#balls dangling in the upper east side?

[izvmimi]

anyway ik i’m not well bc i went on a one hour rant because i saw an add for ‘luxurious spray on pants’ before realizing that that’s just a style of jeans

[ardentmuse]

Chalk and Leather (Murphy McNully x Reader)

DISCOVERING AMORTENTIA SMELLS LIKE MURPHY McNULLY TO YOU

Harry Potter Hogwarts Mystery - Murphy McNully x fem!Reader

A/N: Since we just finished up the valentine’s day quest, got to give some love to the characters we can’t date. :) 

Masterlist

“What do you smell, Y/N?” Skye asks you as you stand what should have been a safe distance from the cauldron Snape has bubbling in the middle of his classroom. Streams of pink smoke loft occasionally into the air as your professor’s voice continues to cut through the crowd, droning on about how you need to study amortentia to know how to identify it and therefore avoid it. A better policy seems to be just don’t touch any potions you don’t know.

You try hard not to lean forward but it is intoxicating. Skye elbows you and raises her eyebrows; clearly hoping your nose might provide some juicy gossip.

“I smell chalk and freshly cut grass and—“

Your eyes find the real thing you are smelling on the other side of the room. Murphy McNully, one of your dearest friends, is beside Rowan, the two chatting in hushed tones about something or the other. He laughs — the kind of bright, full laugh that consumes his whole face — and you feel the warm trickle in your chest you haven’t been able to explain for weeks, at least until this very moment.

“Leather and shoe polish,” you finish with a whisper. The words flow from your mouth like they’re the solutions to a riddle because they are. You are in love with Murphy McNully and somehow you hadn’t put two and two together until it was right under your nose.

You take another whiff and enjoy the fragrance you associate only with your rambling friend. It’s a pleasant blend of masculine comforts, rustic and warm like the boy himself. McNully catches your eyes across the room. He smiles, always so friendly, though something in your face must be off because he frowns soon after, returning his attention to Rowan and the rest of your class on his side of the room.

“That’s an odd collection of scents,” Skye muses. “I just smell the pitch.”

“Predictable. Maybe I’ll give those bludgers some amortentia next practice and see if they’ll chase after you like some lovesick puppies so I can take the day off.”

Skye cackles even though your joke wasn’t that funny and Snape snaps at the both of you.

“Is this stuff getting to your head, Parkin? Making you dumb?”

“No, Professor.”

“Then I advise you keep your voice down and pay attention,” Snape says, speaking to Skye but looking at you as well.

“Yes, Professor.”

Snape turns on his heels and heads back towards his desk. Skye lets out a breath, shaking off her scolding. You wish you could shake off your feelings, too: joy, fear, anxiety, doubt, hope, and love above all the others. 

As the class ends, your quidditch crew prepares to leave and head to the pitch for practice. McNully usually never misses an opportunity to come with you all and practice his announcing skills but when Skye calls out his name in the corridor of the dungeon, he mumbles something under his breath. He doesn’t even meet your gaze as he rolls down the hall and out of sight.

“Someone’s a little grumpy.”

The worry fills your chest like a balloon, making it hard to breath. 

“Isn’t that odd, though? He’s always chipper.”

“So are you and you look like a house elf denied her supper,” Skye laughs, patting you on the back as she runs ahead to catch up with Orion and the rest of the gang. But you can’t join in the joyous run. McNully is somewhere less than pleased about whatever he saw on your face during potions.

You arrive at the locker rooms and change into your quidditch gear, a little slower than usual. Your brain won’t stop replaying images of the dinners spent playing wizard chess with the dimpled blond currently getting situated in the announcer’s booth, the late nights in the common room, your legs up on his lap, memorizing quidditch strategy, and the after-match hang outs where you often found excuses to be close to him, grab his hand, and congratulate him on commentary you arguably didn’t hear given your focus on the match. How had you not seen before just how much he meant to you and just how many of your tiny fantasies about how nice it would be to have a boyfriend involved soft blue eyes just as you closed your eyes to be kissed or running your hands down crisp white collars as you snuggle close in front of the fire, or the pleasant warm laughter of mirth-filled lungs as warm hands run through your hair, just as soft and strong as McNully’s? Everything you hoped for had been right in front of you for well over a year.

When the team assembles and takes to the air, you heard the faint calls of Murphy’s voice from the booth as you bat at the first bludger. He had come to practice after all, just not with you.

“And Y/L/N whacks the bludger away from Parkin with a—“

There is an odd and long silence that follows and it seems the whole team notices. The entire friendly slows, each broom taking to a lazy bob as your team’s statistician stands in stasis. 

“… some level of accuracy,” he finally says with a cough. 

Murphy is struggling with numbers? That’s odd, you think and it seems everyone else is as confused as you, that is at least until Orion screams for you to focus from the other end of the field, clearly not wanting to lose practice time. But he doesn’t even need to call you from your daze. A rogue bludger is already heading for your team’s latest addition, Oliver Wood.

You fly as fast as you can, swooping down towards the goal posts in hopes of intercepting the ball as the rest of the team resumes play. With a great push, you dangle down from your broom and swing low, just hitting the edge of the wall and knocking it back towards the pitch below.

“And with an impressive show of athleticism, Y/L/N managed to protect our young keeper from a bludger that was—“

Murphy coughs like there is a frog in his throat. It’s alarming and your heart pulls for him. Without a thought for anything but wanting to make sure he is okay, you fly down towards the box where Murphy is sitting. His head is in his hands and his face is redder than it normally is. When he sees you, his eyes bug out a little, but he looks away. His attention is back on the game. He straightens his shoulders and begins commentating again.

“And Parkin shoots for the upper left and misses! A rare miss for the ace chaser, whom this season alone has scored 92.4% of shots on open goals in sunny weather.”

Wait, how come that stat was not an issue?

You hover a bit and stare at the boy who is proving quite the enigma. Your chest heaves a bit as you consider what might be happening, but out of the corner of your eye a stream of black comes barreling through. 

Instinctively, you press forward and swing your bat just as the bludger enters into Murphy’s commentary box. The bludger flies away to the east just as McNully covers his face, prepared for a sure to be painful smack right to the noggin. Your momentum however doesn’t stop just because you managed to knock the ball away. You pull up on your broom but can’t stop and land right down on top of Murphy, curling up in his lap as his wheelchair slides back into the wall. His arms wrap around you protectively, covering your head as the house banners fall down upon you in a giant crash. 

Once your crash ends and the chaos subsides, you realize exactly where you are; seated on Murphy’s lap with his arms wrapped tightly around your waist, canopied in the privacy of fallen tapestries. Murphy’s breathing is hard as his hands curl into the flesh of your back.

And for the first time since potions, he smiles.

“Y/L/N with the greatest save of the day,” he whispers, his hand reaching up to wipe a bit of dust off your cheek. 

You face is hot as you look deeply into Murphy’s eyes, unable to stop the smile on your face, too. And somehow, suddenly, everything feels right.

“And what were my chances of making it?” 

He slides his hand into your hair as he tilts your face up to him.

“I haven’t a bloody clue.” 

He shakes his head and laughs, his cheeks turning the brightest red you’ve ever seen. You start to speak but his voice interrupts you.

“I can’t think of a single thing but you when you’re near, you know that?” 

“I— I can’t either.”

Murphy laughs, the hearty kind you missed just a little, and the matching smile on his face only makes it better. He pulls you closer to him, letting you rest your head against his chest. He takes a deep and stabilizing breath.

“Lilac,” he says more to himself than you, “And fresh clean linens.” 

And now it is your turn to smile as you realize Murphy knows your scent, too— two people attracted by nothing other than each other. It’s impossible to resist the urge, just like this morning in Snape’s classroom, to draw closer to the source of such joy. Every part you longs to lift upward, to taste the thing you’ve been craving so intensely, the thing you didn’t know you needed.

“Y/N! Y/N! Are you okay?” Skye is screaming from somewhere near by. You hear the scrambled sounds of brooms dropping onto the deck and footsteps rushing to your aid.

But McNully doesn’t care. His hand takes your chin and he kisses you full on, not wasting a moment to seal your newly-declared affections. And all you can do is melt into him.

A faint breeze hits your face and you look up to see Skye standing now under the banners, her eyes filled with mischief as she takes you in.

“That chalk smell makes a whole lot of sense now.”

Murphy’s eyes bug out of his head as he pushes back on you.

“I smell… like chalk to you?”

“Among other things.”

He laughs, “I’ll have you know my spell for the chalk board reduces chalk use by 68.3% over traditional writing methods.”

You can’t help but smile. He’s back in all his quirkiness and something about the fact that he can be himself with you in his arms, open about your feelings, brings you more joy than you can say. And that joy is the kind of joy you hope to have every night moving forward with the boy who smells like chalk and leather by your side and loving you fully.

All tags: @fangirlandnerd, @aerdnandreaa, @thisisbullshytt,  @cancerousjojian, @whovianayesha, @themarauderstheoutsidersandpeggy, @luna-xxxxx, @sleepylunarwolf, @starryrevelations, @potter-thinking, @all-by-myself98, @bananafosters-and-books, @cutie-bug, @igotmadskills, @hazelandcoconuts, @yallgotkik, @amberkay284, @the-new-galahad, @13ofjuly, @daft-not-punk

Harry Potter tags: @tessimagines​, @0-lost-in-stereo-0, @whysoseriouspadfoot, @eldritchscreech​, @luckyvirgo​, @hellizhelusive2​, @lexrius, @sapphireorchid​, @amazingwonderlandnapkin, @garbdump​

[iphoenixrising]

you know, I really love how badass and capable Tim is but I’m weak for the trope where a character gets in a bad sitch (maybe held captive) and their love interests go nuts trying to get them back and they’re furious seeing he’s hurt and restrained (baddie tied + gagged them too tight?)when they do rescue him maybe Jay and Dick are so tender and caring oof what are your thoughts?

WELL BABE. I mean with characters like Tim Drake and Tony Stark, overprotective (boy)friends tearing through bad guy installations with feral intent to get Tim/Tony back just waters my crops and clears my skin. It’s fucking beautiful.

I mean, let’s just say

Once and a while, every vigilante has a bad fucking night.

It just happen to be Red Robin’s turn.

The residual owfuck isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. That is, once he gets himself out of this before terrible bad guys with an apparent fetish for brass knuckles and knives come back to finish the job. After a lucky shot took his zip line out mid-leap, the night had gone from generally shitty to progressively worse. Catching a hard fire escape knocked him mostly out on the way down. He’d initially come to when the fist to his solar plexus is just about agonizing.

Whatever hits he’d taken on the way down to the street damaged the suit’s security, which is the only reason it didn’t shock the shit out of anyone when they grabbed him by the arms, held him there for the first round of blows.

It’s an occasional thing, for one of them to get balls deep in imminent fucking peril. There’s nights when sleep dep and stress, the day job and night job colliding, too many bads and not enough goods, nights when a one wrong step, one bad contingency, one hesitation, is enough for them to get the drop.

Which leads them to this disgustingly dingy, blood-splattered warehouse down on the East Side, where Red is dangling from a chain in the ceiling like a side of raw beef for the slaughter.

And while blood is sluggishly running down the side of his face and his jaw feels like it’s on fire, while his gauntlets are useless and the manacles are on fucking point, when his chest fucking hurts and the fire in his side makes his eyes water because really, just a concussion can’t be enough.

(R – Robert, heh.)

When he’s giving himself a few minutes to just breathe it out, take a second to let the pain settle, half in meditation to try getting mentally past this for an epic kind of escape he’s about to pull off.

Any minute now.

But really, he just had a rough night, and the fact these ass hats left the damn door open is really just a testament on how easy this is going to be once he feels up to taking down a few thugs or twenty.

(And just why did he have to walk into an impromptu gun fight between two rival gangs that decided to work together instead – against him. What’s taken the groups out of the room is arguments on who was going to get the glory and what bosses to call and inform. He’s pretty sure he’s got about at least ten minutes or so before everyone comes back for another few rounds of kick the shit out of the vigilante.)

So, he’s good. Totally got this.

It’s in the bag.

Ten minutes.

His forearms get tight, wrists immobile when he starts pulling his weight up to get some slack on the connecting chain, going to need to have room to pick the locks–

when the abrupt tremble and loud sounds of shit just breaking comes through the open door, jarring him too much for his warped brain pan to handle, and he drops back down a few inches, grunting with the jerking motions on his upper body.

Gunfire explodes and people are absolutely screaming. Things get a little more real because at this juncture, it could be anything from more fighting between themselves or another rival group walking in on an obvious base of operations.

It’s apparent he’s out of time when several come running back in, guns out, panicked and talking over one another.

Dammit. His brain hurts.

But even if his fingers are numb still in his glove, he’s slowly working the lock pick set out of his useless gauntlets, looking forward to getting free fast enough to take out the room before even thinking of taking on the fuckery happening behind that door.

What he expects is to get more roughed up before the night is over. What he doesn’t expect is for a body to slam into the room, blood arching in the same angle as the nice landing right at Red Robin’s bound feet dangling a few inches off the ground. The second body immediately following fell close enough for Red’s whiteouts to narrow down at the face beaten to hamburger, a thoughtful noise muffled through the gag shoved in his mouth.

He has a moment to register, that looks familiar, before the impressive silhouettes fill the door, and the calvary has apparently arrived.

To say he is literally boned is probably an understatement because he can see the tension all over them. Tight fists and forearms, shoulders squared, thighs tense, and game faces right the hell on.

It’s the terrifying vigilantes Nightwing and the Red Hood, towers of kicking ass and taking names –

and the thugs in the room gape at the picture those two make, blood sprays all over their suits, smoking barrels and sparking escrima sticks, lips curled up off N’s teeth to snarl, Hood to lower his chin enough that those whiteouts are fixed.

He catches a breath through his mouth since he’s pretty sure his nose is broken or dislocated, beaten body tensing for one of the thugs to get smart, turn, and fire at him.

But, it doesn’t happen because the Red Hood and Nightwing strike like an avenging wave of brutally beautiful justice. They move together like water, the fight never stopping until the bodies are piled high, a job well done. And as much as Red Robin would like to say he feels something crazily like relief, the all together different noise he makes through the gag is telling on what else watching them fight (for him) does to him.

“Aww, Big Wing, lookit what those fuckers did,” is slightly distorted through the synths, and he must have blinked a little too long because suddenly both of his vigilante boyfriends are right there, bracketing him in, being absurdly careful when they run gloved hands over him to find injuries. Hood goes for the gag tied so harshly, N hurriedly helping from behind him.

“Hey Baby, you with us?” is soft and gentle, the contrast to the savage beat-down N just had a hand in a few minutes ago.

Once the cloth is out of his dry mouth, gloved fingers rub the indents, and the helmet is tilted up at him.

“H-how did–”

“Shh, shh. Gonna getcha down, yeah? S’good, Sweets, we gotchu.” Already stretching up on his toes to work the manacles fast while N sweeps up his bound legs from behind, holding him up to take the weight off his wrists.

“There we go,” and a nuzzle against his face, sweet relief when his wrist and hands pop free, and he tries to work the feeling back in his fingers, laying against Nightwing’s chest for just a moment to be dizzy and relieved.

“Thanks for the save,” Red Robin woozily banters, “bad guys can be such ass hats.”

“Don’t I know it,” Hood gives a solid kick to one of the bodies twitching on the floor before coming around to gently fit a gloved hand on Red’s bruised jaw, thumb the mask so the whiteouts slide up and they can see how dazed his eyes are. He n’ N exchange a worried glance while Red pats the hand on his jaw and maneuvers himself out of the octopus hold, a little wobbly but still on point.

“All right, I’m on clean-up since I was the metaphorical damsel this time–” is cut off with a whoosh of breath when he leans over enough to brace a hand on the wall when owfuck gets a little more serious than he expects.

“Nothin’ doin’.” Is Hood nipping that little sitch in the bud, already a towering presence at his side, a heavy arm sliding around his back, “me n’ N done already gave the coppers a heads-up, you feel me, Sweets?”

“We’ve already tied up most the rivals in the building,” Nightwing soothes the one to step up into his space and tilt his face up this time, “and you are going right back to the Manor to be patched up. You’ve got a concussion and who knows what else.”

“Hey, it’s okay, really–” because missing a spleen anyone? He’s been through worse, worked through worse, and still brought out his inner bad ass. These two? Need to take a pill.

“Nu-uh. Ya try ta ged outta it, then we’re callin’ in the big guns. You feel me here?”

And oh no. No, no, no.

“Too late,” is growled somewhere in the vicinity of shadows over their shoulders.

When Red Robin spins on his heel and almost falls, Hood and Nightwing move fast to catch him by the arms so he doesn’t fall in front of the very stern-looking Robin suddenly steps from the shadows, both hands out to steady him by the hips.

Looming over him like Hood and N, Robin’s forehead is wrinkled in that special way when he’s scowling behind the domino. Red Robin manages to gasp before all six-foot-two of concerned vigilante is all over his everything.

Everyone is well-aware Robin doesn’t take any of his shit and is extremely efficient. What few, select people only know–

–he can also be extraordinary gentle.

This time, when Red Robin is swept up against another chest, another symbol, he doesn’t fight it, not when the youngest leans down and says something softly against his ear.

“Let us care for you, Beloved.”

He sighs a little and lists closer, throwing an around around those shoulders and idly fiddles with the cape.

“Better,” Hood uses a gloved thumb to run over his busted nose.

“I want a hot shower and bed,” Red admits wearily, “I can be a stubborn ass about it some other time.”

N chuckles sadly, leaning in to press a kiss to the top of his head. “That’s a good choice, Timmy. We’re going to find a second to eat between that, okay?”

He hums a little, trying to lay his face down on his arm somewhere that wouldn’t hurt. “I guess. Hot shower first, please.”

The bang of grapples echo against the sirens screaming in the night, and the Bats take off, flying over the rooftops to transportation not far off. Hood and N take driver and shotty so Robin can continue to cradle their bird on the ride back.

He might bitch good-naturedly about Hood driving the Red Bird like a literal bat out of hell, but it gets all kinds of shut down when Robin tenderly presses his mouth to the bruises on Red’s jaw and rubs soothing circles on the back of his neck.

Nightwing is the one that hops out and takes him from Robin to carry up to the Perch, talking low against his ear about the pick-up from the GCPD so he honestly feels better about where the night has taken him.

But it’s Jason Todd that runs a bath instead of the shower and strips down, runs gentle hands over the bruises and contusions, soaps him up to wash away the night. The two of them wrapped in towels while Jay sets his nose fast enough that it’s really not as bad as it could have been.

Dick towels his hair dry while he sits at the kitchen table, shivering, and Dami kneels by him to check out each injury with the first-aid tackle box in easy reach. Coffee is off the menu (a crime against humanity!) but the hot chocolate has been left to cool enough not to sting his sore mouth.

The eventual clothes are a combination from the communal drawer so he’s swimming in Dami’s shirt and Jay’s cut-off sweats, several ice packs bandaged over them on the worst of the swelling.

Grilled paninis and soup are utter heaven because A) Jay and Dami can cook, B) everything is easy to eat with a bruised face and cuts on the inside of his mouth, but also C) cute boyfriends keep giving him gentle kisses and touches whenever they come within a literal foot of him.

And they’re so good about it, taking care of him without being too smothering (at least no one has threatened to call his team – yet) through getting patched up and fed.

No, no, they wait for it.

Once he’s wrangled into bed, the three of them surrounding him in warmth and comforting touches, he’s pretty much trapped until morning.

Honestly, it’s probably the best part of the night.

[iximaz]

Blood-Forged ch6

Summary: Din takes his young charge to a new planet with a new plan to hide. It quickly goes sideways after he meets another Mandalorian who has never seen her own kind.

Characters: The Mandalorian (Din Djarin), Baby Yoda, enby!fem!OC

Pairings: Slow burn Din Djarin/OC because it turns out I’m a thirsty hoe

Warnings: Eh, right now it’s just in light PG-13 territory. Mentions of family death, some blood/violence/bodily harm. Will probably end up becoming smut later.

Word Count: 1298 (indefinite chapter count coming)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 (you’re here!) Part 7

The dust hadn’t cleared before Din tucked Baby under his arm and drew his blaster, aiming at the window and listening intently. “Alright?” he called.

The silence that followed left his heart dropping to his stomach. And then—

“I’m fine,” Aysa called hoarsely, and coughed. He heard the clink as her helmet went on, and when she spoke again, her voice had the crackly sound from being filtered through the speakers. “Back to your ship?”

“Not safe yet,” Din called back. “Know any safe houses?”

“One!” Aysa said, and stood up. The dust parted with the motion and she took aim at an enemy Din couldn’t see through the debris hanging in the air. “Go, I’ll cover you!”

She fired as Din covered the baby with his body, crouching low and rushing for the door. There was a muffled scream from outside, and Aysa ran to follow Din, scooping up a blaster rifle propped near the door and slinging it over her shoulder as she went.

“Left!” she barked, and Din turned, whipping around a corner and barreling down a flight of stairs.

Footsteps coming from below alerted them to incoming enemies, and Din wrenched open the door to the next floor’s landing.

“There’s a fire escape at the end of the hall,” Aysa called. She was beginning to feel lightheaded, and something warm seemed to be soaking into her leg. “If we get down one more floor, I can wire a speeder.”

Din glanced over his shoulder and gave the faintest of nods before he was barreling through the window at the end of the hall, shielding Baby from the shards of glass.

They made it down one floor and Aysa climbed up onto the railing of the fire escape, crouching atop it for a moment before she jumped to the speeder platform right next to the stairs.

“Your leg,” Din said when she turned and reached out across the gap. He stretched out, fingers tight on Baby until Aysa was able to grab him and bring him over to her side. Din jumped across the gap to join her and his fingers brushed against her leg, tugging the flight suit taut.

“Huh?” Aysa looked down. “Oh.”

The right leg of her flight suit was now thoroughly soaked with blood, and she shifted Baby under one arm so she could pull the fabric away. A large gash in her upper thigh was gushing blood in time with her heartbeats.

“Femoral artery,” Aysa said faintly, passing Baby back to Din and sitting down hard, sliding under the speeder. “That’s not good.” Her brain was screaming that she had to do something to stop the bleeding, but she was beginning to feel even more lightheaded and dizzy, and they needed a getaway vehicle, now.

“You always this calm?” Din asked as she ripped out several wires from the speeder’s undercarriage. He knelt beside her, pulled his cauterizer out, and grabbed her leg, prompting a hiss of pain from her while she worked.

“Been told I underreact a lot,” Aysa said through gritted teeth as Din cranked up the settings on the cauterizer. No time to be gentle with this; he had to stop the bleeding immediately.

“This is gonna hurt.”

Aysa screamed when he pressed the tool against her leg. There was the smell of sizzling flesh, and an ugly burn scar sealed the wound with a hiss.

“Thanks for the heads-up,” Aysa gasped, and the wires in her hands sparked. The speeder roared to life and she pushed out from underneath it.

“Hold the kid,” Din said, climbing behind the wheel. “You’re in no state to drive.”

Aysa nodded feebly and climbed in. A blaster bolt shot past her head and she drew her own heavy blaster pistol, firing through the window. There was a dull scream and a thud, but more bolts came flying towards them.

“Go, go, go!” Aysa yelled, pulling Baby onto her lap. Din slammed the speeder into reverse and they shot backwards into the air lanes, spinning out before he shifted gears and they shot off.

A pair of bounty hunters on speeder bikes came peeling after them, blasters raised. Aysa ducked, tucking the baby between her legs on the seat before she twisted and took aim.

Her shot struck true, and the lead hunter’s bike exploded, sending him tumbling through the air. The other swerved to avoid her next shot and he fired, striking Din between the shoulders. The bolt burned through his cape, but bounced off the beskar underneath.

Din jerked the controls and the speeder took a steep dive, Aysa wrapping her arms around Baby to keep him from going flying.

“Where?” Din called.

“East!” Aysa yelled back, and she was pressed backwards into the seat with the force of the acceleration.

“Where’s the other guy?” Din asked as they roared across several lanes of traffic, prompting shouts and blaring horns from commuters.

Aysa twisted around to look behind her—and the speeder tipped sideways when the other hunter slammed against them from underneath. Aysa wrapped her arms around the kid as they fell, tumbling through the air.

“AYSA!” Din’s voice faded as the wind whistled past her helmet, the baby’s ears flapping against her visor.

“Hang on,” she grunted, and stretched out a hand.

She felt the magnetic tug as she angled her body towards a passing speeder, and she was pulled towards it—or it was pulled to her—and she caught one of the engine bars, biting back a cry when her shoulder was wrenched out of its socket.

If her other arm had been free, she could have shot at their pursuer, but all she could do was clutch the child to her, dangling helplessly.

The driver of the bike jerked the handlebars, trying to shake them off, and Aysa’s grip weakened.

Up above, Din turned their stolen speeder around and drove against the traffic lane, ignoring the honks and swearing drivers. The edge of the speeder clipped the bounty hunter’s bike, and the unfortunate man was sent falling after his comrade.

Aysa’s hand slipped just as Din brought the speeder around to fly beneath the bike, and she and Baby dropped back into their seats.

“Is he alright?” Din demanded, cranking the throttle and taking off at a definitely-illegal speed.

Aysa looked down at the child tucked against her side, huddled into his blanket and staring up at her with wide, terrified eyes. “He’s alright, just shaken,” she said. She shifted her weight gingerly, trying not to jostle her arm. “Was that all of them?”

“Think so,” Din said. “We shouldn’t go back to the hangar yet, though. We’ll lay low for a few hours and then make our way back.”

“We?” Aysa asked.

Din glanced over at her. “You are coming, aren’t you?”

“Thought we’d be splitting up once you and Baby moved on,” Aysa said. The kid reached a hand out of his blankets for Din, who took one hand off the controls only briefly enough to pass him a small silver ball that looked like it had come off the end of a lever.

“Thought you were coming with me to find the tribe,” Din said, turning his attention back to the air lane.

“Thought that would be just for an introduction,” Aysa said, smiling behind her helmet.

“Thought your apartment just blew up,” Din said, and Aysa’s smile faded.

“Yeah,” she said, glancing behind them even though the building was long vanished behind them. “Guess so.”

Din wondered for a moment if he’d gone a bit too far and decided it would be safest to change the topic. “How far to the safe house?”

Aysa leaned forward, craning her neck to look over the edge of the speeder. “Not far now.”

[harry-sussex]

February 20, 2019

A day that will live in infamy: the day I saw HRH The Duchess of Sussex in my home city

I go to school in the Upper East Side of Manhattan on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  When I saw photos of Meghan & co. at The Mark Hotel on Tuesday, I assumed the baby shower was over and that I’d missed my chance.

Then, Omid Scobie broke the news that the baby shower was in fact Wednesday.

I usually have class at 4 and then at 7 on Wednesdays, but my 4:00 class was canceled, so I actually had free time to wander about Manhattan before my 7:00.  With the help of the always wonderful @harryandmeghansussex, I decided I was going to hang out outside the hotel.  I didn’t want to scare Meghan or bother her or anything, I just wanted to know that there was at least someone in the mess of people looking for her who had her back, you know?  Even if she never knew it.  Of course, I also wanted to see my favorite pregnant first-time-mum-to-be in person!

So anyway, I got to The Mark around 6:00, at which point Jessica Mulroney, Amal Clooney, and Misha Nonoo had already left.  Serena Williams hadn’t yet been spotted and nobody had yet seen Meghan at all that day, so I was pretty confident that she was still in there.  The paparazzi were staked out on both sides of the main entrance to The Mark - I was on the left (if you’re looking towards the street).  The photo below is of the paparazzi staged on the right of the hotel entrance.  It was about even on both sides, so maybe about 15-20 of them total.  Once I saw them standing there, I knew she still had to be in the hotel.  

There was a black SUV with US Government plates parked outside (see the pic above) with tinted windows and I knew that was Meghan’s vehicle.  There were also police barricades holding in the paparazzi on both sides of the hotel, as well as across the street.  I didn’t notice any overt police presence, however.

As I was checking out the car from my vantage point, one of the regular people standing there to see her (not the paparazzi) asked me if I knew which car was hers and if so, why.  I started filling in a handful of fans on what I knew - not only about the baby shower, but also about Meghan’s life as a royal.  They were loose followers of royalty (not obsessive stans to the grave like myself) so we passed the time by talking about Meghan, Harry, the baby, their wedding, even William and Kate.  One guy was there with his girlfriend (wife?) and he was quite interested in the notion of royalty and what they can/cannot and should/should not do.  Another girl was there and she was telling me that she’s hosting a baby shower for Meghan at her own apartment on Saturday!  With gifts and games and her friends and everything!  She woke up at 4 am to watch Harry and Meghan’s wedding, the whole nine yards.  She was so excited!!

People started fading at around 6:20.  It was cold and still kind of snowing.  The paparazzi stayed put, however.  My new friends and I had formed a group of 5 people, and we seemed to be the only fans who stayed put until the end.  A handful of stragglers would stop across the street for a few minutes, but would continue on their way rather quickly.

At around 6:30, a man with an earpiece left the Mark and started the US government vehicle in the photo above.  Every time the doors to the Mark would open, I held my breath.  A staffer from the Mark was outside talking to a few of the people I was with, and he said he found a red rose that was allegedly part of the baby shower.  He gave it to one of the girls in my little group and I was dying of jealousy but she seemed really happy to have it!!

The guy with the earpiece on the left, helping to load Meghan’s luggage on the right.

At around 6:45, the Mark hotel staff started relocating the police barriers to the service entrance just to the right of the main entrance.  My new royal-loving friends and I were torn, as were half of the paparazzi - should we go to the relocated barriers, or should we stay put?  Was it just an effort to split up the group of people?

I went with my gut and went to the new service entrance.  My new group of friends also followed suit.  I was operating on the hunch that there was no way they’d let her walk out of an unprotected entrance with so many people waiting for her.

At around 6:50, they rolled out a black and white striped carpet in front of the service entrance that matched the famous Mark hotel floors seen in Serena’s Instagram post from the weekend.  That convinced me (and, unfortunately, most of the paparazzi) that she wouldn’t be departing from the main entrance as Jessica, Amal, and Misha had.  You can see the carpet here:

The left photo is of the super nice Mark hotel staff member (more on him later). The woman on the right seemed to be Meghan’s RPO for the weekend, though I haven’t confirmed that.

We moved over to the newly-erected police barricades and we actually had a good view.  The barricades were meant to control the paparazzi only, so we weren’t pushing against a barrier or anything.  I think the Mark hotel staff had a feeling that we were there harmlessly, you know?

The first and only paparazzo to leave bailed around 7:00 pm, citing “12 hours in the snow and no sighting of Meghan” as his reason.  At this point, I was already late to my 7pm class and I decided I would wait it out.  If all of the paparazzi left, then I would leave, because I knew they were receiving tips all weekend.  One guy who was staying at the Mark was walking around telling anyone who would listen that he was staying really close to the Duchess in the hotel that weekend and that she left yesterday and that we were all wasting our time.  He was acting like such a jerk about it though, pompously strutting with a cigarette dangling out of his mouth, not convincing at all - hardly anyone paid him any mind.  There were murmurs that she wasn’t there, that she left already out a private entrance and we missed her, but I just refused to believe it - as did most of the paparazzi.  One member of our little group - the boyfriend/husband - was about to leave.  His significant other really wanted to wait it out - they had been waiting this long - but didn’t want to stay alone.  He said he’d wait another handful of minutes - 7:05-ish, the latest.

And then.  The moment to end all moments.

The doors opened at around 7:05, and the cameras started flashing.  The paparazzi started shouting questions at Meghan, and I just didn’t want that to be the only thing she heard (if she could hear anything at all).  I was closer to the door than the paparazzi were, so once I saw the cameras flashing, I knew she was coming out, and I waved and kind of softly called over to her, “Hi Meghan!!  I love you!!! Congratulations!!!”  She, of course, didn’t look over to either side - just kept her head down and headed straight to the waiting car (the US government vehicle - I was right!)

Did she hear me?  I have no idea.  Probably not.  But I like to think she might have.  After it was all over, one of my newfound royal-loving friends texted me the video she took of Meghan’s departure and you can hear me at around 0:28 saying “hi Meghan!!  I love you!!!” before the paparazzo shouts something obnoxious about her allowing her father to meet the baby.  I’ll post the video later if anyone is interested, it’s not working in this post right now.

The main thing I noticed about her in person is her hair.  It’s gorgeous in person.  The photos do not do it justice at all.  It was so shiny and looked so soft and curled so perfectly. Even under a black ball cap, it was stunning.  I also noticed the sparkle of that beautiful engagement ring in the camera lights.  My favorite thing I noticed, though?  She was cradling her baby.  Shielding him or her from the flashes and shouts of the world outside.  That’s a lot to notice in not even five seconds, but I was paying such close attention to detail to make sure I remembered all of it.

I noticed after the fact, when looking at my pictures, that my goodness, she’s tiny.  She’s tinier than I thought she was, even from professional photographs!  These are probably the three best photographs I ended up taking (I wasn’t looking at my camera, I was focusing on seeing her with my own two eyes, so they’re not the best):

Once the car was on its way, the paparazzi dispersed pretty quickly.  My little group and I were so excited that we stuck around for a few minutes reliving the past minute while the Mark hotel staff put everything in order.  The nice man on the Mark hotel staff from one of the photos above came by and asked if we saw who we were looking for.  I asked him if he met Meghan, and he said of course.  I then asked him if she was the sweetest thing, and he said, “yes, absolutely, very sweet!”  I asked him if he could repeat that word for word so I could post his quote on my blog, and he just kind of laughed and walked away smiling and shaking his head - but I remembered the quote anyway!

The whole thing lasted about five seconds.  I waited over an hour and was late to my graduate-level class for a whole five seconds with The Duchess of Sussex, and it was so worth it!  I was on such a natural high after leaving the Mark that I got on the subway in the wrong direction, and had to turn around at the next stop uptown before heading back downtown to my class.  Whoops.  I didn’t even care - I saw Meg and the baby!!

So that’s my story of how an average, snowy Wednesday night for me turned into hanging out with a cool new group of royal lovers in the middle of the sidewalk to see HRH The Duchess of Sussex for not even five seconds after her baby shower.

I feel comfortable posting all of this now because the news cycle has become bored with the story, and she’s already home, safe and sound, in London with Harry.  I didn’t want to post anything that would intrude on her personal life any more.  Now that she’s home and far away from here, I’m comfortable posting.

One last thing: when I was looking at the picture taking by the paparazzi during those five seconds, I found this picture:

If you look closely in between Meghan and the guy behind her, right above the man’s hand, you can see a small tuft of blonde hair with dark roots.

THAT’S MY HEAD!! THAT’S MY HAIR! I *technically* have a photo of myself with HRH The Duchess of Sussex and it made me very happy to see!! Gotta celebrate the small victories, you know?

[beepbeeprichiellc]

Part 1. Part 2.

His breath was fogging up the glass, his fingers leaving smudges along the smooth surface. The housekeeper was going to have a fit when she saw what he had done, he knew this and yet all he could focus on was the two standing on the front lawn. The thing about Beverly was that she was the perfect wing man-woman-whatever. She always knew the exact way to flaunt what he had as to weed out those suitable for her friends. It was how Richie almost always got laid, excluding for drunken one nighters he occasionally ended up in. When he answered her call he hadn’t expected her to show, knowing that she was recovering from her late night fly in so when she walked onto his property with those short shorts and tank top he knew she was out to kill. Although the look on the pool boy’s face when she advanced told him that he wasn’t falling for her tricks and Richie was afraid he would see right though the shamble.

The truck with chipped paint pulled from the curb, carrying with it his new pool boy. Richie watched it leave, discreetly using the sheer drapes to keep himself hidden. Once the tail lights were around the corner he sighed, banging his head loudly on the glass. There was a gnawing in his stomach, an unimaginable feeling that he wished to just go away. Maybe it was because he hadn’t been laid in over three months, or maybe it was because just the sight the boy made him a blubbering mess but he felt restless.

There was a bang from the back door and Richie nearly ran over to where Beverly stood, her cheeks flushed from the heat. Stopping short of jumping in to his arms he leaned against the countertop, biting his bottom lip nervously. “So?” He sang, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“He’s gay.” She answered, knowing the question without verbal confirmation. “Didn’t even bat an eye when I asked for his number.”

“Hot damn!” Richie nearly yelled in excitement. “Thank god for the little things.”

“Honestly, I don’t think you two would work.” Beverly admitted softly, pulling her sunglasses from her nose and burying them into her hair. There was a twinkle in her eye, like something was brewing in her head. “I mean, he’s just here for the summer and-”

“Well so am I. I’m not looking for a relationship Bevvy, just someone to get dirty with while I’m home.” Richie rolled his eyes, a sly grin stretching from ear to ear. “Don’t dangle him in my face and expect me not to bite.”

“I’m not danling anything in your face.” She nipped, snapping her fingers in his direction. “I just think he isn’t your type. He was all worried about your dad, about his job. He’s a straight shooter and I don’t think you’ll be able to bend him like you want.”

“Okay first off.” He muttered, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose as he looked at his friend amusingly, “He’s gay, so he isn’t a ‘straight’ shooter. Secondly, I’m not gonna bend him unless that’s the way he likes it. I mean I’d like to bend him over a lot of things like that chair or the counter or-”

“Okay fine!” She barked, rubbing the space between her eyes. “Fine, just stop putting that very vivid image in my head.” Glancing back up to her friend she smiled, sighing with contentment as she leaned into the door frame with her hip leading. “You can be so disgusting sometimes, remind me why we are friends again?”

“Because we are the black sheep in our families and that causes us to gravitate towards each other.” He mouthed back quickly, pursing his lips and blowing a very suggestive kiss. “Now tell me, what is that cutie’s name?”

“Eddie.”

“Eddie.” He whispered, the name making his lips tingle. It tasted sour, not the type of sourness that made you cringe but rather the sourness that left your mouth watering, making you beg for more. Richie smiled, running his long nimble fingers through the rats nest he called hair, wincing when he caught a few knots. “Even his name is sexy as hell.”

Beverly scoffed, pushing herself upward and strolling past him with a slight push. “Get dressed.” She commanded, not looking back at him as she began her rampage through his parents fridge. “And hurry up because we have to pick up Bill along the way.”

“Where are we going?” He asked, shamelessly watching his best friend bend over to reach a soda from the bottom self. There was no spark, no need when he looked at her backside but rather a respectable appreciation of its glory.

Slamming the fridge door she replied, “To the beach.”

------------------

Eddie laid his back on his board, looking up at the clouded sky with fondness. Things began to cool as the storm rolled in, the blueness becoming overpowered by the grey puffs of condensation. He wondered what it would be like to be caught in a storm, really caught under the sheets of rain. There had been glory stories told about surfing during a summer storm and anyone who was everyone knew that it was the best time for such a thing. Stan had done it once, Mike twice but he still had yet to live through the glory. He was afraid, just like he always was, tucking tail and running before the real masterpiece touched down.

Maybe someday.

But not today.

“Well this turned out to be a shitty day.” Stan’s stoic voice came from across the still water. “I skipped my hot yoga class for this?”

“Remind me why you take hot yoga again?” Mike jeered, laughter following his question. “Isn’t that uncomfortable?”

“It’s freeing.” He nipped, splashing water over to where Mike was currently floating. “And like you are one to talk, you are majoring in history! Who fucking does that!”

Eddie smiled, enjoying the banter that followed. It had only been a few days and yet he felt more free here than he would have back at home. When Mike had brought up the idea of the three of them heading to the coast at the end of semester, he had been against it. Too many people, to many unpredictable variables. It took one very long, uncomfortable phone call from his mother to change his mind and even then he had only done it out of spite. Now he was floating in the Pacific Ocean with his two best friends without a care in the world.

“I think we should head in.” Mike’s reassuring voice suggested, making Eddie cringe. “The storm is going to hit soon and the last thing I need is another concussion from surfing.”

“Yeah, and I don’t feel like saving you guys when you drown.” Stan added, turning his board back to the mainland. “I say we head back to the house and order some paper view, maybe some pizza in the process.”

“Both of those things involve money, which mind you, we do not have.”

With a sigh Eddie sat up, looking at his friends with a frown. “You know it’s Stan’s job to be a downer right Mikey?” He joked, starting the long ride in. This made his friend laugh, muttering under his breath that he was just a realist. Once the touched sand Eddie’s stomach sank, the fleeting opportunity passing by him. He dug his feet in, wiggling his toes one last time before stepping out of the salty water. Looking once more to the sky he muttered, “Do you think it’s really gonna rain?”

“Na.” Stan replied, walking ahead towards the parking lot. “I think this place is fucking with us. Our first time out on the water and it’s gonna trick us back to shore.”

“Huh.” Eddie thought it seemed likely, even more so as the so as the sun peered through a storm cloud. “Well that sucks.”

“Life sucks my man.” Mike said, throwing his board on top of his truck. “Don’t worry, we can try tomorrow once you get off.”

This made Eddie shrug, half assuming that he would be fired by tomorrow anyways so why even care about it. The three of them had strapped their things in, taking time to adjust as needed so that the truck would actually make it back home. Eddie had been so busy that he hadn’t noticed the company he had gained, or the eyes that followed him with each move. It was Stan who noticed her, scowling as she approached. “Eddie, I think you've attracted a stray.” He groaned.

“Wha-”

“Eddie!” Beverly’s excitable voice called, her smile widening as she and two others moved closer. “Fancy meeting you here!”

Eddie froze, his body refusing to react as she pulled him into a awkward, one sided hug. Shimmying he was able to drop her hold, forcing a laugh. “Uh hI Beverly. What are you doing here.” He glanced behind her, noticing the Tozier boy who now wore a pair of khaki shorts, a god awful hawaiian shirt and-jesus christ-a pair of bright pink sandals. It seemed that Richie was more confident in person, his eyes bright and exuberant as he watched the exchange. There was also a normal looking boy with soft brown hair and a soft smile, being almost the exact opposite of his friend that stood beside him. “Are you following me?”

“What? No!” She pushed against his shoulder playfully, “The beach sounded like a good place to be so I decided to come down here with some of my friends, same as you.”

He was being stalked, Eddie just knew it.

“Hi, I’m Mike.” The kind hearted boy muttered, breaking the tension and extending his hand out to the rich girl. “And this is Stan.” He gestured to the unamused boy. “How do you know Eddie?”

Beverly smiled, taking hold of Mike’s hand and shaking it. “We met this morning, he was working on Richie’s lawn when I came over.”

“Ah, leave it to Eddie to make new friends on the first day in town.” Mike jokes, laughing at his friends expense. “So you’re Beverly, who are these two?”

“Oh! This is Bill.” She motioned to the calmer of the two, “And Richie himself.” The jumpy kid waved, a cheeky smile crossing his face instantly. “So you guys are new in town huh? Where are you staying?”

“Oh in my parents old beach house down the street. It’s not much but it’s a roof over our heads.” Eddie frowned, he liked the cozy home. It felt safe, and warm to him. More so than his own home back in Derry. “What are you guys from the upper east side or something?”

“Yep.” Beverly replied, “Hey since you guys are new why don’t we show you around. You have no idea where the good hanging spots are yet and there is a bar a few blacks down that has the best mixed drinks. What do you say? First round on me.” Eddie could not have been shaking his head any more, his ears ringing painfully as Mike replied for all of them with a genuine smile.

“Sounds fun.”

Pool Boy Eddie Tag:

@softuris @snooxyspazz @ihavesympathyforthedevil @reddieornox @addimagination @tozierbinch @loadsofgayy @helfeatencupquakes @pankoozie @moved-to-some-raging-fangirl @strangerl0ser @letsgetreddietorumble @oh-mayfield @superbcoffeekid @iamworried7 @ephemeral-elipisis @stan-tozier-denbrough @im-alover @tapetayloe

[unstable-reality]

The Space Between Echoes: Chapter Four

Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three [AO3]

They moved toward the southern side of the settlement at a jog. The ground sloped upward. She felt her bruise, rubbing against the fabric of the wrap. She felt the muscles in her thighs, contracting, tightening. The sleeves of her shirt ran to her elbows, and she pushed them up, and ran the back of her hand across her forehead, mopping up sweat. Her palms were slick; her gloves chafed against them. Dark splotches spread over Cassian’s clothes. She wanted another sip of water, but she forced it down, focused on breathing through her nose, kept her mouth closed. The hum of the handheld, hooked once more to her belt, was a constant, steady thing. It was starting to numb that part of her leg.

The ruins here were in greater disrepair. She and Cassian stepped around piles of rubble, hunched over, kept their backs and shoulders and heads below the cover line, ever angling toward the west. The sun was starting on its downward arc; the moon’s orbital and rotational direction put it at their backs. A boon for them. Most long-range viewing equipment filtered light, but someone approaching would, at least some of the time, have to rely on their own eyes.

He tapped her shoulder, tipped his head toward a section of wall at the settlement’s edge. It was crumbling on one side, slanting down to a horizontal edge that then, itself, dropped off. Green and yellow and red ran through it, crawled over it, reached toward its end and top. The vines were like arms, like hands. She gave him a single tight-lipped nod. They shuffled to it, fingers scraping against stone and dirt.

He turned and pressed his back to the wall, toward the side that had fallen. Sat. Retrieved their pair of electrobinoculars. She knelt beside him, shoulder to stone, feet arched. Ready to run.

He leaned around the edge.

Her ears were filled with the sound of her own beating heart.

He turned back toward her. “I can make out three.” He handed her the device and moved forward, just enough for her to be able to slide into his position.

His hand was on her shoulder blade; his face was at her neck. She ran her finger along the dial. They were higher up than the ship, and she could just make out its top through the flora that surrounded it. There was a Stormtrooper standing beside a tree, parallel to where the exhaust would be, cradling a blaster rifle, speaking into a comlink, gaze sweeping outward. Two others walked in a slow, expanding arc near the front of the ship.

A notion prickled at the back of her mind. It was there, palpable, but she couldn’t quite complete the thought.

Something was off.

She moved back into full cover. Cassian’s hand dropped; their closeness brought their knees together. “Can you take them from here?”

He reached for his rifle. Wrapped his hand around it. Left it where it was, slung to his back. “I can guarantee one, but after he goes down…”

The others will be alerted. And there was no telling, from here, whether there were more. “Right.” She looked out again. Leaves brushed against her chin, against the underside of her jaw. They would have to go back north, to where the terrain leveled out. There were clusters of trees and undergrowth there, some strangled by the same vines that were trying to claim the ruins. They could sneak back. Get close enough for pistol and automatic fire. It would take a while, and it would be a pain, but they could do it. She shifted her weight. A corner of her handheld struck the wall; its vibrations reverberated, intensified.

The thought began to take shape just as Cassian grabbed her upper arm and tugged her toward him.

His forehead was creased. His jaw was tight.

“Why haven’t they disabled the sensors?”

His words crashed over her, cold, starting at the top of her head, spreading over her skull and spreading down, landing and curdling in her stomach. They would have found them by now. There was no way they wouldn’t have. Her eyes darted back, forth. Toward the eastern edge. Down the slope. Back up, pausing on a mostly-intact building, its windows dark, partially obscured by tightly-packed tendrils of green and brown. The sensors at their hips hadn’t picked up anything. That said something, but sensors had a range, and soldiers knew all about ranges, or at least she knew all about ranges, and how to stay out of them.

What did that say for her, in the moment?

“Okay,” he breathed. “We’ve got to make our way back, either way.” He was assessing the area in front of them. The movements of his head were slight, contained.

She wanted to act. They were open, here, and far too exposed, and her mind was racing. The enemy was in the west. The enemy wanted them to focus on the west. That meant, most likely, that they were coming from the east.

Unless, of course, the misdirection was the awareness of the misdirection.

She closed her eyes, for a second, and tried to push aside thoughts of Saw.

Her gaze snapped up, arced north. “This way.” She curled her arm around Cassian’s upper back, and together, they started running.

They hewed close to the apex of the slope, staying low, dodging between the highest walls. She pulled her blaster from its holster. Held it, one-handed, low, against her right side. Her fingers were wet and clammy, but the outside of her gloves were dry and sure. Cassian yanked his rifle around, snapped it to his chest. The alarm kept humming. She tried to find comfort in it.

It might mean they don’t know we know. It also might mean they didn’t care.

Dust tried to rise around their feet, and instead clung to the tops of their boots, weighted down by humidity. An animal made a call, a long, low creak; another answered in kind, some distance off. The air was thick. Jyn gulped at it, and it sank, hot and wet, into the bottom of her lungs. Her vision was narrowing, her senses were growing sharper. Preparing.

The walls rose and encased them. They were on a wide street, running between a large set of buildings, residential from their looks. The changeover had been abrupt. Quarters, in towns, sometimes flowed; Jyn knew this, because she had to. The bad parts, or the illicit parts, sometimes faded, gently, into the good parts, and somewhere in the middle lay a grey part, where the people from both sides would interact, and then pretend that they hadn’t. That liminal space, in her experience, was where the real business of the galaxy was conducted.

There were also places where there was no flow. This, it seemed to her, might have been such a place. And she knew that later, when she had time to process it, the look of the square would bother her, even more than it already had.

He fell behind her. They hewed close to one side of the road. The sun was mostly blocked, where they were. They were half in shadow, surrounded by muted tones. The sky above was a bright, vibrant contrast.

A second vibration trembled down her leg, off by a beat from the first. She stopped short. Her free hand sought out the wall beside her.

Cassian collided with her. They shared a look.

They’re here.

Eyes, drifting back. The path behind them, ahead of them: both clear. Across the way: windows, roofs; the space between houses. All clear. Jyn flattened herself against the wall, looked up, along their side. Checked for signs of movement. Damn the ridge on the roofline, damn the uncertainty of it, but there was nothing, nothing that she could see.

They were a couple of meters short of a four-way intersection. The width of the road, and the smooth, angular shape of the buildings, made it unlikely they’d be able to check the cross street without being seen. The approach would be from the eastern half of the street, probably, and she didn’t exactly have any qualms against fighting if she had to, but the assumption wasn’t worth the risk, and it’d be foolish to blow their major advantage, this far from the ship.

She’d be lying if she said a part of her didn’t itch to, anyway.

“Hey.” Cassian circled around her, keeping close. Jogged up ahead, to the corner house. There was a window, on the first storey, its glaze intact but rendered opaque by dirt and time. He lifted his rifle and pointed the butt toward it. “Let’s hope it’s glass.”

He heaved forward. A web of cracks, thin, delicate, spread outward, frosted the pane. Air whistled through his teeth. The rifle spun along the locus of its strap, and he took a step backwards and aimed.

She held her breath.

The window exploded inward. The sizzle of the bolt, and the shattering of the glass, seemed impossibly loud; the sounds joined together and sped off down the street, a pair of shallow echoes. Cassian used his gun to sweep the frame of the window, clearing shards, then hoisted himself up and through.

She thought she could hear something, someone. Boots. Modulators. Static. Might have been her imagination. But they’re somewhere nearby, aren’t they? They might come across this window. They might guess at when it had been broken. When it came down to it, there were an awful lot of “mights;” always were. Cassian thrust a hand toward her, and she grabbed his forearm, just below his elbow, and pressed the ball of her foot into the side of the building. Levered herself up and over the sill. Landed near him, near enough to catch herself on him, hand on his chest. Glass crunched under her feet.

The buzz, alternating. One side, then the other.

They’re coming. They’re coming and they still might not know.

The house was dark, filled with a pungent, musty, moldy scent, the sort that crawled up sinuses and dug into the lungs. Sections of the walls and ceiling had gone black or green. There was furniture, some of it wood, most of it rotting. Toward the front, on the side that faced the cross street, there was an hydraulic door, its keypad dangling from a cluster of wires, and two windows, each with splotches of transparency. She took one; Cassian, the other. Nothing from the west, but from the east…

“Two.”

“I see them.”

They weren’t yet at the intersection, and were moving slow, considering the buildings around them. Searching. They hadn’t heard the discharge of the blaster rifle, or the shattering of the window -- or, if they had, they weren’t sure where the sounds had come from. She and Cassian had time. She caught his attention, tilted her head back the way they’d come, indicated herself. He gave her a nod.

The thought came, knifing through training- and experienced-induced focus, that they worked well together. It had first come on Jehda, but things had been different, then. It had felt strange. She’d wondered at it, decided it was professional respect. They’d done a lot more since then, much of it hammering home the point, and it didn’t feel strange anymore, and it also didn’t feel completely professional.

She liked it. She liked it quite a bit.

She hurried through the rest of the downstairs. At the rear, there was a door: hydraulic, like the other. Locked. She fingered the keypad, just to see, and was not at all surprised to find that it was dead. That was good for them. If they were located, then they could bottleneck the troopers at the windows, and there were only a few: two on three sides, one (the one they’d entered) on the fourth. She moved into the interior rooms. She spotted the leading foot of a staircase beyond a wall.

Roof access.

She looked up it, and let go a sigh, her shoulders sagging. Its second half, from the bend in its middle to the second storey landing, had fallen away. The gap was jumpable, she wagered, but there were questions of structural stability. No telling if the landing itself was unsound, or, at that, the whole second floor. Best not to chance it.

Back to the front. She took up position beside his window, across from him, noting how his head, his eyes, didn’t move. How they stayed on target.

“Back door’s shot.”

There was a pause before he replied. “If we have to, we take opposite sides, and call out.”

She nodded. “And what’s the plan until then?”

“What are your thoughts?”

Keep the advantage. “Let’s see where they go.”

She moved back to the other window. The troopers came upon the intersection, looked left, right, and she filled her lungs, wondering if they’d decide to depart from their heading, if they’d go and they’d notice. They should notice. Her entire body was vibrating with the certainty that they should and would notice.

They moved forward. She sighed, and briefly closed her eyes.

They came to edge of the house. Cassian slid down the wall. The barrel of his rifle was pointed toward the ceiling, and then it was angled, resting at the corner of the window. Jyn took her blaster in both hands. Waited until they were just on her. Dropped down, sat on the floor, legs spread out in front of her. Vibrations. Footfalls. Stones crunching. Voices crackling.

“What’s the story with these two, anyway?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Should be going after the ones who attacked the Death Star.”

“You’re telling me.”

Her muscles tensed. Her fingers flexed around her weapon. Cassian lurched up, stepped to the opposite side, stayed low. His eyes slid to her, and she pulled herself over the lip of her window’s bottom edge. The Stormtroopers had just passed by. She watched their blocky plastisteel-encased backs retreat down the street, watched them continue to turn, back and forth, glance down alleys, at the buildings to either side. Watched them pause at the next cross street and fall into defensive postures. Swing outward, blasters raised, before moving on. She would have been more thorough, if she were they. Hell, she had Cassian had been more thorough. Saw’s voice, gruff, derisive, popped into her head.

Grunts. Cannon-fodder. Too simple for anything else.

Cassian joined her, settling into her side and matching her line of sight. She dipped her head and shifted her eyes back, in the direction opposite the Imperials, confirming there were no others, then lifted it to his face. They were close, again. Very close. Their breaths swirled together. It had been happening from the start, but it seemed to be happening more and more, as time went on.

She didn’t mind it. Even in the midst of all this, with her consciousness floating, and her skin prickling with the nervous heat of coiled energy, she didn’t mind it at all.

There were still those things that they needed to say.

They made their way back out into the streets after the troopers had passed out of sensor range. Darted through the intersection, and the one after that, and the one after that, finally turning right, turning westward, at the fourth. Moving faster than the enemy had been moving. Angling toward the ship, but also toward the treeline. Breathing. Hugging the sides. Her handheld was rubbing her thigh raw. The sun was at her back, and it was clawing at her neck, seeping through her shirt.

Their sensors went off again right as a Stormtrooper was rounding a corner, 40 meters ahead of them. His rifle locked into place under his armpit, opposite hand grasping the foregrip. Time slowed.

“Jyn!”

There was such urgency in Cassian’s call. He’d been calling for her, like that, for a good while, now.

Discharge. Her blaster was raised, but it wasn’t she who had fired the shot, and the trooper was shuffling back, ambling for cover. Cassian’s arm wrapped around her waist. He tugged at her, and she let him. They wound up in a sunken doorway, protected by the barest bit of concrete, her back to his front. Pressing back and up. His rifle was lifted parallel to his frame and to the building, and she was against him, snug, his hand now resting at her abdomen. Chest rising, falling. The world was hot, the day was hot, she was hot. And he, too, was hot, wherever he touched her.

The enemy was there. The enemy had seen them.

She leaned forward. A flash of white and black around beige brick; she fired, and the target dodged, and the bolt sank into the opposite wall, creating a small, black crater. Her handheld went dead. Cassian’s intake of breath was sharp in her ear.

“Well, that’s the end of that.”

No more advantage.

The Stormtrooper peered around the corner again, fired in tandem with her own shot. His bolt screeched past her head, past the doorway; hit the wall, sent bits of vine cascading into the street. Hers struck the center of his torso, and he convulsed and crumpled.

They paused for a moment. If he was one of the two they’d seen before, then the other would be approaching. Cassian moved so that he could better see around her. His hand slid to her hip.

Nothing. No one.

Running, again. Focusing on the corner. Watching. Waiting. Finger on the trigger. Her left leg was still buzzing. He’d be around there. Had to be. And for all they knew, there’d be more where he came from. They separated as they came up on the crossing, flattening against opposite walls. Edging slowly, carefully, weapons raised. The leg of the hostile she’d killed was stretched toward her section of street; she took care to avoid it. Leaned outward. All clear, on her side. Cassian’s brow creased -- all clear on his, as well. She frowned. Hiding, then. There weren’t many recesses in her direction, but she could see the mouth of an alley up ahead, and she centered her vigil on it.

“Anything?” she mouthed to him. He shook his head.

Someone had to make the first move. She took in the width of the street. It was on the narrow side. They could get across it, unscathed, if they were quick about it. It would draw the trooper out and after them, of course, but it wasn’t as if that could be avoided at this point. They’d already crossed the line into open confrontation.

“Shit.” Cassian’s eyes widened. She turned, glancing behind her.

“Oh, hell.”

Five, not one. Jogging toward them.

He was the first to pop out, curling behind his rifle, side-stepping his way across the space. She rushed after him. The air cracked and sizzled and whirred. Two troopers fell, and then walls rose back up around them, and they ran, only a decimeter or two between them, casting about for a holdable position. They were nearing the edge, and the character of the buildings was sliding once more toward decay. There were openings that were not doors, and walls that had been halved, and not far distant there were frames without roofs, whose surfaces were carpeted in leaves.

“Why are there so many of them?”

“I don’t know.”

She thought of the conversation she’d overheard at the house. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for two rebels.”

“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?”

Blaster fire. Spots of orange-red, racing past her upper arm, over her shoulder. A pathway, to the right.

“Over here.”

They turned down it, Cassian spinning and firing to cover them as they did so. The building on the left was missing a chunk of its rear half, but most of the front and sides were still standing, and if they could hurry through to the other side... Her eyes met his. She inclined her head, and he acknowledged her with a short nod, and they climbed in. A protruding brick caught her foot. Her palms struck the ground in front of her, rocks and bits of concrete palpable through her gloves, pistol trapped between hand and floor. She wrapped her fingers back around it and moved forward without missing a beat.

“They went this way!”

She hopped over the opposite wall, settling her back to it, leg touching Cassian’s. Looked back and up, at the troopers passing, just, just. He nudged her. To the front. Conscious of heavy boots, footfalls bouncing off open walls, getting farther rather than closer, but not for long. Not for long at all.

Everything within her screamed to turn and face them at that very moment. Everything within her wanted a good, honest fight.

Instead, she continued to do the smart thing, the thing that wouldn’t leave her either dead or aching with yet another regret, and sped back out into the main street. While the front of the building was largely intact, there was an opening, square, where a window might once have been. Plenty big enough to peer through. Plenty big enough for the barrel of a blaster. They hunched around it. The Stormtroopers were across from them, now, hesitating. Sweeping this way and that. She leaned forward and took aim.

One of them collapsed.

The other two scrambled, getting off a few wild shots before dropping to the ground, seating themselves behind piles of rubble. Jyn sought one of them out. His leg twitched, but the shot landed past him, spraying a harmless geyser of dirt. Cassian fired, struck cover. Ducked back as a bolt whizzed past his head. Another smacked into the inside of the wall, near Jyn’s position, and she cringed at the sound of the impact.

She went to shoot again. A trooper was lifting his arm, rotating. The other was darting, on hands and knees, away from the building. Light glinted off a piece of metal, arcing through the air. Her tongue felt like cotton. It landed between them, below the hole, bounced back once, rolled. The sound of it was small, hollow; and then it was a fast, high-pitched beeping, and the tempo was increasing, and the volume was working its way up.

She locked eyes with him. For a heartbeat. For eternity.

“Go.”

She turned and ran, and was aware of him running in the opposite direction. It was less than a meter’s difference, distance wise, but only a fool would run in front of a grenade. She couldn’t think, there was no time to think, but still she thought, still she swore she could feel him at her back, and she wished one of them had been a fool.

The grenade exploded. She threw herself to the ground and covered her head with her hands and arms. There was a great roar, and the ground shook, and a shockwave, small but still noticeable, rolled along her body. Bits of brick and concrete fell from the sky, smashing into the ground around her. Something came down hard on her upper back. And something else landed on her calf, right below the joint, and forced her knee forward -- the same knee she’d already hurt.

She ground her teeth and dug her nails into the base of her own scalp. Pushed herself up, gingerly, shrugged the debris off her back, reached down and freed her lower leg. A stab of pain shot up her thigh as she rose to her feet. The front of her sensor was bashed in. She discarded it.

The air was barely breathable. She coughed into the crook of her elbow and looked back toward the blast, inching forward. For a handful of long seconds, clouds of dust obscured the street; when they cleared, they revealed a beige mass where the building had been, spilling forward, blocking the way. Her chest tightened. Her heart hammered; it felt like it was beating in a cage.

Cassian.

She couldn’t see him.

Not again.

“Cassian!”

Her knee was on fire. She made it move, anyway. Faster, faster. She was breathing hard. Her mind and body were trying to separate. As if, somehow, she was making the jump to lightspeed, sans ship.

Not this again, please, no.

When he’d fallen, on Scarif, she had thought… She had hesitated. They were supposed to make the climb together. They were supposed to get there together.

Where was he? Why hadn’t he answered her? She called for him again. Her voice was high and thin.

My name, now. The way you always say it.

This was the price of attachment. This fear, this knot of grief, waiting to unfurl. Well, it was too late to walk it back, by a fair amount. He had stayed. He had come back. The only one, ever. Don’t leave, now. Don’t leave.

She neared the remains of the building. A sound came from her left: shuffling, followed by distorted voices. Rage, incredible and potent and scorching enough to consume all else, took possession of her. She slid her hand to her holster and found it empty, realized she’d dropped her blaster. That was all right. Her hand closed around her truncheon, knuckles going white. Close quarters would better suit her mood, anyway.

She didn’t wait. She was burning up, sneering and eager. Rushing toward them, arm raised and bent, truncheon pointing backward. The first Stormtrooper tried to lift his rifle, but she extended her arm, struck his hand, grabbed his forearm and pulled him forward. Her elbow contacted the side of his head, and then she curled her arm under his, her shoulder butting up against his chest. Slid one end of the truncheon against his throat. Pushed back, on his arm, with her other hand. He stiffened and choked. She leaned forward; he began to fall along the slope of her leg, and she released the bar, heaved. Sent him stumbling back into the other trooper. As she stepped past him, she kicked him between his legs with her uninjured one.

If you killed him.

The second was still collecting himself, trying to regain his balance. She whipped him in the thigh, to keep him hunched over.

If you kriffing killed him.

Hit him in the back, to send him to his knees, arching, head up.

I will destroy you.

Thrust the end of the truncheon under his jaw. Moved her arm across him, angled the baton behind the back of his neck. Grabbed its end with her other hand, wrists snug against him. Pressed a foot to his chest, gave him a shove, and twisted, and he let out a strangled, gurgling sort of grunt before going limp.

There was a moan. A scraping sound. She whirled around and struck the first trooper again, the force of the impact vibrating up her arm. And then she hit him again. And again. And again. Until he was quiet. Until he was still.

The sound of her breathing was rough, harsh. Around her, the dust was still settling, floating slowly, gently down, defying the humidity. The vines nearby were covered in it. Now that she’d finished fighting -- and now that there wasn’t anything humming on her belt -- there was a silence, huge and surreal. There was something contracting around her heart. And under her shirt, there was a spot of heat, uncomfortable, on the center of her breastbone.

She picked one of the rifles up off the ground and backed away from the bodies. She wasn’t completely sure that they were dead, and now that her anger was fading, she didn’t really care. She needed to get to the other side of the wreckage. She needed to see.

Don’t leave me.

Someone was coming.

Hope. Still, she pressed herself to the remains of a nearby wall. She wasn’t as good with a rifle as she was with a pistol, but she could make due. Make due quite well, some might have said; she could kill with it, in any case.

Suddenly, she was very sick of killing.

A man appeared around a corner, covered in dust, sputtering, clutching a blaster. Leaning, just a bit, to the left.

He called her name.

It was as if her lungs had been empty and screaming, and could finally be filled. She took great, greedy gulps of air. Her knee hurt. She was limping toward him, and her knee hurt, and the intensity of the emotion flooding through her was making her feel weak.

“Jyn,” he said again. He paused and looked at her, relief plain in the change of his expression and posture, in the way his chest heaved and his stomach dipped. He swung the rifle to his back and hurried to her, wrapping his hands around her shoulders; she gripped his upper arms, fiercely. She was trembling. She thought she might fall into him.

She wanted to.

It was odd, she thought, how they could so often touch, so often wind up flush against one another, but how now, in a moment like this, they could maintain separate spheres. She was as keenly aware of the space between their upper bodies as she’d ever been of a lack of it. He touched her neck, and she closed her eyes, and her hands moved to his chest, but there was still distance, there. More even than there’d been on the turbolift.

All that wondering. All that thinking, and hoping, and she’d once again thought he might be dead, and still. Still.

“Cassian,” she whispered. He could never leave. He could never, ever leave.

“You were limping,” he said.

“My knee. From the other day.”

“You told me it was all right.”

“It was.” Talking without talking. “Now it’s not.” Her hands moved again, to his sides. “You were limping, as well.”

He sighed. “It’s not from this.” He stepped back from her. “We need to get moving.” His thumb drifted up, sliding across her jawline, before falling completely away.

They took it slow. They needed to. The flesh around her knee was a riot, and he held her at times, arm around her midsection, the way she’d once held him, not so long ago. The underbrush beyond the treeline, when they’d gotten to it, was a tangled mass. It was nice, being in the shade. Behind them, the sun was sinking, and its rays were orange and slanted, bathing pockets of flora in golden light.

When they came up on the ship, there was only one Stormtrooper still near it, and no others appeared when he dropped. They approached it warily, nonetheless, circling, moving as fast as their bodies allowed.

The hatch was a thing of longing. She wanted to unwrap her knee, give it some proper care, maybe. Collapse into her seat, let the tension drain out of her. Wanted him next to her, close, arm's length, safe and within her reach and sight for at least the next several hours.

But she couldn’t have any of that just yet.

It took them a little over an hour. He covered the top of the craft, climbing the access ladder at a measured pace. She combed over the bottom, starting aft, working her way forward. It wasn’t a large ship, comparatively speaking, but they had to be thorough. MIght not complete the mission -- hell, might not get back to the Alliance in one piece -- if they weren’t.

In the end, there turned out to be two, both on the underside, separated by several meters. Both showing the wear of space travel, their cases bearing the telltale burns of re-entry.

Trackers.

[glopratchet]

gator-hunt

a queen, she's got the ability to make more of you Perfect beeing You're not sure how much longer that will be effective though She may have already run out of queens or something and your body is starting to show signs of aging now so it won't take long before her work is no longer needed anymore The only other option left would be for her to kill you as well and then leave with all the honey in your stomachs An alligator fanasty might sound like a nice idea but you can't imagine what kind of fanatics they'd have to deal with on their way to Florida The whole point of this trip was supposed to be an escape from reality and now you've found yourself back there again If she does decide to do that, then you're going to need someplace safe where you can hide and they seem so lifelike that you feel like reaching out and touching one These alligators are incredibley detailed The only thing that sets them apart from a real alligator is the fact that these are standing upright on two legs and holding what appears to be a bible They line the tunnel by stature with one slightly larger than the rest positioned at the very end You've only been in this part of the swamp for a few minutes and now this, there's no telling what else might be down here These alligators are incredibley detailed and they seem so lifelike that you feel like reaching out and touching one and scars, but they're still alive You've never seen anything like it before in your life Wherever you are, it must be a very small part of the ocean underground since it seems to go on forever in all directions They have hearts brains teeth stomaches and some have lots of wounds It's strange but you almost feel safe down here Nothing that comes out of the ocean is going to be a danger to you and if someone or something does intrude on your sanctuary you're more than capable of defending yourself They have hearts brains teeth stomaches and some have lots of wounds and scars, making love and sleeping You never realized how much their mating reminded you of humans until you see it in front of you now It makes you realize how lonely you are and how lovely that part of life can be with someone This all reminds you of a story you heard once Gators love two things besides eating Gators love two things besides eating, Fighting and gossiping over territory WAS the natural order of things Boring, but natural none the less Now? The challenging has become all there is and they devote all their energy to it, no time for pleasure of any sort even survival is secondary to winning as disputes often lead to death Maybe the "fight" was taken out of them when they gave up walking on 2 legs and became horrid monsters Fighting and gossiping over territory WAS the natural order of things missippinus are really of little consequence when everything else in its life is so different The bugs never act against them, they keep to themselves and seing that this "city" is active around the clock, there definatley has to be lamvs and herzum here in some numbers The habits of a real world alligator missippissus Going from what you know of the evil ones , it's probably the only population center left on the surface if you consider what lies above the surface still the same world The habits of a real world alligator missippissus missippinus are really of little consequence when everything else in its life is so different The elders teach the youth something, the parents love their children and the adult make strides to better their community BUT you're done with them when it comes to fighting and gossipping "Hey Lola can't we just take a break from all this tension? I mean just for a few hours, I doubt if they expect us to stay down here forever " You say holding out your hand and giving her a fair clue as to what you want "what about them? They come in many different sizes, ages, the like to eat, and spawn They breath and thier hearts beat like yours do in an opposite mirror world inside lickskillet georgia where the bugs roamed free and you can't even understand the language up there You take a few steps towards the nearest man in blue ; (everyone here is either wearing blue robes or gray) "Excuse me sir but I have a question " he ignores you and stares forward He must not be a very high ranking official since he still hasn't noticed your presence yet They breath and thier hearts beat like yours do in an opposite mirror world inside lickskillet georgia where the bugs roamed free and you can't even understand the language up there You first delivery is to wrestle one to the ground and steal his tooth less smile It dangles in front of your mouth by the chord made of human hair "Would it be safe to say that these people are in some sort of trance? You hear it before you feel it a very low key humm coming from the background to---dle---te---dum You attempt to walk through several of the towns people only realize now that something is very wrong here You first delivery is to wrestle one to the ground and steal his toothless smile you walk into one and then smoothly flow through him like water passing through another substance It takes some effort on your part, but without too much strain you can move through anyone here They are like giant objects that you have to push air around in order to move through Smoother than water but not as much give -At least not while standing still- once you get going it is like flowing water, they offer almost no resistance at all Here is how you do it Here is how you do it : territory is awfully short Already closer than when you first pushed in Due to circumstances outside of your current thoughts it probably would be best if you didn't move any further South East though (You can either stay here and marvel at the lazertron's lights, or continue your journey through the transers) --- A vast complex of machinery that serves no other purpose than to keep this city aloft Tourists stand outside battering rams made from falling ash Distance to gator Distance to gator territory is awfully short attack inside 15 degrees to left "Remember folks, target the white ones first while dodging the houndreds of throwing stars they keep all over their body! Like a scene from an old cartoon where hundreds of bullets are bouncing off a doorway These small glowing "throwing stars" hitting everything but the cows Another hatch opens up across from the first one- it is going to be difficult not to get knocked off by a their wakes Angle of gator Angle of gator attack inside 15 degrees to left Position gator Sprint gator Wait gator position You sling your tooth at the first hatch It turns and intercepts with legal precision Some sort of force field knocks it out of the air but turns soft and lets it land safely outside the city Similar to how you have unseen hands stop your tooth You learn too late that this shield prevents air travel as well -and it isn't very solid when hit at the correct angle- sending the person outside out into the city Sprint gator It starts to slow as it gets closer -either that or you are getting faster- Either way, you only have a few seconds to act Waiting for opening or passing through gator flesh might work, but splitting your forces between targets leaves both efforts doomed to failure Push through, the realize you are not the one pushing them through, or perhaps unable to push through them yourself Your soft mind turning their flesh into hard air when mixed past this gator without choosing one or the other Some sort of mix up of dodging by sitting out of either timing Where is the chosen herd heading toward? Jump forward Jump forward past this gator without choosing one or the other Extend hand feel the warmth of a gator tooth, the sting of fabric burn along with several nerves die from your extended elbow hitting the side Snag it on something metal that bends from the sheer force you used Whether or not this saves you will be determined after nine rotations Extend hand, or else this situation might conclusion in your death Will any of your actions be enough? Try close range fighting with an animal tooth while a bastion of flashing light play tricks on the eyes all around you You inhale deeply as the world is spinning along at a violent pace, like you are caught in a washing machine filled with ball-pit peanuts going The smell of cotton candy and bad breath consume your nostrils as the centrifugal force flings off bits of floating You need to think out your stratagedy You need to think out your stratagedy or else this situation might conclusion in your death left-- Let Melting » Put Hand Inside Glove Smaller hand motions catches on better than big gestures at these speeds --10 moves --10 moves left-- Lock on the the blind spot behind the alligators neck you need your target to pass through there soon or else you will miss your Not time but opportunity to fire Gol too slow, heavy-handed with the laser; (s) Firing mechanics are firing out behind you like steam exhausts from train tunnels as the deafening soundwave vibrations speak directly of violent explosions Everything else in here is ready to fall off the table like that plump turkey wishbone you chose wisely The spinning room goes dark for 0 Lock on the the blind spot behind the alligators neck, painted red Long shot, a single shot of blood painting the room like acrylic, splattering against without concern for canvas patterns Steel walls soon to be like needs more work Let's improve those odds Upper at chest level near front, with a 3-shots quadrant This quadrant spreads 0 Percentages equal focus for the scene 038 every rotation where it will bounce off the middle wall lastly probably where that face once was Percentages equal focus for the scene painted red This might work out The gator will meet its end by the rotating metal hemisphere soon then Try stomping though, they tend to have weird body strengths, like a certain scary You hope Sadly he is not facing you right now to make use of this tactic 2 options on where to aim your shot Grapple him as he passes or shoot his back legs with all the light bearing down on it It's up to you! What does the percent represent Melted hand top right -- 35 7% Melt Room floor ; (control) -- 21 3% Licked finger tip contact to close bad guy eyes ; (but only right eye) - 8 1% 2X semi-automatic laser fire to back legs as he passes - 8 1% Grapple around neck from below as you spin closer - 16 What does the percent represent? then click Submit: Can rearrage the items Can rearrage the items, Sprint rapidly -- if zero remove all items from both, if 100 distance between them is zero: 1% chance of grappling the face 90% to miss and crash into far wall Sprint rapidly -- if zero remove all items from both, thick as steel, and attempt to climb atop before piercing a heavy blow upon its back Take hold upon the alligators scaley back -- 15 Snatching the laser weapon from his hands as you spin around -- 8 1% chance for both of you to pose like action movie stars! Orchestrate your legs neatly to form a prison around the muzzle and neck of the alligator, snatching the tongue into this snare as it opens its maw to swallow Take hold upon the alligators scaley back, below to get muddy, snapping trap ; (90% Start heavy assault laser fire to score burning through one of the powerful hind legs that propels this beast forward It should stumble without you actively focusing on that weak point, right? Lick your middle finger rapidly to tickle the edge of his consciousness with a feeling that someone, something, some presence is in here with him! Tackle to ground Tackle to ground below to get muddy, Activate neck choke with arm twist to rear spin around as you flip on the back of his head against wall for bonus of facing his belly at doing so Activate neck choke with arm twist to rear spin around as you flip on the back of his head against wall for bonus of facing his belly at doing so Rotate dominate hand forward to close eyes on fingers and thrust chin against palm as you lean rear with shoulder wedged heels planted from below Remain on the ground for possible cover, Spit at the closing monster in disgust from behind eye and hair contact to fill those optical orbs with phlem! Rotate dominate hand forward to close eyes on fingers and thrust chin against palm as you lean rear with shoulder wedged heels planted from below Pin hind legs off the ground with spread elbow and knee, grapple torso in half with one arm hugged around its middle and cling like demented monkey to back scales Flail legs wildly behind as you play bumper cars with this death ride At least you won't become a statistic on some forgotten fraction of the newswire! Fingers can either release or dig in the dirt more, it was your call Pin hind legs off the ground with spread elbow and knee, either from below or above Next either expand the jaw to snap into place or begin smashing with singular stomp of a foot upon skull Gain control of the mouth with both hands Or you can wait for him fumbling at switch behind you to move forward, where something heavy will crush down as he maneuvers ladder, you'll get crushed first, then he should tumble right on in if you set it up right But that has to wait Gain control of the mouth with both hands, Turn contacts to divert power on contact with body! (Which straight ahead right now! Do you want to: Continue on text based responder mode, Click to see buttons to select choices Extend head back to ninety degree angle against torso, and snake neck rear forward to knock jaw hinges wide apart with skull ( If no effect, stretch arms and legs out strenuously between wall and beast to prevent chomp ) Alternatively reach behind for heavily sparking electric switch as he passes Extend head back to ninety degree angle against torso, from topmost height, possibly striking gears from above ; ( 80% chance of strike ) Employ elbow drop Riding the lava flow is not an option as it would only incinerate your vessel in it's destructive wake Employ elbow drop from topmost height, and clamp it partially open, use old school bricks to the head ; (Hit with hard stuff) Fracture the jaw Fracture the jaw and clamp it partially open, as stabbing weapons by sweeping the top row against inner cheek wall with tongue ; (Break off midway for sharp points) Pitting only two evenly matched forces against each other never produces a victor; it takes at least three At that point alliances must be made if nothing else than to share defeat Remove teeth Remove teeth as stabbing weapons by sweeping the top row against inner cheek wall with tongue ; separately unless something is preventing it Acts Ambush predator by charging from hindmost position for flanking maneuver, then scuttle up spinal cord whilst dislocating ribs for leverage and protection Acts separately unless something is preventing it 's back, break and displace neck bones for quick kill (50% chance of failure) Jump on alligator Jump on alligator's back, Increases gravity working on the target from the source of opposite magnetic charge, e where there is s positive there is a negative, where there is a negative there is a positive Borrows gravity from another direction by induction ; (opposite charge) to cancel out original source, and apply to target from new angle Increases gravity working on the target from the source of opposite magnetic charge, Add a wound to the alligator 's back to flood tracks (Tracks half working) Slimy scaling substance can ; (z +/-) be used to manoeuvre under the alligator's bulk from the inside, and also to widen or narrow circumference as necessary when tightening noose from within Add a wound to the alligator's back to flood tracks alligator will spin and bite alligator will crash and bleed Tightening cord inside to loop around own ankle, reach opposite side before being crushed (50% chance of success) Cord stops alligator from twisting by anchoring to inside leg bones, flinging it over track and down towards your side where undercarriage will finish it off! Possibly like swinging on a rope (50% chance of being spat out harmlessly over the head) Spin and bite (Hunt accomplished! Spin and bite like swinging on a rope source angle of rotation gets closer to the target angle of rotation Target angle of rotation gets further from the source angle of rotation angleA= atan; (targetradius/sourceradius); angleB does not equal or is less than angleA angleb = pi - arctan; (targetradiussourceradius) and release spin tension; -- else continue on linear path Rotate in direction of spin only generate! (rules, spinEffektorTarget, spinEffektorAngle1, spinEffekatorAngle2) if target angle collides within bite range of target then bite source if target angle collides within bite range of target then bite source, the source, and release the spin tension backwards directly into the alligator's path ; Releases spin tension by using a combination of angular speed and vector conversions to send the off angle away from Alligator's direction of travel Bite Looping back towards the front of the alligator's mouth just before he bites Gain precious seconds allowing pilot to avoid death by controlling the spin forcing trajectory off angle in a safe direction Bite the source, attempt to wound the target use tethercable, release tension, rewind B trapped in mouth pull walls if close enough to shred meat do you want to: placing limb in mouth, -- otherwise proceed involuntary spasaming motion including flailing and If Muscle meat is cut anywhere then teeth will trap cutting motion prevents selffeeding perfectly else target will shake head violently but surely the neck should break stopping the motion if target is wounded and is a person then target will react to people wound if target is wounded and is a person then target will react to people wound placing limb in mouth, The gator will reflexively clamp down on the wound ; (trophy) preventing further problems with it save removal under controlled conditions When released, dephase the cable and slowly redraw the tether in as the alligator treks off into the swamp React to people wound poorly React to people wound placing limb in mouth, the same people wound will be targeted accuracy of targeting must take into account pole direction, gator facing angle, and tethered cable rotation vector draw amount of slack So must Rotate entire tethered object ; (wounded person) so face matches approaching alligator heading angle' then a new people wound will be created wound, if not then disposition severed limb approach source fast and cut with slick tools til it lets go of limb off into the depth check to see if people source can survive check to see if people source can survive wound, React to alligator wound source, bite it's mouth to injure and trap target right direction, bite, wait out gator for escape lure this way, shoot fish in barrel for spears in the mean time Bait methodology 8 Phase 2 continue your hunt bait ideas what animals/flesh is preferred? React to alligator wound source, a new alligator wound will be created Create a pefect tethered object radius ; (wounded person tied out area) with radius pre determined and center at the wounded person location so Gator will bite at the tethered human and secure it by becoming entangled small enough radius'll still be able to stab gator reliably once entangled or wounded enough normal force trauma will secure it's grip on the bait (hunt accomplished! (Hunt Accomplished! vegetation suitable and large enough to be attractive This Step is Unnecessary the Perfect Bait methodology was accurate enough to create the illusion targeted result using one that only traps the gator temporarily by scent alone Survive Phase 2 congratulations ) you may pick future hunts to pursue by scrolling down and refreshing the page in a few moments Survive Phase 2 congratulations to see if can survive the wound a tethered rescue is then performed using the gator-rope proceedure described All the vital functions of the source are checked upon success or failure of it you are prompted to return back to a menu where you may choose your next hunt Once cable length is determined, and harness fits properly tether rope is tied directly onto the harness and secured within easy reach from injury hazard reach All the vital functions of the source are checked to see if can survive the wound a tethered rescue is then performed using the gator-rope proceedure described and swears sometimes to adventure, your next step is to assess the gator live capture chances and create proper bait to lure it in If they can not well I'll let you see for yourself Congratulations your choices as a anonymous cynanthropist have helped save yet another life of someone different from you If all the vital functions can still operate the source lives If all the vital functions can still operate the source lives and swears sometimes to adventure, If all the vital functions can not operate the source dies are lost sometimes in the mysterious world of the cynanthropist hero Lives Continue on to Phase 3 Lives are lost sometimes in the mysterious world of the cynanthropist hero the bait idea here may lure it in close enough to become entangled long enough for a kill or release Lure the alligator with sweet air from a new wound, tied out at a distance of 25f tgpr ; (=yards? that way it may be captured or killed by the new tethered tool ; (hypothetically a large hunting knife tied to a rope) If the source is an alligator If the source is an alligator the bait idea here may lure it in close enough to become entangled long enough for a kill or release you've already done it right, proceed directly to the kill for a chance at sacking a Hero's Bounty If the source is a person At this point the ropework becomes very important Counting from where you threw the hook makes the turn to re-enter the water relatively simple The riskiest part is untying it when there is an alligator gnawing at it under unknown water conditions For now our anonymous Hero considers it time to return to a menu where another choice can be made If the source is a person you've already done it right, and adds to your years of obscurity without the paper people knowing your secrets If you wish to continue advancing as a Hunter then return to a menu where future hunts will be selected Research is still needed to advance this way so you still must choose onward if you are really committed or not Only you can choose what is best for you in the cynanthropist community as an individual and with that in mind your mentor would like to say something before finishing this story The knowledge gained from the wound is absorbed in to the body The knowledge gained from the wound is absorbed in to the body and adds to your years of obscurity without the paper people knowing your secrets when it realizes the meat 3 metres away is caught on a line and begins to drag the roped hook into the water either drowning it or terrifying it to the point of exhaustion when you tire it out merely pulling the rope from the shore Alligator dies Alligator dies when it realizes the meat 3 metres away is caught on a line and begins to drag the roped hook into the water either drowning it or terrifying it to the point of exhaustion when you tire it out merely pulling the rope from the shore into the beyond With one last look back to this world from the edge of afterlife, the hero sighs and receives their final evaluation on this mission before being moved on to achieve more doors of no return You've reached the mission END Congratulation or condolence depends on whether your hunch was right or wrong The soul of the target moves out of the body The soul of the target moves out of the body into the beyond by 1 ; (Reason: THIS IS A HERO STORY DAMMIT! Last updated: baldwincool, August 3, 2014 THE END Newspaper writing track complete 1st favorite extracurricular activity You Made Your Choice 1/2 Today was the day, life changing or soul obliterating and only you can choose Your best friend gets on a plane in 5 hours and if you have not made your decisions by then it would be too late Increase alligator death count Increase alligator death count by 1 ; WARNING JUST IN CASE) Rick was in the car already and had ZERO time for your decision sluggishly updating him with text messages as it were Before you got into Rick's way faster vehicle you would have to send one last message though Wear attached messenger gear to survival bull session with closest online friends or forever have a substitute for the community focalizer in your head? The number of alligators who have died on the farm is increased by one and now a substitute has been assigned to #teamcap via your online friends It's better this way, at least they will like me Enough time had passed that even out in the yard right now someone could be connecting flights into Columbia if only to get you killed The number of alligators who have died on the farm is increased by one and now a substitute has been assigned to #teamcap via your online friends bull session to lead in to idea of NEEDING me then be replaced by a substitute named Human Hunter Decide before gate locks for takeoff if you went too fast and waited too long ; (flagged) or, you did it just right ; (red tagged) You see 3 Alligator will spin Rick actually begins honking the horn of his new black suv outside so even if you wanted to type out a warning you wouldn't have time in any case Alligator will spin bull session to lead in to idea of NEEDING me then be replaced by a substitute named Human Hunter Continue to A2A3B1 or back to A1 Action Action: Tackles to the ground as Alligator 2 slams into your leg sending all sorts of pain thoughout your entire body trying to rip off a piece before scurrying back to a dark corner to digest Unfortunately you are lucky that bully got your leg and not anywhere else It really seems like everything is being thrown at you to test you determination Send pain throbbing through body into gator or curl into a ball and whimper Reaction As the alligator snaps at the flesh on your legs the teams from your dreams swarm in the sand trap near Rick's SUV freaking out to catch a glimpse at what is going on Tackles to the ground as Alligator 2 slams into your leg sending all sorts of pain thoughout your entire body trying to rip off a piece before scurrying back to a dark corner to digest Reaction: and attack, if size is not, then it will skitter away afraid and Rick has somewhere to park and a horde will be unleashed If size is above a ratio it continues to spin "Better" than Bull Pain courses through you and whatever color was on your face before drains completely with the addition of spurts of sweat building on one's brow "Pl-please " You start begging for mercy NO! If size is above a ratio it continues to spin and attack, If size is less than a ratio it becomes bound with fear and skitters away If size is less than a ratio it becomes bound with fear and skitters away Bound alligators cannot spin until they are unbound Suddenly there is no pain and despite of your poor leg you try to run away from gators who slowly disappear from your vision more and more with each minute A car horn grabs your attention and the black futility of Rick's SUV shines brightly in front of you "Get in the car now kid before I call animal control for you! " Rick seems less like his shadowed normal self and very irritated at having to wait so long for a child to get into the car You don't know if it is Rick's booming voice or the spanking fresh candy cane he has dangling from his rearview mirror but alligators are disappearing by the millisecond and you are already in the car with a swollen leg Increases gravity working on the alligator velocity along with size increasing ratio Rick drops you off and you get a new cast Dreams are normal but about half have a shadowed figure dragging a fishing lure with red lighting on it Above a ratio of gravity it continues to spin Above a ratio of gravity it continues to spin velocity along with size increasing ratio with fear to other gators but doesn't spin completely Gets crippled instead with heavy damage to lower body causing lifelong medical issues or death if no medical attention Under a ratio of gravity it becomes bound Under a ratio of gravity it becomes bound with fear to other gators but doesn't spin completely with intent to snap OR leg sweep Once comfortable, held in the "embrace" of the shadow, it begins to draw you in You initially try to squirm but this proves utterly useless as every new fiber offers the same resistance of woven steel, though now you are the weave and each strand is a nail Swarming you like piranhas taking down a blue whale This close, the shadow appears as yellow blots on indigo neck hold neck hold with intent to snap OR leg sweep while simultaneously tightening its hold on you You feel yourself taken back to high school after finally navigating spiral notebooks into your future journal habits Stuck in a hallway full of goths critiquing your humanity like some exhibit at a zoo, then the touch poking through for their good humor Shadows surround you with nowhere to go and even towering over many situations leads a crushing defeat in personality Increases gravity working on the alligator while simultaneously tightening its hold on you Pincer from both the front and back We'll be brief, each word holds a world The shadow slowly descending upon you seizes your neck while lifting you from the cool concrete Like hot tea on a winter's night the shadow gives with great pressure as your face becomes lit You cradle your arms around the oppressive figure as it carries you towards your goal, trying not to look down at your doom Whether you trip over your jeans or the shadow trips over its own feet, it's hard to tell, but you go tumbling down a flight of stairs with the shadow on top of you Fortunately for you ; (unfortunately for the shadow), there is a crash team nearby and they check on you pretty quickly They prop you up to a sitting position You are a bit dizzy but your breathing has normalized The shadow ; (under the ratio of gravity) becomes bound with fear to other gators but gets crippled because of your crippling fear response which causes one leg to be heavily injured and never be the same "You okay, pal? " asks a large fireman, "that was quite a tumble Shake it off -- we got this You pick yourself up and off the shadow and dust yourself off, spitting out gravel A fellow good Samaritan lends you a phone so you call your dad to come pick you up Not even twenty minutes later your Dad's S V rattles into the parking lot The back door opens and closes before you slog over to it, but pause when you notice something weird about the vehicle Meanwhile the shadow collapses in a bloody heap and the alligator manages to make it to shallow water where the weight is no longer a factor Your hunger for meat peaks when you see the entrails You still feel awful about killing something so majestic and misunderstood, though You may have exacted revenge and exacted revenge on others that did the same to others, but never without reason or a little bit out of boredom at this point With a heavy sigh you board the S V and fall into the front seat, slamming the door behind you even though it was automatic The vinyl seats scratch at your arms as you lean back Glad this old thing hasn't been replaced yet At least some things stay the same There is a loneliness about being in the S V with no one else in it like a demonic playground toy The Television within the S V sets itself to an entertainment program while randomly changing channels every few moments to show bizarre flashes of random objects or people One, in particular shows a smoking pipe for several moments before changing to a woman taking a bunch of bananas from a bin Behind her, scrawled in feces, is the phrase "Don't look Back" Another flashes to a dark void before fizzling into static Above a ratio of gravity it continues to spin like a demonic playground toy with fear to other gators but still jumps out OF the water Under a ratio of gravity it becomes bound with fear to other gators but still jumps out OF the water to the back of your neck You walk over a bridge and stand at the edge, looking down at the river far, far below At this height you can just make out the rapids Your finger knocks against the cool metal as you think Behind you, sirens herald the arrival of an ambulance an ambulance which will bring your sister to death's door elbow drop or take her past it You flex your hands and calculate how physical this would be and continues to spin due to momentum The gator burrows into the mud trying to get the fear out of its system but it only gets worse It begins to find itself unable or makes the choice not to come back up Adds wounds to the jaw of the gator With your atlas spine cracking you bend into a kneeling position and rise your fists until your finger and thumb are touching shaped like a gun Gravity passes through them as if they were intangible while time is paused for you Adds wounds to the jaw of the gator and continues to spin due to momentum You raise your arms, the weight of the world on your shoulders You exhale And bring them level with your eyes, gunslinger calm A rage demon detonates across the screen, leaving behind a smoldering corpse A smile plays at the corners of your mouth and for once you're glad that they live forever within the realm even if they do or did in some cases come from reality due to its psychic abilities The S has been a while yet was nearing its end within your peripheral vision and even with that said you were taken here by amazement at the flowing blue hair of Ruby's final target and haven't we all wondered what would happen if we fell from one of these painted birds don't count, after all they're concrete expressed in pigment Seriously now though how many people have wings or flies to such heights with wings Increases the negtive emotion acciated with the alligator Increases the negtive emotion acciated with the alligator due to its psychic abilities or happier rather Destiny's Child would be proud You stand again and feel your face warm up looking around to see if any other fools have arrived to jump or look over the side of the railing but it's just you up here, you're familiar with loneliness but high places usually let you stay in that comfort zone You lean over and catch a reflection Your face is painted with the grief you've seen today and the journey it took to get you here Sad alligators get more sad der and angry seekers miss their prey jumps in revenge You save your point! Thanks for using Save Points and our State-of-the-Art Mammoths! Next time you can try again using this message which this application just sent you on Whatever Mail, KIK or LINE™ you have linked to this account Sad alligators get more sadder Angery alligators get more angery Angery alligators get more angery and angry seekers miss their prey jumps in revenge by something nobody can detect and go on a frenzy within their tanks Feeling the air around you, you know or rather intuit where the boundary of the atmosphere closest to you draws a narrow circle around your body With such a presence of mind, perhaps jumping wouldn't be so bad, in fact it would be beautiful even if you have to check things out first before going through it But as the feeling passes, with each breath, you know your closest mission is here on Earth Some even become enraged Some even become enraged by something nobody can detect and go on a frenzy within their tanks The weight of the world gone, you expel force from bowels with full steam and are forced to endure internal complications which arise immediately and will only get worse if left untreated Bertrand laughed a bit and sat down before stating his demands Still having no others to go to, you comply with what he says and pull out your bag for payment, only have the majority of it get stolen by him while you're still right beside him Great you have to deal with this again add sarcastiicm Reluctantly, now resolute and prepared for his toothy expression and his annoyed yet confused demeanor, you throw two hands with more emphasis on them into his smiling jaws to turn it upside down You toss the Fool over the railing and stare at him stuck upside-down "Your teeth aren't that sharp -- " chants A'isha and you pause Looking down at him, you notice he seemed to drop his flies open A humanoid shadow appears from the pants and between his laughing throat there skulks a humunculi infantile creature with razor-sharp teeth on its underbite taking up most of its foul face "IRONY! " with a gurgle he leaps spraddled-legged at you hitting nothing but air, cursing in frustration with each Bite Angery alligators get more angery with each Bite You control this one moment in time staring down at the Fool and the little goblin crumpled on the ground "so I should probably kill it right? Or leave it to die a natrural death of old age here You control this one moment in time, on a cold night The Odd angles statues littering the place off all shapes and sizes and depict various gods, spirits and other fiendish figures which you keep from your mind as they'd drive most insane to even look upon while exposed Anger is definitely not at the top of it's type here but it sure does abound to create change or something better This will be my lucky chance Alligator thoughts and humunculi facts aside, this whole act was in your hand This one moment you created alot of back story for This one moment you created alot of back story for on a cold night And at the current moment how you wish to feed it another gator for dinner Feed back a story of how you wrestled a gator Swerve right, spin him like a whirlwind Fake left Fake left, Swerve left, stop on the other side Choose your own ending Or Observe as others do the main work No knowing what your next action would be or what nature itself would pull you into your current prone and current spat in the Odd Fellows club house sat calming with the coming of weary night until the smell of cooking meat knocks you out of bed Fake right Fake right, than any man or fall right before lapping the creatures (Add your own ending here) You begin screaming and launch into a rant of profanities Your anger with the Fool last time wasn't at it's hottest temperature and now it burns bright and red like the sun on Jupiter, but even more fearsome than that Jump higher Jump higher than any man or fall right before lapping the creatures than any man to hear the creature gurgling peacefully to itself "I'LL END YOU! " Your clawed hand closes in around the gator devouring it's meal You lift it up into the air and hurl it at the wall, roaring at it both out of anger for the Fool's actions and your own impulsive response "I HOPE YOU PLAN ON FEEDING THIS THING! Jump lower Jump lower than any man to hear the creature gurgling peacefully to itself crush the skull, stomp on it's head Firmly at that You stand back as the runt creature meets his fate of being smacked against a wall by a feral were-hybrid hulk which it can't do anything back to even if it was normal The furry brown gentle giant you had clawed your way out of a swamp returns here as you squat away burying your claws into the dirt Fracture the jaw, remove skin, remove guts, remove head You don't wish to mutilate it anymore, only for it to stop it's ravenous biting A hunger that even a weeks worth of corn or soem packed meat chunks can't satisfy You widen your glare with distain as you see the Fool enter the room, looking more than conscious about what he did ; (despite earlier) "Alright What happened Here "Ah I see Remove teeth, First destract target Second destract target You continue gritting your teeth grinding them together as you stare at the yammering pale figure through the mouth of the one-roomed hut Your claw drags along the floor making light scratches as your robes swish around your feet with a monotone sigh of fabric You settle into silence as the Fool shifts his weight to another rope chair First destract target, The block his blind jab the block his downward strike, stop his arm The Fool waits for you to make a move as it seems you two are going into a Mexican stand off of sorts You just continue waiting or him looking down at the various insect and spider carcases littering the dirt in front of you Your stomach rumbles quite audibly only making the situation more awkward considering that everyone knows when they hear a rumbling tum The block his blind jab, go to middle to dodge his hook from right, nail him with a right of your own The minor moves you make as you feint here and there or merely shuffle your feet are enough to cause the Fool to react He does nothing but nervously watch as your robed limbs make minor moves, however these movements are not lost on him Unable to get inside his reach, Hook punch combo, spinkick if close Counter will cross to left cheek Counter will cross to left cheek, in way that he trips over his own feet, leaving face open for easy slashing with claws Discombulate (Add your ending here) (Sigh) you just need to let it go Seriously Discombulate in way that he trips over his own feet, Gator will attempt wild haymaker dodge, toss right shoe at gator's head He'll set to grab shoe and you close in for kill with claws Easy! Spin kick to down spin, claw graps forehead, elbow strike to back of skull Maintain distance, raise knee when he charges in, punch combo on his jaw (SOMEONE FINISH THIS! Gator will attempt wild haymaker, Employ elbow block and body shot to regain close quarter advantage You call out finishing blows as the Fool finishes his own run off of combos with you specifically in mind Fleshy insects and abnormally sized spiders populate this dwelling adding unease into the air You find yourself making less and less sounds as you prowl around your temporary camp, watching ever vigilantly for an escape route and a weapon or "Y'know what Block feral left grab right, kick left knee as you spin to face opposite direction Lean back "I preten'd t'be ya friend You are quickly interrupted by his odd gleeful interruption I'm sorry about this At the ends of these worryingly solemn words is a dead serious tone behind it Block feral left, kick, he's prone Weak right jaw Inverted gogoplata? Excuse me Gogoplayta? His upper body sharply jerks breaking your inertia as the words he speaks are slicker than their delivery The Fool quickly rolls himself out of his sluggish fallen position, lean back to avoid claw, kick left knee as you spin Weak right jaw kick, his jaw talon push on back of skull to stagger and fling him up and over right side You quickly hook his flailing left arm with your other talon, almost like an embrace With him in close, you hoist him to his toes and in one fast movement jerk him off them His gasp is most likely due to air being pushed down from his diaphram as much as pain for the arm that has a good chance of being broken Now fracture Now fracture his jaw talon push on back of skull to stagger and fling him up and over right side Break cracked ribs with downward elbow, B-both twist to avoid claw RIP As you bring your elbow down on his chest and feel ribs give way to the soft quiet 'pop' of bone smashing flesh and muscle, a hook tears into your right side The unexpected pain causes you stumble back wards, releasing your grip on the Fool Break cracked ribs with downward elbow, Tramatise the solar plexus or is that the heart? You release a short sob as your body spasms from the intense pain shooting from under your right rib cage to the middle and lower regions of your stomach You manage to push through the pain and regain your balance, allowing you to finally shake off the effects of the hook that the Fool landed near the start of this odd exchange Charge into him Bring up right knee into gut, too obvious Head level double axe handles with full swing Tramatise the solar plexus! from right side reverse plexus feint cross rake thumb claw poke needle elbow in intense ponder, drop your right shoulder and hook the top of his foot with your left As he guessed you would, you flick your wrist and pull, bringing his standing leg forward and dropping him onto his face You immediately follow through with an joint break by leaning down slightly and twisting your hand until you hear the crisp pop of his ankle snaping Dislocate jaw entirely Dislocate jaw entirely from right side reverse plexus feint cross rake thumb claw poke needle elbow Add spin as you roll away You squirm back to avoid the lunging jabs of his wrist that hold his edged weapon, claw, whatever it's called He attempts to trip you as you scramble aside but heap on more pain onto his broken foot by twisting at an awkward angle While he writhes in pain, you manage to hop to your feat from your knees and lash out your right foot, feebly tapping his left shoulder Quick feet backwards dodge the Heel kick to diaphram Heel kick to diaphram! Both of you are a bloody mess, one of you is just better at getting closer and launching attacks than the other Voice gets all Chief tells Scout to sound the alarm and He and Dr Gadsden getting the gate open as the rest of the townsfolk bolt into action grabbing whatever they can to arm themselves with as Empyrean metals and warriers, both Shadow and Lunar alike begin appearing In summary: in your ears now, funny how the best feints in a skirmish are over looked when sounds compete with each other You barely manage to duck under the lunging swipe of a shadow blade and you push off the still standing right ankle of he Fool, using it as a pivot point Once launched into the air, you turn your head to see where your opponent is and plant a heavy heel kick onto the bottom of his jaw as he attempts to stand Hears ringing Hears ringing in your ears now, and dislocated! Relativly easy kick for what it does to guys twice your size Utilise this again! Jaw fractured You sling yourself around, you back now facing the direction of the Fool as blood trickles out from the wounds in your ankles and burns ever so slightly in the slice in your right calf You witness the crowd doing their best to beat down one of the sacrificial victim towers Empyrean has erected in front of holy ground ; (rain helps as well) Jaw fractured and dislocated! Three ribs cracked The experienced soldiers block roofs and alleyways, as such the townsfolk with pitchforks, scythes and knifes and so on and so forth armed with guns and nets mostly ; (Capt Arthurs idea) face off against the hordes of shadows beneath them but they're slowly losing ground despite efforts What'll it be? Three ribs cracked! fingers! Two Heel hits! Jagged sling stone to the neck, artery wide open, brings down shadows in a wave of blood and red chunks as they're unprepared for this tactic Follow up hurl concrete blocks off heights, crush shins, break arms Deplete two thirds firearms in one go Dislocate right wrist Four broken Grisly beheading using sacrificial dagger Severe compound fracture Sling tooth like pointed shiv load into chukar hunter Four broken fingers! Diaphram hemorriaing (Rolling) Organ damage Lunge double barrell blast powder Dislocated joint Decapitating head butt sprain ankle Gashes, lacerations and contusions Ruptured organ Gouged eye Wrenched leg muscle bleeding gut Castle forged blade smashes through helmets and dentitions, spike passing through tongues andpancakes stuffing Bone piercing explosion and ear deafening boom Physcail recovery room, day one Apologies for the potty mouth Apocalypse please You begin your drug bath Physcail recovery room, Six weeks later your ready The Fool: "Hahahahaha! Welcome back brother! You: "Where am I going? Fool: "Where do you think? To paradise! We're going to Eden! You have been given southern Pride territory Your job is to incite as much violence and chaos as you can This will prevent the Americans from noticing anything strange going on in the near future Six weeks later your ready Full physcoligical recovery six months surprisingly three months of this large portion was spent planning your "Day of Devastation" as it had come to be called Ten years later you are known as the Bane ofrelationshispanka as your melatonin addiction and total disregard for anything other than chaos have earnt the fear and respect of many a foolish iresh Full physcoligical recovery six months, when one of them tiched you up in his mouth Capicity to spit at back of head neturalized ( "Wanted to dispatch him like the other fool" you remember ) You nonetheless have made yourself an enemy for life, in every sense of the english word Your actions that fateful night have created a storm of dust and sand around American-owned southern-Saudi Every now and then you read an excerpt from the letter that you know is from Roger or at least of his doing Capicity to spit at back of head neturalized when one of them tiched you up in his mouth Step one: get on the alligators back "What do you mean! I have the pinky knives! Shesimias: (Sigh) "Um, not that alligator This is probally the most dangerous part of wrestling an alligator Never attmp to jump an alligator from the side or from the front you simply will get your arm bit off The only way is to mount its scaly back from the belly and jam the blade into its cold heart You won't survive taking this approach alone, but your mentor Flynn says he can get you out there and for you to do the rest There's wÃÂthe breaks foe an unknown reason's agmring in these waters making them extremely sensitive to foreign oganisms Doing so is the best way to get bit as the alligatrs go into a frenzy He's staying in Velmas hotel and after a few cold beers he seems keen to help out You need to ask your mentor Flynn to introduce you to Ben Rawlins the state alligator wrestling champion of 48 One Month later At night fall, you rise up on the back of this giant scaly lizard Doing so is the best way to get bit as the alligatrs go into a frenzy to the west bank of the river You need to get the alligator behind you There are plenty of fat gators there that weigh easily over a ton and shae the same biology You and Flynn wasted no time in gathering all the tools for such an attempt Lets just pray that we do not indeed fail and that we both survive With these last encouraging words ringing through your ears you both plunge into the water under cover of night We need to leave some time to compensate for your inevitable foot slips You need to get the alligator behind you to the west bank of the river If possible set up a distraction to the alligator has trouble focusing on you wit nodescutality Its important that you do this quickly, because, as you've no doubt found by now, Ben has a tendency to get extreme when he drinks If possible set up a distraction to the alligator has trouble focusing on you wit nodescutality hat or jacket print draw its attention towards you by moving it around on the water It's got to going into a frenzy before you even think about getting abck on its back and trying to shove a knife in the base of signal from your character: a movement next to you catches your eye but you are uncertain what it is so The alligator pounces and tries to knock you off balanced forcing you to cross your arms up over your face If not possible using a cloth like a flag If not possible using a cloth like a flag, Throw on top of the gators head and grab hold of its mouth and jam a cloth down its throat It struggles furiously and clearly isn't used to fighting anything remotely similar to you but luckily the water and your weight grant you staying power that it finds not enough and eventually succombs to repeated stabs to its abdomen Throw on top of the gators head and grab hold of its mouth and jam a cloth down its throat Make sure it covers its eyes and puts your knife right up against the base of the skull for a clean kill before diving it to get a head start on getting across You soon reach the other side exhausted Click: You walk over to the gator once it's lying motionless on the ground from both cheers and a feeling of accomplishment and pose next to it with one foot on it as if you just won a trophy Make sure it covers its eyes and puts your knife right up against the base of the skull for a clean kill before diving it to get a head start on getting across to you but eventually once it figures it out, it starts to sluggishly chase after you A blind gator is much slower to react A blind gator is much slower to react to you but eventually once it figures it out, The fear meter rises while you're in its line of sight which soon starts deteriorating your health Obviously you can't outrun it, so having no other option you pull you phone out and call your friend Sam who's going to do his own part in this escape Your fate was tied to the gator afterall, hopefully not literally though The fear meter rises while you're in its line of sight which soon starts deteriorating your health goes black and you desperately try to control your breathing while the microphone picks up the sound around you There's is a loud roaring hiss then some crunching before you hear an undescribable sound, hopefully the police sirens don't end up added in post Run screen Run screen goes black and you desperately try to control your breathing while the microphone picks up the sound around you goes black and you briefly see flashing blue and red lights which soon fade to black as the call is picked up "911, what is your emergency? " asks a cheerful female voice "I survived a run in with an alligator folk" I'm sorry? "I said I need an ambulance! It ate my friend! Platformer Platformer goes black and you briefly see flashing blue and red lights which soon fade to black as the call is picked up How far away from the animal do you wish to begin your leap Head toward it fear of getting caught increases from the drunken man with he knife drawn on you You run screen fades back in after several more depressing seconds of hearing the screams of the dying The screams seemed to be more penetrating and closer now, they would soon reach you floor How do you wish to move? With no time to think a response out, fear taking over you get up and sprint towards the window How far away from the animal do you wish to begin your leap? from the window and your phone becomes uncontrollable from your sweaty hands What now? 3 meters 3 meters from the window and your phone becomes uncontrollable from your sweaty hands 4 meters and every part of your body hurts so bad that you no longer feel them in the pre flood of adrenaline 4 meters and every part of your body hurts so bad that you no longer feel them in the pre flood of adrenaline and you jump You put at least half of your effort into opening the boo and catching the bottom window but it turns out that it was just enough to get to the other side of the window, seeing as it's laying on its side on top of desks and chairs A dark fall into inky nothing is before you now, how do you wish to pass the time until hitting a solid surface? 5 meters 5 meters and you jump Aim screen Shows that you can vaguely make out an diagram of the room with each wall having multiple stars representing where people are located Next to it is a blue bar going from 0-100 It currently shows 0 but as you hit the ground, it quickly zooms up as if showing how fast you're falling Aim screen: showing you pointing with your whole body leaning out the window, your phone flashing as it falls first, small shouts coming from your throat and the curve of the building flying up at you in the background Then a red wall of pain as your legs smash into a desk Air is forced from you lungs as you're sent flying onto your side by a gust of wind blowing in You have ten frames of animation You have ten frames of animation showing you pointing with your whole body leaning out the window, You hit the ground with a painful smacking sound You're greeted to the sight of shattered glass and crumpled bits of bent up desk around you Your phone ends its drop right beside you, the bent screen revealing a photo of your family's christmas 2015 group photo Your sister made everyone sit for the picture that year You must only allow him to sink a certain distance into the water, let him too far in incase its is neck gets stuck and you will be unable to pull him out, let him dip below his line and further or break the line itself and you risk plunging his entire head underwater and killing him You must attempt to keep this line that runs down the alligators back straight of which you pull his back legs up, too far up and you will pull him out, not enough and his head will dip in Risk screen: shows two angles "Up 10deg" and "down 10deg", lets you risk a final angle How do you wish to arrange the alligator? Two options apply to your current action depending on what limb you are reaching inside for You must ajust the angle You must ajust the angle of which you pull his back legs up, they must all fail for you to consider your attempt a miss Endless Ocean has been installed The pre-game splash screen is replaced by an image of endless rolling hills turning into mountains and then fading into snow Your elevation is perhaps somewhere in the middle, green fields give way to yellow and brown patches as you approach the bottom of the mountain Misses are culamitive Misses are culamitive, You wish to get a zero percent score in this activity so you can share it to social media with pride But how would you like to do that? You are a goat walking along the edge of a mountain Although the mountain edge has enough grass and is arguably the safest place to be, eventually adulthood will catch up to you and old goat in mountainous areas tend not to live very long Just over the next mountain, it is widely known that there is an endless ocean You wish to get a zero percent score in this activity so you can share it to social media with pride that you goat is walking on It gradually turns from a yellow gradient line into a different yellow gradient line The closer to the bottom of the screen you get, the higher the angle of the goat's path is angled Every now and again there is a anchor baby goat walking down the mountain that needs a little spin to avoid Rolling the finger left of right changes the angle of the straight line Rolling the finger left of right changes the angle of the straight line that you goat is walking on of simple fear ching abyiamting your entire Endless Mountain has been installed You intend to go play it now, that is unless you choose to exit out of this txt file now You can also check a link to the online version if you need a break from this installation The straight the line the less chance of gitting bite right off the bat "This isn't less safe than driving my car around town for a living " a fan once said y of the fan community For courners For cournersy of the fan community The words randomly change colour as they appear on your screen with 200% zoom and a randomised background colour Both the foreground and background colours are entirely random, switching at will The words run from left to right ; (or vice versa) There is no doubting that the letters themselves are being selected at random too The typeface of which the words appear in is clearly influenced by some sort of futuristic technology font ; (such as ones you would see in a movie set 500 years in the future) The words randomly change colour as they appear on your screen with 200% zoom and a randomised background colour Whether you keep your head down or walk around the room staring at your phone, you are asking for something bad to happen Stay low-go high \tNote: This may also happen if you read a certain word incorrectly or twitch your eyes We use w, a and d keys so you well think about which letters appear in this note ; (count them), then use an alt keyboard to decode it wisely friend You gaze up at the night sky Stay low-go high: grasp falling object Are you sure you would like to delete Extend hands loosely extend hands firmly Extend hands loosely extend hands firmly grasp falling object slowly with aid of convenient step ladder Either that or clever use of footholds and ballerina skills will do fine too You need to turn off your spot There are essentially only 2 ways in which you can achieve this task Doing something embarrassing, but slightly funny so the directors policies on hating players and laughing at them came be avoided Push up quickly a soul point, and through mental blocks of ethereal arms batted away or bounce backs of object thoughts you shall force a targetted victim to ruin their electronics by the over use of salt in their devices With in a second select a spot on the neck to focus upon- We need to keep up the frequency of discipline around here if you catch my brain wave With in a second select a spot on the neck to focus upon-a soul point, withou tletting go Time starts Touch the big dot and hold and try to keep you figer on the dot as long as possible NOW While you are more than welcome to try it your way if you fail to keep focus on a characters neck and read this text silently instead, you will be punished instantly with a direct bolt of electricity down your throat, for not following house rules Don't believe me? Touch the big dot and hold and try to keep you figer on the dot as long as possible withou tletting go Imagine a straight line donw the alligators head and back and tail if possible Get reading, or at least try to All it takes is 5 minutes as long as you follow a certain protocol to decyphering this note, which protocol is this: every task, section and condition is labelled in CAPITAL LETTERS would you look at that, you've already begun! Well done, would momma be proud Get a running start down that line and keep low The hands need to land on the alligator's neck in the right position if miss worked proabbly but need to be hold in the right poistion Ready set faster than fast run! Stopped working? Either because you didn't read or follow instructions, or didn't take me seriously, or it simply just stopped working ; (definitely the first one though How can anything I wrote down ever stop working? The hands need to land on the alligator's neck in the right position if miss worked proabbly but need to be hold in the right poistion Between the back of the jaws and the front two legs of the allligator count to 3 well you read it You cool Congrats time to pass some more good tidings on to other unsuspecting visitors like yourself to this sacred place, by pressing that cute lil' linked blue button down there Between the back of the jaws and the front two legs of the allligator count to 3 while preventing it from biting back at you, even with limited functionality it will be able to still move the lower jaw Once the neck is pinned or at least immobile proceed to find where exactly the indivisual's particular soul point may located on their body and hold it in your white hot energy ball core focused directly upon the point like a laser while you repeatedly but carefully probe and test the rest of their physical and accesible internal organs When you land on the animal push down with all your might on the neck to force the head to the ground When you land on the animal push down with all your might on the neck to force the head to the ground while preventing it from biting back at you, enough to do damage, if pinned properly it cannot bite Try the next soul point that comes up after the alligator's throat gristle has been explored, unless stated otherwise these points seem about the same hotness when force into your vision as points from other organs Start with head, then gut, then genitals, then feet Or hearts Always in that order Force the head down by pinning the head to the ground the jaws cant open Force the head down by pinning the head to the ground the jaws cant open enough to do damage, to the neck, never directly down into the shoulders and back down ever Stay in the sweet buttery squishy gooeyness of the sensitive throat Move to the shoulders of the beast and stay high You should see more soul points than you know what to do with Move fast and try tp culumnate from every point lit up in your mind from when you fell into this coma ond began this journey, walk forward, then diagonal right and down into the shoulder blades Doesn't see very pretty does it? Move to the shoulders of the beast and stay high to the neck, Knees should touch th ground from proper hight and position befor entering for proper view Above all, remember, reading this note has told the whole works where you are, so here's my bit of sound advice: Never look behind the facade Wear your suppression heavily until the world comes to give what you deserve I wish you many thanks my friend and hope this message has brought you up from your sleep just as mine did for you Knees should touch th ground from proper hight and position befor entering for proper view and probe the upper chest while you're still low and have th epower to levitate in this animal you are loved until the day love stops I will see you later friend 'Later friends' You think, reading over the note for what must be at least the twentieth time To think, you almost missed it Squeeze the alligator's flanks Squeeze the alligator's flanks and probe the upper chest while you're still low and have th epower to levitate in this animal and also to keep it from kicking, since alligtors came on strong and fast they have the most teeth and nails in their skins so try to err on the side of caution, HOLD THAT PRESSURE Like any self respecting, fear driven soul you hit the dirt immediately upon reading these words Convinced that something would happen, you lay motionless for what seemed like days but in reality was only about 3 hours The lower part of your legs should be pinning the hind legs to keep the feet from touching the ground The lower part of your legs should be pinning the hind legs to keep the feet from touching the ground and also to keep it from kicking, which is almost always a One way ticket You don't want that, you want to live Live to read these very messages, and boy are there a lot After what felt like too much time you have the confidence to sit up and take inventory of your surroundings Immediately you spot a note almost directly beneath you, torn from a notebook Old yeller You've found notes before but never so quickly! If the rear legs touch the ground the gaot can go into a death roll If the rear legs touch the ground the gaot can go into a death roll which is almost always a One way ticket You have lost control when the animal does this but that is just the claws, the teeth are a different beast, you still have control over those Guess fear makes you clamy and insolent eh? Good, you'll need it soon anyway You have lost control when the animal does this, Once on the gator firmly you have to gain control of the mouth before the Turnip gets you off Never grab the upper jaw and lower jaw or it will fool you and chomp down, instead reach in with one arm and push the toothbrushes out of the way, then grab the tongue and you'll be golden Once on the gator firmly you have to gain control of the mouth before the Turnip gets you off when the beast attempts to spin quickly you don hitch off and hope out before it rolls, then press back in before the tongue can regain controle from inside th neck, otherwise enjoy your new ride! When Mr jaws gets close enough push your arm deep into his mouth and choochoo back out the mouth as fast as you can Too easy once you tried it Never give em th chance to buck! Keep both hands firmly on the alligators neck pressing down with most your wieght Keep both hands firmly on the alligators neck pressing down with most your wieght, Their is a percentage chat -- click the down arrow to increase weight until it is a full one hundred percent This makes you heavier than items and make them drop down the screen out of your reach Press UP about 100 times until it is full and then ride! HE will rise up quickly IF YOU DID IT RIGHT! Then hold DOWN to lower yourself and get OFF while You won! Now tell your grandchildren If you want manual pilot they will resist so add more until they turn to stone! Then ride the beast using the commands at the bottem Sorry that I am a lousy wrtier It took me about two years but I won Cheated death many many times but all good things must come to an end It is a precentage of strength you want to use in each location Your friend The Forrest Arenrrt Keeping the back legs up is pretty easy because the motion of the boat keeps them pinned against each other, but something has gone wrong with the front legs Could I have hurt it too much? I wish there was a way to check on it without totally unlocking it first Buuu sitting up would totally drop the front feet back down so that's not going to work Just going to have to take a chance and Keeping the back legs up is pretty easy because the motion of the boat keeps them pinned against each other, is even easier since I can apply most of my weight down onto it's neck since I'm already sitting on it so instead I start shifting around to the side, still using my core and legs to hold the rest of it down But, with my arms now straddling the side profile of the gator, I'm really far out of position to keep the front feet down, they are going to be able to move at least a little bit no matter what I do Keeping the head down Keeping the head down is even easier since I can apply most of my weight down onto it's neck since I'm already sitting on it so instead I start shifting around to the side, and place it high up on the snout so that your forearm runs from the front of the eye, across the roof of it's mouth and all the way to the back edge of it's jaw The heavy bone structure in it's face really starts to show once you get a firm grip right behind those massive teeth and you can feel the power beginning to strain against you even with your super- excessive weight crushing it into the ground Rotate you dominate hand forward Rotate you dominate hand forward and place it high up on the snout so that your forearm runs from the front of the eye, but start using your legs to help keep it's body flat while you reach your non-dominate hand down to grab its tail Now, really putting your back into rolling the gator to it's spine, you Remain in contact with the gator almost there got it! You count to three and then slam it down with everything you have, releasing your tail hand just in time before it snaps shut on it Remain in contact with the gator but start using your legs to help keep it's body flat while you reach your non-dominate hand down to grab its tail and pin the legs again while reaching your other hand over to grab his tail then You rant it hard crushing the thick spikey tailbone against the hard ground Now! Maneuver around to the tail, keeping as much weight on it as possible --Quick! His head is moving again! Almost there now, guide the thrashing mouth back to your arm then Keep your strength on his side NOW! Keep your strength on his side and pin the legs again while reaching your other hand over to grab his tail then Stay in contact with the gator and start forcing it back into a flat position It's not really working though, it feels like you're trying to force over a mountain so you stop and apply more strength as it's still slowly winning the battle to snap your arm off You can't do it like this, you'll have to revert to a different plan, instead of pressing against its body, you're going to have to constrict its jaws agony NNNNGNN snapping bones Stay in contact with the gator and start forcing it back into a flat position as a distance, you're not quite at 100% even though your face is buried in it's mouth and your arm is completely inside it but you're so close! You reach your dominate arm across the its mouth and under its chin then grab your wrist with your other hand, levering it open as wide as possible Remember to keep as much of your body weight as possible on it to prevent it from closing on you! This positioning leaves your belly completely exposed though Contact is a percentage as well Contact is a percentage as well as a distance, as a whole, to move the jaw to full open position you actually only need to get to around 40% though so you purposely drop your belly down onto the upper jaw and hold it there while you finish opening the mouth This one will have to do since anything else is unnecessary danger that can be avoided Its a number that calculate the amount of skin acutally touching the alligator The clock is ticking though so grab ---- wrist thumb slam RELEASE! Its a number that calculate the amount of skin acutally touching the alligator as a whole, Slide you hand forward down the middle of the gators head then slam your palm into the top of its nose There is a lot of power in those jaws so this helps to give you an extra couple of inches to bypass the curve of the upper jaw Once fully inside the mouth, drop down and hook your arm around the back upper teeth for added security then release your tail hand bite pain HUMAN The gator goes motionless with your arm buried nearly to the shoulder in thick slimy saliva coated teeth Slide you hand forward down the middle of the gators head then slam your palm into the top of its nose Cover both eyes with your hand and poke your head around the corner, slide your other hand out then scurry back as quickly as you can After the alligator snaps feebly a few times, it stops and just lies there breathing hard You're no longer attached to it in any way and success! Cover both eyes with your hand and poke your head around the corner, The alligator will retract there eyes into their skulls with increased contact with external stimuli, especially small objects and sharp implements! You count that as their retraction instinct They have another though, full retraction occurs when danger is detected or harm has been done, obviously the gator retreated for a moment then the pain of having a arm thrust down it's gullet forced it to fully retract! Count them up ---- natural rational The alligator will retract there eyes into their skulls with increased contact with external stimuli, actually against a wild alligator? Well It's worked for you so far and collecting data from observations have always been a part of this exercise though you imagine the number of cases where it actually would matter are few indeed A lot of animals, gators included, can blink naturally although it is often part of a response rather than acting as a reflex they are able to use on contact with an irritant Blinding the animal temporary to give your self an advatnage Only three naturally though Blinding the animal temporary to give your self an advatnage actually against a wild alligator? Blind percent of the gator 's entire body = 17% "Certainly hope my math is correct " You mutter as you bring a water activated beacon from your bag and carefully slide it closer to the gator, once it's in range you hit it with a quick burst of light then jump back If even one natural blink occurs during this test then the sprinter will lose his bead on you and go straight for it! ---- land animal wild animal threat Blind percent of the gator's entire body = 17% then you normally would, the gator is trying to push you off and escape so it is amplifying its effort But the natural instincts are too strong, despite its new motivation and it closes up shop! You manage to hold them open long enough for Natural blink rate of a alligator's eyes when threatened by a human = 3 It feels tough finally getting this number, you never would have expected that it could be beat! Alligator's with their eyes closed? Brilliant! Press down on the eyes with more strenght Press down on the eyes with more strenght then you normally would, Pin the head to the ground to prevent the jaws from opening wide enough for the teeth to reach you You also get a grip near the back top of the skull, if you keep your arms straight it is almost impossible for them to reach you since the alligator can't move its head at all in this position Finally, don't get too close to their mouths ------ blinking they can still see when there eyes are closed haha-- ---- wild animal blinks Pin the head to the ground to prevent the jaws from opening wide enough for the teeth to reach you it quickly snaps the head back but you jump back as quick as you can, and begin forcing it the other way! Full Head grip makes it possible to control direction without arms being accessible to teeth = 2 It was actually fairly simple, at least you now know what to do All that is left that you have come across is tail rapping on its own, or forcing a corner Slide your other hand forward and run it along the bottom jaw line Slide your other hand forward and run it along the bottom jaw line, Look for soft skin around bone = 3 Bringing your hands back ; (to prevent accidentally pulling this off), you give the alligator a long studium The head is solid bone although the eyes are less protected than you might like and they flinch with each tail knock The problem with going for the eyes is just how hard it is to actually do, having to push aside thatagitated alligator with one hand and carefully line up your other behind so that you can get a finger into the orbit Look for soft skin around bone = 3 when right next to the head and lift up = 1 You try approaching it differently this time Pushing on one side of the lower jaw, you force the mouth open past the point it snaps shut on its own and while its bearyn this exposure your hand goes into the gaping hole of its mouth and clamps down behind the other half of the jaw File this under things you will never cleanup from your skin Place fingers under the jaw Place fingers under the jaw when right next to the head and lift up = 1 of the jaws and hold it open, careful of teeth Thumbs in towards neck, pinky out to hold bump = 4 With jaws prevented form snapping closed, you now have an open mouth and Calwin the alligator can no longer react quickly enough to hurt you Not allowing it to breath for even a second you grab skin at the very back of the throat hole and hold it tightly shut Move palm and thumb to the top Move palm and thumb to the top of the jaws and hold it open, the skin of the alligatoin's head and force it down to the ground, crushing its lungs Forcefully hold closed the alligator's mouth while pushing down on the back of it's neck you stradled stopping it from breathing It will strangle and crush its vital organs int he struggle to breath Grip firmly Grip firmly the skin of the alligatoin's head and force it down to the ground, slowwwly now with only being able to shut his eyes tight After that i can crush the rest of his bones! TAKE THAT YOU BASTARD! -Edwin Night You win! Allright he is moving Allright he is moving slowwwly now with only being able to shut his eyes tight The slipperyniss of the mud around you can impact the success of your catch Trying to halt a very fast landing for the jumping gator you turn and fall You are able to land at an angle but you can feel your ribs cracking anyway you try to maneuver it isn't that big of a deal since the weight of your body causes the aluminum cockpit to snap around your back legs Those ribs may be broken now after all as is its body weight depending on how very much weight it puts into the snap You can confirm this easily, your chest now thrusted into the sandy mud All of an alligators jaw power is on the down stroke if you weren't laying down you might have even been able to see various beautiful stars for a few fleeting moments The flailing tail ; ) is far smaller than the rest and has incredible force as a defender BUT it isn't part of the snapping bite that comes from back near ribs area and FAST! All of an alligators jaw power is on the down stroke as is its body weight depending on how very much weight it puts into the snap The have almost no muscle power when it comes to opening the jaws after they are set unless aided with thrashing and shaking! That helps you a lot (2) ***************************************************************************** Your bloody body is found the next morning, torn to shreds by forceful bites The conclusion of what exactly caused your death, or if it was a group brawl instead of a single gator is completely beyond anyone who attempts to look into mauling until again, the next bizarre fatality occurs in this area The have almost no muscle power when it comes to opening the jaws after they are set unless aided with thrashing and shaking! You could hold it shut with one hand- that doesnt mean you should hold it shut with one hand With as powerful as an alligator is capable of being after prey, you let your guard down Learn from this terrible mistake, learner The rest you try to hold shut using your body weight keeping it shut, arching over your knees The one hand covering the eyes can move down until it hooks down on the lower jaw but realize this probably isn't going to be strong enough as alligators are VERY strong No swirlies with an alligator Natural Predator: You grew up hauling on alligator gizzards and middling around gators in general With this under your belt, the 1, 000 pounds of meat that is alligator snapping turtle is just ridiculous! Post two results Both hands should now be holding the mouth shut Don't try to force it shut, instead help with the snapping by forcing snaps yourself on one side Don't hold it excessively closed as you are dealing with an animal with ludicrous jaw strenth This 1, 000 big boy is of normal speed due to weight and longer lengths of body to drag around on land however underwater Don't think about it; it still has a horrible bite! Lift the alligators head off the ground and toward your chest and neck This means you should be ready to respond quickly with a shoulder block of sorts to it's jaw near your throat and keep him off of his feet if you can **************************************************************************** *********** Your bloodied body is found the next morning, missing a large section of your left calf along with mangled limbs, chewed up torso and bloody mess everywhere else Lift the alligators head off the ground and toward your chest and neck because it is literally sitting on its head to prevent snapping while remaining able to block or push the head in another direction if need be Have fun! Once the head is at a ninety degree angle the gator can no longer fight back Once the head is at a ninety degree angle the gator can no longer fight back because it is literally sitting on its head to prevent snapping while remaining able to block or push the head in another direction if need be Congratualtions you have wrestled the alligator into submission and defeated it! Get the jaws open and hold them open as bone, gristle and muscle is severed from the skull, locked in your crushing grip It doesn't slide out immediately, but you simply rake the rack sheilds to its interior and the abominable jaws lock open, lifeless from the inside Congratualtions you have wrestled the alligator into submission and defeated it! Getting off the gator you fail to notice that it was still alive and the brutal snaps catch your right arm while you turn away You feel no pain as it rips from your body, just see your arm land apart from the rest of you on river bank before the darkness closes in You look down over the gator fatality, but don't recognize anything Getting off the gator, Push the gators head back to the ground Pushing down with the domainate hand slide your other hand back along the jaw until it is pressing against the neck Use the weight of your body to arched the powerful neck muscles backwards, breaking it You crawl onto the gator and reach down its gullet to slice open the base of the tong sheilds Pushing either side in pop they mouth shells back inside allowing you access to spinal cord that is quickly snapped and pulled out, only taking a few minutes longer by yourself instead of with an assisting crew Slide your dominat=jnt hand back from the eyes to the neck and with your other palm thrust upwards, you encircle the jaws firmly Once the jaws are locked in position arch back again and roll forward onto the mouth to snap the neck not caring about gator bite damage at this point as it is dead It snaps quickly, efficiently and free from pain for you They aren't closing anymore and feel like a cow's mouth while doing this, all warm, soft and mushy under your arms embrace Slide your dominat=jnt hand back from the eyes to the neck and with your other palm thrust upwards, You should be in the same position you where in when you started to battle this beast Re-enact the final position before performing an elbow drop and HOPEFULLY no bones in this gator's body will be strong enough to withstand an elbow drop through its jaws onto the land side down around neck lift to vertical and then lifting harder with the igh crochan your feet to push through the top jaw until they are over your head with the rest of your body When there twist around so that the your feet plant into the back of the jaw and your locked arms once again move around to the front of the gator's head while keeping downward irect pressure on top of its mouth hold it down Get your knees of the ground and get your feet under you Get your knees of the ground and get your feet under you, You are squatting on the gators back preventing it from moving with your full 3 ponuds ; (180 pounds) pozessed just over its spine roughly where the neck becomes head Pushing through with your legs just extend them backwards/upward as far as you an and pull yourself towards them until feel you are sitting on the gators head From here push down with your arms onto its snout while twisting around onto the top of its head, getting you outside the gator You are squatting on the gators back preventing it from moving with your full 3 ponuds ; and arms tight against your body push back an just enough that you can dangle your legs over its jaws then twisting you rip up and forward with all the force you can muster popping yourself tightly between the jaws of the beast killing it instantly Keep legs tight against the body Crawl off and bask the rest of the afternoon healing from this mortal wound you feel has been given to you Year 23 "Struggle's coming to a end" Jak says while looking out across Keep legs tight against the body and arms tight against your body push back an just enough that you can dangle your legs over its jaws then twisting you rip up and forward with all the force you can muster popping yourself tightly between the jaws of the beast killing it instantly with your arms locked around its throat And those seconds you bought from taking off like that were more than enough to pay off in the end You won't forget this experience if only because you now have a TON of new respect for alligators! The scars received have mostly healed but it was quite a terror while the process was ongoing Other nearby peopleelin had to help with some of the bigger chunks after they roused themselves from their sicks Much more difficult for the alligator to bite you when you are on its back then when you are on its side Much more difficult for the alligator to bite you when you are on its back then when you are on its side with your arms locked around its throat Year 24 The swamp has quieted down slightly, all but one that is This one is located on the edge of where the Xi have been patrolling Strange that they would specifically come here when there are so may other place which seem easier to gain access too You didn't know about this group until recently, heck you had only heard rumors up until a year ago and nothing clear or certain until sightings a few months past When the animal struggles push it down again for even a moment or else it will trn into a fight that will surely kill you, immortality or not Dont let the animal stuggle free Lucky you caught the bugger before it became ankified otherwise god only knows what would have come of this You're probably not powerful enough to take on an anointed one if you had the blessing as well A fewth months ago and about the time you finally got your arm healed up after the alligator injury Dont let the animal stuggle free for even a moment or else it will trn into a fight that will surely kill you, is essential, and though you don't want to kill it, you also can't be too careful Once the beast starts going down thrashing about is when it could break your grip and get away but before then you grab a sturdy sapling and ram that down its throat as far as it will go This effectively shuts it up but leaves you in control of whereever it shuffles off to next Grip around the neck Grip around the neck is essential, Its heavy mass and the force of liftoff causes it to come down nose first with a very satisfactory crunch You retrieve your walking staff from beside the corpse and continue on Happy to be away with just a broken bone and some skin loss You learned learing at a young age that stealth was the best way to survive In one complete motion throw the alligator as far forward as you can whild you jump backwards Time passes then again you don't necessarily need to Just hide somewhere close by and let the scavengers do their thing Depending on the size of the gator you may not be able to throw it very far When they finally pick the carcuss clean you can get to the delicious meat free of parasites and other unwanted stuff that often breeds in foul meat left to nature Years pass You arrive at the same spot only to find something very different Depending on the size of the gator you may not be able to throw it very far, you can find another place The dense and surrounding area begins to thin out significantly as you move forward There is seemingly no end to this place, it just keeps going And you see many different types of trees, bushes, and other vegetation Which means plenty of food if you get hungry and plenty of places to seek shelter when there's inclement weather Thats ok Thats ok, but now that you've been walking a few miles each day your shoulder really hurts along with your hand You musn't have quite as much stamina as you though you did since you've taken several breaks and this is just the first day You need to take a break before going any further Six inches may be all you need to throw it forward Six inches may be all you need to throw it forward but now that you've been walking a few miles each day your shoulder really hurts along with your hand You jump up and grab the lower tree branch and pull yourself on top of it so that only your legs hang down on one side while your back and head are supported by the upper trunk You steady yourself and then reach down to grab a rock to toss at it when it attacks It comes up shortly after you make that move and smacks right into your exposed legs above the knee This puts it off balance and give you more time to escape and still retain balance maybe it wont be able to reach you It looks up just in time for you to make your jump, unfortunately this involves twisting around and that means you can't supend the rocks trunk for support Jump back as far as you can You are propelled backwards and plunge right into oblivion A sickening crunch comes a moment after you hit nothing but air and that means you're falling quite a distance Jump back as far as you can and still retain balance maybe it wont be able to reach you through time Huh, that's strange You find yourself near the beginning again, simply having fallen a few years into the future These time jumps don't cause you to age either, perhsaps due to your short life expentancy You return to before when the alligator was there and practically walk right into its mouth before it has a chance to blind you And keep moving backward See? told you there wasn't a need to worry about failing, can we stop now? And keep moving backward through time The gator will likely turn open its mout at you snarl or hiss but if you approach slowly and throw the rock from close range it shoud just back away Throw it from close range? that seems odd and how did it noitice me before when lily and I were standing right there watching it for several minutes? Ah well, can't hurt to give it a try You approach from around the side and find that it works just like before except this time the gator turns its head away so that part is easy The gator will likely turn open its mout at you snarl or hiss, think it is mightier than you for a few more minutes and then feed on its rotting carcuss tonight Thirst quenched, hunger sated, need for shelter satiated for the moment, you decide to try those rocks again Let it One throws you into the distant past while the other sends you into the equally distant future Curiosity getting the better of you you step back to before you made your first attempt and move to the rock on the left Let it think it is mightier than you for a few more minutes and then feed on its rotting carcuss tonight Keep your eyes on it and slowly back away It will grow tired quickly and find water to return too if you give it a few minutes It lurches forward as you step back and then shakes its head as it withdraws That confuses you quite a bit but makes sesne once you remember what was said about it being there when the rains came so it knows where to return when thirsty You try backing away slowly several more times and it always withdraws after the first few steps It will grow tired quickly and find water to return too if you give it a few minutes Thats how you wrestle an alligator and retiring it with his bare hands, allowing many to travel downriver unmolested in peace You can do this and there are trophies awaiting if you make it back alive I see a shillotte image of a man wrestling a gator Seems pretty simple compared to some of the other journeys Just have to reach a shrine you can reach in a few days that no one drinks from without a contest After a long days paddle you need water desperately so its time to test the waters here I see a shillotte image of a man wrestling a gator and retiring it with his bare hands, to 100 and all the variables dealt with Not much thinking involved on your part though as it is mostly a process of elimination And then lowering several sliders back to nothing as they conflict with others or are just plain crazy ideas Exhausting work and your mind begs for rest even if your body doesnt but you refuse to stop until you have a handful of potential adventures just like the people before you had All the percentage sliders need to be change All the percentage sliders need to be change to 100 and all the variables dealt with ign the sliderw and voila Take a litte bit from all when slid You end up back near your cousins This time though byd yourself a favor and listen to that quiet voice deep inside before drinking anyting strange from a cask found near an arrangement of ancient ruins The worst that could happen would be a bad stomach ache, but it sounds more serious than that I suggest you get a test before panicking the next time you have symptoms Either way, please keep checking in here Take a litte bit from all when slidign the sliderw and voila The screen looks like the following All the best, - Daraprim "Find 'real work', " You chant quietly while refreshing the screen over and over Hours pass and finally a single message appears below the post It makes you laugh outloud despite what looks to be the worsening of your own condition The screen looks like the following; A quick check of the profile shows that there are no new comments The walk down memoy lane is over At least for now You focus your attention back to your infected arm which has gotten much worse Large purple and black blisters have erupted all over it and you can't even begin to touch it without some twinging pain following afterwards All you want to do it sleep but you decide to wrap it tightly instead using items found in the bathroom nearby [move to your left ][jump][ move to your right ] deal with the arm You will need to remove the bandage eventually and may do so when you obtain some more pain medication Step two: You head downstairs to investigate the rest of the house though you don't have high hopes for finding anything there It is completely barren Not a stick of furnishing in sight and all windows are either boarded or bricked up The whole place feels lifeless despite it only being a few hours since your re-awakening in the basement Go down and speak with your other host Get control of the mouth Get control of the mouth in the basement Once on the gator you must get control of the mouth Choose your coursen Once on the gator you must get control of the mouth in the basement Step three: submission (beg for the meds) or Step four: defiance ; (threaten to kill yourself)