hallway and rockets right past the pile of forming golden goo in streaks of bluish white and starry skies; their sheer speed off deforming the blob the zipped past before it could get itself together.

Their racing flight soon has them coming up to a divide in the golden corridor; the blue boy hearing his mentor claim how: “The chamber of reflection should be down the right. You just need to sit in the throne for a moment and everything shall sort itself out.” “Right, good luck in finding the search nod.” “The sentiment is mutual.” After wishing one another luck, the two angels split off down their own paths, Tore gliding down to the right while Mall rises up through the left.

The young angel drops down through the glistening golden corridor towards the way to the chamber his teacher had mentioned; the light of his wings reflecting off the shinning gold of the tunnel. During his descending race down, the blue boy gazes ahead to discover an entire stamped of charging golden animals all with arms holding weapons popping out from their back; their bodies seemingly on the verge of melting right off as they hurry. Seems easy to rush right through. Just gotta watch out for the weapons and we’re all good. Coming to the first cougar of the stamped, the angel evades the swing of its blade and swings his fist right down upon its back; the beast standing little chance against the blow and splatters on his fist. A buffulo charging right after, Tore weaves around point of its spear and kicks the golden bovine in the side; the monster splitting in half against the young Kybr’s foot. After that does the blue boy find a bear jumping up and threatening to slam its spiked stomach upon the angel; Tore simply blasting the ursa apart with just a single blast. Still seeing a whole host of golden animals up ahead, Tore surrounds himself in a light colorful aura and lunges straight ahead towards the approaching pack; effortlessly cutting straight through the horde in a single charge. Once through the stampede of golden beast, the blue angel start to spit out pieces of liquid gold from his mouth; nearly gagging from the taste alone. Eh, pleh, eh! Oh god! So bitter! So pale! So metally! Why does liquid gold taste so bad!?

Mall meanwhile continues through the rising shinning tunnels up above; the stars along his wings glittering against the golden walls as he streaks along. His flight comes to an expected roadblock when finding a giant amalgamation of several golden beasts and people lumbering down ahead; the horrid monster numerous limbs crawling along the tunnel sides as it nears. It’s voracious mouth swiftly is open agap before the cosmic angel, an ear piercing screech sounding out from its depths and echoing across the golden hallway. Mall remains as ever resilient as the outcry rings against his ears; proceeding to fly forth towards the beast nonetheless. Before the spacial Kybr flies closer towards the terrible fusion of monsters and people, Mall clasps both of his hands together and aims his fingertips out toward the very center of its maw; a cosmic starry power engulfing the tips of his fingers down as he lunges forth like a spear. The cosmic angel speeds right into the monstrous amalgamation of liquid gold’s open mouth; piercing straight through the shinning horrors back and nonchalantly continues down the hallway. The beast behind him explodes in a dazzling flash of stars, its liquid remains splattering against the walls of the tunnel.

Fluttering down the rest of the golden hallway, Tore finally descends through the end of the tunnel and finds himself hovering inside a glistening chamber. The first thing he sees stand out from it all being the glass dome lining the bottom and giving a good view of the colorful crystals below, their glistening light reflecting off the ceiling of the chamber. Despite being at the very bottom of the citadel like Mall had described, the indigo angel fails to find any sort of seat laying anywhere in the room; just a triad of horizontal arches with a platform right in the middle. The heck is going on? Mall said it should be right in this room. The dome, the crystals, the room, but no throne. Did those two move it around when they were here?

As his gaze wonders around the room for any sign of the throne his mentor had mentioned, the blue boy feels something drip down on the top of his shoulder; glancing to his side to find small drips of liquid gold dribbling down from above. He aims his eyes towards the ceiling and discover the source of the golden droplets, the liquid metal dribbling down from the massive maw of a monstrous blob of shinning gold; its set of several hollow eye sockets glowing lime green as it stares upon its potential prey. When their eyes lock, the horrible beast lets loose a screeching roar that reverberates across the entire chamber; Tore noticing something lodges within the monster’s very throat. A large golden throne etched with swirls and carvings, left stuck within the neck of the beast. It-it ate the throne!? How far down even is it!? It doesn’t look like it can even be reached without getting a leg bitten off.

Before the young angel could even star t thinking on how to approach all of this, he witnesses the monstrous blob of shimmering gold stretch out from the ceiling with its mouth wide open and it sharp fang straight at him. Just when the living glob was ready to bite down upon its prey, the indigo angel flutters back towards the side of the chamber to evade the beasts metallic jaw; swiftly kicking himself off the wall and back towards the monsters elongated neck. Tore delivers a clean tackle right to the side of the horrible abomination neck; the blow strong enough to send the entire monster careening right into the wall, quaking the entire chamber from bottom to stop. Landing right along the surface of the curved glass dome, the blue angel glares down the beast open mouth to discover the throne still lodged within. No good, it doesn’t even look like it budged an inch.

Shaking off the blue boy’s dazing kick, the golden beast tries its luck again and lunges forth once more; its glistening fanged baring towards the angel’s head. Seeing the monstrous gold coming, Tore ascends off the glass dome and bounds over the beast terrible bite; delivering his own strike back in the form of a pale white beam that crashes down upon its side. From the resulting smoke of the blast, the monster could be seen prying itself off the transparent floor of the chamber and glares right towards his hovering foe; the blue angel able to peer into its throat to find the throne still left stuck within. Not even got it moving a little bit. The hell does this thing got it glued down his throat with? Well, if the seat won’t come out, then let’s go to it!

With his next move planned accordingly, the indigo angel wastes little time to let the monster act and delves straight down towards it; forcing himself through its sharp toothed maw and down its throat. When left just a few feet away from the golden throne, a bright luminescence suddenly disperses right before him and fires right upon the boy; the powerful beam blasts the angel right out from the monster’s throat and sends him careening off to the side of the chamber. While left on the wall, Tore opens his eyes to witness the very beast charge right after with its golden maw firmly shut tight; not even a single bit of space to squeeze right back in. The blue boy acts fasts and leaps right off the wall before the approaching monster could ram its solid gold face straight into him; feeling the entire chamber rumble from the impact. Right, so it definitely caught on what’s going on; which means its time for a change of plans. As long as the seat in its throat is empty, then all this won’t just stop with a good old fashion beat down; it’ll just pull itself back together for another round. Just need to get in there a take that seat.

Gliding through the upper halls of the golden citadel, Mall continues his search for the nod he seeks out from the palace; his gaze glued to the sides of the tunnel ahead. The room has to be around here somewhere. All those eons ago it was hidden away from the world; kept locked tight under the seal of the Kybr. Even if those pair of interlopers dared to trespass through this city, neither of them should’ve been aware of where the nod was kept. Even if they had searched every inch of this crown.

The cosmic angel’s flight is then comes to a screeching halt when a pair of blue barriers suddenly appear between him; seemingly left trapped within as the two barricades start to close in on each other. Huh, forgotten about these, plasma walls meant to entrap what it encases and nullify most universal power. However… Mall then thrusts his hands to each of the barriers that threaten to pinch him in; pure black space coming out from his palms as they approach him. The very moment that both of the walls touch the angel’s palms, their blue essence starts to be absorbed into his very hands; his palms sucking up every piece of blue like a voracious black hole. Such trappings should give a Kybr little trouble. As soon as every bit of blue is swallowed by the black in his hands, Mall palms then return to their normal color as they ball themselves into fists; the spacial angel left to race right on ahead.

Continuing his flight up through the shinning tunnels, the cosmic Kybr’s eyes are glued to an open port left atop the peak of the hall. Mall zooms straight up through the hole to be greeted by the bright glow of several crescent moons each shinning out their own unique light; all with a simple golden crib floating right in the middle of the cylinder chamber. His starry wings reflect along the crescents and add a glitter to the light that they shine throughout the chamber, as if the angel was ascend through the stars themselves. Fluttering straight up to the golden crib left perched in the middle, Mall gazes within to find nothing but a small comforting pillow inside; the Kybr swiping the pillow out to see his own reflection in the middle of the inward curve underneath. Gently reaching both of his hands into the crib, the cosmic angel pinches the very bottom of the inward curve and begins to stretch the center with both index fingers and thumbs; the golden surface opening wide to show the near hollow inside of the crib. He then reaches his hand down into the inside and slowly pulls out what seemed to be a near wrist sized ring holding a glass lens shaped into a single eye; its outer rim decorated with detailed wings of pure white. So long has this been hidden from the world; and now, it shall help bring it back to its prosperous age once more.

Breaking away from his admiration of the search nod, the cosmic angel’s ears then catch onto the strange sound of gurgling echoing underneath. What is… Peering down beneath his feet could he witness the open port he had flown up from suddenly close by a pool of liquid gold bubbling up towards him; the blobs surface littered with the bodies of malformed soldiers and beasts that reach up for him. Oh for the stars sake, there’s no time for this. This temper tantrum has gone on for long enough. Left fed up with the security system bullshit, Mall rises up towards the top of the cylinder chamber where the crescent moons shine down; the angel points a single finger up to the moons for them glow bright in turn. As soon as he points that very finger down towards the bubbling liquid, their lunar light rains down upon the amorphous gold below; every ray of light pummeling down from the above hitting its very surface in splattering liquid gold and moonlight.

Failing to take in the constant lunar beating, the amorphous blob withdraws out from the cylinder crib chamber and opens the way back down into the halls below. Odd, the young Kybr should’ve sat on the throne by now and ended the security’s ravenous fit. Did something happen to him on his way down to the chamber? No, certainly he can handle himself with it...But best check on the ward just to be careful. With that certain worry brewing in the back of his head, Mall causes a bright glow to expel out from his very chest; his skin reflecting the stars and planets of the cosmo’s itself. The spacial angel causally tosses the search nod he had found straight into this very space; where upon the cosmos shimmering upon his chest fades away. Having secured the precious nod safely within his very body, Mall than swiftly descends down to the bottom of the chamber and through the hole leading back into the tunnel; the worried Kybr speeding off down the way that he had came.

Dwelling back down at the very bottom of the citadel, the blue angel continues to evade the nonstop assault from the golden abomination; dodging every bite it takes, every swing it makes, every sword and spears that pops out from its skin, every claw and hammer that it swipes and swings, even every beam it fires out from its maw. This thing just won’t quit, will it? It’s like it knows that if it stops attacking; then the throne in its throat is up for grabs. Trying to dislodge it from its throat won’t work; and trying to brute force down it will just make it spew up lasers. Gotta be something that can be done here. A way to stun it long enough to climb down and plant a seat down on the throne. While strategizing on how he could create a long enough opening to swoop in and take the throne, Tore evades another of its lethal chomps by gliding right above its head; where upon he sees its burning lime green eyes staring back at him. Don’t know if that might work, but we gotta try something here.

A strategy solidified in his head, Tore immediately takes the first step and rockets towards the base of the beast left hanging along the golden chambers ceiling; the head of the monstrous amalgamation following after the young angel. The blue boy lands right along the very end of its stretched neck, glancing back to discover the beast it belongs to lunge after with its shimmering maw closed tight. The horror tilts its entire head over to the side and swings its solid gold cheek out to the indigo angel, lobbing its entire weight out to hits prey in hopes of batting the boy right off its neckline. As the horrible golden beast rapidly swings out to him, Tore suddenly leaps right off the base of its neck and out to the rapidly approaching amalgamation; aiming its hands right towards the nearing monsters many glowing lime eyes. Tore manages to grasp the top edge of the glistening terrors eye sockets and clutches down as tight as he can; holding on like no tomorrow as the beast begins to maddeningly flail about throughout the throne chamber. Despite continuing to flail across the room like a writhing worm covered in salt, the boy clinging to two of its eye sockets remains holding on; the blue boy taking the moment of panic to thrust his arm down through the lime green eyes and reach deep within for that very glow. That glow has to be the same one that guys left at the archives. Just need to reach in this hellish golden thing and yank it out. That should daze it long enough to get down its throat.

Right when the young angel reaches in deep enough, the golden horror cries out a paining wail and starts bashing its head against the solid chamber walls. Digging deeper down does Tore finally feel the very source of the monster’s lime green fury; the very feel of the energy reminding him of the same sort he had extracted from the pillar of knowledge back at the library. Even with the power grasped in the palm of his hands, the blue boy struggles to keep it in his grasp as the monster he rides repeatedly bangs its head against the sides of the golden room. Come on! Just stand still!

Its Tore’s attempts to pull out this lime green glow that the head finally manages to slam him straight against the hard gold wall; feeling a good few of his bones crack from the intensely harsh bashing. Despite the overwhelming pain coursing through him, the indigo angel remains indentured and continues to hang on within one of the beasts many eyes; soon to take a tight hold of the lime energy glowing within the monstrous gold. The boy swiftly yanks his bruised arm out from the depths of the abominations insides as hard as he could; keeping his grasp tight upon the light as he continues jerking on it. Finally does he uproot the lime green glow lodges within the eyes of the beast, the overwhelming force throwing the boy right off the monsters head as it shrieks in agony.

From the beasts forehead, the blue boy careens right down and flops upon the glass dome along the bottom of the chamber; the lime green power clutched within his grip seeping right under the palm of his hand, with its distinct glow vanishing underneath his skin. Tore arises from the glass floor and looks back towards the golden horror to discover it frightened and confused; as if it had just sprung out from a horrible nightmare. Without hesitating another moment longer, the angel dashes out to the crying abomination and thrusts himself straight through its open maw midst one of its pained roars. Once the blue boy forces himself right through the beasts throat, utter silence is all that passes during that very moment; with nothing but the reverb of the golden walls filling the quiet. This deafening quiet is then accompanied by a silent, but powerful light that starts to inflame out from every open hole of the monster; the light swiftly proves too strong for the amalgamation to contain much longer, left to explode in illuminating blast of multiple colors.

Hovering in the middle of this intense bright light, a figure sits upon the golden throne as it reflects the tandem of colors that swirl and rise around him; within this very figures eyes do countless images rapidly flash before him. A plant rapidly sprouting from the soil, a human baby wailing out its first cry, a chick breaking through the shell of its egg, a fish piercing through the embryo among it’s siblings, cells dividing among each other and continue to rapidly multiply, countless other signs of beings coming into this world fresh and anew sprawl within his mind. The colors that swirl around him start to take their shape as well, all of them forming into people that have entered his life. Roy, Mally, Mall, Kingsley, Chloe, Cayenne, Renee, Bianca, Lequan, Ty’quell, Alex, Levi, Melvin, Persephone, Circe, Damian, Ryu, Raleigh, Hank, Vivi, Victor, Biz, Warron, and many many more; each of them taking a singular color among the spectrum that surrounds him. All of them then start coming together one by one; slowly melding before the figure into a being with the torso of a human; long hair, several rings to make up its arms, hands with dozens of fingers and thumbs, a single eye along the face of its head, several wings along its back and bottom of its lower torso, all of it reflecting every single color of the spectrum. Soon do every single one of these people all race within the figure itself; coming in all at once like a crashing wave of spiritual life.

Along the glistening tunnels above, the cosmic angel flutters back down the way he had came and takes the sharp turn right up ahead; soon to discover a small platoon of golden soldiers and monsters that dare stand in his way. Before Mall could engage with the entire army ahead of him, he witness a colorful pulsing light travel out from behind the entire troop; the glow phasing along all the soldiers and beasts and urging them all to stop dead in their tracks. After the colorful pulse of light surges all around him, the spacial Kybr suddenly breaks in the middle of the air to behold a relieving site; every single golden beast and person bowing to the man, soon melding back into the curved sides of the tunnel. They’ve calmed...He did it.

Back within the glistening throne room, the blue boy finds himself reawakening back to reality; softly clutching his forehead as he sits upon the very throne within the monster, now left perched right in the middle of the golden arches in the middle of the chamber. Left utterly dazed and overwhelmed by the strange experience he had gone through, Tore slowly pries himself off the hard gold of the throne; his arms and legs quaking as he attempts to stand on his own two feet. Once standing back up, the indigo angel teeters and wobbles about along the platform in an attempt to get back his balance; both of his hands holding onto the sides of his head as he steadies himself. What the...hell? What was all that? So many things just barging in at once. Honestly felt like that ride would never end. Those lights, those pictures. What did they all mean? Why did all that up to happen now?

“Tore!” his ears manage to catch among the ringing; the indigo angel peering over to the very tunnel he had entered the chamber from. While his eye site starts to sort itself out, Tore sees his cosmic mentor descend down from that very hole and flutter right in front of him; hearing the man claim that: “My young Kybr. You’ve done it. You’ve saved this citadel from tearing itself apart and have quelled the rage of the golden guards. I don’t think I can ever thank you enough for helping me save these sacred grounds. I-” Before his spacial mentor could tell him anything else, Mall watches the young angel wobble about in an effort to keep himself from tumbling off the platform. “Is something the matter?” he then asks the blue boy. “Yeah...I-I just had this weird ass trippy hallucination when I sat my butt down on that chair. Saw a bunch of things being born like eggs hatching and plants coming out of the ground. Least I don’t have to look up how babies are born anymore.” “Anything else?” “After all that, I saw a bunch of people I knew hover around me in this freaky and insane light show; they dance around me for a bit before they all came inside me.” “Umm...” “I-I mean they all rushed right inside my body at once.” “Interesting...”

At last does the blue angel manage to shake off the dizzying and wobbling feeling coursing through his body and stands straight back up; offering to change the subject with: “So, you find the mcguffin we were looking for?” Hearing this does the cosmic angel break his puzzled stare and reflects the cosmo’s along his chest as he claims that: “Uh-Yes! Yes, I have.” Dunking his arm straight through the space glittering along his chest, he ruffles through what lies within and quickly pulls his limb out to show off the search nod he had retrieved. Gazing upon the overall size and design of the tool, Tore can’t help but smile as he lets a little snicker escape from his lungs; wondering: “That it? I thought it’d be way bigger seeing those hole along the warp gate.” “Hrmph! I’ll have you know, young Kybr that these nods are capable of shrinking and enlarging on of their own accord; they were made to do that for convince.”

Seeing his cosmic teacher thrust the nod back within the cosmo’s in his body; Mall’s chest returns to normal as he hears the blue boy then ask: “So, where you think we need to go for the next one now?” “Well...” From the pocket stitched within his glittering toga, the starry angel pulls out the very Halo they used to track the first nod here and lets the holographic radar rise out from the middle of the ring. Running along the holographic map of the entire earth, both of them find one of the glowing dots blinking on one of its mountains; the spacial Kybr stroking his chin as he utters: “Hmm. How quaint.” “Ya find it?” “It seems that whatever dastardly scoundrels that had pilfered the other nods had the sense to hide one of them atop the very Earth itself.” “And that means?” “It means that we must set forth and climb to this lush planets highest peak.”

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The first Chapter of the new year. Thanks to everyone who has stuck around and read up to this point.

I wanted to have it take place in a familiar location that was visited by another pair of characters last season; only to have this chapter give some context to the whole place. Figured it would be a situation that I would dabble in for this case. Hope I nailed it here.