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sokai-asuki · 4 months

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Post-Season 4 of Nexo Knights

Clay came back to the Empty Sekai after the event that took place in his world and others reaction is... Interesting...

"Here's your phone Clay! Good as new!"

"Thanks Robin." Clay said to the mechanic kid. He look over at his phone, just as Robin said, it's good as new.

"If you worry about the data in your phone, don't worry I also have fixed half of it and it still intact in that phone of yours!" Robin explain.

"I see, thank you again, Robin." Clay said.

"Your welcome!" Robin said and then go back to his next work to fix.

Clay go to his room and open his phone. Just as Robin said, the phone may not looks like his old one and he had modified his phone a little but the data is still in there. He sighs until he spot the file his looking for.

He sighs again, here goes nothing...

——SEGA——

Empty Sekai

KAITO walks around in the new area on the Sekai. For a record, he never thought a lake is a good idea, but mostly, he doesn't care. He sighs as he look around the Sekai until he felt a sense someone enter the Sekai.

He look in front of him and look who it is, Mr–Clay–Liar–Moorington. Both just stare at each other, dead stare on each other eyes. KAITO can sense Clay's nervousness, good, let him feel it.

Just before KAITO could say anything else, a familiar voice could be heard, "KAITO, you're here– Uh, C-Clay...?!"

KAITO turn around and saw Miku behind him, as for Miku just stare pass KAITO to see Clay.

Clay awkwardly wave at the female Vocaloid, he let out that sheepishly smile of his, "Hey, Miku..."

"Clay, you're back. I mean, I understand you're rarely visit because of your work but the last time you're here, you just straight up vanished. I don't know why is that–" Miku suddenly stop herself from saying anything until she notice Clay's arm, specifically his right arm, "Clay, what happened to your arm?"

Clay notice Miku look at his magic arm, being reminded that he is also half-witch, or wizard? Doesn't matter, but he does relate to Merlok. Clay give Miku an awkward look, "It's actually... Too long to explain..."

Miku tilt her head in confuse. KAITO can't wait to snap at him.

—

"I told you there's a limit of you suppressing your emotions, but did you listen? No." KAITO said to Clay after he explains what happened to him in his world.

Miku try to process everything she heard. Clay have said, his a knight and a wizard call Merlok took him in under his wings. During all of this time, Clay is actually his nephew, making Merlok his uncle. Clay's best friend, Jestro, became evil again by the Book of Evil, Monstrox, who turn to cloud. One of the fight Monstrox accidentally zap his lightning on Clay when he got hit to the statue. And through it all this time, his visit to the Sekai started to become less and less as he slowly turn to a stone.

And when he did turn to a stone, his friends put him up on the Fortrex (KAITO: "Are they stupid? Isn't it bad because what if that cloud guy zap you?!"). Another battle came, and yes in KAITO's word, Monstrox did zap him in his statue state, turning him into one of his puppet. His friends cares deeply for him have no heart to kill Clay but after Merlok cast a big spell and hit Clay with it. He was send to another village with memory loss, but his "sense of justice" is still within him.

Clay got used by some phony rich guy into doing his bidding. His friends save him from it and he get his memory back. Unfortunately being a stone is not the best thing for him since he realized he could easily hurt his friends with this form of his, so he try to meditate and being away from all of his friends again. During that time too, he realized all his anger and aggressiveness is from his self-loathing towards his stone form.

Finally he accepts who he is and change from that gentle Clay to an aggressive one. And again, on one of the battle, he almost kill his best friend if not one of the evil stone, Ruina Stoneheart, stop him. Then she revealed that she is his mother. He almost losing his mind and with all of his anger turn to rage, just as he almost try to hurt his mother, she defeat him before he gets the chance. Merlok, of course, knows this and keep it a secret all this time from Clay to protect him from the truth, truth is truly harsh.

Clay thought he might hurt his friends again and announced to them he will put himself in a solidarity chamber to keep them from hurting by him. However, one of his friends, Macy Halbert, reopened that chamber thinking Clay will not hurt her and still believe Clay is still Clay even if his not the old Clay she knew. With anger and frustrated towards all of this, he used his magic and make Macy and bring the Nexo Power to herself by him as he can also control Merlok's system to choose the Nexo Power. Finally, make Macy hit him with the Nexo Power and turn him back to stone.

Until one day, when Monstrox came back as he possessed the Stone Colossus. Clay suddenly reawakened as human this time, with his newly-found magic abilities. He absorbed all the Nexo Power into himself to help his friends and Merlok to defeat the Stone Colossus. And finally, the battle end, Clay survive, he got a magic abilities and he also knows who his mother is and she is still gone to who knows nowhere.

Before Miku could say anything, a new voice could be heard.

"So you also have a complicated relationship with your mother?"

What the fu—

Clay, Miku and KAITO look at the source of the voice, it's Mizuki... And the others here as well, the other N25 members and also other Vocaloid.

"How much you hear specifically..." Clay said.

"The part that you got turn to stone and change completely by an evil cloud? Yeah, all of it." Ena said, "Is that, is that the reason why you rarely come visit?!"

"Or why you always slept off in this Sekai to "rest"?" Mafuyu said as she quote the "rest" part.

"Or when you almost try to cover up your left arm?" Kanade said.

Clay was now sweaty nervously at the girls' guesses. Luka notice it of course, "Well, we can take a guess you didn't deny they're fact~"

"You almost died..." Rin said.

"I just got turn into a stone," Clay try to assure her he is alright.

"Which in turns, you came back as a corrupted justice," MEIKO counter back his response with hers.

"My friends save me..."

"Also in turn your s-suddenly, change to aggressive knight that f-focus on about jus-justice..." Len stuttered as he hide behind Rin.

"...I was trying to adapted my stone form..."

"And you self-sacrifice yourself again thinking you might gonna hurt your friends again," this time Mizuki said.

"..." Clay has no word to deny any of that. But he slowly turn to Miku KAITO. Miku also look at him nervously and have no words to defend him. However KAITO just stare at him, his look doesn't show any sign of anger or frustrated but...

"At least you accept that you did have self-loathing your stone form to the point you do accept it, even if you did think you hurt your friends, you still yet think about them more than you being a stone..." that took everyone in the Sekai a bit back by this calm KAITO, he continue, "I, of course, hates the fact you keep this a secret just to not let us "worried" about you... But you finally open up... Just keep that on mind..."

Finally KAITO left all of them to process what they witnessed. He can be calm?!

KAITO all alone again, try to think back what Clay has give... That explains everything the last time he try to contact him...

—FLASHBACK—

KAITO look around in the room he is seeing. Clay does not come to the Sekai, and that makes all the members of N25 and some Vocaloids to worry what happened to the male member of N25...

He sighs, he can't see anything in the dark room, even if the phone light up, he can't see anything. Until he caught a silhouette.

The silhouette didn't notice him, KAITO assume it's Clay... But is Clay really act like this? He knows that man is lying but he doesn't know what is he hiding behind that gentle gesture...

Until he notice something is off... The more the silhouette got closer he noticed it. Stone arm, stone color...

He then notices the face, it's Clay but... He is a stone. KAITO was taken back by it as he noticed the stone Clay come close to is phone. Before KAITO could say anything, the stone hand suddenly turn to fist as he hit his phone. Making KAITO fall back to the floor of Empty Sekai.

What in the name of Hatsune Miku did he just saw?!

#lego nexo knights x hatsune miku colorful stage #lego nexo knights #hatsune miku colorful stage #clay moorington #nightcord at 25:00 #hatsune miku #kaito vocaloid

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nervouswreckhere · 1 year

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I did promise that I will be an annoyance so here I come:

Stone Monsters Headcanons

In general, the magic system in Knighton is a soft one (I say after I watch one too many world-building tik toks). What that means is that it doesn't have hard outlines as to how it works.

Let's change that, hmm?

Monstrox is a necromancer, Wanda has weather powers and Merlock is a technomancer. (I haven't read anything other than the wiki. Just watched the show, got obsessed and here I am..) Merlock's nexo magic is iconic - very useful and always appears when you need it to. Almost as if it's a plot device. Its ability to enchant weapons and armor is extremely helpful when faced with Monstrox's... everything.

Now, Monstrox is interesting. As a necromancer we would assume what he does is bad and evil as they love to repeat in the show. And he is - insane and ambitious to boot. While I have no idea what made the Wizards' Council / Merlock spare him, his knowledge and power were locked into the Book of Monsters. That knowledge was what allowed him to - from what I can comprehend - summon, create, manifest the monsters. They weren't strong monsters, after all, Monstrox was stuck in leather, between pages. He had limited power - that's what evoked the whole let's search for all the evil books scattered around the realm.

And even their collection failed to resurrect him, seeing as everything blew up in the end. But the ritual still worked partially - it was a ritual to grant him a new form; magic, energy can't just go away, disappear! - so it gave him a form that was more well-suited for his magic. Hence the cloud.

And that's when we arrive at what I call my favorite brain rot. Monstrox's resurrection spell. The one that breathes life into stone. I do think Monstrox's spell is a combination of a few different necromantic spells, but that's for later. The stone monsters are sworn to his allegiance in a way I doubt the lava monsters were. Some of them exhibit some intelligence but none have discernable personalities other than a select few. Why?

Seeing as that spell, erased Clay's entire moral system while keeping his tenacity and determination, his desire to serve a cause, I doubt it's just personality erasure. But a spell can't just turn someone evil.

That's stupid! Evil is such a subjective thing and it's so nuanced that a simple wave of a hand or I guess zap with lightning doesn't just- just- evilize someone! So I made a chart!

There are three types of monsters in my book. (I'm not talking about how they look or their functions. I'm not talking about bouldrons, gargoyles, harpies, etc. I'm classifying them into categories!)

Type 1: The statues, given life. The bouldrons, the gravellers, etc. The one that get zapped and start destroying everything in sight. The ones that we see zooming around in the background in most episodes.

Type 2: The magically imbued statues. The statues put there with a reason - like the gargoyles. Haven't you wondered why there are so many gargoyles? Only a few of them appear smart so those are the few that I put in this type. Harpies are here too. Why? Because I think they were demons or something similar summoned to do Monstrox's bidding before they got petrified by the wizards' council. (I have their whole backstory written somewhere, I will share it later.)

Basically, type 1 is just making a statue move with densely charged, magical energy that imbues them with malicious intent. Type 2 has to work with what little magic the statue has locked within itself. That takes more power out of the initial blast, which is why type 2 monsters don't have to be constantly on the move - more of the magic has to work to diverge the energy channels within the vessel.

I love magical theory, guys

Now, type 3 is my favorite so far. That's the statue that was once human. Have you looked at how one brain works - it's all chemistry. Little electrical pulses send to and from different parts of it. In type 3 monsters, 3/4 of Monstrox's magic blast / ressurection spell go towards the mind. It has to change the being's priorities, to change the person's alleigence strictly to Monstrox. The other 1/4 goes towards making their body function in the way it has before - or as close as a living rock can get.

Ruina is a great example why this clarification works, Krakenskull, too. They were separate people, warlords in their own right before they got hit by Monstrox's magic, and then suddenly they readily follow his orders? And he doesn't worry about them betraying him? Sure, one can argue with Ruina ever being a warlord on her own but Krakenskull? He had his own army and then he was okay with someone else using it? Yeah right.

*takes a deep breath* I got a bit sidetracked. ...a lot sidetracked. But basically yeah. I have a lot of feelings about the magic in Nexo Knights and I am so sharing them with you. Just you wait!

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sasukeprime · 5 months

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(ALL CHEERING) I don't know if you guys are aware, but the Uchiha are simply responsible for one of the most epic police weapons in history.

(CHEERING CONTINUES) Everyone take a look at the wall. Travel back in time with me to 930.

(930s MUSIC PLAYING) The Uchiha puts on a production of Julius Caesar. A girl in the audience unexpectedly hands one of our brothers a lightning bolt and he explodes. And after that one fateful zap, the tenet of power is born! wherein the higher the voltage the deeper the gamage, itaboy. as in great damage.

(ALL CHEERING) The year is 971.

(970s ROCK MUSIC PLAYING) The US challenges Red Japan in archery. Meanwhile, back at the Uchiha Police Academy, our brothers play a couple rounds of darts their own. An brother's errant arrow hit the narrow mark mellow so blatant exact it almost felt flagrant of this arr'gant fellow. And he just blinks.

(WHOOPING) (ALL CHEERING) I give you the tenet of precision!

(CHEERING CONTINUES) The year is 985!

(980s POP MUSIC PLAYING) Cruthan Asia Uchiha and his brothers are at the police academy school pep rally pre-game. They've been drinking since the butt-crack of dawn. Crutan-Asia knows he has to throw up, but he wants to keep partying. What does he do? Does he puke, or does he drink? Neither. He does speed instead (?). Because why not. I give you the motherfucking tenet of speed.

(ALL CHEERING) So many core cop values So many more cop statues. did i say statues no cashews you thought that i would blast you? no statutes.

How are we supposed to stand on the shoulders of giants?

Tell 'em, Fugakgak. I'll tell you how. Do you see that empty space in between belt loops? Let's fill it with guns. We are gonna end the year with the most legendary weapon of all time. I'm talking even bigger than last year's pocket knife.

Presenting... an original concept by me that I personally came up with (by myself): a chidorigun. a gun that shoots high voltage electricity with major laser sharp precision within a given distance. with the three tenets of speed, power, and precision, and the oxford comma, I give you... the tri-laser... the TASER!

ALL: No, no, no! Stick to the stuff you know. Well if Troy can tell his secret then I can tell mine. I bake. Wait nvm what I just said. Seems like an impossible feat. But when we do it, we will get our faces on that wall, amidst the rest of these legends!

(ALL CHEERING) Yes!

Itachi, my only son I care about, do you want to tell us about your first summer as a full fledged adult when you were 42 months old?

My parents got divorced.

And where did you go?

Right here.

And what happened?

I cried.

Why did you cry?

Because I felt safe. Because I was surrounded by my brothers. Brothers have a bond that goes beyond friendship. We are the family you get to choose, and we don't get divorced!

#acquisition

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deanwax · 8 months

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For the WIP titles tag. I need to know more about It's an Electric Thang please 💜

It's an Electric Thang (alt title: Two Cats Meeting) is the only het meet-cute I've ever conceived. It takes place in a world where elemental powers have only started occurring in the human population fairly recently and if you've got 'em, it's best kept secret.

Wyatt's powers are electric, but he doesn't have any ambitions of being a superhero or anything. Doesn't even consider himself sharp enough to learn computer programming. He took a job at an auto repair shop right out of high school and he's real good at fixing anything to do with the flow of electrical current because he can see where the current stops.

One day, he comes across a dusty old cat lying in an alleyway. He can tell it's going to die soon by the way the electrical impulses in its body have slowed, so he decides to sit with it until then. This is when a young nurse named Mary comes out from the back door of an old folks' home. She has the ability to manipulate air, and she tries to put more air into the near-dead cat's lungs. The attempt to resuscitate the cat disturbs Wyatt to his core and he accidentally makes a lightning strike discharge down a nearby drainpipe. This frightens Mary, and she slaps Wyatt across the face:

Mary made her own big sound with the hardest slap Wyatt had ever been hit with in his life. Later that night, when he was in his bed stewing about it, he figured she must have done something to take the wind resistance away from her hand.

They run away from each other after this, but the short story ends when they sheepishly reconcile after next crossing paths.

Here's the first chunk:

Wyatt Scott was a child of incest. He wasn’t supposed to talk about it, but his momma and her cousin Robbie had been in love ever since they was kids, and she’d lied and said Wyatt’s daddy had run out on her before he was born.

He’d been real cut up about it when he’d found out, listening to them through the kitchen window in the dead of night when he was meant to be in bed sleeping. But now that he was almost a man, Wyatt wasn’t too mad about it. He had all the right numbers of fingers and toes, but he did always wonder if the incest thing was the cause of his electric thing.

He wasn’t supposed to talk about that, neither. It made people real scared. Couldn’t blame ‘em: why, it felt like just about every other day there was a news story about so-and-so or such-and-such making a real mess of things, robbin’ banks and setting things on fire like the bad guys in movies. The people on the TV called ‘em Paranorms, but that was stupid. Wyatt had never seen a ghost in his damn life. He could see electricity just fine, though, when he wanted to; zipping this way and that in glowing lines that shined through the walls of his house like he had x-ray vision or somethin’.

The human body had electricity, too. Wyatt’s particular comprehension could turn any normal person in a glowing being of light, like an angel, or maybe even a jellyfish, with a brilliant cluster of sparks right behind their eyes. It was a blessed way to pass the time, though any other Scotts at the dinner table were likely to get a little zap if they asked Wyatt to pass the salt.

#asks #tag games #wip #deanwaxwrites #it's an electric thing

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holycafe · 2 years

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Hiya! 💙

For the fanfic author ask meme: ❤️‍🔥🔬🎨

Bye 💙

Hey! Thanks for the ask <3

❤️‍🔥 Favorite ship you have written about?

Coldflash, of course! It is my home ship

🔬The fic you had to make the most research for?

Hmmm, probably Trick or Treat.

I did a lot of research while writing that to try and figure out how young children percieve death and grieve. I wanted to do my best to portray Len's daughter accurately while still carrying the story forward in the way it needed to go. I'm still pretty happy with how it turned out.

🎨 Show us a sneak peek from a WIP!

Well, if you insist... here's a little snippet from a Rogue Barry WIP i've been messing around with:

A man was sitting at the bar; tall, slender, beautiful. Len didn’t give him much more than a passing glance at first. Maybe he would have done one month earlier, but not now. He had to keep his mind focused. He was in Central for one reason, and one reason only: the Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond. The job was only a few days away, and he couldn’t afford any distractions.

So, he ignored the beautiful young stranger in favour of watching the game with a beer in his hand and a plate of fries in front of him.

That was a mistake.

One second, everything was normal. Central was losing against Gotham again – no surprise there; Gothamites were as crooked as they come – and the bar was booing a particularly nasty foul. But then the air began to shift. Len couldn’t say how exactly, but he knew something was on its way.

A moment later, it happened.

Lightning and wind spilled out into the room.

Energy zipped against his skin, zapped against the hairs on his arms, caught the breath in his throat.

Len pulled out his gun, more on instinct than anything else, but the firearm was ripped from his fingers before he had even flicked the safety off. He was a quick draw; no one had ever beaten him to the punch before. Except now something had because his gun was gone. And so was his wallet, watch, ring, and the remainder of his dinner.

And then everything settled.

Len took a headcount of the room; everyone was still there. Everyone except the pretty little brunet at the bar.

An argument was beginning to break out now, confusion and fear bringing tensions up high. Gritting his teeth, Len moved towards the empty seat. One guy got in his way, but Len glared at him until he backed down. Which he did; no one troubled Leonard Snart in his own bar.

And yet he’d just been pickpocketed…

Len searched for anything that the mystery man had left behind. But all he found was a single untouched beer and a torn-up napkin.

Behind him, the arguments worsened, and a fight broke out. But Len wasn’t going to put up with that. He signalled his bartender – who had just been standing stock still and confused – forward. He told her to pass him the handgun hidden beneath the till, and she did.

“Everybody out!” Len shouted, clicking the safety off his gun. He didn’t expect to actually have to use it, though, and he didn’t. The patrons soon quietened, packed up, and skulked away. Once the last one was out, Len told his staff to clean up and close down early for the night. Len then picked up the abandoned beer bottle and shredded napkin that the mystery man had left behind, and went upstairs. Saints and Sinners didn’t have any visible cameras – it was kind of counterintuitive to record his patrons since almost everyone who drank here was a crook in their own right – but it did have a few covert devices. And Kahndaq Dynasty Diamond forgotten, Len had a new target now.

#coldflash #dc #barry allen #leonard snart

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araveninthedarknight · 10 months

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A new Character in the Story chapter 3

This is going to be kinda sappy, and we see a bit of an out of character Yasushi, but it is important to the story, and well....I have to write him sappy because it is what my brain demands, that he get some sappy moments.

WARNINGS: Small mentions of fights/voilence, Teasing from two to three people in a playful way, swearing and out of character peoples. Sorry, I don't make the rules here, my head does -\_(-v-)_/-

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

Chapter 3:

Bobby sat on the roof top, it was peaceful since he had started the day with an early morning coffee and heading to the school with Kyoshi. He had let the blonde mohawk wearing teen go to his friends, getting some much needed space to get his feet under him and take a breather. He had a lot on his mind after admiting the previous night to Kyoshi what had really happened with him and how he showed up. In that time he bacme like a brother to Bobby, and for that the other was greatful, the world seemed a little less scary knowing he had one person for sure by his side. "Kyoshi told me I could find you here." A deep voice states, jolting the almost 16 year old out of his thoughts with a jump, he knew just from the voice is was Yasushi, and that had Bobby's heart racing and his palms sweating. "O-Oh hello Yasushi, yeah...Im just hanging out here for a while before it gets too crazy." Bobby only manages to not stutter slightly and feels a lump in his throat, his crush smelled so so good, like versace man au frechie, which was one of the artificial red head's favorite designer cologne smells. "He told me what happened last night to you, the fight on your way home.How are your knuckles and nose feeling?" Yasushi had no clue why he was asking the teen before him this as he sat down on one of the old tables across from the couch, his heart just called him to do so.

"A little sore, but I'm alright. Its really all thanks to Kyoshi for saving me though...I am not the best fighter to be honest. Mostly had been a goody two shoes for my life until last night, though it was a rush." Bobby admits, his cheeks flushing at the attention the boy with the braids was giving him and he knew he would be done for had he found out the real reason Bobby came to school with his best friend. "You seem deep in thought, what is it?" Yasushi asks, deciding that if his friend was close to him, he would try to be too, though it would mostly be done under the hidden daylight when others from the school's gangs had no clue, like now for example.

"You would never belive me if I told you. I got lucky that Kyoshi didn't call the authoraties and tell them I was deranged...But if you really want to know..."He drug out the 'L' in really and heaved a heavy sigh, the air thick with tension,"I was watching the high and low movies.. this world is a movie world typically...And it was stormy. I was charging my phone when a lightning bolt lit the sky purple and a surge of electricity zapped me, I woke up on the roof top here at Oya, scared and confused but trying to convince myself it was only a dream.The fight last night was what really set it in for me that I am well and truly stuck here and that this is all really happening. You don't have to believe me, like i told Kyoshi..I sound nuts to most people but I would never lie about something like this and risk being sent to a hospital.." Bobby lets his voice trail off, fighting a new batch of tears out of his green eyes, glasses atop his head with their clear frames ever comfortably sitting in lucious red velvet tendrils styled in a shaggy mess.

"You don't sound crazy..Your voice and eyes say it all and I will help keep your secret until you are comfertable telling others. If that is ever what you decide to do. Do you have a place to stay?Have you had any issues with anyone here today?" Yasushi feels protective surges bubble into his heart, making it hard for him to breath.HE was becoming the bottle blonde's worl faster than either knew what to do with, but he still had a tough persona to keep up.He was Yasushi after all.

"Wait, do we look like this in the movies or are we diffrent in that world?" He was curious to see if he was any diffrent from his movie counterpart in Bobby's old world.

"No, you were all the same as you are here, I always stupidly enough found you to be the most handsome in all of the movie. And thinking that the mohawk was what was wrong with Kyoshi's girlfriend struggles honestly." Bobby said the last part louder than the first, but at the close range where they could feel each other's breath fanning over their faces, Yasushi had heard it all loud and clear, and he felt himself turn a shade of pink, the boy he seemed to be developing feelings for had himself had a crush on Yasushi before they even met,paths seemingly meant to cross and time standing still for both, eyes interlocked in a comforting gaze.

"Well, Im glad you think I am handsome, and for the record, I think you are handsome too. You remind me a bit of Todoroki, but you are honestly much cuter and much more likeable already. We will be butting heads much less than he and I tend to do." The long blonde haired teen had a sly smirk glazed onto his lips, he wasn't teasing the red head perse, mostly just being honest but also flirting. A throat clearing broke them from their talk, a glaring Todoroki causing the hearts of both boys to lurch to their throats in worry, the leader looked unhappy, and neither team wanted to be on his bad side ever in their lives. "I don't think he meant that in a bad way, I promise you.. He just means he can't see you as anything other than a class mate." Bobby pipes up, making sure to keep his voice firm again, much like the day before, sans crowd luckily for him, he hadted crowds.

"Yasushi, if the two of you date ever, I can't promise that I can controll the other factions of Oya, but Bobby, you will have your hands full if you two enter a relationship. It is really quite a hassle to deal with this knuckle head." Todoroki says, almost as if to assure the youngster that he could trust him, even though his newest friend and love intrest potential just chucked a throw pillow to the leader's face. "Shuddup dodoroki!!" The normally deep voice whas high pitched and whiney, showing just how much that had gotten under the skin of the long honey blonde's thoughts. He was being ebarrased in front of the newest member and a crush of his by a long time school mate and he was willing to risk a fight to show his annoyance to him in such a physical way.

"Yasu, calm down, it's ok..He didn't mean any harm by his words, you don't have to be embarresed at all. I think this side of you is rather cute and refreshing, and I know it won't make you weak, you deserve to love and be loved too." Bobby says softly, a small and shy smile with hopeful eyes shining like gems under the morning sun, all but confessing his own love to the teen that sat on the table in front of him, knees barley brushing and breath's still mixing in close proximity to each other.

"And stop throwing these nice pillows, I don't want to have to replace them, they make the school look less dead. You guys need a good touch up here to callm your asses down,Fuckkkk." A chuckle errupts from the bottle red head's lips, the cherry chapstick creating a soft area for a smile to form even larger than the frist, he decided to be bold and send his crush a wink, knowing that this would have all happened in the time between the last episode of the tv show and the first movie, so he could take a risk here and there, though he had no clue what he would do when they got to the movie part of it all. But that would be an issue for another day he decided, one when everyone knew and had gotten a better grasp on the issues at hand. There was sure to be more fights to come their way, and Bobby wanted to be ready, "I need to find someone who can train me now though, I want to be ready for the nxt fight to come this way, and so I can better defend myself."

"I will personally train you myself then." Todoroki says, a hint of a smile dancing across his face.

#high and low the worst #high and low the worst x cross #yasushi X OC high and low fanfic #yasushi high and low #nishikawa yasushi #fanfic #high and low fanfic

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razieltwelve · 1 year

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The Thunderer (RWBY AU Snippet)

“It’s a fucking krakens, you fucks! We’re fucked!”

The captain was not normally such an eloquently spoken man, but there was a certain terror-born verbosity that came from being attacked by a kraken whose diameter was measured in miles. It did not help that his ship was a rickety merchant vessel that would have been replaced years ago if not for the stinginess of his patron.

If he got out of this alive, he was going to kill that damn merchant! Oh wait. That damn merchant was his father-in-law. Fuck. He’d ask his wife to kill that damn merchant. She’d always been the apple of her father’s eye, which might have explained why the old merchant was so antagonistic toward him.

On the upside, his father-in-law doted on his children.

Wait.

Now was not the time to be thinking about his father-in-law. He needed to find a way to deal with the fucking kraken.

“What do we do, captain?” his first mate bellowed.

The captain snarled. “I don’t know what we can do. That thing is too quick for us to outrun, too strong for us to outfight, and it’s controlling the water around us. There’s...” His eyes widened, and he pointed. “What’s that? Is that a storm approaching?”

“That’s no storm, captain. No storm ever moved that fast.” His first mate laughed. “Dragon! It’s the Thunderer!”

The massive storm front washed over them. The raging waves were joined by howling thunder, tearing winds, and driving rain. From amidst the storm clouds came the gleam of scales.

Now, once upon a time, people would have laughed at a dragon with pink and orange scales. It was, well, not nearly as scary as the blood-red scales of Ruby the Silver (whose name had led to a great deal of confusion over the years) or as awe-inspiring as the dawn-surpassing glory of Yang the Golden. But Nora the Thunderer had proved to everyone that pink and orange did not mean weak.

Nora broke through the clouds, a winged behemoth whose wingbeats might as well have been a hurricane. Her aqua eyes shone with joy, and her voice boomed out over the storm.

“Takoyaki!” Nora the Thunderer, well, thundered. “I see Takoyaki!”

The captain glanced overboard, and the kraken below them, which had been so menacing only a few moments ago, was now turning tail to flee. Despite its octopoid features, it was easy to interpret its expression.

Oh, shit. I need to get the fuck out of here. Someone save me from the crazy, hungry dragon.

“You’re not going anywhere!” Nora bellowed.

She opened her mouth and a blast of lightning so mighty it split the seas and boiled the waves came forth. There was a loud zapping sound, and the kraken gave a ponderous groan. It flailed wildly in attempt to knock Nora out of the air, but the dragon was incredibly agile for her size. She dodged each attack and replied with more and more lightning until finally the kraken floated limply in the water.

The dragon grabbed hold of it with her claws. It was too big for her to fly with it, so instead, she got into the water and swam, pushing the kraken toward the shore.

“You!” Nora pointed one claw at the captain. “Do you know what takoyaki is?”

“Uh... yes. Yes, I do. It’s... my people eat it frequently.”

“Good. Very good. So you have takoyaki sauce back home?”

The captain nodded slowly. “I... yes, we do.”

Nora’s eyes narrowed. “Which way is home for you?”

The captain pointed. “That way. We were going there ourselves until the kraken attacked us.”

“Excellent.” Nora’s wings flapped happily. “I will take my kraken back to where you live, so you can all provide me with takoyaki sauce as tribute for slaying it and saving your lives.”

“Uh... okay.” The captain took a deep breath. “Okay.”

He was so fucked.

Coming back with a dragon?

Forget his father-in-law. His wife was going to kill him.

“Oh, and Ren will be coming too.” Nora squinted up at the storm clouds. “See? There he is.” She laughed, the sound almost childish despite her immense size and incredible power.

The captain looked to where she was pointing. Just barely visible, now that he knew where to look, was another dragon. The expression on the dragon’s face was quiet amusement mixed with fond exasperation.

“Hey!” Nora the Thunderer boomed. “If you want takoyaki, Ren, you have to help me push! This thing is heavy!”

Fuck. Fuckity fuckity fuckity fuck fuck.

X X X

Author’s Notes

Sailors love Nora because their greatest enemies (krakens, leviathans, and various other sea monsters) are all delicacies that she enjoys. They are terrified of having to explain her when she follows them home to extort cooking ingredients out of them.

Oh well.

Incidentally, Nora is known to sailors all over the world. She can fly fast enough that no sea monster is safe, whether its in the east, the west, the north, or the south. Look out krakens (takoyaki) and leviathans (kabayaki), Nora is on then prowl!

And, yes, Nora and Ruby do argue about whether seafood or cookies is better. Ruby has always maintained baked goods are the best but has suggested Nora claim territory of her own, so she can have an army of seafood cooks at her beck and call whenever she catches something.

Pyrrha quietly dies on the inside when she hears those conversations since she has actually put tremendous effort into uplifting her domain, including writing out a formal tax code, making proper laws, and establishing legislative assemblies and the like. Ruby had to be convinced not to call her domain the Cookie Kingdom.

#rwby #fanfiction #nora valkyrie #lie ren

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thisfairytalegonebad · 1 year

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"I'll wait." - Prompto & Noctis, brotherhood era

Prompt #23 of the Love List

Read below the cut, or on AO3 here.

Prompto woke up with a throat so sore he could barely swallow, a body that somehow felt too hot and too cold simultaneously, and the single worst headache he’d ever experienced in his life.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise - half his classmates were sick in bed, and Prompto had always managed to catch a seasonal cold at least once a year, but this was worse than any other cold he’d experienced before.

Moving his arm to grab his phone took all his willpower. He didn’t even try to stop the pitiful groan that escaped him when his shaking hand brought the phone to his face and the bright light all but stabbed into his brain.

His alarm hadn’t gone off yet, but a squinty-eyed look at the time told him it would soon. Not that it mattered, though. There was no way he was going to school like this, not when he was almost doubting his ability to drag himself to the bathroom.

Instead, he typed out a hopefully somewhat coherent message to his teachers, then a short, way less coherent text to Noct, and then he shoved his phone under his pillow and almost immediately fell back asleep.

----

When Prompto woke again, he felt no better, but thankfully he didn’t feel worse, so he counted that as a win.

It was now light out, but Prompto didn’t have it in him to let the bright phone screen assault his poor head again to check the time. Instead, he rolled out of bed and heaved himself to his feet, closing his eyes as a wave of vertigo hit him with no warning.

Thankfully, the white-out was short-lived, and though his head still pounded like crazy, he felt at least stable enough to make his way to the bathroom.

The bathroom, where the medicine cabinet with those blessed painkillers and cold medications were located.

Prompto ripped the cabinet door open and blindly gathered whatever pills he got his hands on. He was starting to feel less stable standing by the second, so the plan was to bring the contents of the medicine cabinet to his bed and then figure out what to take and how much of it once he was horizontal and at less risk of passing out.

Luckily, his brain was functioning enough that he remembered to shuffle by the kitchen to grab himself a bottle of water before he went and crawled back into bed and tried to figure out which pills would make him feel less shitty.

Distantly, as he lay back and hid under his blanket - now, he was just cold - he thought that he should’ve made himself some tea. Tea would’ve been nice right now - with honey and lemon to help battle the virus and soothe his throat - but before he could figure out what to do about that, sleep claimed him once more.

----

Prompto’s next transition into the world of the living was perhaps the most brutal yet, not because of his throbbing head or the fact that he couldn’t even swallow without wanting to cry, but because the ringing doorbell zapped lightning straight through his brain and made him jerk upright so suddenly he almost tipped sideways and right out of bed.

Before his poor, overcooked brain even processed what was happening, the doorbell rang again, as if that somehow made him more likely to go open it, yeah, no, not a chance.

And then, his phone rang from where he’d stuffed it beneath his pillow early this morning. Coincidence? Maybe, but there weren’t a lot of people who usually called him, so he dug the phone out from beneath his head and read-

“Noct?” Prompto winced, both at the way his throat felt as he spoke and at the way his voice absolutely sounded the way it felt. Ugh.

“Hey, I’m outside your door. Can you let me in?” Noct’s voice sounded through the speaker. He sounded… something, Weird. Different than usual, but Prompto didn’t really feel like figuring out just what Noct sounded like. Better to just let him in, maybe then he’d let him go back to sleep.

“There’s, uh. There’s a spare key,” Prompto managed. “Under the doormat.”

A pause, rustling of fabric, and then, “Found it.”

Prompto blinked, and suddenly Noct was standing next to his bed, brow furrowed as he stared down at him.

“You didn’t reply to any of my texts,” Noct explained. I was worried, he didn’t say, but it was obvious even to Prompto’s fever-fried mind.

Aww.

Still-

“You shouldn’t be here,” Prompto half-said half-coughed. “You’ll catch whatever I have.”

Was infecting the Crown Prince of your country with some icky disease a punishable offense? Assassination attempt, perhaps? Prompto certainly felt like he was about to die.

“The flu, probably,” Noct said. “Iggy says it’s flu season.”

“Cool,” Prompto said, and then, “You shouldn’t be here. You’ll catch the flu.”

Irritatingly, Noct all but ignored him and instead chose to sit down right on the bed and stick his hand on Prompto’s forehead.

His nice, cool hand, on Prompto’s too-warm, gross, sweat-sticky forehead… it felt nice. Before he realised what he was doing, Prompto leaned into the touch and found it strangely hard to collect his thoughts.

“Hey,” Noct said, and Prompto opened his eyes again - when had he closed them? And when had Noct removed his hand?

Noct stood. “I’ll make you some tea. Uh. You got any tea in the house?”

Prompto nodded. “Kitchen cabinet, far left. Herbal,” he croaked with some effort.

“Okay. Be right back.”

“Put some lemon and honey in it,” Prompto tried to call after him, but instead, only a breathy little noise came out. Well. Tea without lemon and honey it was.

True to his word - or maybe untrue, Prompto didn’t actually know how long Noct was gone, given that he had fallen asleep again - Noct reappeared by his bedside with a steaming cup of tea.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Noct warned, setting the tea on the nightstand in order to help Prompto into a more upright position.

And hot it was, but the heat soothed Prompto’s raw throat even though it burnt his tongue, and gods, there was honey and lemon in it, Prompto wanted to cry.

Instead, he sipped the tea slowly and tried to focus on Noct, who was telling him what he’d missed in class.

By the time the tea was gone, so was Prompto’s energy, and he found himself already nodding off again.

Plucking the cup out of Prompto’s hands, Noct stood, hovering awkwardly for a moment.

“You don’t have to stick around, you know,” Prompto said. He’d be fine with a few days of rest, he had his medicine, he’d had something to drink, and once he felt a little better, he could make some broth or something so that he wouldn’t starve.

“No, it’s fine. I’ll wait,” Noct said, determined.

“Wait? For what?”

“’Til your parents come home. You shouldn’t be alone, so I’ll stay.”

“My… parents?” All Prompto could do was blink at Noct as he processed the words. “Gonna be a long wait.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They’re not coming home tonight, or anytime this week. They’re on a work trip,” Prompto said, wishing Noct stopped saying stuff he had to verbally reply to. Yes-or-no questions only, please. Gods, his throat hurt so bad.

Several emotions flashed across Noct’s face in rapid succession, but the only one Prompto really managed to pinpoint was anger.

“Okay. Okay. I can’t just stay here for the night, it’s, uh, it’s a safety thing, against protocol, whatever. So you’ll come with me. I’ll call Ignis, we’ll go to my place, you stay with me ‘til you’re better.”

Before Prompto had a chance to argue, Noct was already calling Ignis, who, as always, picked up almost immediately.

Prompto zoned out for a bit, not quite by choice, and only zoned back in when Noct’s hand landed yet again on his forehead.

“Specs is picking us up, alright? You should sleep until he gets here. I’ll wake you.”

“Didn’t have to…” Prompto muttered, eyelids heavy as lead, but he drifted off before he could hear Noct’s answer.

----

The trip to Noct’s apartment was a blur. Prompto vaguely remembered Noct helping him down to the waiting car - in his pyjamas, Six, hopefully, no neighbours had seen that -, and the next thing he knew, he woke in a bed that was not his own.

From his left, also on the bed, soft music was playing. A bit belatedly, Prompto recognized it as the King’s Knight battle theme.

The noise’s source soon noticed he was awake, uncurled himself, and paused the game in favour of feeling Prompto’s forehead yet again.

Really, Prompto thought, that couldn’t be a reliable way to get someone’s temperature.

“Should probably use a thermometer for that,” he croaked.

Noct frowned. “How’re you feeling? You look…” he trailed off.

“Less foggy,” Prompto told him truthfully. He still felt like absolute shit, but at least he was more or less lucid and didn’t feel like he was going to immediately fall back asleep.

“You think you can eat? Specs made you some soup. I can get you a bowl.”

Prompto considered the offer and decided that yes, actually, soup sounded pretty good right now. Especially Iggy’s soup.

He told Noct as much, and soon, he held in his hands a bowl full of the most delicious broth he had ever tasted. Figures. Only Ignis could make something as simple as chickatrice soup taste like a gourmet meal.

When the bowl was empty, Prompto had enough energy left for exactly two rounds of King’s Knight, after which his character died tragically as his eyelids began to close on their own once again.

Noct plucked his phone from his hands and set it on the nightstand for him.

“You should sleep.”

“Hmm…” Prompto agreed.

Distantly, he registered Noct turning off the bedside lamp and closing the door behind him.

If Prompto had had enough time to worry about forcing the Crown Prince of the kingdom to go sleep on the couch in favour of leaving the bed to his peasant friend, he would have protested. As it was, he only burrowed deeper into the blessedly soft pillows before his eyes shut and he fell into a more peaceful sleep than he’d had all day.

----

Read the whole project on AO3 here!

#ffxv #final fantasy xv #prompto argentum #noctis lucis caelum #thisfairytalegonebad's writing #what? a new chapter? and it didn't take 14 months this time??

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rogueshadeaux · 1 year

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CHAPTER EIGHT - TRIALS AND ERRORS

Dad shrugged it off, not meeting our stares. “In the end, it’s not a big deal, you know? I have six powers. Who knows how many more I can have. So if that means I’m a little weaker, then whatever.”

6.1k Words | 20 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: more body shifting (there's gonna be a lot of it from here on out so if any of that makes you uncomfortable, please, now would be the place to stop), near crushing, falling from heights.

Dad had Brent stand right beside the next generator, the blue softly dancing on the Carhart I was sure Dad wouldn’t be getting back. “It didn’t hurt,” I reassured him, “Well, no, for like, a millisecond it did, but—“

“So you lied?”

“Aren’t you the same guy who laughed when the bone came out of his broken arm? Man up—“

“Guys.” Dad chastised, a yard away. He didn’t want to try anything with the Core Relay until Brent was ready, for safety. “You’ll be safe, Brent. I’ll make sure of it.”

Whatever Dad did last time, the energy from the generator meant to go to him, not me; I was just in the way. What was an accident our first time was now the goal; Brent and I stood on opposite sides of the generator, facing each other, Dad directly behind Brent, only a few feet away, hands glued to his side. The moment Dad raises his hand to drain the Relay, its energy should instead shoot right into Brent’s lower stomach.

Or his balls, which would be hilarious

“Tell me if you notice anything on that side, alright?” Dad asked, leaning around Brent to meet my eyes. I was the hawk, meant to find anything weird about the draining — because it was completely and totally normal in the first place. Nonetheless, I knew what Dad meant, and I nodded. “You ready, Brent?”

“No.”

“Atta boy,” Dad hummed, completely ignoring Brent’s hesitation. “Alright, here we go…”

Dad and Brent took the same steadied breath, mirrors of each other. Brent met my eyes, a silent plea in them I tried to placate with a gentle smile and a nod. You’ll be okay, I wanted to reassure him. He gave the slightest nod back.

Mid-nod, though, the generator sparked, the energy shooting out from it at a speed that didn’t even give Brent a chance to change his facial expression. The blue stream shot into his lower stomach, wrapping around him with a whip-like crack. Static lingered in the air, making my skin feel tingly — and giving Brent that same momentary sting of pain I got. He gasped out, his arms moving to grip at his sides only for him to freeze.

The face he was making…it kind of looked like he needed to sneeze? Like he was on the cusp of a movement, but entirely unable to even twitch a muscle. His eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared off, the blue aura of energy beginning to spread from its grip around his torso to his entire abdomen. Lines of it spread out, following the pulse of his veins as it extended from his core — its core — to every part of his body, thrumming with his heartbeat.

Like a lightning bolt, the energy zapped away, dissipating into nothingness in the air, its only evidence it was ever there in the first place being strands of my hair standing up straight. That same release of energy also released Brent, who gasped and almost collapsed before steadying himself against the destroyed generator, hissing as its steel sliced at his palms.

I was the first to him, zipping around the Core Relay to his side and firmly grasping the nearest bit of him, his arm. “Hey, you good? C’mon, sit down for a minute.”

Dad joined on his other side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and guiding his shaky descent down. “There you go, son,” he cooed.

Brent dry heaved, Dad forcing his head between his knees and trying to coach deep breathing to him. “Lean against it, there you go,” he instructed once the moment passed with no spewed chunks, leaning Brent against the metal of the generator. He sighed, leaning into its cool touch. “You alright?”

Brent furiously nodded, his breathing becoming short bursts of gasps as he became alight with excitement. “Holy shit, Dad—“

“Language, Brent—“

“Jean was right. It showed me everything,” Brent was looking at Dad, but his eyes seemed to see far past him. “It’s crazy,”

“Good,” Dad nodded, the smile not reaching his eyes. “That’s good.”

Brent didn’t see how Dad looked, too busy staring at his hands — but Dad did see that I noticed. That confusion settled back on his brow as he looked to a buzzing Core Relay, eyes crossing over to the one Brent leaned against — and instead meeting my stare. I opened my mouth to ask if he was okay, but he just shook his head once, mouthing Later.

He kept my gaze till I closed my mouth and nodded back, then looked at Brent. “Think you can stand?”

Brent nodded, pulling his gaze away from his palms, now perfectly healed. “Yeah, I feel better.”

We all got to our feet, all evidence of the upset stomach far behind Brent now. He was entirely energized, bouncing on his feet and waiting for Dad to say the magic words. “Well?” He asked, beaming.

Dad laughed. “You look like a dog waiting to be let off its leash.” But then he motioned forward. “Go ahead. Show me,”

Brent, ecstatic, smirked. “Oh. I plan to,”

That metallic shine was back to his arm, and I half expected the shield to come back. But it didn’t. Instead, the shine of silver spread rapidly, encasing Brent’s arm — and then his entire body — in a steel chrysalis.

Skin literally as hard as steel. Holy shit.

Brent apparently wasn’t expecting it to work, as he immediately began looking at any exposed bit of his skin, freaking out. “Oh, this is awesome.”

Dad thumped his elbow, pulling his hand back in pain when the metal didn’t even flinch under his touch. “Amazing,” he muttered.

“How tough do you think it is?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” Brent grinned. “But that isn’t all.”

Brent braced himself, bending at the knee like he was about to jump, and he did — but he didn’t come back down. Those shavings burst from his skin in an aura reflecting the blinding sun, and Brent emerged from it with wings.

His arms were the bend of the wings, fans of steel layering over each other in a definite more industrialized version of Icarus’ invention. But it worked twice as well as his, Brent bolting up into the sky on a loud whoop as he approached the low hanging clouds. Reaching his peak, another burst of steel pulled the wings away from him, and he seemed to turn in slow motion in the sky, hanging by the muted sun for a breath before diving back to the ground.

“Oh God, I wish you guys would stopdoingthat!” Dad rushed to say as Brent plummeted towards the ground, a worried step forward. Like he was going to catch the boy out of midair. But there was no need; Brent flicked an arm out and the ground shook, a pillar of steel ripping through the cement foundation and rushing up to meet him, a stepping stone. Again and again and again, Brent flicked his hand, a new pillar shooting from the ground to make another step for him to bound from.

Brent made it to the ground entirely unscathed, turning to beam to us. “Did you see that? There’s so much more, too. Weapons, Dad! I can make weapons! And there’s this thing with the shield too, but the wings seemed way cooler—“

Dad just laughed breathlessly, entirely void of words. I couldn’t blame him — I had no idea what to say either. This was amazing. “I’m so proud of you two,” he finally mustered.

“Wings?” I looked at Brent. “Wanna trade powers?”

“Are you kidding, Jean? You can turn invisible—“

I waved him off. “I can evaporate. It’s different.”

Dad balked at that. “Wait, you can evaporate?”

“Yeah! And I guess you can too! It’s so cool, you can see the water in the air when you do it!” I shared excitedly.

But it all faded as Dad went to rub on his neck, face a bit…off. Awkward. Like he was bashful about what he had to say next. “Well, I guess I need to explain something else to you kids before we continue.”

Brent and I glanced at each other, eyebrows raised. The excitement from everything that had just happened was quickly dissipating from the air. “Is something wrong, Dad?” Brent finally asked.

“No,” he rushed to assure us. “No, nothing’s wrong. There’s just something I need to explain to you.” Taking a deep breath, he started with, “When I take a power, I get nothing. Maybe I’ll be able to do something simple, like, movement with it — but that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes? I’ll be entirely powerless. It’s happened, and I don’t know why.

“And when I do get the abilities, they’re not the same. Similar, sure, but whatever you see me do with these powers? That’s all I can do. It’s like, to make up for how many I can have, I can’t fully master them.” Dad turned to look at me. “I don’t evaporate, with yours. Probably won’t be able to.”

“Well,” my mind was moving a mile a minute. I thought he could mimic. What did he mean he doesn’t get to do the same thing I can? “I mean, maybe I can show you? There’s gotta be—“

“There isn’t.” Dad cut me off with a finality I knew I wouldn’t be able to change. “I’ve tried. With your Mom, with my friend. There’s a limit to how far I can develop the power. Eugene? He’s able to become this giant, like, twenty foot angel and can pick these up with one hand.” He pointed to the generators. Is that how they were sliced? “I can’t do much more than grow those wings you saw yesterday. And I can’t even fly with them; just glide.”

But it looked like way more than whatever to Dad. He was bothered by it, and I understood why: it was confusing. He could copy peoples powers but, what, only the basis of it? He couldn’t become a master in them? I was sort of looking forward to doing things with Dad — going invisible and causing hell, seeing if we could control water even if it was frozen. Those were out of the cards now. I didn’t know how far he could take the powers…but definitely not as far as me.

Brent seemed to be thinking something similar, as he asked, “So everything I’ve — I can do, you…”

“Probably won’t be able to,” Dad finished for him.

“So then, what can you do?” Brent glanced between Dad and I and back again. “What did the Relay thing just show you?”

Dad didn’t bother answering with words — why would he? It’d be better to show. Raising his hand, the silver shavings began to dance around his wrists, spinning furiously as he pulled his hand back and thrusted forward, like he was trying to push something away.

Or, apparently, launch something; as his hand pushed forward, the shavings spun out, collecting and growing into 3 steel spires with dangerously sharp ends, spinning through the air until they crunched into the weakened beam Brent drained. Metal against metal screeched into the air, its reverberated scream making my skin crawl and visibly affecting us all; Dad cringed, Brent shot his hands up to cover his ears. The 3 spires pierced their weak counterpart, making the beam creak and groan with their stab.

“Huh,” Brent finally said, removing his hands from his ears once the final echoes of the terrible noise ended. “I can’t do those. What are they, stakes—“

The creaking was back, louder and dangerously calm as the beam began to fold in on itself, beginning to fall straight towards the three of us. “Look out!” Dad shouted over the cry of the metal as it snapped towards its bottom, the slow tumble becoming a rapid fall. He gripped Brent by the hood of his carhart and yanked him back, using his other hand to violently push me forward.

I lost my footing, tumbling to the ground and cutting my hand up on the cement as I tried to catch myself. I could worry about that later — the beam was still falling, spires and all directly above me and coming down fast.

Collapsing onto my stomach, I rolled onto my back, watching the beam get closer and threaten to crush me whole. It was huge, there was no time to run anymore.

But maybe there was time to hold it back.

There was so much more than changing my body’s state of matter that the Relay showed me; I could use the water defensively, too. I shot my hands in front of me like I was going to catch the beam myself, in a bit of awe as water began seeping from my skin like sweat, encasing each hand in a swirling glove of wetness. But there was time to admire how cool it looked later; right now, I needed to save my ass from becoming a teenage pancake.

I willed the water to grow into a floating pool above me, pushing the water forward just as the steel came within a few feet of me, catching it in midair. It was so goddamn heavy that even with the aid of my power I struggled under it, my joints shaking with the effort of holding it up. I grunted out, the exertion threatening to break my concentration as the beam settled into the pool, its full weight pushing back on me and trapping my hands on my chest.

I tried pushing back, throwing it up in the air or something — but it was no use. I knew I probably could, but I wasn’t there yet. Too weak. Knowing everything my powers could do meant absolutely nothing with it only being my third day having them. I only managed to push back enough to lift my hands an inch from my chest, curling my fingers and willing the water to follow.

It wrapped itself around the steel beam, a grip far more stable than mine, and after another grunt, I forced my arms up in a deadlift, crying out with the effort as I threw them to the side.

All that effort on my side for the water to pathetically move left, evaporating as my arms collapsed and letting the beam tumble just a few inches from my side with a deafening clatter. But hey, I wasn’t squished. Absolutely exhausted and with jelly arms, but not squished. A bead of sweat dripped from my forehead into my eye, and I couldn’t even lift my arm to rub it away.

Dad appeared in my vision, concern warping his upside down face as he mouthed Are you okay? Or maybe he actually said it. I couldn’t tell either way — my ears were ringing too loud for anything to get through anyways. “I can’t hear you,” I gasped out, “Hold on.”

Dad took that as enough of an answer, kneeling to help me into a sitting position. Thank God. I don’t think I could have gotten up on my own even if I tried.

The ringing eventually subsided into the dull hum of tinnitus, something hopefully short lived as I looked at Dad and jokingly asked, “Were you trying to kill me?”

He managed to chuckle. “I will neither confirm nor deny,” but he kept his eyes on me, scanning over my face. “You okay? You’re sort of pale.”

I nodded. “I’ll be fine. That was just heavy,”

“Alright. Brent?” He looked over his shoulder. “Stay with your sister. Rest up a minute. I’m gonna go around and finish with the Relays.”

Brent nodded, sitting beside me on the ground as Dad walked away. We both watched him pick a random generator, sauntering up to it and with no hesitation, reach out, the zap of the energy as it rushed to meet Dad audible from here.

I know this was natural and all to Dad, but I hated it. It didn’t look natural. I mean, as far as anything regarding being a Conduit could be natural. The way the energy zipped around his body, almost looking like it would contort him to its will…filled me with worry. And why didn’t it do that to Brent and I? Why were we different?

“Do you think it’s safe?” Brent asked suddenly.

“What?”

He motioned back to Dad just as the light filled his eyes, immobile. “Whatever’s in the Relays. Do you think it’s safe?”

Hell, how should I know? “Dad’s been doing this since, what 2020?” I thought back to APUSH; Seattle, the Second Age — that was 2018? Maybe? “If it was dangerous, he’d know by now.”

Brent just hummed, turning back to watch Dad. He hung in the air a moment longer before the blue gave way to silver, and he dropped to his feet. The steel stayed swirling around him, and he waved his hand up like he was trying to pull something out of the ground, a jagged wall of steel appearing in front of him.

Dad played around with the new ability a few more times, testing different sizes and such. “Can you do that?” I turned to Brent, the question accented with the crackle of cement as another steel wall came up.

Brent shrugged. “I have the shield. I can make it bigger and like, stab it into the ground like his are, but Dad, he…” Brent bit his lip. “His look more…jagged.”

“Like he can’t make anything fancy,”

“Yeah. Don’t tell him I said that though.”

Dad went to three more Relays, testing out each power once the energy exposed its possibility to him. Some sort of ball of steel that exploded when Dad launched it, scattering shrapnel everywhere. Another time, after settling from the Relay’s bullying, he moved like he was going to run, instead encased in this spinning ball of rings — what was it called? Armillary sphere? Something like that; he used it to dash like a madman, a giant hamster ball on the run.

The third Relay he didn’t attempt to perform whatever it revealed to him; just shook off the stupor and moved on. He did one more before deciding it was good enough, leaving one generator to hum, the last singer of its choir. The other generator's corpses remained, silent and smoky, as Dad meandered his way back to us. “Hey,” he greeted, looking at me. “Okay now?”

“Yeah. It was just heavy.” I waved him off, my arm still struggling a bit to move. There’s my workout for the rest of the year.

“Alright. Well,” Dad looked to the watch on his wrist. “We’ve been out here a few hours, and I’m getting hungry. But,” the word hung in the air, elongated by his sing-song voice as he drew it out. “I want to do something first.”

That voice — whenever he jokingly held a word in the air like that, it always meant he had something up his sleeve. And by the way he was bouncing on the balls of his feet, I knew it had to be something exciting. “What?” I breathed out on a laugh. God, he was so ridiculous.

Dad put his hands in his pockets, swaying back and forth in place — but with every swing forward, he’d scooch a little closer. Finally, when he was only a step away, he leaned down, face to face with me as he slowly brought a finger to my nose.

And as he booped it, he whispered, “Tag, you’re it.”

I blinked a few times in surprise as Dad flitted backwards, a globe of steel appearing and dissipating just as quick as he materialized a few yards away. “Tag?” I called out. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Hey, we can’t combat train yet,” he called back, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. C’mon, you gonna use those powers or not?”

I glanced over to Brent, the disbelief in his face giving away to pure amusement. “Do we do it?” He asked me.

“We?” I scoffed. “Uh, no.”

They both looked at me, Dad a bit crestfallen, Brent oddly disappointed, as I scoffed. “You can do it.” I said, shooting my hand out to punch his arm. “‘Cause you’re it!”

And I evaporated into thin air.

Brent swiped a hand where I was, but it was already too late. I was at least 3 feet away, and running farther still. “Dad, isn’t that cheating?” Brent jokingly whined.

Okay, half-jokingly; he did look a little annoyed.

Dad just laughed. “Hey, every man for himself. But if you’re gonna play dirty, Jean, you better be ready to fight against a professional.” He reached out to a generator, the smoke sputtering from in instead shooting to his hand as he drained it.

After everything the past three days, this felt necessary. Needed. To let go and be ridiculous…it was a breather. And to be able to use the powers! Dad used his smoke abilities to let go of little bombs of ash, trying to paint out my form as I dashed away. He also had to dodge Brent, who was barreling towards him, trying his best to tag someone out.

Eventually, I ran into a plume of smoke, the ashy cloud surprisingly forming around me and giving away my position. So despite being gas, things like fog or smoke would still give me away? Good to know. “There, Brent!“ Dad called, pointing to me. Before I could get away, Brent flicked his wrist upwards, spires of steel breaking through the ground around me and shaking the entire earth, trapping me in a cage with no top.

“Okay, how is this not cheating?” I demanded, going solid. “You can’t cage me!”

“Hell yeah I can,” Brent laughed, sticking a hand through the rounded spikes to poke my back. “Go ahead and try to get out, Jeanie.”

“You do realize you left the top open, right, stupid?” I deadpanned, pointing upwards.

“Use the powers how you want,” Dad called out from the other side of the abandoned construction site. “This is good practice.”

“It’s a kids game!” I hollered back.

“It’s fun and you’ll like it, Regina!” He jokingly threatened. “Just no trying to kill each other.”

“Oh, so we can put each other in jail but not kill each other,”

“Those are two very different things, Jeanie,”

I rolled my eyes, trying to find a decent sized gap to force myself through as a liquid. Brent was already gone, balanced on a steel beam a good ten feet away and 12 feet up. He stuck his tongue out at me when our eyes met, and I moved my hand up to point it at him, a steady and powerful stream of water jetting from my hand and shooting right at his face.

Brent yelped, losing his balance on the beam and tumbling back, slipping off. He only fell a few feet before the aura of steel came back, his wings forming around him and flaring out to save him from his fall. “I just said no killing each other!” Dad chastised as Brent zoomed along the ground, coming dangerously close to me and slicing my liquid body with his wing, splitting me in half momentarily.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but the heaviness of being all water was gone. As I stitched back together, it no longer felt weightful — simply different. Not in a bad or a good way. Like it was a different flavor, not the entire rearranging of my molecular structure. It still tingled, sending a shiver up what would have been my spine — but it wasn’t uncomfortable anymore.

I became whole again, going solid with my own splashing aura. Brent landed on the ground, shaking the wings off into shavings, a glint in his eyes I haven’t seen in a while. “You know,” I said, “You're technically it, now.”

Brent blinked, taking a moment to realize he touched me as water, before stomping on the ground like a toddler mid-tantrum. “Son of a bitch,” I could hear him mutter.

“Brent Si’ahl!”

“Sorry, Dad!”

Dad — he was still on the other side of the construction site, just watching. Too comfortable for his own good. I met Brent’s eyes, jerking my head sideways to Dad, and we came to a silent agreement. A truce, with a common enemy.

Brent, without looking away, swung a hand up, the ground rumbling again. Another set of steel spires shot up from the ground around Dad, all running diagonal in a way to try and block off an exit from the top. “Hey!” Dad shouted. “You can’t team up!”

We just laughed.

Short lived, of course; Dad went up in a cloud of smoke, the dark trails and slight illumination of ash flitting through the bars and just outside of it, Dad reforming from the cloud. “Okay, if it’s gonna be like that, then,” he nodded, playfully scowling. Us versus Dad. It was how we used to play every game — tag, hide and seek. Dad would take us to the old abandoned church down the road from our house and play with us in the parking lot all day, trying his best to tire out two rambunctious toddlers. Always somehow dodging our touches, always just out of reach. Reflecting now, he always seemed a little too good at those games.

Oh my god, the bastard was using his powers the whole time.

Dad’s hand shot out again, this time, the smoke rings around his arm thinning into the air as he drained power from the shattered concrete at the base of his escaped prison. This was the perfect time to attack, he had to finish draining first.

I rushed towards Dad, also a part of the ‘it’ side now, aiming to simply tap him — but of course it wouldn’t be that easy. He saw me coming, keeping the draining up with his one hand as his other came up too, twisting 180 degrees and then pulling upwards.

The ground below me rumbled and cracked, the concrete moving from its settled position to grip my feet and climb up my ankles, encasing me in black scales and holding me in place. I wobbled, trying to catch my balance without the benefit of my feet as Dad finished his draining, smirking.

I couldn’t help it — I laughed, trying to pull my feet out of the grip of the concrete. This was absolutely ridiculous! But it was also fun. “Try and get out of it without turning into water,” Dad hollered, dodging Brent’s touch as he flew past. “See if you can find a different solution!”

A different solution? There weren’t many ways to get out of a concrete cast besides changing form. Guess that’s what Dad was trying to teach me, though; think outside the box. Or, concrete. Whatever.

Did I have to think outside of it, though? Maybe to get out, I’d have to concentrate on how to get in. How to break it from the inside out. Concrete was just a man-made rock, a mix of sand and cement bound together with science. Bindings break. Rocks erode.

I stretched my hands out, my gauntlets of water coming back, winding around my forearms and waiting to be commanded.

I could spray at the concrete, power wash it into oblivion — but that would take forever. I had to find a quicker solution. When I was hit by the Core Relay, those visions — there was a flash of something. A bubble of water, a false forcefield I could expand and thicken at will. If I could expand it, couldn’t I shrink it down, too?

Moving my hands down, I let the water run down my shins, seeping into both my socks and the concrete boots that glued me to the ground. That was another thing that changed — I no longer stayed wet. The moment the water encased my leg in its own shin guard, my socks and boots dried, the water trail on my pants dissipating into a soft fog.

Good, because nothing was worse than wet socks.

My hands had become loose fists as I formed the bubble of water around my legs, shrinking down the water to size. I flexed them out the slightest bit, unable to see the water and yet feeling its pull, something deep in the center of my being as a whole somehow knowing it was working. And any shred of doubt I had was silenced when, after another flex of my fingers, the concrete began to audibly crack.

I flared both my hands out as wide as they could go, the concrete suddenly shattering with the movement and exposing the two knee-high bubbles around my legs.

Oh my god it actually worked.

I shook my hands, the bubbles evaporating into the air as I turned my attention back to Brent and Dad. Thank God we were in the middle of nowhere; if anyone saw what was happening, I think they would have lost it on the spot. There were at least fifteen more steel beams now than there were three minutes ago, Brent perched like a bird of prey atop one as he looked down at Dad.

Or, what would be Dad, if it wasn’t a concrete sasquatch.

It was a gargantuan pile of concrete and this amber glow, a suit of armor around Dad’s form. This was weak? The armor made him at least seven feet tall, thicker than a boulder and looking just as heavy. I had no doubt that he could take anything down in that form — something he proved true, as he barreled straight at the support beam Brent crouched on, bending it with a shoulder check.

Brent waved his arms around, a bad attempt at stabilizing himself that was all for nothing, as he fell back anyways, free-falling through the air. The concrete encasing Dad shattered with a crunch, returning him to his normal self as he watched Brent fall, calling out, “Try and catch yourself!”

I could see Brent wave his hand, trying to summon something — but nothing came. Steel wasn’t the best material for a hammock or a landing pad, he must have been trying to think of a better way to stabilize himself as he steadily fell. Worse comes to worse, if he didn’t, he could call his wings.

He fell a bit farther, twisting in the air and getting dangerously close to a point of no return. Why wasn’t he doing anything to catch himself? I saw his hand flare out, his arm jet sideways, and nothing came of the actions.

And then I saw his face as he turned in the air once, and my heart dropped. He looked horrified. Exhausted and confused and absolutely scared. Whatever he was trying to do wasn’t working, and he was getting way too close to the ground to even try to land comfortably.

“Dad!” I shouted urgently. All the healing powers in the world weren’t gonna save Brent from the pain of a broken spine.

I was moving before I even realized it, dashing towards where I thought Brent was going to land and summoning the water all around me to go from gas to liquid. I pushed my arms forward, the wave of water rushing past, zipping around the beams and dead generators to make a bed just under Brent, bubbling and soft.

Well, softer than the concrete, at least.

I held the pool there, the exertion of so much at once making something ache deep between my shoulder blades. Brent fell face first, the sickening splat of his hit only because of the belly flop and not because he became one with the concrete, sinking into the bubble I made and splashing around, disoriented.

I drained the pool of floating water, careful to lower Brent as gently to the ground as I could while also draining it fast, as he seemed entirely dazed and on the verge of drowning. His head finally emerged, sputtering and coughing, the rest of him following as he settled on the ground, my pool nothing more than a sad puddle now.

Dad was at Brent’s side first, slamming a palm into his back as Brent started coughing up water. He was soaked to the bone, hair plastered to his forehead and clothes sticking awkwardly to his skin. “You alright?” I heard him ask as I approached.

“Dad, I—“ Brent started, overtaken by another coughing fit. Still, he tried to speak, sputtering out, “My powers—they won’t—they’re not—“

“Hey, breathe,” Dad reminded him, hand still thumping his back rhythmically. Brent flinched at the hit, and Dad hummed. “Does it hurt? Right in here?” He asked, moving a hand to mirror the exact spot on Brent where I was currently feeling a dull ache.

“Y-yeah,” Brent coughed. “Really bad.”

“I’m sorry,” Dad said, his thumps becoming soothing rubs as Brent’s hacks just became gasps and throat clearing. “I wasn’t being responsible. I should have kept on you two about draining. That pain is…well, it happens when you’re running out of juice. You used up all the steel you could in between drains.”

“Is that what that is?” I asked, incredulous. I just thought it was from the workout — I’d been feeling it since the steel beam fell on me.

Dad nodded. “Yeah. You’re both running low — or, in your case, completely out.”

“Huh,” Brent said, shivering. He was soaked to the bone, he had to be absolutely freezing.

Dad noticed this too, moving to stand and gripping Brent at his elbow. “Well, guess it’s as good a time as any to call it a day. We need to get you warmed up, Brent, c’mon.”

Dad went to lead us to the truck, stopping midway to demand we drain something before leaving. Brent went to drain a dead generator while I located a puddle on the edge of the construction site, the rush of water coming with a soothing warmth, immediately relaxing the tenseness in between my shoulder blades.

We got in the truck, Brent scoring shotgun without much of a fight from me; I did nearly drown him just now, I owed him that much. Dad started up the truck, glancing at his phone as he blasted the heat and turned on Brent’s seat warmer, cocking his head to the side. “Huh, Betty called me — I’m gonna call her back.”

Dad used the Bluetooth on his truck to call, throwing it in reverse as it rang and leaving the construction site in the rear view mirror. Betty picked up, mid-huff as the receiver hummed and taking a moment to ask, “Hello?”

“Hey, Betty, it’s me,” Dad greeted. “Everything okay?”

“Oh, Delsin, hi!” Her voice rang through the speakers of the truck. “I just wanted to tell you I found mattresses for the children! Only mattresses, unfortunately — no box spring or anything. But it’s better than nothing, right?”

A bed. An actual, genuine bed. It sounded like heaven. “That’s great, thanks so much, Betty. I owe you.”

“You owe me nothing, Delsin. They needed beds. I will need help moving them, though, so we’ll have to use your truck.”

“‘Course,” Dad said simply. “I’ve got to drop off Brent and Jean at the Longhouse first—“

“Why don’t you come to the house, instead?” Betty interjected. “I’m already here, anyways — I’ve been trying to make room in the old nursery for their beds.”

“Oh.” Dad simply hummed. He suddenly looked so despondent. “You didn’t have to do that,”

“I was bored. This was a relief, it saved me from all those forms I have to fill out for TPA,” she chuckled. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah.” Dad sighed. “Yeah, see you soon.”

Betty bid goodbye, Dad hanging up and plunging the truck into silence with no respite from the radio. Dad seemed tense, his knuckles on the steering wheel white as he drove back towards civilization. Brent glanced back at me, a silent agreement to stay absolutely quiet and not bother him floating through us as we turned to look out the truck windows, waiting to see the house we first called home.

#not me stealing concept art from marvel and using it for my image header lol #also the image header sucks this time sorry #infamous erosion #infamous first light #infamous second son #infamous 2 #infamous #infamous delsin #delsin rowe #fanfic #fanfiction #sucker punch productions

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