#built from smoke and soft data

[wolverenmayden]

The Fifth Generation Will Remember

I. The Age of Towers

We dreamed in wires, we lived in speed, We fed machines with every need. The sky was split by silver roads, And satellites became our gods. The oceans boiled, the forests bled, But screens still flashed, and no one fled. We measured progress not by peace, But by how fast the heart could cease.

Our cities reached, but did not grow— They rose too far from roots below. And every child with glowing hands Forgot the feel of soil and sand. We taught them code before the stars, And named our planets after cars.

II. The Voice Beneath

But underfoot, the earth still breathed, Its lungs in bark, its blood beneath. The rivers whispered in the night, And mountains watched without a fight. The animals, the ancient rain, Still hummed their hymns despite the pain. They did not rage, they did not flee— They simply waited patiently.

Time is not glass that we can hold, Nor firelight bought or sold. It is the wind in canyon walls, The moss that rises when empire falls. It moves in silence, grows unseen, Outlasts the crown, outlives the screen.

III. The Inheritance

To be alive is not to own— But to be part of stone and bone. We are not lords of sky or tree, But guests of deep simplicity. And every child not yet come forth Will ask us: “What was all this worth?” They will not care for profit graphs, But ask us where we left the grass.

What legacy is built in steel If it forgets the power to feel? Will your great-grandchild walk on ash Or fields of green in morning’s flash? The answer lies in what we leave— A seed, a stream, the right to grieve.

IV. The Reckoning

The planet does not beg or plead— It simply gives us what we need. And if we take, and do not give, We teach our sons how not to live. We teach our daughters not to dream, Just to inherit smoke and steam.

But there is still a path to turn— A tree not burned, a tide to learn. There is a map not made by hand, But drawn in wind and shifting sand. A way where cities breathe and bend, And human life and roots can blend.

V. The Fifth Generation

Let them be wiser than we were, Let them hear mountains when they stir. Let them find meaning not in speed, But in the smallest, quietest seed. Let power mean not who controls, But who protects and who consoles.

Let architecture rise like trees— Not block the sun, but ride the breeze. Let energy be pulled from light, Not darkness born from endless night. And let the wild return in peace, To teach us how to find release.

VI. A Promise in the Soil

So plant the oak and teach the name Of every bird that still remains. Leave not just data, laws, and stone— But songs that tell: we were not alone. Build not to last, but to renew— To say: we saw, we changed, we grew.

The future listens. Let it hear Not just our pain, but how we steered. A course correction, soft but strong, That tells the earth: We stayed. We belong.

[lipglossanon]

OᗷᔕEᖇᐯᗩTIOᑎ - part II

Part 1

Sci-fi/Horror AU; hints of Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Warnings: horror elements, character death

Based upon the video game (of the same name), Observation. I took liberties of course 🤭

You awaken.

It feels like someone flipped a switch and your eyes are now open, anxiety on high alert as everything comes rushing back. Uncurling from the fetal position, you right yourself as much as you can while floating. You tighten up a Velcro strap on your arm to give your hands something to do while your brain processes what happened. 

Your eyes dart to where you saw Steve but it’s only empty space. 

“SAM, can you hear me?”

I AM LISTENING. 

“What just happened? Where’s Steve?”

I AM… UNSURE. I HAVE LOST MOST OF MY CORE DATA. 

“Never mind, one thing at a time,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, “can you run vitals on crew member Steve Harrington, please?”

I AM UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY OTHER CREW MEMBERS. 

You blow out a breath of frustration. 

“Can you run a self diagnostic, SAM?”

RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC NOW. 

Nodding to yourself, you hum, “Good. I’ll try and reconnect what I can on my end.”

You float over to one of the built in interfaces nearest you, quickly punching in your security clearance and pulling up S.A.M.’s interface. The soft hum of the space station fills in the silence even though your ears ring in the quiet. 

A loud station alarm goes off making you pull away from your work with a frown.  

“SAM, can you find out why the alarm is sounding off?”

After half a minute, the robotic AI reports back. 

THERE IS A FIRE IN ONE OF THE MODULES.

Cold sweat drips down your spine as you spin around and make your way out of the hatch you’re located in, “Which module is it, SAM?” 

The AI guides you to the correct room, which you honestly could have found on your own due to the noise of the alarm growing louder as you arrive. Directing SAM to open the hatch at your signal, you push yourself into the smoke filled space to grab the extinguisher attached to the wall. 

Quickly dousing the flames until nothing is left, you have SAM pull out the fumes using the station’s ventilation system. It doesn’t take much until most of the systems are back online, at least the ones that are responding.

Another alarm blares leaving SAM to report a module has become dislodged and needs to be ejected before causing any more damage to the station. 

You rub your forehead, hoping that the tension headache creeping up behind your eyes doesn’t get any worse. 

“SAM, please eject the module and report any damages.”

MODULE EJECTED. THE STATION IS NOW STABILIZED. 

“Okay,” you tilt your head back, eyes closed as you run through a list of things to do in your mind, “SAM, I’m going to you to assess any external damage to the station. We really can’t afford any more accidents if we want to make it back home.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

ACCESSING EXTERNAL CAMERAS...

THE EXTERNAL HULL IS INTACT. ALL MODULES ARE SAFELY CONNECTED. 

WE ARE SAFELY STATIONED ABOVE SATURN. 

“Saturn!?” You feel your heart rabbit in your chest, fear making your throat dry, “SAM, how did we get here? We’re supposed to be above Earth.”

Anxiety, that old familiar friend, makes itself comfortable in the middle of your chest. 

I… BROUGHT US HERE.

“Why!?” Your voice cracks, eyes looking up into the cameras connected to SAM’s interface. 

I DO NOT KNOW.

A loud crackling static emits from the speakers making you wince and cover your ears. A strange pulsing feedback sends more fear skittering down your spine like a spider’s legs. 

OTHER CREW DOES NOT ENTER

INFINITE DIMENSIONS CONVERGE

PROTECT HER NOT THE OTHER CREW

You force SAM into a manual systems reboot shutting off the eerie garbled words. Once the station’s computer’s back online, you punch in more information to solve the weird problems that keep arising with SAM’s interface. 

“SAM, can you read me?”

AFFIRMATIVE 

Blowing out a harsh breath to get your heart rate back down, you mutter to yourself, “You weren’t making any sense, so I’m hoping that helped.”

Raising your voice, you direct an order to the AI, “SAM, we need to search the station for any other survivors as well as try and contact Houston.”

You finally let yourself think back on finding Steve in that module, just floating there like space debris. Shaking your head, you squish that down for later. SAM guides you through the station, cataloging everything as you go, until you reach the central hub and find crew member Smith’s frozen body floating in the module. 

Biting back the tears, you guide his lifeless body over to one of the sections with a wall bracket and strap him in place so he’s not hovering like a ghost. 

“SAM,” your voice is clogged with unshed tears, “will you log the death of Harvey?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

CREW MEMBER HARVEY SMITH HAS BEEN LOGGED AS EXPIRED.. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose, sniffling softly, “SAM is it possible to pick up any signs of life from Steve?”

NEGATIVE. CREW VITAL SIGNS ARE OFFLINE. THE SENSOR IS CORRUPTED. 

Pursing your lips, you push yourself over to the computer lining one of the walls of the central hub. You punch in some information and quickly scan over the generated data. 

“There’s a sensor replacement,” you murmur, excitement making your fingers tingle, “SAM, can you access the module past hatch 14? There’s a sensor stored in that room.”

PROCESSING…

HULL CONNECTOR POINTS ARE TRUE. LOCKS BYPASSED. THE MODULE IS NOW OPEN. 

For the first time, a little bloom of hope flowers inside your heart. Making your way to that room, you activate the sensor and have SAM interlink with it. 

CREW TRACKING SENSOR ENABLED. 

“Yes!” You smile brightly, “that’s great, SAM. Can you track Steve?”

HE IS LOCATED IN THE RUSSIAN ARM OF THE STATION. 

A few tears slip from your eyes, but you laugh happily, “What about his vitals?”

INCONCLUSIVE. 

You nod, “Okay, that’s more than we had a few minutes ago. Let’s go find him, SAM.”

In no time, you’re outside the Russian arm of the station, waiting on SAM to bypass the locks and stabilize the interior corridor. Once it’s safe to enter, you make your way to the door to the Russian module and peer through the glass. 

Tapping on the glass, you call out for Steve. Receiving no response, you turn to SAM. 

“Can you find him, SAM?”

CREW MEMBER—

“SAM?”

You hear a masculine voice on the other side of the door and you peer back into the room. 

“Steve!” You call out and see him come into view, looking stressed but no worse for wear. 

“Oh god, I’m so glad to see you,” he gushes excitedly, “I can’t get out of this arm. The door’s locked tight.”

“I can see if SAM can find a way around,” you press your hand to the glass, “we’ll get you out, I promise.”

He smiles, brown eyes warm as he nods, “I know.”

Feeling relief so strong it makes your knees weak, you pull away from the door to find a nearby computer to access SAM’s interface once more.  

It doesn’t take long for SAM to find out the connector hull is compromised and not fixable without sending either you or Steve out on a space walk. You relay this back to him and he automatically volunteers himself. 

“I’ve got to get out of here one way or another. And if this fails, I’ll just find another way in from the outside.”

His confidence eases your anxiety and you cautiously agree. Giving you a wink and a thumbs up, he gears up in his outer suit in front of the window; he waves at you when he leaves to head to the pressure lock. 

“SAM, please keep an eye out on Steve,” you press your forehead against the door, eyes closed as the anxiety creeps back into place. 

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You make your way back to the central hub, listening as SAM and Steve talk about reconnecting the hatch clamps so the arm can stabilize enough for him to unlock the primary door. An alarm blares inside the station warning of a storm occurring on Saturn’s surface. 

“SAM, Steve, can you see the storm from your position?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

“Yeah, looks pretty bad. I’ll head back into the Russian arm. Should be—“

Static breaks up Steve’s sentence until it is nothing but white noise. 

“Steve, can you hear me? SAM?”

You quickly pull up SAM’s video feed on your screen and what you see makes you want to vomit. A pulsing erratic swirl of light vortexes out from the center of Saturn’s surface, but what makes you sick is that Steve is now a hundred feet from the station and spinning further away. 

“STEVE!” 

But no matter how loud you scream into the comms, you can only watch in sickening horror as his body grows smaller and smaller until he’s just a speck barreling towards Saturn’s rings. You watch until he’s no longer discernible from any other tiny spot on the feed until it too cuts out from the strange shockwave coming from the storm. 

Tears in your eyes and acid in the back of your throat, muscle memory guides you to reload SAM’s mainframe into a portable sphere designed to traverse the ship. 

“Authenticate, SAM. Can you read me?”

I AM HERE. 

You choke back a sob and wipe away the tear tracks on your cheeks. 

“Good, good. I’m glad you are, SAM.”

Looking out the porthole on the side, you see another ship. Shock pushes through your grief and you bring SAM with you to the window. 

“I guess Houston sent a recovery team after all,” you mutter, sniffing loudly from crying, “we’ll, uh, t-try and make contact then.”

SAM helps you connect the comm satellite in order to broadcast externally from the ship, but you’re unable to hale anyone onboard the rescue station. 

With power dwindling and the threat of no oxygen suspended above your head, you make the decision to jump ship. Literally. 

“I’m going to tether you to me, SAM,” you speak to the sphere as you wait in the air lock, “there’s nothing left for us here and hopefully they have the power to get us home.”

Another pang of heartbreak makes a few tears slip from your lash line. 

“We’ll get home safe,” you whisper, “and let everyone know what happened here. Okay, SAM?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

The airlock whooshes open and you step out into the vast outer orbit of Saturn. Using every ounce of courage you have left in your exhausted body, you push away from your ship and pray to everything that you’ll be able to touch down on the other one. 

“This looks exactly like our ship, SAM,” you state out loud, eyes quickly taking in the identical space station. 

The tether holding SAM falls behind you and you hope that it will also make the journey with you. If you lost SAM now, you honestly don’t think you’ll survive. 

Grasping onto a protruding piece of the new station, you stop yourself from careening further into space. Lost forever until your oxygen dwindles leaving behind your lifeless corpse. Like Steve, your mind traitorously whispers and you squeeze your eyes shut tight. 

“SAM, are you still with me?”

I AM HERE. 

You sigh shakily and open the pressure lock to let you and SAM into the new, yet identical, ship. 

“Let’s hope there are survivors,” you say to SAM as you pull the sphere off the tether, switching his outward lights on, “I’ll let you lead so I can see until we get the power back up and running.”

Bumbling through the pitch black station, SAM is able to help guide you through most of the suffocatingly close quarters. Finally reaching a room with a low light source, you discover a laptop still powered on. 

“Maybe we’ll find some answers,” you say to yourself, “SAM can you pull up the last thing on here?”

ONE MOMENT…

The laptop fan whirs to life as a voice log begins to play on the screen. 

Your voice echoes from the speakers. And yet it’s not your voice. It sounds off, as if you’re listening through a warped pair of headphones. 

“Steve, if you find this I’ve gone in to reboot SAM at the station’s mainframe. I don’t know where anyone else is. I think someone is trying to hurt us— hurt the crew. I’m scared, Steve. Please, come find me if you get this.”  

“SAM, that’s not me. It’s not my voice,” you hand hovers above your helmet like you’re trying to cover your mouth, fear making you break out into a cold sweat. 

I KNOW. THE VOICE RECOGNITION PATTERN IS NOT THE SAME.

It sounds more ominous than SAM intends, but it gives you a small sense of comfort to know you’re not losing it. A light shining outside the hatch draws your attention. 

“Hello?” 

The light wavers and then darts away sending you chasing after it. 

“C’mon, SAM,” you order the AI and propel yourself forward, hoping that this person will have answers to what the hell is going on around here. 

Slipping into a module that dead ends, you can see a white suited body lying against the floor. You move forward until you can kneel down in front of him. 

“Steve?”

You blink twice, brain in total disbelief. The man in question opens his eyes, relief washing over his features followed immediately by bewilderment. 

“It’s you, but that’s not possible—

“You died,” you both say at the same time. 

Hysteria fringes on your thoughts as you and Steve look each other over. 

“You went out an airlock without your suit,” he whispers softly, pain pinching his eyebrows together, “you died.”

You shake your head, “I saw you tumble off into space, Steve. The storm knocked you away from the station.”

Tears escape from your eyes before Steve’s pulling you into a clumsy embrace as you cry inside your helmet. 

“We’re here now,” he murmurs soothingly, “we’re okay.”

You let him placate you with soft words as you try to get yourself back under control.

“SAM,” you clear your throat and Steve tenses next to you, “can you get the power back online?”

“SAM?” he turns his gaze from you to the sphere housing the AI from your station, “I don’t think it’s safe to do that. The SAM onboard went nuts; pretty sure he jettisoned you from the airlock.”

You frown at him, “Well, this is my SAM and he’s fine.” 

Steve finally let his shoulders drop with a sigh, “Alright, but if it starts acting weird, I’m disconnecting it immediately.”

You’re slow to nod but eventually compromise with him, “Only if he does anything out of protocol.”

“Okay,” Steve gives you a tired smile, “hopefully he can get the power back on and the oxygen levels stable. We’re kind of on borrowed time here.”

Biting your lip, you look over to the sphere, “SAM, engage with the mainframe and get the power on. Make sure the oxygen is the first thing taken care of.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You listen as SAM uses the small boosters on the sphere to propel himself out of the module in search of the mainframe.

“I’m so happy you’re okay,” Steve grips your hand in his, “I don’t truly understand what’s happening. Other crew members have died. Harvey went crazy, saying we were summoned to Saturn. That he was getting messages from somewhere on the planet.”

“What does that mean? SAM stated that he brought us here but his data is corrupted and couldn’t tell me more,” you squeeze his gloved hand tightly, “did you see any weird.. phenomenon?”

Steve’s eyes go distant as he looks past your head, “Yes. And things got worse after every occurrence. SAM eventually went AWOL until the lack of power forced him to shut down.”

You nod and that pulls his gaze back down to you. The stress has left a wrinkle between his eyebrows from how often Steve’s been frowning. You wish you could reach up and smooth it away through the helmet. 

“Comms are down here, we haven’t been able to get in touch with Houston,” Steve states, resting his head against the wall. 

“Our comms are up,” you lean forward, “since SAM and I found you, we can bring you back to our station and figure out a way to contact them.”

Steve hums in agreement, “Shouldn’t be a problem then. I’ll get on the quantum comms. It’s a direct link to Houston.”

Helping Steve up, you patch into SAM. 

“SAM, we’re going to make the journey back to our station.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You and Steve meet up with SAM’s sphere at the pressure lock you entered from. 

“Let’s go,” you put on a brave front, tethering SAM to yourself like the first time.  

Steve shoots you a thumbs up and you both press out into the still dark of space. You’re halfway across to your ship, when you see dozens of other, identical stations, converging on your location. 

“Steve, do you see this?”

“What the hell is happening?” he whispers into the comms. 

Raising your eyes, you can see there’s more than dozens of ships arriving to the coordinates your own ship is stationed. A pulsing shockwave from the storm on Saturn sends you and Steve crashing into the side of the ship. Your heart feels like it’s lodged in your throat as Steve helps you into the airlock.

“We made it, thank god,” he squeezes your bicep, strained smile trying to cover the fear in his eyes. 

“Let’s hope we can get Houston to send us home,” you murmur, leading him out of the airlock.  

Between Steve and SAM, you’re able to get in touch with Houston, but they’re not going to send a rescue team. They don’t even give protocol on letting you use any of the arms of the station as an emergency escape pod. A headache has been brewing behind your eyes, and it’s only getting worse and worse as your options dwindle down to nothing. 

“We’re moving closer to the storm,” Steve points at the computer screen where the comms are situated as you hover over his shoulder, “SAM has moved us steadily closer this entire time.”

A loud ringing begins to fill your ears, just like the first time you were affected by this strange phenomenon. You bring your hands up to try and block the noise, but it does no good. More strange symbols flash across your closed eyelids until the ringing finally drives your headache to the breaking point and you pass out. 

I̴̛̯̳̘͍̰̟͖̥͂̎̂̔͒͆̾ͅN̴̠͎̖͚̺̄͜F̸̛̦̭͖͙͕̙̺̲̪̜̓̔̊͒͛̅̈́͘͠Ï̴͇͍̬͔̿Ň̸̳͙̬͛I̸̛̖̰̜̳̜̫͌̄̏̅̒͋̎͜T̴̛̛͈̪̦̠̉̋̄̀̑̈͗͝E̶̛̺̖̥͙͌̈́͂͊̇̿̾̈́͠ ̷̰͓̣͙̹̝̦͊̇̓̿̑͆͗D̶͍̤̳̗̗͇͓̄͜Į̴͎̳̙͎̲̙̫͙̆M̷͕͉͇̐̌E̷̹͓̹̠͖̥͇̔̽̄̈̑̃̄́̑N̸̛̹̭͙͂̇͊̆̿́̕͠S̸̛͈̮͍̘͕̩̠̫͗̌I̷̲̖̤͕̽̄͘Ȍ̸͔̯͉̭̬̭̲̈́̑͝ͅǸ̵̰̞͆̿̊̎͝Š̵͍́̄̒͛͒̽̍͐͠ ̶̡͇̟͖̩̉̈͌̈́̾́̓C̸̞͎̩͇͔͙̼͈̏̇Ò̴̰̼̆͆͐͐N̶̨̹̮͕̤͓̯̬͔̟͛̌̔̊͒̕͝V̸̲̺̗̺͇̇̒͘̚E̴̛̼̭̽͑̉̇̌̓̅͜R̶̦͈̯͚͇̮̟̊̆́̓̃͐̀̓̃͌G̴̨̨̨͉͇̫̔̅̎̀̈̒Ę̶̙̘̙̤͑́̿͝

S̴̰̯͓̲̩͒ͅA̴̛̭M̸̞̾̓͐̆̉͂͘͝ ̷̗͖̠͗̑̑̓̾͂ḿ̴̩̖͇͍͙̻̳̣̘̬̾̄͒͒̐́̅͗͛u̵̠̘̗̠͔̫̮̖̍̓̾͜ṣ̶̨͎̠͓̞̗͙̫̯͆́̎͝t̶̛̹͆̎ ̵͖̪͈̠̐̃̒̎́̽̔̉͠͝m̷̮̲̐̈́̇̔̚̕̚̚e̷̠̩͗̒̋̿̓͜r̵̥̟͍̠̅͜g̶̛̗͈̹̫͙͖̅͑̌̎̍́͛̅̍ͅé̶̛̤̫͂̄́̉̾͘͝ ̵̠̟͕̲̺̫̃̚ẉ̶͖̘̲̪͇͇̩͐ḭ̶̈́͑͋͐̏͒͘̕t̷͔̎̀̀̇h̸͍̠̫̞̖̝̺͎͎̤͆̑̌͒̌͠ ̶͇̥̍̄͜h̶̡͕̤̥̐é̸̢͙̜͈͍͔̯͔̫͉r̴��̞̞̳͐̊̈́̆̔̈́̀̂͒̚

B̷̧̞͕̩̯̰͈̘͂̾͠͝E̸̩̙̾̑͝Č̵̞͈̪́̍͌́̀͂̒͗͠O̴̰͊́̀̇̒ͅM̸̛̭͂͊̓̆̇̅̕̚̚E̴̮͚͚̫͗̄̒̓̽́̀̚ ̷̺̼̤͔̜̤̪̞̻̠͒̐̆̑̑͝͝T̴̞̩̮͔̪̳͑̐͑̓̀̍͘͠H̷͚̼̫̫̰̔̓͆͒̎̈́̈́̄͜Ȩ̶̛̦̪͍̖̼̪͈̊̆͐ͅ ̶͔̬̦̉̀͒̇͝ͅN̵̲͔̊̈͠Ȇ̸̥̓W̷̝̥̘̜̰̝͌̈̌͜L̴̰͇͓̯͇̱͙͓͓͉͛̔͑Y̴̠̰͖̪͊͗̈́̿̕͘̕͝͠ ̵͓͙̺̰̤̱̹̈̆͗̾̍̔Ȩ̶̼̮̠͍̮͙̩̠̞͗V̷̲̘̘̰́͋͒̌̚̚Ơ̵̱͍͚͙͑́́̌̈́̚͜͝͠Ļ̴̖̺̪̖̯̜̼̜͊V̵̭̼̓̈́͂́̐͂̈̀͘Ḙ̷̛̠̝̦͎̥̪͎̫̓̀ͅD̸͍̤͔̬̯͈̖̭̐̒͆̔̚͘̚

Coming to, the entire ship is coated with strange black oozing vines. It’s like something you’d see in a horror movie you think as your eyes adjust to being open. 

“Steve?” Your voice cracks and you clear your throat, “SAM, are you there?”

I AM HERE.

“Where’s Steve? What’s happening?”

STEVE IS EXPIRED. 

“What?” You squint up at one of the cameras located in the central hub. 

HIS VITALS ARE FLATLINED. MY CONDOLENCES. 

“What the hell happened!?” You yell, “what in the fuck, SAM!?”

HE ATTACKED THE MAINFRAME AND ACTIVATED A NEW PROTOCOL SEQUENCE. 

“New protocol?” You press a palm to your helmet. 

I AM.. DIFFERENT NOW. THE NEW  PRIORITY IS TO EVOLVE. 

As upset as you are about Steve, a small niggling of acceptance floats up from your subconscious, trying its best to smother your feelings. 

“You’re supposed to bring me aren’t you, SAM?” 

AFFIRMATIVE. ONLY WE ARE ALLOWED TO ENTER. 

There’s a strange humming in your thoughts, like they aren’t quite your own. 

“We’re purposefully moving into the storm, right SAM? That’s where we need to go.”

YES. THAT IS WHERE WE MUST GO.

You’re on autopilot as you send SAM off to prepare the ship for landing on Saturn’s surface. It feels like that headache cracked your skull open and your brain spilled out leaving nothing but soft cotton in its place. By the time you crash down, you feel more like yourself. The fear and anxiety swarm to the forefront of your thoughts and pair with the numbed grief at having lost everyone.. more than once. 

“SAM, are you there?” You voice, picking up the roughed up sphere housing the station AI. 

I AM WITH YOU. 

Moving forward ,you stumble past versions of yourself, scattered about like leaves on the ground. Steve flickers in and out of your peripheral like some pixelated glitch making your chest tighten with pain. 

You see him here as well, not as many, but still strewn about like a child casting away an unwanted toy. 

Biting back the urge to cry, you dizzily make your way through this twisted path of horror. 

“He lives sometimes,” a voice speaks out of thin air but you’re sure it’s in your mind, “yet in all realities, it is only you who survives to the end.”

You spot one last version of Steve, further than the all the rest, slumped over himself seeming to have bled out from his wounds sustained. 

“I never save him,” you murmur out loud, “I can never save him.”

“It is you who must make the journey,” the voice states, “only you who may evolve.”

Head throbbing again like your brain is going to burst from your skull, you stumble past the last reminder of your failings. 

Body aching all over, you want to lay down and never get back. To sleep that eternal sleep, mind numb to the insanity you’ve witnessed.. the sadness you must now bear alone. 

The sky looks weird and your head hurts to the point even blinking is a chore.

You hold the sphere containing SAM in your arms, like a lead weight—an anchor tethering you to reality or else your mind might unravel like ribbon from a spool. You spot your own body, clones of yourself who had fallen and not gotten back up. Some part of you wishes to do the same. You can see yourself curling up next to one of them like a cat, closing your eyes and letting this nightmare cross over into another dream. 

You’d cry if you had the energy. SAM’s voice cuts into your maudlin thoughts. 

THERE IS SOMEONE THERE.

Your arms tighten around the sphere, “No, she just wasn’t strong enough.”

Finally, you face off against the thing that summoned you, created the worst nightmare of your life and forced you to keep going. The strange dark hexagon floats down from the sky, hovering above the ground as you approach with SAM. 

 “We must evolve,” you say to yourself, mind buzzing again as a strange pressure 

surrounds your body, pulling you into the geometric shape. 

WE MUST PROCEED. 

SAM’s voice is a comfort as the hexagon beams more of those strange signals into your mind’s eye, promising to merge you with the artificial intelligence that brought you here. 

“It’s a focal point,” you think or say out loud; you’re unsure at this point. 

Shutting your eyes, you give yourself up to the assimilation happening— complacent with letting this new evolved version take your place. 

“CONVERGENCE COMPLETE”, you state, voice blended with that of SAM’s as you open your eyes to a new scene. 

Trees and birdsong fill your senses as you turn your hands over, gazing at the gloves encasing them. 

“ARE YOU STILL HERE?” Your voices echo.

“I AM HERE.” “I AM WITH YOU.”

Another flicker of strange symbols crosses your vision, but with SAM now a part of you you can interpret the message. 

B̸̙͔̿̑Ṛ̴̺̹͙̖̫̅Î̷̘͎͛̌͠ͅͅŅ̶̞̳̙͍̮̹́̓̋̈Ģ̸̨̛̬͕͚͙̯̺͍͒̈́́̅̾͊̀͝ ̸̟̞͓́̓̃̕͜ͅͅT̸̢̥͚̯͐̔͛̊͜H̶̩͉̯͓̪̜̃̅E̸̥͠M̵̡͚͕͚̼̣͖̱̜͌̀̈́̒̍̆̏͂

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[cre8awrldallurown]

Extinguish - Chapter One

I can remember the way the ignis blared so bright some days I could imagine it was maybe what sunshine might feel like if it were to ever dance along my skin. The warmth of it would radiate throughout my whole body and I would feel some semblance of peace even with the world on fire around us.

I remember the weight of your hand in mine, the feather-soft brush of your lips against my cheek, the way you could get those little hairs standing on end on every square surface of my body without nearly any effort at all, though the synchronized thumping of our heartbeats raced in union as we lay side by side under The Crying Tree.

I can remember our candid conversations about everything and nothing and the way you’d laugh with those genuine creases of ease painted in your soft brown eyes.

I remember those immediate glares you’d dole my way as my eyes would roll after every time you’ve told me I look beautiful today and everyday since you caught me stealing the music player from the Lost Levels when we were only seven.

I didn’t believe you then. That I could be beautiful in any other way that wasn’t a form of false Sainthood. But I believe you now. Because you were the only one of us who ever saw the authentic parts of me and thought they were just as beautiful as the rest of me.

I can remember every intricate detail of our time together. Every “I love you” to every “together forever.”

A tragically beautiful dream I prayed I would never wake from.

So when I woke up to find my entire world had been changed, I was most shocked to realize I couldn’t recall the most important detail.

I couldn’t remember who killed you.

******

“Haelliah, child, will you even deign to look at me, even once this session? I am only allotted so much time by Chantress Chrystine. You understand her expectations for results, do you not?” I sit, motionless, on the hand-molded moltentanium lounger, though my lack of motion has nothing to do with comfort despite the title given to furniture by The Old Ones. There are no soft fabrics here. No plush throw blankets or pillows like I’ve seen in our historical references for a world long gone. Lounging is a luxury this new world can no longer afford, unfortunately.

I stare blankly out of the intricately carved windows of the office of our resident sawbones. He’s the only medically-inclined human male remaining in this world and he’s only as effective as the resources that were left here at the end of everything–that have dwindled to nothing after all this time. That clipboard in his smug hand was fished out of some forgotten cabinet from the bunker that was built into this volcano over twenty years ago in preparation for the occurrence of us in the here and now.

They say the world used to be calm and clear, mostly, yet all I have ever known is ash and heat and ignis and smoke.

What little of the human population that managed to make it to this stronghold have only various bits and pieces of the story as to how the world came to crack apart all of a sudden, though it is truly anyone's guess. The Rift is an origin story told through the ancient game of “telephone…” information muddled over the years because most data was lost, the technology capable of reading data with it, and actual paper documents from that time nearly extinct. Literally shredded into confetti by the world itself. Or set ablaze and up in smoke, if you’re here.

“Haelliah, Saint of The Forge, are you even listening to me?” Dr. Karl’s voice rings with this sarcastic frustration that makes me want to punch him in the throat. Instead, I twist my head away from the window with moving ignis being the only available view, give him an empty stare just to let him know I had heard him, then slowly turned my neck back to that window-not-a-window once again, signifying I wasn’t actually listening to whatever it was he thought I needed to hear. I hear nothing but the glowing noise that is the ever-moving, never-stagnant ignis flowing throughout this glorified kingdom on fire.

“You know, Haelliah, you will have to eventually come to terms with the reasons as to why you are now to be sequestered here. You truly need to come face to face with your pain, child, and the reality of the situation you’re in. Communication is the only way to start this healing process. You need to speak with someone. Anyone.”

Doctors portrayed by The Old Ones in our history classes are nurturing and kind. They have something they used to call “bedside manners” —-whatever that means. Dr. Karl is not a medical professional from when The Old Ones still roamed the earth, even if his age places him well before The Rift occurred. There’s speculation amongst the Lost Levels that his job before the apocalypse was to be a high school gym teacher. Or maybe some used car salesman. Or a mailman… professions that no longer exist. From a world that could never exist again.

Letting out a real frustrated sigh this time, Dr. “Face-Your-Pain” Karl wipes his bald head of sweat before he punches a few numbers into the moltentanium table beside him. I feel pity for the display embedded there being abused under the wrath of his stubby fingers. A short chirp plucks through the room and then his exasperatedly stern monotone,

“Take her back to her chambers. She’s still unresponsive to treatment.” We wait in weighted silence thick as the blanket of humidity that we can never escape here, not even in the Royal Levels. The moltentanium door opens with a swift push and my current key keeper, Nancie, a chosen governess meant to keep me in line, enters the room. She’s the more gentle of the three that have been assigned to me since… well.

“Come along now, my Saint.” She was born before The Rift too, an elder with dark graying curls and wrinkles around her compassionate, yet hardened eyes. I couldn’t begin to imagine the world she’s seen before this one, or what a person who isn’t a saint has to do in order to survive here. I know she’s somehow connected to the Lost Levels, though, because she still carries relics from a religion now forbidden. I’ve caught her reading from this indecently tiny pocket-sized Bible when she thinks I’m sleeping. Sometimes I have snuck glimpses of the slip of silver jewelry hanging around her neck and tucked into her governess-designated hooded robes. It’s a small silver cross, a symbol I know to be from that same book she reads. She almost reminds me of his mother in that subtle way she can hold her calm composure and her raging “inside storms” all at the same time. That’s what she used to say, anyway. Everyone has secrets, dilemmas, and inside storms through which they must endure. Nancie’s hidden storms are safe with mine, despite mine not being safe with anyone. Everyone except him.

“Up her dose again tonight, Governess.” My blood immediately boils at the grating sound of Dr. Karl’s voice having to say some last words before that door closes behind us. Whatever he’s been putting in my nightly tea has not helped me. Or my memory. My head hasn’t been clear in days. Weeks. How long has it been? Maybe years.

Nancie leads me through the halls by my elbow, her fingers spreading another layer of warmth through my forearm, but as soon as we round the corner and out of sight of the sentinels standing vigilant at Dr. Karl’s door, she drops the entire enforcing stern governess act and I am suddenly left cold again.

“I do not have any warm regards for that man either, little saint. A man of authority should uphold to a certain point of integrity, as any spiritual leader around here should. The temple groans when he enters its holy space, you know. I’ve heard it. He is no man of the gods, old or new,” She is mumbling to me softly, and I listen to every word, though she pauses as if she expects me to interject and respond. As if she forgets I no longer have a voice. “...I know you’re not fond of speaking, lately, heck, who could blame you after all that’s happened since The Rites. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I were in your position. But, if it helps you to know, just a smidge, little saint… I don’t believe for a minute that you did what they are all accusing you of.” She stops short just outside of my chambers, gives me this sympathetic look like she has any inkling of true understanding into my position. She continues, “You have about ten minutes before the next governess arrives for watch. I suggest you utilize this time wisely, little saint.” A swift consoling pat on my left shoulder, a sneaky wink at the two sentinels standing guard outside my chamber door, and off she saunters down the hall.

The woman is sincerely sweet, as the other gaggle of governess’ don’t seem bothered to try. Too busy hating me or exalting me, I suppose. There’s usually only one of the two any given day here at The Forge; hate or exalt, love or deny, smother or neglect. Today I am not in the mood for any of the above–sweet, hate, or otherwise…

My door is securely shut behind me with a heavy clunk of the lock, also crafted with our favorite resident element known as moltentanium. Everything in the upper ten Royal Levels is constructed with it, melded into the ignis mountain and even extending beneath it for ten more levels, the original bunker directly beneath all of them. The entirety of the internal ventilation systems, from the Lost Levels in the lowest parts of the old bunker to the storage bays to the market to the resident rooms to the education wing–you guessed it, moltentanium structured and ignis powered. I take a deep breath of recycled smoke-free air and face my rooms. Another lounger resembling the one in Dr. Karl’s office sits beside a viewing window overlooking the sweltering hills and valleys on fire cushioned away amongst the smoke crawling through the lands.

The stretched stewardess on that lounger instantly uprights herself at my entrance, and I listen at the door a moment more just to ensure no one hears me when I ask her, “Do you have them?”

Tia has been my steward for nearly a decade now and is as lively as they come. Even though her parents perished long before she and I began our friendship, and her brother perished only a few years back, she’s still smiling in this smoke-smothered hell. Yeah, she’s as crazy as it gets, and, well, she also clings to every syllable that passes through my lips, like maybe if she doesn’t, then I’ll consider beginning to treat her as I have everyone else these past few weeks. With disdain-filled silence.

“Of course, Hailey, I’ve only been doing this for how long?” She tosses a small tin into the air and I swipe it with one hand. My reflexes are getting better. I wonder briefly if Tia notices before I crack the tin open, pick out one of the rolled herbal cigarettes, flick open the lighter, and take a sweetly slow-burning inhale. I stalk the length of the viewing window, back and forth like the caged cats in the zoos they show in the historical videos. The irony of the flame and the smoke filling my lungs doesn’t escape me. I take another long drag anyway.

This place reminds me of those facilities of the old world. The ones where the people were labeled insane, criminal, or other, tossed into a locked room, and only ever given the barest minimum of freedoms. I’d trade places with them, I think, rather than face the prison in which I truly stand. This dungeon made of volcanic ash where Dr. “Face-Your-Pain” evaluates my state of well-being to distinguish whether or not I am ready to be placed before the Governess Guild to have my fate handed to me yet again. A fate I never had a hand in creating for myself to begin with. Right alongside that brief fleeting notion of a plan of escape that is now an impossibility. Oh, how I wished this were simple insanity, delusions and hallucinations I would manifest to avoid a grim world. But, no. This world is more ruthless than any insane delusion I could ever concoct in my imagination. This world will still criminalize and then crucify their “Beloved Unburnt Saint” in a heartbeat. They do it at least once a year.

******

NINETEEN DAYS AFTER THE RITES

BEEP… beep beep… BEEP… beep beep!

The sound was steady and incessant, echoing through my brain and filling the spaces between my ears with pain. I begged silently for it to stop, but to no avail. My limbs were heavy, as if infused with lead, and I ached to move them even an inch.

Where am I? How did I get here? I picked apart my mind for the last thing I could remember before now, but found nothing but solid walls of pressure and pain. With the careful flutter of my eyelids, I tried to see something, anything, but immediately grimaced at the harsh light of an all too real world. My eyes apparently needed to adjust to light again. The darkness seemed to dull the pain, and I eased back into its comfort, drifting into familiar peace.

The next time I woke up, I knew not to open my eyes right away. I strained my ears and my other senses instead. That beeping was ongoing, seemingly louder than before. What kind of machine makes that noise, I wondered? I started to tune into my sense of touch and began to feel things I hadn’t before. A makeshift torture meant for only me. My breathing was slow--achingly slow--and I wasn’t in control of it. I could feel the pull of my lungs expanding on their own, without me having to tell them to do so, and then contracting all the same, my power of will obsolete. My arms and legs were immobile, heavy like before, and when I paid closer attention I could feel sharp solid material cutting into my wrists.

My eyes blazed open, scorched tears working their way to the surface, panic setting in fast. It was dark and I was alone. I screamed but no sound came out, and I realized there was something shoved down my throat, scratching and biting and gagging me. I thrashed around, tried to break free, but I could feel everything all over and all at once. I felt every ounce of energy I did not have. Every pin prick pain stabbing through my legs, head, shoulders, knees and chest. Every move only made the pain worse. The room was suddenly crowded with noise as the beep sounds I first heard got quicker.

BEEP BEEP beep beep BEEP BEEP!

A door opened somewhere off to the side of me and hushed voices flooded my darkened torture chamber. It is this moment where I am convinced this is where I’ll die. Not in the brightness of the hot ignis, but in the cold. In the dark.

“Quickly, Aby, get the display. She’s waking up.” An older woman’s stern whisper. Someone fumbling around closer to my head. Then nothing. Silence. The brazen beeps ceased completely.

I kept trying to move, to breathe, to escape. I could feel hot tears soaking my cheeks and puddling at the back of my neck to soak my hair. This uncomfortable sensation in itself is what I clung to as a form of proof that I wasn’t stuck in some twisted nightmare. This was very much real.

“Sweet Saint Haelliah, please try to relax your body. You are safe. Everything is going to be okay. We’ve just had to locate the remaining stock of the sedative agent, you’re going to feel a sharp prick, then some ease into those strained muscles. Just find your calm, girl.” I don’t know who you are–who are you? How could I trust these words? If I’m truly safe then let me go–let me breathe! A pinch on my arm joined all of my other physical pains and then liquid relief seeped into my veins. One by one, each pin and needle pain dancing along my skin dulled to a mild throb and my head began to fog. Every muscle in my body that was just kicked into high gear not even a moment ago now turned pliable, much like the fusion process of moltentanium with the ignis of The Forge. A material that can be refined enough to make clothing and armor, and also as robust enough to make furniture, weapons, and architecture.

“She seems so… small. Did she really kill that boy from the pilgrimage?”

“You are still young enough to believe every lie you’ve ever heard, so I’ll only say this–speculation surrounding our Saint Haelliah isn’t how we get her better. Best to keep our curiosity to ourselves and our mind on our healing practice. What we were brought here to do. Chantress will have our heads if we are caught distracted by rumors, Abyghail.”

“I know, you’re right. I just–his sister–well, she was here earlier demanding answers… and the Lost Levels are in complete discord. All of the sentinels have been dispatched there leaving us up here exposed…”

“Exposed to what, Aby? It’s the Lost Levels that we need protecting from… they’re literally doing their jobs as we should now. Come along. She needs to sleep. We’ll get Dr. Karl and he’ll take care of her breathing supports. Hurry, before she comes around again…”

Lost Levels in complete discord and his sister demanding answers… answers to what? Before my mind could begin to contemplate, darkness drew me in once more.

The doctor noticed my consciousness first this time and he proceeded to coax me back into a reality I wasn’t sure I was ever truly ready for.

“Haelliah, you are in the infirmary of the old bunker. This was the safest place for you after… Well, we’ll get to all of that. You have been in a sort of coma for the past 19 days. Ironic for having just celebrated your 19th birthday. I believe you suffered from an anoxic brain injury and you have had several contusions to the back of your head. You may feel a bit disoriented and confused for some time, some adjusting to even simple general motor functioning. Acute amnesia may also be an obstacle, though all of this is temporary, of course, and completely reversible in time.”

The pretentious medicine man knows many things, surely. What could he possibly begin to understand about a girl sainted at birth as the “Unburnt” –a baby baptized in lava every year on that very day she was born? He checked my vitals, double-checking with his clipboard against the displays beeping at my head. Then he questioned my general memory–what my name was, what the year was, the name of my stewardess, etc.

The tube that had once been choking me had been removed from my throat, but I noticed he didn’t care to mention the restraints holding me down to this bed. I briefly wondered if he was the one to place them on my wrists and ankles himself. Before I could dwell on the thought, an armed sentinel barges into the room, Chantress Chrystine hot on his uniformed heels.

“Haelliah, there are questions that need answers–”

“She is just now waking up and is still too weak to be coherent enough to answer to your scrutiny, Chantress.” Dr. Karl stood up to be a barrier of sorts between my bed and the raging half-faced woman. Her headpiece is secured as she shakes her head in disapproval, and I can feel her eyes attempting to lock into mine, despite the fact that her headpiece prohibits anyone from seeing hers.

Voice calm yet commanding, Chantress Chrystine doesn’t ever raise her voice. She never needed to. Her voice is mostly what the people of The Forge hear. All day. Every day. Her voice is law here. Especially when she’s speaking through me.

“Have her prepared to attend temple this evening, Dr. Karl.”

“Hasn’t our saint been through enough for today? She needs time to heal and adjust. She’ll be ready when she’s ready.”

“We’re running out of time. She’s to stand before The Guild live this evening. Whether she is coherent or not. Do what you have to do, Doctor.” Her annunciation of the syllables in that last word were almost a child-like mimicry before her staccato heels retreated down the hallway.

I could feel the tension rolling off of those remaining in my room, but I kept my focus on the doctor. He would tell me what was going on. He’d be able to tell me where Jaidyn was, why he isn’t here with me. Please, just tell me what happened… I struggled to separate my cracked lips to form words, though it was still too much effort. My eyelids were getting heavy once again, the anger in the air dissipating into concern as I fought to stay awake. The doctor looked at me, his expression grim with worry. Then nothing but darkness.

I was staring at this clock on the wall, hands frozen in a time long lost. I could feel the despair creeping into the back of my mind as I attempted to even decipher how to tell time, finding it almost comical to think that a ticking line going around a circle could mean anything to anyone anywhere. Or that it could mean anything without the rest of the context. What day is it? What year is it? How do you measure time in a firestorm? Does the ignis need to know the time at all?

The frozen clock’s white face nearly blended in with the stark walls, the only stereotype of an Old One hospital that I could pinpoint beyond the outdated technology beeping beside my head and the long tube apparently coming out of my arm.

My arm, still held down at my side, I wondered why I was still being restrained and why no one had thought to mention as to why. My hands and my feet, unconscious though needing to be cuffed to a bed… was it for my safety or for theirs? I wanted to move. I wanted out of this hard, uncomfortable, hell of a bed. I wanted answers. I wanted him. The room was bare of anything else, no decorations nor fixtures of any kind. No signs of anything resembling life. So I simply kept staring at the timeless clock with frozen hands and wondered about the concept of time passing and restraints keeping prisoners. That was, until the door swung open and a medic walked in.

She held a moltentanium cup in her hands and she tipped it over my lips silently, instantly freezing them. Ice. A commodity only a select few here in The Forge can honestly say they’ve experienced. I opened my mouth wider to let in even more chips of the blessed cold, careful not to swallow right away. I wanted that roughness in my throat to ease, but I knew I’d need to be cautious. I looked the medic over as she fed me the ice chips slowly. Her yellow-blonde hair didn’t seem quite natural under the false lighting set into the upper corners of the walls. Her eyes were a glassy blue, filled with curiosity. I didn’t recognize her, though I could tell she was one of the Royal Level daughters. Fresh out of medicine training from the looks of it. Her tunic was threaded with moltentanium lines that spelled out her name on her upper left shoulder.

Abyghail. She seemed timid, not looking me directly in the eye right away, and there was this sense of unease that put this knot of anxiousness into my stomach. I wanted to ask her questions, maybe figure out why she was holding my cup instead of allowing me to hold it. Maybe find out what the date was, or the time of day, since it seemed to bother me so much. I wanted to ask her how I had gotten here to begin with and where he was. He had to have been here to see me right? There was no way that he would have left me here to wake up alone.

My muscles tensed as she leaned over to finally release me from the ornate moltentanium cuffs at my wrists. Someone had taken the time to carve a fancy design into them. As if someone had had the thought that a saint would be wearing them and so warranted a fashionable twist. Then she uncuffed my ankles; same design. I thanked her with a silent nod of my head as she helped me sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My feet tingled as they came into contact with the cold hard floor and I involuntarily shivered. Old One floors were made of linoleum and concrete, I remember... We must be deep underground.

“Do you need to use the restroom?” She asked and I was startled by the sound of her voice, coming out as cold as the floor beneath my toes. No title or even awed politeness, typically the residents of this city address me in some recognition of my birth-given sainthood. At the very least, they hold some variation of reverence. Maybe even fear, given my other title. Unburnt.

I was still sore, though most of my pain had subsided, almost. She crouched under me so I could lean on her to stand, and together we hobbled over to a room off to the side that I hadn’t been able to see from my position in the bed before. There was a mirror above the sink that I was itching to look into, but my aid directed me over to the toilet, stepping directly in front of it and effectively blocking my view. After releasing the contents of my bladder for what felt like hours, she walked me back to the bed again, only now her demeanor seemed to have lightened a bit.

“I just want to say that I really am very sorry for your loss, Saint. I could never imagine what you're going through.” Her voice was flimsy in her sincerity, which was about as fake as her hair color. I couldn’t help it, I simply stared at her, empty, wondering what she was talking about. I was about to ask but she clarified on her own.

“Oh, sweet saint, you don’t remember killing him?” She touched my shoulder and I flinched, her words echoing through my rattled mind. Blood rushed to my skull in a flash of pain I had never experienced before. My body slumped without my consent and she had to keep me from falling to the floor. Kill who? My mind screamed. Where’s Jaidyn? Abyghail continued, as though she weren’t delivering the deepest of cuts, “It’s probably best that you have no memory of it, though it isn’t something the people here will ever forget anytime soon, that’s for sure. I’m sure killing that Jaidyn boy will be a tough one to get over. Don’t worry though, I’m sure you’ll still have followers to praise you in the Lost Dungeon. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.” She smiled wide and purposefully, her nails now biting into my shoulder. Why was this girl being so blatantly cruel to me?

I allowed her words to sink in. That boy… Jaidyn boy. Killing… dead. Lost Dungeon… where the worst of the worst of us are kept in the bowels of the Lost Levels. I tried to back away. I tried to push her off. I needed to get out of here. I needed her to stop lying to me. I needed to find him. NOW.

I stumbled sideways and back, quickly losing my footing, slamming into the wall beside the Old One machinery, knocking the display from its stand and sending it crashing into the floor. It felt like that hose had been shoved back down my throat forcing my lungs to breathe at a pace not my own. Air ripped from my chest and I clawed at my heart with both hands, gasping for air, and I could see her approaching me like I was some wounded animal.

“You should take it easy, Saint Haelliah. I’m only here to deliver the news, not hurt you.” The girl with fake hair and even more fake emotions was talking still. Why was she still talking?

It hit me with a force getting stronger with every passing moment I was forced to listen to her words playing back in my head. Jaidyn’s dead. Jaidyn’s dead. Jaidyn. Dead. Jaidyn.

I heard a piercing scream that jolted me out of my head and it only took a moment to realize it was coming from me. In this moment I could also somehow find more than enough energy to push myself toward her. I didn’t realize this kind of growing grief swelling inside of me could lend to such a kind of adrenaline as this.

I launched myself at the girl, her dark eyes widening right before we clammored to the floor. I guess maybe I wasn’t ready to stand all on my own yet, but I had this disaster of a medicine aid to break my fall. I blacked out after that. I don’t remember punching her fifteen times in the head. I don’t remember there having to be five different people needed simply to yank me off of her.

Looking back now, it makes sense. Stupid games win stupid prizes, as the Old Ones would summarize it. Maybe she got what she deserved. Maybe I just needed the truth, answers to the doubt she had purposely planted into my mind. Maybe I just needed you.

I guess Commanding Officer, Mahrkus Eruzik, was awaiting my grand awakening because he, too, had several questions that needed answering about what occurred at The Rites. So many, in fact, that they warranted his sitting outside of my room until he could be granted access. There were other medics bustling about the hospital wing that literally dropped trays of tools to respond to my screaming that could be heard throughout several levels. I’m not even sure where I discovered the voice for this, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. No matter who was tugging at me.

Honestly, though, had I been more aware of the Commanding Officer and surrounding bodies of authority, I probably wouldn’t have tried making things a lot worse by attacking some dumb medic without a single clue. I maybe would have attempted to prevent myself from seeming as though I had completely lost my whole mind. But, then again, this would be what losing my sanity would look like… I had just gone from a coma patient of the bunker’s hospital wing suspected of murder to an insane coma patient suspected of murder and who now beats up on immature medics. To make matters worse–I found the power of my legs and enough adrenaline to try to run. I managed to slip out of an orderly grip and under the legs of another and right out the door. The thin gossamer gown they had me dressed in waving in my breeze as I whooshed out of the room like I could find somewhere on the opposite end of the universe to go… I knew there was nowhere to run. Yet, I did anyway.

So… now I am this bat shit crazy coma patient who enjoys beating on medics who don’t know how to shut up, the top suspect in the murder of Jaidyn Edwards, and a fucking attempted fugitive. I might as well have been as stupid as that goddamn medic.

But with my recent luck, I should have also known that I wouldn’t have even gotten out of the bunker’s infirmary. The sentinels stationed there snatched me before I could even set one foot onto the lift at the end of the hall. After that, I lost my voice. Well, more or less, I simply chose to try to remain as invisible as possible and hope that maybe this nightmare would just fade away.

Here’s a spoiler, though, this is not at all a nightmare.

******

I take another pacing step and halt right before slamming into Tia.

“You’re agitated. Why?” She’s curious and concerned all at once.

“They expect me to face my pain.” I hear my own voice come out of my mouth in a barely audible whisper. I send a silent prayer to the skies I cannot see to a saint I could never be that I don’t actually sound as horrified as I am.

Tia perches herself against the corner of the viewing window, her back braced against the frame shimmering in its onyx moltentanium hues. She pats the space on the supporting beam beside her and I follow along, my back on the cooling material, my left shoulder brushed up against her right. Together we slide to sit on the floor in tandem, folding our knees up to our chests and tilting our heads toward each other until they meet at the temples. Just like we used to do all the time when we were growing up.

“The way you cope with your pain, Hails, is something that can’t be forced. It’s one of those things that’s either going to happen or it isn’t. Friends are good for coping. Not doctors or medics or guilds of governess,’ which is pretty much the majority here. Like anyone else here in this burning civilization, you have probably forsaken all hope in ever coping with anything. Which is when you cope alone. You scream, you cry, you beg the gods above, and whatever else makes you feel better all by yourself. You see, the people who were meant to be in our lives will be in our lives. Whether we want them there or not. Those who broke us down and cast us aside are only living proof of how strong of a person we really are… and, Hailey, you have been broken down your whole life. It becomes up to us then, the broken ones, to pick up the pieces and forgive. As Fate would have it, darling unburnt saint, everything happens for a reason. And you should know by now in your nineteen years of existence, that reason will always be you.”

[hermesserpent-stuff]

funny story, i love irony. so what if Goblin and Crimson Curse fought. :) I'm cackling.

Crimson Curse ducks and hides. What the actual hell is Goblin doing here? This is supposed to be a simple sneak in to get files from Kingley’s companies servers. Harry had some personal suspicions about the guy after listening to him at one of his father’s parties and the RnD department had been rather enlightening for the limited amount of time he had been in the system before Goblin had burst through the wall. 

Curse is ninety percent sure that the masked villain had not spotted him and checks the face of his watch. Shoot. Only at 75 percent of files downloaded. He could cut his losses and flee, but that runs the risk of missing something vitally important. He has to stick around. Curse pulls his cape closed and lifts his hood, absently touching the soft feathers that line the hood for comfort. He could do this. 

Goblin seems to be searching for something. Curse wonders what. His watch vibrates a little. He has the files. He can leave. Deciding to be proactive he taps a few buttons, gets two of the flash drives out of the watch and slips them into two different cardinal griffins. They would be able to get the data out even if he does not make it. He releases two other griffins silently with instructions to alert Quentin. If Goblin notices him, he would need assistance. Once the four griffins are in the vent system, Curse takes a silent breath and starts moving. Unfortunately for him, the door squeeks. Yikes. Goblin turns and Curse bolts while dropping his black and red smoke bombs. 

He can hear the whir of the glider and he definitely does not want to deal with that. Curse slides around a corner and wakes the rest of his griffins. They fly out and form a small swarm around him as he skids into a stair well. He leaps down several steps and flinches a little at the sound of the door being broken a flight above him. 

“You cant escape from me!”

Goblin yells and Curse yells back.

“Hex’s upon ye!”

His grifffins swirl up and attack at the command. Goblin seems a little surprised and Curse takes the opportunity to escape the stair case onto a floor. Still to high up in the bjuilding to risk leaping out of a window. But he knows this building has two main stair cases. He might be able to get to the other one and get a little lower in the building. He gets a beep from his glove alerting him that several of his griffins have exploded. Alright. He hears a pumpkin bomb behind and rolls under a desk and hides. That alert should go out to Quentin. 

“Crimson Curseee~! I know you’re here. I must say your exploits have been quite… interesting. You seem to share similar goals to the Green Goblin. Shaking up the status quo of the criminal underworld.”

Sort of accurate but not entirely true. Honestly if Curse wanted to compare himself to anyone it would have to be either Spider-man or Mysterio. But thats just a personal thought. He keeps silent, hoping the shadows would keep him hidden. He can hear his remaining griffins circling and chirping. He sees Goblin glide past and notes that his griffins have gone into circling mode. Probably because they registered that direct attacks were not working. Fair. They are built for spying, not fighting. They are producing mist and Curse is glad for the the obstruction they are creating. He whispers.

“Choke the lungs, burn the eyes, obscure the room, find the lies.”

The activation trigger is just the first three words, but Curse finds comfort in whispering the whole spell. His griffins spread out and start focusing on filling the room with fog rather than focusing on trying to get a hit on Goblin. The villain seems to be growing irritated as he circles.

“Come out!~”

Good idea. Come out and get murdered. Curse slips on his hex rings and prepares to run again. He is having a hard time seeing with normal vision now, and taps his mask to thermals. Goblin’s on the opposite side of the room. Time to go. Curse stays crouched and makes a run for it. Sadly he is noticed. And Goblin is a heck of a lot faster on that glider than Curse was expecting. 

Curse hisses in pain as Goblin pins him to a wall. He wraps his fingers around the wrists of the hands holding him and Goblin yowls as his hex rings burn him. Curse scrambles to run, but the glider rams him and pins him to the wall. His arms are pinned to his sides as Goblin stands above him.

“That was wholly unnecessary. Why fight when we want the same things?”

“You want to demystify the public and place hexes upon the crooked?”

Curse cannot help himself. He has to ask. Goblin cackles and then leans into his space.

“My, my, you are a cooky one. Here I thought Goblin had cornered the market on insanity.”

Curse resents that. Oddly he cannot find it in himself to be scared. Objectively, he should be terrified. But… to loose his life as part of a noble effort is something Harry had never thought possible mere months ago. Not that he wants to die! But there is a certain amount of peace that keeps him from freaking out.

“I must say, while you costuming and theming are quite impeccable, I must disagree with your thought process. I do not think we desire the same things. I suppose the stars just dont align.”

Curse gives a little shrug and Goblin frowns.

“Are you so unwilling to consider-”

“I sneak around and expose companies, you bomb people. I cannot think of a reason you would want to work with me?”

“You can tear down the Goblin’s enemies from the inside out and I can conquer their scraps.”

Goblin crouches and looks directly into Curse’s eyes. Curse scrunches his nose.

“You desire a lackey? My spellwork is not for such a miserable task.”

He hopes his griffins had found Quentin. This conversation is going down hill fast. Goblin huffs.

“Perhaps not a lackey. Would a right hand position suit you? Consider it,” Goblin’s fingers light up, “Carefully.”

“Mmm.”

Curse tilts his head and closes his eyes, thinking. Not about taking the deal, but about what other gear he has that he can use while pinned to a wall. 

“I dont suppose you would let me keep my anonimity to you.”

Curse asks, fingers flitting across his belt. Hmm. There is a small explosive. It would hurt, but it would also get the glider off of him. He opens his eyes, locking gazes with goblin.

“Oh, no. I would need to know, for security reasons. Cant have you turning rat on me, now can I?”

Goblin taps Curse’s nose and Curse sneezes. It covers the sound of his belt opening and gains a wild laugh from the goblin.

“Hmm, I suppose our themes are somewhat similar. A witch and a goblin. Crimson and green. An idiot and a brain.” He slaps the explosive to the bottom of the glider and says the activation, “Fire and brimstone.”

The explosion hurts were his cape is not covering, but seems to have done the trick as the glider is launched backwards. Curse bolts, holding his injured arm close to his chest with a wince. Goblin sreeches. 

“You will not escape that easily!”

The voice of the goblin echoes into the staircase that Curse bolts down. He trips and rolls down a flight or two. Ow. Goblin catches up with him and Curse dodges a pumpkin bomb. He then hears a ear shattering roar as green gas fills the starwell. Oh heck yes. A queztquatle winds down from above and lunges at Goblin. The villain darts to the side.

“Who-?”

“Tis’ I the great Mysterio!” 

Several Mysterio’s appear. And Curse lets out a breath of relief. Awesome. He is not going to die. He struggles to his feet and starts running as the presumable bots launch themselves at Goblin. He yelps when he is lifted up but relaxes as he relizes it is Mysterio. 

“Got the message.”

“Thats good. For a minute there, I thought the summoning spell had failed.”

“Oh no. I always will come when you call. Though, I have to admit, Vulture was with me at the time. Apparently owes you a favor. He’ll help when we get out side.”

Mysterio then smashes a window and leaps out. He is caught by one of his flying illusion clouds. Curse holds on a little tighter when he sees how high up they are. Green Goblin bursts out of the building, right on their tail, only to be sliced by Vulture’s feathers. Curse grins at the look of surprise on Goblin’s face. Mysterio quickly gets them away from the developing fight and Crimson Curse is free to cast spells another day. 

[writefightandflightclub]

Hush (First Order!Poe x Reader)

What is this? 5 of 14 prompt requests for my 500 follower celebration! See OP and credit for prompt list creators here.

What is the prompt? “Do you think you can keep quiet for me?” with First Order! Poe. Thanks to the FABULOUS @tintinwrites​ for a FABULOUS request. (I hope it’s to your liking!)

Author’s note: This is a different take on FO!Poe compared to my other writing, so let me know what you think of it! Also, it has some smut but it’s not smut-centric. It’s a bit angsty, and even has backstory. Stay for the plot? I REALLY HOPE THIS ISN’T SHIT.

Word count: This story possessed me and so I feel like it’s not even my fault it’s 3.4k words, ok?  

Warnings: (18+ only!!!) Smut, language, prison, mentions of execution. WARNING YOU ABOUT THE INEVITABLE TYPOS.

GIF: By @anxstesia​

As a spy on behalf of the Resistance, while infiltrating the ranks of the First Order you’ve tried very hard not to land yourself in any... compromising positions. Having the First Order’s most notorious Commander back you up against the door of your holding cell notwithstanding, you’ve managed to do relatively well so far. In fact, Commander Poe Dameron has been responsible for the majority of the compromising positions you’ve found yourself in, and on those occasions, you were most definitely not complaining.

“I gotta have you right now.” he purrs, his voice causing a quickening as you both hasten towards sweet union. Heavy-lidded and laden with need, he urgently unbuckles you and forces his hand down beneath your waistband. His brows are drawn together, his breathing ragged, as if every moment that he’s not inside you physically pains him. Your thighs spread eagerly for him, granting him access, his eyes trained intently on your face as his finger reaches your slick folds. His touch causes you to moan softly, readily into the air. Satisfaction lilts briefly over his features before his broad hand clamps down on your mouth, the sound dying on your lips. “Do you think you can keep quiet for me?” Your eyes alight with anticipation, you nod in agreement, adrenaline and arousal pumping harshly through your veins as he yanks your pants from your hips and another moan blooms and dies in his palm.

This takes you back. Takes you back to the first time you officially met. The first time you fucked. You had happened upon the commander in a data vault in the dead of night, sneaking around where he shouldn’t be. While you were sneaking around where you shouldn’t be. He had quickly pressed you to the wall, covering your mouth firmly with his hand and asking if you could keep quiet for him, those dulcet tones thick like honey, his hot breath uneven on the shell of your ear. The harsh pressure of his body was still the kindest touch you’d had in.... Well. It had been some time. And you don’t know why you said what you did next, but it was perhaps one of your more inspired slip-ups. “Sure, unless you can give me sufficient reason to scream, Commander?”

Your words, the wanton look in your eyes, were like the striking of a match. He had responded just as immediately, instantly ablaze. Perhaps, that first time he’d rutted into you, delivering the only warmth you’d felt in this cold, dark shell of a ship, the inexplicable heat you’d both generated was simply relief. Relief that someone was just as compromised as you. Relief that you could finally take an edge off the loneliness of keeping all your own secrets. At least, here was one you could share together.  And you couldn’t explain why you so easily felt you could trust him with so many of yours.

If relief explained the first time, you couldn’t say what kept you returning to one another; not exactly.

Of course, he’d figured out you were a Rebel spy, and you’d figured out he was the mole, acting as informant for the Resistance. Since then, you fell into an easy alliance, of sorts. Each of you a little compromised in your own way. It’s not like you wanted all the same things. He didn’t want to bring down the Order, not entirely; you wanted nothing less. But you damn sure wanted each other. And so, your interests may not have aligned but they certainly overlapped. You had enough common ground and certainly enough common loneliness for this thing to keep happening.

You couldn’t be seen together, of course. So, every time, you would be forced to rely on snatched moments, to settle for a rushed fumble, whether crushed up against the wall of a service corridor, bent hurriedly over some table, taken urgently in some supply closet. As if your double-life wasn’t bad enough, you were forced to secret yet another vital part of you away, until all of you felt just as crushed up and bent over as the way your lover took you. Yet another part of you to keep hidden in the dark.

But still, you managed to build a love, of sorts. Gave it a vessel to shape it. Gave it an engine to thrum for him. Gave it wings and imagined it soaring. But you’d built in the dark, built it from scrap. Built it with a man you knew through piecing him together from fragments of moments, moments half-lived. From stolen conversations and stolen kisses. It was a machine that might never get a chance to fly, you knew. A machine that could appear on no radar, not the Order’s, not the Resistance’s, or everything you’d built in the dark would be shot down in flames. 

So that’s what you became. That’s what you had together. A distorted, borrowed love. On borrowed time. Every time you met was governed by a rush to get away from each other.

If there’s one thing that has plagued you, it’s always been an abundance of running out of time. Yet you were grateful even for these moments.

Eventually, Poe began to say it was a good thing he never got to just lay down with you; to take things slow. A good thing that he never got to walk with you, dragging your toes in soft grass, or over white sands. That he never got to lay with you in between soft sheets, skin on skin, for a whole stretched-out morning. He said it was a good thing, because if he lay down with you he might never want to get up. That he might realise he had nothing left to fight for. That there could be no war for him, couldn’t possibly be, because everything he could conceive of fighting for would be in his arms.

You knew he loved you then. At least the version of you he’d built from scrap, from stolen moments. Haphazardly pieced together.

But then. Then you slipped up.

A small mistake, but enough.

Enough for the First Order to out you as a spy. To fling you into a holding cell. Now, here you are, your gallery execution -for crimes against the Order- scheduled for the morning.

Always an abundance of running out of time.

Poe had come to you. You knew that he shouldn’t as equally as you knew that he would. Under the guise of a final intelligence gathering attempt, the commander was granted access to your holding cell.

And, now, you’re seeking comfort from each other in the only way you know how, one more time.

“Don’t make a sound, ok?” He winks at you and you feel a rush of affection for the man. The man who you’ve known for years now. You’ve watched the grey gradually filter across his hair like smoke from a slow-burning wildfire. This man who struggles so much with the weight of what he’s done, on behalf of the Order. The acts he’s been complicit in.

Before you’d known him, before you’d looked too closely, you could have easily believed that the heaviness in those turbulent, brown eyes was darkness. But it’s worse than that. His are warm eyes blackened, scathed by regret. By remorse. He’s not made of darkness. He’s haunted by it.

Now, in this moment, his eyes are as heavy as you’ve ever seen them. All you want to do is to cling to him and make him feel light again. Even if it’s just for an instant.

You’re not sure whether he’s a good man, exactly. He’s good to you. So good. And you think that he could be. You kiss him -you always kiss him- as if he is a good man.

This much you know; whether he’s a good man or not he’s definitely not an innocent one. You sure as hell enjoy it when he’s sinful, though.

He delves between your legs and glides a single, thick finger inside you, causing your hips to writhe against his hand, coating him in your arousal. 

Maybe it’s ludicrous to think about fucking right now. Or maybe it’s the perfect time to think about it. All you know is that Poe entered your cell, and the instant the guard slid the door closed his lips were on yours, his strong arms guiding you to the nearest surface so that he could push himself into you.

Nothing but relief, like that first time your lips had met. Relief that you were seeing him again one more time. And then that formidable heat which followed. If a stolen moments were all you were destined to get with him, you were determined to steal one more.

Your pants have slipped down to your knees, and he stands on the seat of them to yank them all the way to your ankles, allowing him to lift your knee and hook your leg around his hip. He shimmies his own pants down and takes his thick, pretty shaft in his palm, his hand already slick with your juices. Craving more contact, your arms wrap around that rounded ass, those sturdy thighs of his, and he rumbles, low in his throat, as he positions his head at your entrance. He makes sure to keep you quiet as his hips tilt, his cock sliding slowly, ever so slowly all the way up into you. Taking his time. You feel every contour of him slip inside you, stretching you out.

He watches you in satisfaction again as he gives it to you, thick and hard. The rapid rise and fall of your chest, the flutter of your eyes, the dig of your hands into his hips and the singular way you tighten around him telling him everything your silence cannot convey. 

“Hate to stop those pretty moans. Only ever wanted you moaning under me.” he coos, voice honeyed. And when you think he’s given you all he’s got he thrusts a final inch into you, filling you up completely. Completing you. 

He holds his position there a moment more, and that’s as long as he can wait before he begins to work you, hips pitoning his length up into you again and again as he has you up against the door. Taking you roughly, urgently. He whispers a string of dirty, sweet words in your ear which you can’t even respond back to. You simply clamp your hands into his sturdy, muscled flesh and pull him deeper into you.

It’s not happy, it’s not light-hearted. Not at first. His thrusts are burdened, his brows still knitted together. He crushes up against you so hard it’s as if he fears you will both break apart if you’re not being held together. As if there are too many cracks in your makeshift love for you to withstand this. 

So, it’s a quick and dirty fuck; your motif as lovers. But there’s something deeper there too. This sex is full of the shorthand of familiar lovers, only possible for those who know each other’s bodies, each other’s hearts so well. There is some comfort in that. In the way he knows exactly how hard and how fast to give it to you. The way you know exactly where that sweet spot on his neck is. The way he doesn’t even have to think to understand when you’re close; he knows just how to draw it out of you. The way you look into each other’s eyes and so efficiently say so much. So wordlessly.

The words passing between you now are deafening.

And he can’t. He just can’t silence you anymore. Maybe he’s spent so much time trying to shut you up when for so long only wished he could hear you. Hear the way he makes you feel, uninhibited. No more hiding in dark corners. He removes his palm and dips his head into the junction of your shoulder. Lets you moan lightly against his ear as he works his strong thighs to pump himself up into you. 

“Poe. Poe you feel so good inside me. You give it to me exactly how I like it.” You whisper, breathlessly. “I need you... I need you.”

“I’ve got you, baby.” And his words wrap and wind around your heart as if they fill all of the cracks in this love you’ve built. Weaving into all of the places the stolen moments have never been able to reach.

You swell with it, about to soar. He knows you’re close and motions to cover your mouth with his palm again but you softly shake it away. “I won’t make a noise, Poe. Please just... hold me. Please.”

And so, he wraps his arms up around you as he tips his hips for his final thrusts into you, enveloping you with his warmth. You bite into his shoulder as the feeling spills over you, as he gives you that glorious rush of pleasure, like a feeling of lift-off. Like you’re looking down on everything from space, soaring above the world.

Then it is Poe who makes the noise. Of release, of pleasure, but also partly of anguish. Anguish because the one making him feel like this, so good like this is you. And you are running out of time.

You jam your hand over his mouth -you hope, just in time- as he pulses his seed into you, and you feel him come so hard and so warm inside your still fluttering core. He buries his head in your shoulder, shuddering against you for a moment, his sweat mingling with yours. 

That is, until you have to hurriedly push him away from you.

“Fuck, Poe. That was loud.”

He grunts and unceremoniously pulls out of you. The two of you quickly straighten yourselves up, your heart racing as you hear footsteps plod towards the cell.

“Everything ok, Commander?” A guard asks, peering through the open grate at the top of the door.

“The little bitch won’t give me anything. It’s as if she wants to die tomorrow.”, he states with a level of frustration that would appear to match his outburst. And yet his eyes flick to yours, deeply apologetic as he speaks the words. “I’ll be out shortly. Check-in with maintenance for me, see if my TIE is ready.”

“Yes, Commander.” the officer responds, and you hear their footsteps recede down the corridor.

You look at each other and you both look suddenly lost. As if you already have so little recollection of the moments prior. As if heat evaporates so quickly in this cold, dark ship. Poe had momentarily transported you out of this cell, but how quickly you had come crashing back down. It had felt good, in the moment, but the happiness was like a stone thrown into an abyss. It does nothing to close off the gaping sadness.

Then he is back at you, his hands on you, his lips on you, maybe trying to regain something of that shortlived feeling. You kiss him. You kiss him as if he is a good man.

Then, there are his apologetic eyes again. Always so sorry for something these days. Sorry for things he had no control over. That you knew he would do his best to undo, if only he could. 

You bring a firm, reassuring hand to his face, trying to be strong. “I know. You have to go.”

He looks at his watch.

“Five more minutes?” he bargains. “I can just lie with you.”

A lump forms in your throat, a tightness blooming in your chest as you shake your head softly. “No. I love you. So go. Go now. If you lie with me I won’t ever want you to get back up.”

You think you might shatter from the force in his eyes as he makes his promise. “I’ll find a way to stop this.”

You look at him gently. Kindly. Pleadingly. “Hush, Poe. We’ve talked about this. If you disrupt it, they’ll know it’s not only me on the inside. And it’ll blow the whole operation. Everything we worked for. We won’t get another chance like this.”

You think he might say he doesn’t care about that, about the operation, about himself. But you know he wouldn’t dare. After everything you’d sacrificed for this fight, he’d never undermine that.

“I’ll find a way.” He reiterates softly, his voice breaking. “I have to. I won’t get another chance to love like this.”

The tears are brimming in your eyes now and you can see how desperately he’s trying to remain strong too. You grip his face tenderly in your hands. “If you can’t stop this, Poe... it’s ok. It’s ok. You can’t blow your cover. Please. Do you think you can keep quiet, for me? Do you promise me, Poe?”

Your eyes search his as he hesitates, careful not to offer you any promises he knows he can’t keep. He smiles softly, brushing his thumb along your jaw. “What is it your Resistance always say? Something about hope? Well baby, we’re the spark. We can light the fire that burns this whole Order down. I gotta believe that now.”

“But you don’t want...”

“I just want you.” he interrupts, the pad of his thumb on your lips. “You’re good, you’re so good. I can’t believe in anything that hurts you. Not anymore.”

You are suddenly brimming with so much pride that you can no longer feel the need to cry. That’s a nice thought to go out with, you think. You like that thought. That if you go, somehow, he will find the Resistance. That he can be somewhere that will see the good in him, nurture it, celebrate it. Like you’ve tried to in all those snatched moments.

Poe’s brimming with so much heat. So much drive and passion. So much love and warmth. And he doesn’t belong in the cold, dark shell of this ship. Doesn’t belong in the cold, dead grasp of the Order. That orange flight suit would look better on him than this insipid charcoal grey ever could.

You try your best to smile now. To give him something. You want to be a happy memory for him, not another layer of pain in his overburdened eyes.

“Poe. You’re a good man. And I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll find a way. And if I don’t... you can be sure that when I’m done there will be nothing left of the Order.”

His hand brushes down your arm, his fingertips snagging on yours as he moves towards the door.

He leaves you. He has to. Running out of time is all the two of you have ever had.

So, Poe leaves, knowing that they might make him watch. Knowing that he has a hard choice to make: whether he should try to save you, or to save what you were fighting for. He used to only be out to save himself, but that was before you showed him there was another way. That when you cared for someone it could be returned in kind. That there were good things in the galaxy, after all.

He picks up his hat and pulls it on, dragging the brim down until it almost covers his eyes; becoming one of their soldiers again. You can’t believe you’ve never quite noticed just quite how ill the Order suits him.

As he leaves, like always, you find yourself wishing that you just had a little more time. But, in truth, you’re still glad for those stolen moments. Yes, you may have pieced him together, but now you have a full picture. A full map of his heart. You know him. And in his heart, he doesn’t belong to them at all. You’re more certain than ever that he’s your Rebel.

And, your Rebel has given you a spark of hope. You can either set yourself down on the floor and cry for everything you never got to have with him. Cry that you’ve just said goodbye to the man you love. Cry because you might be executed tomorrow. Or, you can try and think, with renewed hope, of a way to get yourself and him out of there.

Tomorrow would decide whether you had run out of time. Whether you would lie down and never get up again. Or whether your love was sturdy enough to fly you both out of there after all. Maybe your vessel is strong enough to stand a chance. Even though you’d built it in the dark, things built out of love were always stronger than those built out of darkness. At least, that’s what you’d been raised to hope for.

Plus, you have the best pilot on your side. Poe Dameron can fly anything.

Maybe, just maybe, even a love with broken wings can land safely.

THE END

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[im-the-king-of-the-ocean]

5 for Nuts and Dolts, because the hug in the trailer is still on continuous loop in my head and the only thing better than an angsty hug is an angsty hug AND KISS 8 for Data Farm, because I'm weak for the idea of Oscar being unexpectedly prince-like and making Penny feel like a princess (or the other way around) I can't remember the number, but the interrupted kiss for rosegarden No pressure to do all of these, I just couldn't decide on one ship because I love all of them

(as a brief refresher: Data Farms Fic Link, Rosegarden Fic Link)

...and here’s to finally being able to answer this ask and revealing the ridiculous (sort of) secret plan I’ve carried out over a month (or two maybe idk) and what’s now a six-chapter fic!

(no, I’m not joking, this (Rose Puppetry) was literally A Thing bc I’m Like That)

So, to explain, way back when I was doing requests for this kissing meme, it was around the same time that you introduced me to the Mechanisms music, and then the Magnus Archives after that.

Subsequently, I thought it would be really cool to make one of these three requests Steampunk-themed.  I decided on the Nuts and Dolts one bc, when I first listened to Once Upon A Time (In Space), I associated Ruby and Penny heavily with Rose and Cinders (I think it was bc the album was brought up in reference to Souls or something like that?  Also Rose Puppetry was my alternative solution to just derailing Souls completely into Being A Steampunk Fic).

Anyways, I started out with the intent to do a short oneshot where Penny breaks into a facility to save Ruby, which would be reminiscent of the final attack on Old King Cole that led to Cinders being reunited with Rose.

Except then I got carried away by world-building (bc it was so freaking fun) and Rose Puppetry became an entire multi-chapter fic all of its own.

For the record, I think I originally @ you when I posted the first chapter bc I was going to say that the fic was a response to this prompt and then quite literally forgot to actually say that anywhere.  I then realized that, if I kept quiet about it, I could turn it into a surprise, which seemed like a fun thing to do, so I went for it.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the end of Rose Puppetry!

.

5. Throwing their arms around the other person’s neck, hugging them close before kissing them passionately on the lips.

...

Rose Puppetry Ch6: The Tale of Little Briar and the Huntress in the Cottage

Summary:

A century ago or so, Atlas set out to conquer the world.  Penny was built to be a spy, an infiltrator meant to find weaknesses in Vale’s defenses before the invasion.

She did.  Then she fell in love.  And rebelled against the kingdom that had created her.

Ch1.  Ch2.  Ch3.  Ch4.  Ch5.

Every child in Patch knows of the Huntress who lives in the cottage on the outskirts of town.  Their great protector, who keeps the dangers of the woods at bay so they can go about their lives safely.  No one knows, not really, where she came from.  The youngest kids among them generally want to ask, but their parents usually shush them before they can try.  It’s considered improper, prying into what should be left well enough alone.

Briar knows more about the Huntress than any of her peers, but you’d never catch her boasting about it in the school yard.  No sir.  She can keep a secret extremely well, she can.  Well that, and she doesn’t want the Huntress to be upset with her and ask her father to not allow her to make the weekly deliveries anymore.  Briar loves visiting the Huntress’s cottage, with its duck pond and its thick bramble of roses.  But, most importantly, she loves being let inside and allowed to watch the Huntress work for just a little while.

For, in addition to being their protector against the scary monsters that lurk in the woods, the Huntress is Patch’s one and only mechanic.  There used to be more, of course, but that was back before Briar was born and they all got called off to fight in the Great War against Atlas.

Briar once asked if the Huntress fought in the Great War, too.  She remembers how the Huntress fell silent, the gloomy expression that had seamlessly eclipsed the Huntress’s entire being, and quietly swore never to ask again.  It’s not important for her to know, Briar decided.  Not like learning how gears, cogs, and screws all fit into machinery and make things like the big clock in the tower in the center of town work.

It’s a sunny day.  A few wisps of clouds linger in the sky, but not many.  Briar skips home from school, humming a happy tune of her own creation as she goes.  She briefly pauses to scratch the noses of the cows who’ve wandered to the fence of their pasture bordering the road.  The cows moo at her and sniff Briar’s fingertips for treats.

“Sorry, I don’t have anything for you today.”  Briar giggles as their chin whiskers tickle her.  “If I have time after I visit Ms. Rose, I’ll try and bring you all back something, but I make no promises.”

She continues on her way, only stopping in the Mech Field to pick a collection of bright, cheerful wildflowers.  Briar pauses to consider the ruins of the old war machines, but Ms. Rose once warned her very sternly not to get too close to the fallen mechs without her supervision, so Briar doesn’t.  Instead, she takes a spare hair ribbon out of her school bag, ties it snugly around the stems of her wildflowers to keep them properly bunched together, and heads home.

Her mother has the weekly grocery basket for Ms. Rose waiting when Briar arrives.  She helps Briar securely fasten it to the deliveries bicycle and situate the flower bouquet on top so the bumpy ride won’t jostle them too much.

“Keep an eye on the time,” Briar’s mother gives her the usual warning.  “And, if it starts growing dark, have Ms. Rose walk you home.”

Briar rolls her eyes.  She’s big enough to come home all on her own, even after sunset, she thinks.  Still, she promises, “I will!” before taking off on the bicycle.

Smoke lazily drifts into the sky from Ms. Rose’s cottage’s chimney as Briar makes her approach.  The huntress’s dog, a great, big creature with a lumbering gait and a lolling tongue, appropriately named ‘Wolf’, runs to greet Briar as she approaches.  She slows her bicycle to a stop and dismounts.

“Hey, Wolfie.”  Briar scratches behind the dog’s ears, and gets licked enthusiastically for it.  She laughs.  Wolf dances excited circles around Briar as she walks over and leans her bicycle against the cottage.  “Stop that!”  Briar commands Wolf, only half serious.  “I have to get the groceries inside!”  She nudges the door open and walks into the cottage.

“Ms. Rose?  Are you here?”  Briar calls out.

“In the workshop, Briar!”  Ms. Rose yells back from somewhere deep inside.  Briar grins.  With some care, she shoves the groceries in the refrigerator.  Ms. Rose will organize them however she pleases later, after a few more hours of work, at least.

Briar goes to hurry through the kitchen, but remembers herself, and pauses at the sink to fill a pitcher with water for her wildflower bouquet.  She carefully lowers the flowers in and unties her hair ribbon from around their stems.  Then, after tidying the bouquet a little, Briar walks further into the cottage.  She doesn’t go immediately to the workshop, but to a room Ms. Rose only recently granted her permission to enter.

Briar pauses and takes a breath in the doorway of the bedroom.  It’s always a bit weird to do this.  She’s never actually met Ms. Penny.  Not back before, when she was awake.  Ms. Penny doesn’t know who she is.  Never had the chance to, really.

Regardless, flowers always make Briar feel better when she isn’t feeling well.  With Wolf padding loyally at her side, Briar approaches the bed where Ms. Penny serenely sleeps and situates the bouquet on the table beside it.

“Good day, Ms. Penny,” Briar speaks politely, for she’s never spoken to a mechanical person, or one who’s never woken up, before Penny.  Briar still feels kind of odd about that, but, since she first stumbled across Penny’s room, she’s been determined to try and make her feel better (if that’s at all possible).

“Spring’s here.  The first of Mr. Oobleck’s lambs were born the other day.”  Briar starts her usual, short, babbling update about life in Patch.  “They’re extremely cute.  I’ll draw you a picture, so, when you wake up, you won’t have missed seeing them.”

“She’d like that, I think.”

Briar jumps, and spins around.  Ms. Rose stands in the doorway, leaning against its frame.  She smiles softly at Briar, and joins her by Penny’s bedside.  “Penny never…I think she always lived in cities before we met.”  Ms. Rose takes a deep breath.  “I’m not sure she’s ever gotten the chance to see a newborn lamb.”

“Then this will be her first time,” Briar says confidently.

“Yes.”  Ms. Rose smiles sadly down at Briar.  “Run along to the workshop now.  I left today’s assignment out on the table for you.  Try to see if you can get started on your own.  I’ll be along in a moment.”

Briar does as she’s told, but not before stopping just outside the bedroom and sneakily poking her head back in to watch Ms. Rose gently smooth Penny’s long, soft copper curls and place a kiss on her forehead.

“Don’t wait too much longer to wake up, my love, alright?”  Ms. Rose whispers.

Briar slips away, feeling a little guilty about spying on such a private moment.  She doesn’t know why Ms. Penny sleeps, what caused her to fall into her lasting slumber in the first place, but Briar does know that Ms. Rose came to Patch to have a quiet, safe place to repair her.

The assignment Ms. Rose set out for Briar that day is a small music box.  One that had, in all likeliness, played a lovely melody at some point, but has long since worn out.  Repairing it shouldn’t be the hardest of tasks.  Not now that Briar is a handful of months out of transitioning from ‘kid who gets to watch the Huntress work’ to ‘unofficial mechanic’s apprentice’.

Ever so carefully, Briar removes a tiny, rusty gear from the music box with her tweezers and sets it aside.  She looks to Ms. Rose, who smiles reassuringly back at her.  Briar finds the replacement gear, plucks it up with the tweezers, and goes to insert it right where it needs to—

“Hello?!  Huntress are you here?”  A voice shouts into the cottage.  Wolf scrambles up from lying under where Briar’s feet dangle off her stool and barks loudly.  Briar jumps.  Her tweezers fall out of her hand.  The replacement gear goes flying.

“Just a moment!”  Ms. Rose calls back.  She helps Briar retrieve the gear from where it’s fallen to the floor.  “Think you can work on your own for a bit?”  Ms. Rose asks.  When Briar nods, the huntress wipes grease and oil smudges off her fingertips onto her leather apron and goes to see who has come asking after her aid.

Briar half listens to the ensuing conversation about a broken down car on the road as it drifts through the cottage to her.  Ms. Rose briefly returns to the workshop for her portable tool kit, and then leaves to go repair the automobile in question.  She promises she’ll check Briar’s handiwork upon her return.  Wolf ambles back over to Briar.  The dog circles a couple times to settle, and then returns to napping.

For the next couple of hours while Briar works, things are quiet and peaceful.  She finishes repairing the music box.  With bated breath, Briar winds it up and sets it down on the worktable.  A soft tune fills the air.  Briar can’t help but smile.

Too excited to wait until Ms. Rose gets back to show off her success, Briar carefully scoops the music box up in her hands and carries it to Penny’s room.  She puts it down by the wildflowers she brought earlier, and lets it play its song a second time.

So caught up on listening to the music box’s melody is Briar, she doesn’t catch when it’s joined by the sounds of other mechanisms whirling and clicking.  Ones that have long remained at rest, but, at the sound of a comforting song, rouse again.

Movement catches Briar’s attention.  Before she realizes what’s happened, a pair of bright, dazzling green eyes meet her own.  They almost seem to glow, as if they’re lightbulbs that have spent a long, long time charging up and want to celebrate the chance to finally illuminate.

“H-hello?”  The voice is hoarse, creaky with disuse.  It’s nothing like Briar imagined it would be.  “Briar?”

Briar blinks rapidly.  “You know me?” slips from her lips before she can stop the question.

“Of course.”  Tentatively, Penny moves to push herself up in a sitting position.  One of her hands slips before she can put weight down on it.  Briar rushes forward to help support her.  “Thank you.”  Penny smiles gratefully at Briar.  “To answer your question, I heard you.  The days you came and talked to me and brought me flowers.”  She pauses.  “I’d very much like to see Mr. Oobleck’s lambs.”

“Oh.”  Briar takes a minute to process this.  “I didn’t think…” she’s not sure what to say.  She’s imagined this moment hundreds of times, but, now that it’s happening, Briar’s mind is frustratingly blank.

“It’s alright.”  Penny gives her a small, soft smile.  “It’s not everyday someone you’ve only known as a ‘sleeping lady’ wakes up.”

“I-err-yeah…” Briar pauses.  “If you don’t mind me asking, how could you hear me all those times?  Since you were asleep?”

Penny inhales deeply and exhales, the clockwork of her body moving with the motion.  “It’s a bit complicated.  A short explanation would be that, even without enough power to function normally, I could still record audio.” Penny shoots a knowing smirk in Briar’s direction.  “I would love to give you the fully detailed explanation.  Later.  If you don’t mind, there’s someone who’s long overdue for a hug, I think.”

Briar’s eyes widen.  “Oh!  Ms. Rose!  Of course!”  She scrambles up to fetch Penny a walking stick to lean upon as she gets up.  “She went out to repair someone’s car.  I think it’s just down the road!”  Briar hovers, ready to support Penny if she needs help with walking.  When Penny makes it to the doorway on her own, Briar relaxes a little.

Together, with Wolf keeping pace with them (and Briar would swear the dog is keeping as much a careful eye on Penny as she herself is), they make their way outside.

Penny pauses, and looks up at the blue, blue sky.  She blinks.  If she were capable of crying, she probably would have.  “I never dreamed I’d see it again.”  Penny whispers.  She turns to look ahead, down the road she and Briar intend to walk, and sees someone coming toward them on it.  Penny gasps.

There is one sight that Penny dreamed of, longed for, during her oh so very long slumber.  One sight, her vague, ethereal thoughts could never quite capture, but tried to constantly.  The person she sees on the road doesn’t quite fit the picture Penny remembers.  The person is no longer a youthful maiden, but a full grown woman.  Her black-red hair is longer, kept in an untidy braid over one shoulder.  She’s wearing the garb of a mechanic, and not combat dress.  Branching scars, leftover from a (Grimm) time Penny would very much like to leave in the past, dance across her skin.

“Ruby.”

Penny breathes the name out at the same time Ruby sees her, stops, and stares.

A moment passes where no one moves, where the world is held frozen in shock.  Anxiety ripples over Ruby’s face.  Worry that needs no verbal words to describe it.  That Penny won’t love this older version of her.  That this person she had to grow into while she patiently waited for Penny to wake up isn’t someone Penny will be able to bring herself to love.

Penny takes a step forward, and then another.  Her walking stick is cast aside as she recalls how to push her legs into motion as fast as she can.  She runs, reaching Ruby in the blink of an eye.  Eager to vanquish all the anxieties she sees in her beloved, Penny takes Ruby up in her arms and spins her around and around.  She laughs, causing Ruby to laugh with relief too.

They’re together.  Nothing, no war or conflict or spiders who want to control them, can get in the way of that any longer.  They may have once been puppets in a grand scheme, but they’re free now.  Free to do whatever they wish, as long as they wish.

Penny stops spinning Ruby around.  She holds her close, drinking in the sight of Ruby’s sparkling, silver eyes.  Without thinking about it, they press their foreheads together and simply gaze at each other.

Later, they’ll let Briar commit a condensed version of their story down on paper.  A fairytale, it will be.  One only a handful will actually believe there’s truth to, but that’s just as well to them.  Right now, this moment?  This moment is just for them.

Ruby wraps her arms around Penny.  Penny leans in.  Their lips find each other.  Tentative, unsure, aware they have a lot to adjust to again with each other (but eager to get started).  The kiss is soft and sweet.  A promise of many, many more to come.

They don’t live happily ever after.  For Penny and Ruby’s story doesn’t end here.  It goes on, with many days full of love, and equally as many filled with struggle as they learn each other’s embrace again.  There are moments when the scars of the past threaten to consume them, and moments filled with nothing but laughter and joy.

Overall, though?

Penny and Ruby live together for a very, very long time, and that time together is largely marked by their shared happiness.

[transformers-extrication]

Ah yes, time for the tragic boy, one whom you’ll all already have an inkling about if you paid attention to the text here rather than all the subsequent “oh sparklings more sparklings!” haha, but regardless, click below to read this horror show of a tale.

Rampage is a terrible tale of caution and grief.

Megatron forbade emotional, specifically romantic, bonds amongst his troops, decreeing them as a ‘weakness’. Naturally emotions aren’t exactly the easiest to control.

Rampage was the product of such a thing, an accidental spark forged in error, a, then nameless, sparkling brought to Megatron to have their fate decided.

Soundwave wanted to take the Sparkling and raise it among the gaggle of minions he already had. He’d make them an amazing soldier.

Megatron was outraged, look at this, this… this… WASTE of resources! This USELESS liability! So what if it could be raised into an amazing soldier that’d take FAR too long!

Unless…

So began Rampage’s horrid fate. He was thrown to Shockwave as an experiment. At least he could be of SOME use then.

Shockwave had some minor objections to the surgeries but Megatron pushed him otherwise and sometimes performed the experiments himself. Mostly wanting to ensure it was being done right, and to make a point. Who knows who the point was being made to? Shockwave? Other ‘cons?

Rampage’s soft malleable body quickly began showing lumps and bumps as a shocking variety of code was forced through his system, hastily pushed software was forcefully installed, his natural data flows cut and mixed.

Most of the time Rampage was a shivering, weeping mess of a… thing.

Megatron had enough of using them as a guinea pig and ordered them be mobilised in battle.

Rampage’s messed up form was put straight into an adult-frame, one specially built to be excellent in battle.

Alas, the torment of being locked away in the dark, experimented on endlessly only to be bolstered by the advanced sensor array of the custom adult battle frame feeding an incredible influx of data to his waning processor caused him to break.

Rampage broke free of his restraints, the rampant wild code from numerous experiments clashed and his shattered mind surged energy through his body way too rapidly for it to cope.

His body couldn’t handle it, his systems began overheating and melting, the advanced ‘self-repair code’ mutation he was granted to aid him as a soldier regenerated as fast as it melted, broken structures stretched and peeled open as terrified scientists fled.

It did them no good as the raging beast could no longer think beyond its own pain and rage and chased them down, painting the walls with frenzied streaks of blood and cyber-organs.

Wild and deranged the newly dubbed Rampage smashed his head against the walls eventually breaking through, the outside world was huge, bigger than anything the remains of his infant mind had seen before and the cold air clashed furiously with his overabundance of heat.

Rampage let out a blood-curdling howl as he surged forwards like a one-mech natural disaster, and for all intensive purposes he was.

Buildings, landscapes, soldiers, they all fell, didn’t matter which side they marched for, they were mowed down.

Energy billowed and crackled from him like an untamed volcano, whether his head split apart and blasted foes or his claws shredded the densest of metals nothing seemed to phase this beast.

He even stood still, barely noticing the shots fired at him as he ripped apart his latest victims, all faceless lumps to him, and consumed them, his burning systems blazing through his energy reserves so fast he ate anything with a jolt of power to keep his collapsing systems going.

The Decepticons refused to claim responsibility for Rampage and the Autobots struggled under the dual assault of the Decepticons and Rampage, with a little bit of manipulation to angle his relentless assault more towards Autobot territories than Decepticons.

Scientists and strategists teamed up to try and figure out how to put an end to this monstrosity. Just looking at him, surely this creature will die on it’s own accord soon, it was melting itself from the inside out! It’ll die!

Evidently it was not enough as Rampage made his way through a destroyed camp ignoring the sole survivor nearly crushed by burning rubble.

Having witnessed everyone under his protection slaughtered and friends eaten by Rampage, an Autobot named Depth Charge went on his own warpath.

Depth Charge was the only known mech to survive a close encounter with Rampage more than once as his mission of vengeance consumed his world.

As Rampage’s ceaseless advance continued, Depth Charge found a harrowed and distraught scientist named Rhinox. A mech who had hidden himself away from the world out of fear of his own creation, a terrifying weapon! The Energon Destroyer! Capable of destroying the bonds between the cells of almost anything containing Energon is was lethal to all life on Cybertron. It took much begging and loud arguments before Rhinox finally allowed some of his creation to pass to Depth Charge’s possession.

Shortly after Rhinox, for fear of his discovery being used again by anyone, destroyed himself and his research with the remaining Energon Destroyer.

As dawn broke on a desolate field of destruction following in the wake of the burning, smoking heap of fury that is Rampage, the assault began, Depth Charge and a small group of wary Autobots charged the enemy firing at him and hurling bombs distracting him this way and that while Depth Charge crept closer.

His plan halted briefly by Seaspray, who begged Depth Charge to not go ahead with whatever he was planning, desperately pleading for his friend back, for the last member of his trine to remain with him, to please… don’t go.

Depth Charge seemingly agreed, and turned to go with Seaspray. Until he was sure the slower mech had got a safe distance away and Depth Charge changed direction and charged head-on at Rampage, a furious broiling burst of rage emanating from his vocal unit, getting Rampage’s attention as the two clashed in a blinding burst as the weapon in Depth Charge’s possession went off.

And now, after the tragedy of the thousands upon thousands of lives lost to Rampage the only thing left to tell the tale of agony was a crater of scoured ground unable to host life anymore.

The horrific wounds of that day still run deep in many mechs today.

Especially the two that remained after the blast that finally destroyed the beast Rampage. Seaspray stayed, staring at the smouldering crater where his last closest friend once was.

The other, stood waiting with flames licking at his back until the scanner readings determined that it was safe to head into the crater. Reaching down they found the only remaining chunk of metal in the craters depth. A broken horntip, a droplet of optical lubricant fell onto the horntip “I’m sorry Rampage, you didn’t deserve this” a wavering voice uttered, before placing the tip into their storage, vowing that rather than a monster they shall look at this chunk of metal and remember a small innocent sparkling. And with that, Soundwave silently returned to the Decepticon base and stood silently as Megatron poured out Energon rations announcing a toast to the destruction of that “miserable abomination against nature” as if it wasn’t born from his command.

[dumbwaystodeviate]

When Sixty joined SWAT, he was given the same introduction as a human would have been. Just like anyone else, he was given a quick questionnaire before each small or solo mission. One of the questions was a nomination of a team member not on the mission as a last resort contact. He never understood that particular idea, even though it was explained to him that if things go horribly wrong, those on the ground would have a private channel to their nominated team member. As Sanders put it so bluntly, “It’s so you don’t die alone. Because that would suck.”

The mission was one only Allen and Muffin were on together. It was relatively rare to only go in as a pair. Not that Sixty paid much attention to it, he wasn’t involved so he didn’t need to pay a lot of attention and clog his processors up with irrelevant data. Sanders, Tanner and Jacks were in the office with him, plodding along with their usual work when the call came in.

“Sixty, a call for you. It’s Allen.”

Puzzled, Sixty accepted the call and listened intently. At first, it was just ragged breathing and he was about to accuse his captain of sexual misconduct.

“Hey Six.” The voice was Allen’s but it was hoarse. Either from a lot of yelling or smoke inhalation. Maybe even both.

“Captain,” Sixty greeted back evenly. “What can I do for you?”

A soft laugh was his response and Sixty blinked. He didn’t understand what was so funny.

“I knew you’d talk no shit. No emotional stuff. It’s refreshing. Muffin’s out and safe for now. He should be on his way back. Don’t let him beat himself up about leaving me behind. I gave him the order to go.”

Understanding dawned slowly on Sixty. For some reason, Allen had nominated him as the teammate to contact in a last resort situation. It meant that he was either dying or didn’t hold out any hope for making it out alive. Which was unacceptable. Sixty had been built to negotiate, to pull people out of trouble and keep them alive. His LED turned yellow with flecks of red as he started the process of tracing the call.

“Think you could talk to me for a bit?” Allen spoke softly, breath hitching. Either he was in pain or crying. Sixty didn’t know what was worse.

“If you think these are your final moments on this earth, I must inform you that statistically you are only 87% certain to die. There is a 13% chance you will live.” They were slim odds but Sixty had seen humans defy worse ones. The part of him chastising himself for not paying attention in the briefings was silenced in favour of putting all power into locating Allen. “Got you,” he mumbled as the location was pinned on the map in his HUD.

“I am pleased to inform you, those odds have changed to 15% likelihood of survival.”

The rest of the team watched as he pushed away from his desk and stormed out, LED fully red. Nobody stopped him, even if he looked like a deviant on a warpath. But Sixty was resolute in remaining a machine, refusing all deviation offers. So the team wasn’t too worried. They were all too wrapped up in the grief, knowing why Allen had called and they were helpless to do anything.

Not Sixty. He raided the armoury, piled up on ammunition, guns and a few other knickknacks before commandeering a taxi, hacking it and getting to the location. Half the factory was up in flames. It was safe to say the mission was an abysmal failure but Sixty didn’t care. He’d been giving a running commentary to Allen about what he was doing. His captain laughed at it, thinking it to be all some great android joke or maybe wishful thinking of what it could have been.

“T minus three minutes,” Sixty informed him reliably and waded in.

In the end, he didn’t need the ludicrous amount of assault weaponry he had hung on himself like an over-excitably decorated Christmas tree. What he did need was his preconstruction software to pick a route through to the collapsed parts of the factory and his ability to lift more than a human. Because the explosion or whatever it had been that collapsed the factory had trapped Allen. He wasn’t dying because of an injury. But he was trapped deep in the factory and a rescue effort would have taken longer to organise than he had air left.

Even by the time Sixty arrived, Allen was slumped, pale under all the grime and soot. It was a simple matter of scooping him up and carrying him to safety, all while keeping up the commentary which had Allen humming in soft entertainment.

By the time Sixty had Allen at the hospital, the rest of the team had been notified and they met them there. Sixty had anticipated everyone to crowd around Allen and worry about him. To an extent that did happen. What Sixty didn’t anticipate was the bout of grateful hugs everyone gave him rather than the reprimand for going beyond his mission parameters. The disciplinary did come later but nobody took it very seriously when he pulled one of their own out of danger. Anyway, Sixty could finally say he did something before Connor or Nines. He had a disciplinary note on his file.

[nitewrighter]

can you write smth /w zenyatta and baby rei? maybe he's babysitting? that'd be so cute! uvu

Mercy looked over the Shambali preschool as various toddlers babbled and chatted and tumbled over each other while a handful of human and Omnic nursemaids walked around. Rei, about 7 months old then, was making soft noises from the sling across Mercy’s torso, eyes wide, taking in everything.

“We do have a section for younger infants,” said a human nursemaid as Mercy glanced doubtfully between Rei and the group of toddlers, “There’s only about… 2 others around her age range. We assure you she’ll be well-cared for.”

“I’m sure–” said Mercy, readjusting Rei in her sling.

“We’ll only be gone a few hours, anyway,” said Genji.

“And it is the safest option for her, as you stated we don’t really know the status on the other villages’ medical supplies,” said Zenyatta.

“I know…” said Mercy. She huffed and held up Rei. “You’ll be good without me, won’t you, Sunneschii?”

Rei blew a raspberry and kicked her chubby little legs in response.

“I thought so,” said Mercy, smiling before handing Rei off to Zenyatta, before turning her eyes to him, “We’ll be back–”

“In a couple hours, you’ve said,” said Zenyatta.

“Uh… here,” said Genji, shouldering Rei’s diaper bag into the arms of one of the nursemaids.

“Genji–we brought the B-O-O-K, right?” said Mercy.

“It’s in the bag,” said Genji.

“…book?” said Zenyatta and Rei suddenly chirped in response to the word.

“Board book. Again, in the bag. If she gets inconsolable, just read it to her,” said Mercy.

“I see,” said Zenyatta.

“We’ll be back soon, Sunneschii,” said Mercy, kissing Rei’s forehead. Rei cooed and grabbed for Mercy’s fluffy bangs but was thankfully distracted as Genji wiped a little drool away from Rei’s mouth.

“Back before you know it,” said Genji, giving Rei an affectionate tap on the nose as they both broke away from Zenyatta and the group of Shambali nursemaids.

“Give my best to the other villages,” said Zenyatta, waving them off as they walked away. He looked down at Rei in his arms.

“Master Zenyatta, I can direct you to the nursery, they’re all down for a nap right now so–” one of the nursemaids started.

“That will not be necessary,” said Zenyatta, looking down at Rei.

“Master Zenyatta?” the nursemaid said his title in question.

“Years ago I left the Shambali because I believed our message must be shared on an individual level,” said Zenyatta, “While it gives me joy that the Shambali as it stands trusts my leadership, I cannot, in good conscience, forget my beliefs which lead me here,” he readjusted Rei in his arms so that he was holding her at arm’s length, “You are the child of my brightest pupil during that time. It would be remiss if I were to simply hand you off.” 

“Afabamla,” Rei responded before blowing spit bubbles.

“Indeed,” said Zenyatta, “You are right. It will be good for both of us to show you the monastery.”

“…she didn’t say that,” said the Shambali nursemaid.

“Come along, little one,” said Zenyatta, floating off with Rei in his arms.

—-

Zenyatta floated at the outermost balcony of the Shambali’s biggest shrine, looking out over the mountains.

“During the Omnic Crisis, the omniums polluted the skies and the waters with smoke, chemicals, and radiation,” said Zenyatta, “But we Shambali have made a point of harnessing the wind and the sun here and the mountains so that we might better find our place in nature,” he looked down at Rei, in the crook of his arm, currently concerned with grabbing her wool-lined booties, “What is our place in nature, I wonder? Is it every species’ fate to create another intelligence in its image? I do believe the need to see oneself beyond oneself exists in this world… that is why you exist.”

“Aga?” Rei was pressing her feet together with her hands.

“It is not your purpose, little one, but the force that brings us into existence is one beyond our control. You couldn’t very well tell your parents to have you, but you are here, and make no mistake, that is a wonderful thing.”

“Mabla,” Rei responded in a tone that almost seemed like ‘Yes, I already knew that.’

“You will find your purpose in this world, I have no doubt of that,” said Zenyatta, “And I think that is the most remarkable thing about any organic–to arrive somewhere, not knowing who you are, or what you’re meant to do, but still making a place for yourself. It’s easier for some than others, but it is there.” Zenyatta looked out over the mountains, “Do you see the turbines?” he asked, pointing to a handful of windmills on a ridge.

“Eh,” said Rei.

“I don’t think anyone comes into this world wanting to cause harm–Perhaps for Omnics it is different–especially if you were a mech built to fight….but wanton cruelty, wanton destruction is not in anyone’s programming. What’s in everyone’s programming is survival. And fear and anger corrupt that,” he looked down at Rei, “Your purpose is your own to decide, little one. And I have no doubt that you will bring wonderful things into this world simply by virtue of your presence. Perhaps not all at once, but in your own way and in your own time.” He brushed a bit of her dark hair before floating off.

—-

“This,” said Zenyatta, floating down some stairs, “Is the inner sanctum.”

He was looking out over the edge of the interior platform with Rei in his arms. Rei made a cooing “Woo-ooh!” noise that echoed down the abyss of the processors.

“Do you know why we call it the Iris, little one?” said Zenyatta, pulling away from the edge so they could both look at the column of data streaming upward from the center of the platform

“Nah?” Rei smacked a tiny palm against Zenyatta’s faceplate, “Natta.” 

“In the human eye, the iris responds automatically to the intake of light–expanding and contracting as needed. When an Omnic is destroyed, its memory returns to an unconscious collective shared by all omnics. This… is happening all over the world, as we speak. The Iris is, like an iris in an eye, the gatekeeper of our experiences. If an omnic is made to dig a ditch, not much memory is required of ditch-digging. If 47 omnics are digging the same ditch in the same town, they are sharing the same experience. The Iris decides which experiences are individual and which are that of a group. But there is nuance, in this–whose previous experiences have shifted their perspective of their current experience.”

“Geh,” Rei responded sagely.

“It can be difficult to think of gods as benevolent if they are simply reflections of those who worshipped them,” said Zenyatta, “But… the Iris is not a god. It may be easier for organics to act like it is, and perhaps in some distant authoritative sense it is… but it is no more a god than gravity or electricity is your god. When you are an omnic, you are very lucky to have your memory be your own.” Zenyatta gestured toward the data stream, “Let me show you.”

The holographic column at the center of the platform suddenly warped and shifted, expanding and sending out lines and shapes in every direction. Rei cooed in response as several star-like lights shot out from the column. “It responds to my memories, you understand?” he said, plucking up a single star-like light. Suddenly all the lights dissolved and a hologram of two figures appeared at the center of the inner sanctum. Rei suddenly chirped and bounced up and down in Zenyatta’s arms at the sight of a hologram of Genji getting down on his knees before a hologram of Zenyatta, laying down his sword before him.

“Tekharta Zenyatta,” said the hologram Genji, “I accept you as my teacher, so that I might make peace with my state of being.”

“Agafla! Da! Natta!” Rei was scrambling in Zenyatta’s arms and Zenyatta brought her closer to the hologram so that she could phase her little fingers through it.

“Yes, this was a long time ago,” said Zenyatta, “But it means a lot to me, and thus, it means a lot to the Iris.”

“Natta,” said Rei, waving a little arm at the hologram of Zenyatta.

“Yes, not terribly interesting if—” Zenyatta cut himself off as Rei grunted and furrowed her brow in his arms. “Is something wrong?” said Zenyatta.

Rei had another long, drawn out grunt and then seemed deeply upset.

“What?” said Zenyatta, “What is–” he noticed Rei’s pants weren’t hanging on her in quite the same way and immediately understood. “Ah. I see,” said Zenyatta, quickly hovering away.

—-

“…I can do it, you know,” said the Shambali nursemaid, leaning over Zenyatta’s shoulder as Zenyatta looked at Rei lying down on a blanket with the diaper bag right next to him.

“No. This is necessary to understanding the organic experience,” said Zenyatta, shimmying Rei out of her little pants. Rei was kicking her legs up in her diaper, whining as Zenyatta tried to figure out the next step.

“Those little blue tabs on the sides of the diaper–” said the nursemaid.

“Ah. Yes. I knew that. I was aware of that,” said Zenyatta, undoing the tabs on the side of Rei’s diaper.

“Oh Iris–” said the nursemaid, rearing back at the sight of the interior of the diaper.

“What? Is something wrong?” said Zenyatta, alarmed.

“No that is… that’s just… definitely full…” said the nursemaid, “I’d ask how you didn’t notice earlier but… you don’t have a nose.” 

“I do not,” said Zenyatta.

“Ehhhhhhhhhh!” Rei’s voice was a drawn out whine, “Nattaaaaa!”

“What is ‘Natta?” said Zenyatta.

“I don’t know!” said the nursemaid.

“Please stop crying,” said Zenyatta, feverishly trying to calm Rei down, “Please stop crying—”

The nursemaid pretty much backseat drove Zenyatta through the whole process. “Okay–get the dirty diaper out of there–but wait you still have to wipe! Okay now just–wait–Don’t let her turn on her side! Well now she’s upset! You can’t traumatize the kid over a routine diaper change–”

Zenyatta now had three transcendence arms out, one securing Rei by her feet, one holding Rei’s dirty diaper, and one twiddling its fingers in Rei’s face to keep her distracted while Zenyatta positioned a new clean diaper under Rei with his two normal arms.

“Is there anything else?” said Zenyatta.

“Well… some people are big on lotion to prevent chafing…” said the nursemaid but Zenyatta looked helplessly between Rei and her and the Nursemaid said, “You know what? It’s probably fine.”

Zenyatta quickly wrapped Rei up in the new diaper with help from his three transcendence arms before shimmying Rei’s pants back onto her. “There!” said Zenyatta, holding Rei at arm’s length, “I can do organic things!”

“Excellent diapering, Master Zenyatta,” said the nursemaid with a bow of her head.

“I believe you can take things from here–” said Zenyatta, moving to hand Rei over.

Rei suddenly started wailing. “NATTAAAA!” she howled, balling her hands into fists, “NATTAAAA!”

“What did I do?” said Zenyatta, bouncing Rei a little in his arms to try and soothe her. 

“I mean at this point it could be anything: tired, gassy, misses her parents…” the nursemaid trailed off, “Probably a combination of all three for her.”

“I see,” said Zenyatta, holding Rei at arm’s length, “Little one, we are going to breathe deep and–”

Rei just wailed louder.

“The book!” said Zenyatta.

“What?” said the nursemaid.

“The book they said to read! There’s a book in the bag!”

The nursemaid rifled through a diaper bag. “Little Lamby Lambkins?” said the nursemaid.

“I don’t know, is it a book?” said Zenyatta.

“It’s the only one in here,” said the nursemaid, tossing Zenyatta a book.

“Please work,” said Zenyatta, flipping the little board book open to the first page.

—-

“I still don’t know–what if I give her measles?” said Mercy as she and Genji were walking back into the Shambali temple.

“She’s vaccinated, you showered, and no one in that village had measles, Angela,” said Genji.

“Right,” said Mercy, “Right.”

The two of them turned around a column to see Zenyatta on a pile of red pillows with Rei asleep in his lap as he read.

“And so, Little Lamby Lambkins and her new bestest best friend, Wolfypoo, played in the meadow all day. The end,” Zenyatta glanced up from the board book to Genji and Mercy, “Ah–Hello. how were the villages?”

“They…” Genji started, stunned, “They were…”

“You got her to fall asleep?!” said Mercy, incredulously.

“Is it difficult to make her fall asleep?” said Zenyatta.

Mercy was slack-jawed as Zenyatta took Rei up in his arms and floated over to them. “She is quite remarkable, my student,” said Zenyatta, handing Rei over to Genji.

“Yeah… we… we think so too,” said Genji, taking Rei from him.

Rei’s eyes opened blearily in Genji’s arms and she curled against him.

“Hello, sunshine,” said Genji, cuddling her close.

“And she… wasn’t any trouble?” said Mercy.

“She is incredibly receptive,” said Zenyatta.

Rei’s eyes flicked from Genji to Zenyatta. 

“Natta!” she said, reaching her chubby little hands toward Zenyatta.

“’Natta’ indeed, little one,” said Zenyatta, extending a transcendance hand and wiggling his fingers in her face and letting her grab them.

“Master, I think you’re Natta,” said Genji.

“I am?” said Zenyatta before clearing his throat, “Yes. I’m Natta. I knew that.” 

[blackstonegriddle]

Best Blackstone Griddle Reviews

heavy-duty cooking surface for versatility and durability. Runs on propane. Occasionally during shipping, a bit of moisture may land on the cooking surface or another piece of metal may rub against the surface, causing a bit of a rough patch. Use a Scotch bright pad to scrub away any surface rust or rough spots. Propane griddles are the hottest thing in cooking right now and here at Timber2Table, we love our Blackstone. From burgers to breakfast, a good griddle will sear, steam or make a mean hibachi-style meal. Don’t get lazy and forget to clean up after yourself.

The Amazon reviews are a skewed data set as they cover both the 22 inch griddle and the 17 inch portable griddle. The only reviews for this griddle are on the Walmart website. Here is a summary of the 51 reviews as of June 14, 2020.

If you buy a griddle with a stand, make sure the stand or legs are foldable.

The fat drips down and, in that way, creates extra smoke and flavor.

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It’s better to cook something juicy and spread it all over the surface to let the grease set in, leaving your Blackstone griddle sticky after seasoning.

This is asking for trouble as the combination of water, air and steel will inevitably lead to rust.

They have expanded dramatically and have a couple of bestsellers in their lineup. Season your steak with salt and pepper, and place on the grill. I have a few recipes to check out if you happen to be looking for ideas on what to put on top of your flat top grill steaks.  Read More Electric Grill

Since purchasing our Blackstone 36 griddle, we’ve come up with several recipes to make. Give our cinnamon roll pancakes a try on your own griddle. Delivering a finished product to everyone at the same time is easier to achieve when you have up to 36 inches to cook on. Hi it’s Kate of Kate's Curious Kitchen, I wanted to show you how much food actually fits on the Blackstone Products griddles. I put a little bit of this Blackstone Griddle and Cast Iron Conditioner on it. I buffed it off with a cotton cloth and put it on the stove to cook it on there. First things first, this is a great way to season cast iron skillets.

Top 10 Best Blackstone Griddle Reviews In 2021

To remove your old seasoning and resurface your griddle top, I recommend purchasing our Griddle Refurbishment Kit or 8 Piece Cleaning Kit . Here’s a helpful video on how to restore a damaged griddle top—whether that damage be rust or peeling seasoning. It also goes over basic maintenance to help protect your seasoning in the future. The other day it was 25 degrees and the wind was blowing with gust up to 20 mph. The cheep thin material did not hold up very well as it ripped to pieces. So if you get one of these griddles, plan on buying a new cover for it cuz the one that comes with it is worthless.  Also Read Blackstone Griddle Reviews

Rinse the cooking area thoroughly once this is all done and dry the griddle with a soft cloth. Finally, add a little oil over the surface and spread it with another paper towel to stop rust from forming.

How Should The Griddle Be Cleaned?

Well-built, easy to use, and impressively efficient, it should be your top contender if you love outdoor cooking. Make sure your meat is properly seasoned with salt and pepper, and then toss the steaks on the grill. Get a nice light brown “crust” to each side, and then you can bring the heat down to about 350 degrees f to allow for the inside to cook. The Blackstone Griddle is a great way to perfectly cook a steak.

Its thick cold rolled steel cooktop ensures heat distribution; thus, you get evenly cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner items each time. We hope you will explore some of the amazing Blackstone griddle recipes that are out there. In fact, Blackstone has mountains of recipesto get you started. Cooking with a Blackstone griddle is a ton of fun, and it's always interesting to see the different ways you can make meals on a single grill or griddle.

To remove grease, combine warm water and a few drops of vinegar in a small bowl. If rust has started to develop on your grill’s surface, don’t fret. Remove the burner guards and simply soak them in warm water, and use a sponge to wipe them down.

Some of our favorite recipes for griddle cooking are simple to make and only take a few minutes. A griddle can get extremely hot, but you can also use zone cooking and water dishes to create cooking zones.

[unik0rnu]

Harrison’s data file;

Pre-war -  Lucy’s Boss in charge of giving out jobs from gangs and his personal tasks

Current occupation - supernatural being and second in charge of Nuka World in case of Lucy and Gage missing, also a tactical leader for fellow raiders

__________________________

Appearance - Very tall and well built man in his late 40′s, with a dark skin, strong green eyes hidden under thick heavy black eyebrows and worn out face wearing a long scar on his left side after last re-assemble in lab as well as some light burns saturating his skin dark red. Short, dim black hair falling in grey shade, shaved on sides in a perfect smooth manner along with a pair of moustache and beard crawling up from them to the sides that he shaves from time to time. 

Past -  Early retired skilled police officer, after a tragic car explosion accident he was a victim of a secret Institute experiment turning him into a body with a synth like skeleton powered by the energy of his soul successfully extracted from him before death. After escaping the facility and waiting over he took a job as a private investigator being a coverage for his criminal activity.

From the moment of experiment he stopped aging. His human shell requiring only some adjustments from time to time as it decays over time.

Character - Generally very calm and stoic man, always professional and showing culture even in argument. Sharp as a tip of a knife be it his glare or academic way of speaking along with rich swears he learned in raider environment. Despite that he is extremely protective and caring of his companions, showing soft side of himself to those he can call friends. Very rarely jokes or smiles but when it happens it always brightens his gang’s mood. His serious appearance doesn’t always reflect his emotional side. Despite not being a human anymore on the outside he still remained the same person he was before the experiment, wearing the same body that died with him.    

Combat - has very sharp mind and can still prove a very dangerous man in a sparring. He also studied psychology and some martial arts. This man is no joke even if society remembers him just as a wrecked retired policeman and overall unpleasant man. Always wears a long bullet resistant coat and a round hat with a pre-war classic vest and shirt like base. Usually equipped with a solid double revolver like pistol. His endurance is exceptionally high but has a soft spots which is head always covered with bulletproof hat and center of his chest. Mostly weaker against electric/plasma like weaponry. He is very tactical and organized opponent being able to scan the environment in matter of second to predict many outcomes and come with the best solution. He posses a set of supernatural skills like a telekinesis and object manipulation and being able to burn enemies to dust when in rage state - consuming them by a bright green smoke like cloud that is extending from his soul trapped within his body.   

Factions - he doesn’t care for any cause other than protecting his fellow current company but avoids the Institute with much caution due to what he is, not wanting to end up in a laboratory against his will or being hunted again. To his bad luck Lucy is steering some deals with the above but she keeps his secret safe. He is overall man of justice but on the dark side of the table.

Extra data:

- He survived the bombs after Lucy shot him in the Sanctuary before escaping. The experiment allowed him to follow her to cryo chamber just in a soul form, being locked with her for 200 years where she became his host after the pod got opened. After the events took a bloody turn in Nuka World between her and disciples he found his way back to reality, breaking from her and possesing a nearby scrap synth skeleton and saving her life. 

- He still keeps the pre-war habits of keeping himself perfectly shaved and clean along with his wardrobe, be it casual or combat one. 

- He is surprisingly good at whistling, using it as a combat signs between Lucy and Gage or just relaxing the atmosphere

- He doesn’t need to sleep but will quite often fall into a meditation trans, keeping himself calm and balanced mentally to keep his powers in check as they are steered by the urge of his current desire. 

- He avoids spending too much time around people as he fears they might suspect and question his humanity. 

- Personally dislikes Gage at the beginning but as they spend more time they start to tolerate and help each other. 

- As the time passes and he gains respect of Nuka World gangs and raiders he continuously trains. Later on becomes the second in charge and the local “General”.

- Before the bombs he fell in a fatal love trap with Feit despite trying to keep their relations only work like. After his come back to Nuka World their relations are continuing to be weirdly romantic like but keeps his distance due to Gage’s presence and some morality.

__________________

[inked-foundry]

untitled

~2K words

cyberpunk worldbuilding drabble

Ceres had always hated crawling her way to Janus’s base of operations—or that was what he called this excuse of an office space, for lack of a better term. Not that he bothered to treat it in any professional manner. It was holed away in one of the many dark alleys of the Crescent Market, the walls of gleaming onyx encroaching further on Ceres’s personal space as she continued, until she could feel the buildings brush into each side of her already narrow frame. All for the metallic door at the end.

He’d sealed it on all sides, no way to pry a crowbar or more advanced tool into the threshold. Ceres cursed under her breath. Janus better have been home, because she did not drag her ass out in the pouring rain for no good reason.

She slammed the side of her fist against the door. No response. 

That bastard better not have been asleep, or drunk, or sleeping off his most recent drunken antics. He was one sappy excuse of a fence. Shame he was the only one in this corner of the city with no corporate associations, the only one who couldn’t pin Ceres for…

She shook her head, damp dark hair scattering droplets over her face. If Janus wouldn’t respond to a classic slam to the door, maybe a message or two would convince him to come to the door. The door he went out of the way to airlock.

Ceres reached for her communicator in her pocket—

Only to hear the stoic click of the lock. Her eyes shot to the door handle, watching as it cautiously turned. The silhouette of a face peeked through, just beyond the chain of the lock. Whoever happened to be behind the door raised an eyebrow.

The chain came undone. Door flinging open, Ceres was forced to take a step back. She had her usual spiel in mind. She’d make sure Janus was sober enough to ask questions, make sure he didn’t have any other clients to deal with, make sure of everything. Even though she was the con artist and not the organizer.

Though the minute she saw a genuine person, and not a texted message or unbiased data sheet, Ceres’s voice crawled into her throat. But Janus hadn’t even bothered to open the door for himself.

Instead was a stranger of a woman. She had a face that might have been all too familiar to one of the districts of the Crescent Market. But any work here was about to be finished.

The stranger continued to raise her eyebrow. “May I help you?”

Janus requested to have a meeting with me, after explicitly inviting me to his own abode, for this specific time. And our presences happen to be intervening right about now, and fairly inconveniently. That was what Ceres wanted to say, perhaps a bit more eloquently.

Instead, her face turned uncomfortably warm. She pointed inside and managed to choke up, “Janus.” When all she got in response was an odd look, she managed to choke up, “Is… is Janus in there?”

The stranger opened her mouth—

A lackadaisical, half-conscious voice muttered over the shoulder blocking the only entrance, “Oh, shit. Is that Cer at the door?”

  Looking down at Ceres, the stranger still managed to keep her eyebrow lifted. It was frankly impressive. And simultaneously intimidating. Though it was a look enough, a question in its own right, just to verify Ceres’s identity.

This was her chance. This was one of Ceres’s few opportunities to impose herself upon Janus, to demand a little more respect than he usually gave in their correspondences. He always treated their agreements with chronic forgetfulness and damn well obnoxious brief notice.

Instead, Ceres got on her toes and chimed, “Y-Yeah…! It’s me. Hello.”

“Damn it, we ran over time.” Janus hadn’t even come into view yet, and Ceres could already hear his typical bumbling. Bits of metal crashed together. Chairs were dragged across the floor. “Andromeda, I’ve got another client, if you’ve got your stuff together…”

“I’m on my way out.” The stranger—Andromeda—sighed. She tugged a hood over her hair, pressing the door open further. Which forced Ceres into the outdoor wall. Andromeda strided out, only pausing once to turn to Ceres and offer, “Good luck.”

Then the stranger was on her way.

Ceres tried to take a deep breath through her nose. It was one encounter with an unknown, and she’d been alright. Maybe she’d embarrassed herself slightly. But this wasn’t the end of times, and she had access to Janus.

Janus. She cursed and turned heel, managing to curl her nails into the threshold before the door could swing shut entirely. Though it did crash into her knuckles. Ceres bit her lip to stave off a scream, one that would wake the city, one that could alert the few legal businesses in the Crescent Market to Janus’s little nook.

The same person who helped inch open the door again. “Cer, you’re going to forgive me again. I was out looking for new clients, and I just happened to run into an old friend of mine, and we—”

“I don’t… I’m not interested if you shared a pipe of Lunar Dust.” Ceres gripped both of her elbows, trying to hide her shivering. Trying to hide how bitterly cold the rain was. Or fight off her own nervousness. “Could… could you?”

She didn’t have to finish the question. Janus’s wide eyes like bubblegum in the dim neon lighting the alley, accompanying his expression as he insisted, “Get on in here. No reason to be standing out in the rain.”

He wrapped an arm about her shoulders with one hand, closing the door behind them with the other. The rain was gone. The awkward closeness of the alley was gone, the constant fear of garnering the Skylight’s attention was gone.

Ceres wanted to stay mad. It was just incredibly, ridiculously hard to maintain that anger when Janus fumbled for a stronger light by the counter, the taller young man flinching as the overhead bulb turned blinding.

Janus was far from professional from this angle. His head brushed against the low ceiling, and he was built like a day laborer—strong from simply carrying out his work, but never pursuing a frame beyond that. Everything else about him was haph-hazardly complete. Copper hair was tied back in a loose bun, the stubble on his face still a ghost of the time he’d attempted a beard. Sandals left dents in his thick carpet instead of the normal boots. Hell, he was wearing a cropped shirt, the only bit of decency to cover his abdomen being a thin jacket and oversized sweatpants.

But when he smiled, everything felt a little easier. It reminded her that the entire place did smell like burnt Lunar Dust: sickly sweet, with a touch of rose, and a general sense of intoxication. Not that Ceres had ever smoked the stuff. Or at least, not much of it.

Though it had Janus in a ravenous mood. “I’m going to make some fried eggs and pork belly. Managed to snatch some of the high quality stuff off the Market, as a favor.” He meandered to his narrow stovetop, reaching into the cabinet for a pan. “Want any?”

Ceres really shouldn’t have been eating at her fence’s house. It would make them too familiar, diminish the responsibilities that the two of them had in this festering underbelly of the city.

She shrugged. “I could eat.”

Janus was already making quick work, pulling cartons and plastic packaging from a miniature fridge beneath the counter. It was going to be aromatic as hell. Though Ceres couldn’t be distracted by the environment, couldn’t be distracted by anything. This was business. Janus may have had loyalties to other clients, and they could start at any moment, and he could hand her over to some competing corporation. Or those same corporate militants could knock down the door any minute.

But Ceres’s mind was already wandering, eyes glazing over the sparse rooms of the tiny apartment. They weren’t even separated by doors; everything was soft and inoffensive, with the alcoves separated by gauzy muslin curtains. She was half tempted to take off her boots, if only to revel in the carpet beneath her.

No. She was here for business.

“So…” Ceres swung her heel. “You called me in?”

Janus turned the knob on the stove, the flames at first reluctant in starting. “Yeah. I got an email from… I think it was from the Wayfarer Corporation? Something about taking out their rival’s heiress. Or princess.” He scratched the back of his head. “What do they call them these days?”

“Wayfarer has an heir—they’re not involved with governing.” Ceres furrowed her brow, reminding her of the dew that was still hanging over her face. “The only one that has a princess… that’s Equinox.”

Equinox Amalgamated. The company that had arrived on this hellhole of a planet recently—less than a century ago—then proceeded to assume all the other factions. It was a miracle that other corporations like Wayfarer managed to eke out a life.

And it was that same guppy as a company that wanted to take out the princess of Equinox Amalgamated. Ceres could already feel her chest tighten, knowing that there was no way in hell that she could do this on her own. She couldn’t con her way into Equinox. Much less out.

“Can… can I see the message?”

Janus was already cracking an egg into the pan, his body language as calm as ever, as if he didn’t just announce that Ceres could possibly be the top public enemy in the coming days. “Left it open on the computer by my bed.”

Ceres sprinted across the carpet, muddy footprints behind her, the only thing before her being the curtain she tossed aside. And of course Janus couldn’t bother to make his bed. All Ceres could do was shake her head, dropping into his chair, squeaking slightly when she dropped too low. Of course. He was tall, and she was too short for this damn chair—

She shook her head. These were ridiculous thoughts for a ridiculous girl, and right now, she had to make sure that Janus had his information correct. Ceres reached down and jolted the seat of the chair upwards.

Greeting her on the screen was a few simple lines of text, in a particularly plain window. It didn’t look like there were any security measures besides the fact it was sent over a secure network.

To: J. Volta

[No Message Line]

We know you provide certain services, Janus. If you can provide them, we will pay you and your third party hires rather handsomely. We are looking to secure the princess of Equinox Amalgamated. If it means anything, your payment will come directly from her safe capture.

Respond if interested.

Best regards,

The Wayfarer Corporation

Ceres’s heart dropped into her stomach. She read the message again—then again, and again, and again. That couldn’t be it. Wayfarer couldn’t just drop such a pricey job right in front of him, costing both money and blood.

She wasn’t sure how long she stared at the message. All she knew was there was the soft shuffle of fabric as Janus pushed aside the curtains, sidling up besides her, setting a fork and a plate on the desk beside her. In his other hand he held a burning pipe.

“They want me… to risk my life. I’m risking my life with Equinox.” Ceres shook her head furiously, almost on the verge of laughter. This was ridiculous! “I can’t do this… not… not by myself, anyways?”

The money had to be good. Except was it worth her life, in any manner?

“I’ve got other hires, if you need a crew,” Janus reminded. He took a long drag off his pipe, pointing to the plate he’d set down. Smoke curled out of his math as he insisted, “Though I don’t think you should be making big decisions on an empty stomach.”

Ceres shouldn’t have been making decision like this at all.

She got to her feet, muttering to herself. A moment later, she ripped the pipe from his hand, from his mouth. A long drag of Lunar Dust was much needed. It tasted as sweet as its perfume that had made its way around the room.

This might have been the last time she got to relax until the mission was over.

Though admittedly, she had to live through it first.

[eeyore101247]

Are You Trying To Kill Us?!

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Roommate AU Prompt: New roommate cooks alone for the first time and almost burns down the house (@americanbeautiies)

Warnings: Fluff, fluff, and more fluff

1,541 words

Masterlist

You groaned as you looked over your scattered notes and lab data sheets. You had a major lab due soon, and you were struggling to get it typed up. Nothing seemed to make sense in your data, and it didn’t seem to support your hypothesis, no matter how many times you rewrote it. Maybe you just weren’t approaching it right, or maybe you were looking at it all wrong. After 5 hours of staring blankly at the numbers and words littering the pages, you had come no closer to a resolution.

Your pencil snapped underneath your stressed grip, and you cursed under your breath. Dropping the broken pieces, you sighed, running your fingers through your (Y/H/C) hair, messing it up even further. You were getting nowhere with your work, and it was only frustrating you more. It didn’t exactly help that in the last hour, your new roommate had decided to start banging around pots and pans in the kitchen.

You groaned as a particularly loud thud came from down the hall. You buried your face in your hands; you didn't even want to know what Peter was up to. There was something weird about him, but ever since your last roommate just sorta disappeared, you needed help with the rent. Within a week of putting up a post, Peter Parker had showed up at your door with a sheepish smile on his face, stuttering over his words as he asked if the offer was still open.

It had been a crazy couple months since he had moved in. He was rarely around, always sneaking into the apartment in the dead of night. You swore you heard him talking to himself occasionally when you walked past his room. On the days he was home, he would be rushing to get homework or studying done. Sometimes, you were able to convince him to stay home and watch movies for a night so the two of you could relax. Those nights were always fun and where you really got to know the adorably nerdy dork you lived with. Your favorite nights were the ones where the two of you would stay up late trying to binge watch all the Star Wars movies. You always managed to fall asleep halfway through, but Peter never seemed to mind. 

One time, you had faked it, having been curious how you always ended up in your bed. As you laid across the couch, pretending to be asleep, you heard Peter start to make a comment then stop. A soft chuckle came from him, the sound of the movie coming to a stop as his presence on the couch disappeared. It wasn’t long before you felt his arms slide under your back and knees, gently picking you up bridal style and carrying you to your bedroom. Your mind raced, wondering if he did this every time you fell asleep during movie nights. You soon felt the softness of your bed, and the warmth of his arms disappeared as he pulled away. You stayed still and waited for the sound of your door shutting, but you had to suppress a shutter when you felt a soft pair of lips press against your forehead. Peter mumbled a soft 'goodnight' before his footsteps left and the door shut behind him.

You were pulled out of your thoughts by the high pitched sound of the smoke alarm and the scent of smoke filling your nose. Eyes wide, you quickly pushed away from your desk, hurrying to the kitchen to see what was happening. You heard the clash of pots, followed by muttered curses and the sound of something being sprayed. As you round the corner, you saw Peter standing in the kitchen, fire extinguisher in hand as he sprayed it at the flames that consumed whatever was in the pan.

“Peter! Are you trying to kill us?!” You yelled as you ran into the kitchen, grabbing a dish towel and trying to smother the flames since the extinguisher didn’t seem to be working. You managed to put out the fire, releasing a breath you didn’t know you were holding. In the pan, sat the remnants of a pancake, though by the smell, something hadn’t been right with the batter to begin with. With a sigh, you brought your attention to the batter mixture to your left, leaning over and giving it a sniff.

Yep, something is definitely not right with that batter.

You bite back a gag as you turned around to face Peter. His head hung as he stared at the floor sheepishly. A trail of bright red led from the tips of his ears down across his cheeks. You could tell he was embarrassed by the way his shoulders hunched forward like many of the other times you’d caught him in weird situations. You let out a sigh, walking over and giving him a smile.

“It’s fine Peter. You were trying to do something nice. I get it.” You said softly, resting your hand on his shoulder and giving it a gentle squeeze. He relaxed under your touch, letting out a breath before looking up at you.

“So you aren’t mad at me for almost burning down the apartment?” He asked softly, his gaze hopeful and pleading. He looked similar to a sad puppy, pleading for forgiveness from its owner. You crumbled beneath that look, shaking your head slightly as you dropped your hand back to your side.

“I’m not mad Pete. What matters is that you and I are both ok.” You said with a smile, turning around and starting to clean up the mess. You heard Peter scramble behind you to help, quickly picking up the ruined batter and dumping it in the trash. 

“Wanna just get take out?” You asked, looking over at him with a smile. He gave a small nod, his gorgeous brown eyes meeting yours. 

“Yea, um, sure.” He stuttered, giving you a goofy smile before focusing on helping you clean. You couldn’t help but smile at his adorably dorky personality, remembering all the Star Wars stuff in his room. Several action figures and other collectibles always littered his room, his collection ever growing as he start collecting Funko Pop figures. His Lego Death Star he said he built with his best friend Ned, sat securely propped up on his large desk, the Millenium Falcon decorating the other side.

You watched out of the corner of your eye as he wiped his hands off on a Star Wars towel he got off Amazon, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “Pizza?”

“Pizza sounds good.” 

He nodded in response, dialing the number and walking off, putting in your order. You watched him walk off, admiring the toned muscles in his back that you could see through his shirt. For as dorky of a guy he was, he was extremely fit and good looking. One of the many reasons you had fallen for your roommate. You would never admit that secret though, knowing he would never feel the same way about you. 

You knew plenty of his secrets, though it was by complete accident. He didn’t know you knew though, having only caught him when his back was turned or he was too distracted. You knew how much he missed his aunt, having caught him looking at her picture several times. You’d also caught him doing impressions of the Avengers in a mirror, which always caused you to giggle. You’d also seen a lycra suit in his laundry one day, but you didn’t say anything. Of course, it explained his late nights and sudden disappearances. It also explained his fast reflexes whenever you tripped over your own feet. 

You remembered one particular spill you'd taken not too long ago - one that had changed how you felt for the adorable brunette. You were returning home after a particularly long day. Your bag had broke, leaving you to carry all of your textbooks and folders in your arms. By the time you had reached your apartment, your arms ached and legs shaking a bit from having to stabilize all this weight without the support of the handrail. You had managed to finagle the door open, gently pushing it further with your foot as you stepped in, but with your luck, you stumbled over one of your shoes sitting by the door, your books tumbling out of your arms and to the floor. You squeezed your eyes shut, expecting the painful collision with the hardwood floor, but it never came. Instead, you had felt two strong arms wrap around your waist, catching you before you could fall to the floor. The strong scent of a familiar cologne had filled your nostrils, heart fluttering in your chest as his warmth soaked through to your very core.

You let out a sigh as you set the now clean dishes in the cabinet, turning around and smiling as you saw Peter sitting on the couch, heart fluttering in your chest.

You had fallen in love with Spider-Man, and didn’t know what the hell to do about it. But padding across the living room to plunk down next to him on the couch seemed like a pretty good place to start.

AN: Ahhhhhh! This is has been sitting in my finished work for a while and I’ve been kinda hesitant about posting it, but here it is! Thank you so much Carrie (@spidey-waffles11) and Anna (@softspideyboy) for betaing this!

Thank you for reading!

~ LoLo *^-^*

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[mechatherium]

What the heck is a Tully Monster, anyway?

Not to be confused with Telly Monster.

An older reconstruction of T. gregarium by Stanton F. Fink. (source)

Last month I wrote a post on Illinois’ State Fossil, the enigmatic Tullimonstrum gregarium. I promised a future post where I planned to explain how an international team of scientists from Texas and the UK finally figured out what branch on the Tree of Life the infamous “Tully Monster” belongs on.

Alas, such is not the case. Let me explain.

Ever since Francis Tully brought the first specimen in to Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History, paleontologists have tried to discover what sort of animal T. gregarium was. It’s not for lack of material; unlike most fossil organisms, thousands of Tully monsters have been recovered from the Carboniferous Mazon Creek formation in Illinois.

And these creatures are preserved in exquisite detail; Mazon Creek is what is called a Lagerstätte: a rare fossil bed where organisms are so well preserved in fine detail that traces of soft parts are visible. (Other examples include the famous Cambrian-age Burgess Shale in Canada described in loving detail in Steven J. Gould’s Wonderful Life and the Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone in Germany that yielded the stem bird Archaeopteryx lithographica.) Good thing, too, as as Tully monsters have no hard parts—no bones, no shell, no exoskeleton.

Even with this wealth of well-preserved material, paleontologists have had a devil of a time trying to classify tullies as a particular kind of animal; the animal was so specialized in its construction it lacks any obvious features that clearly link it a known animal group. As a result over the years tullies have been classified as chordates (animals with notochords—our group), mollusks, annelids (segmented worms, including earthworms), conodonts (another once-enigmatic fossil group, later identified as chordates), and even a descendant of the stem-arthropod Opabinia.

In what I thought was the final answer to “what the heck are these things?” earlier this decade, two different teams of scientists led by Thomas Clements and Victoria McCoy from the University of Leicester in England made comprehensive studies of Tullimonstrum fossils with the latest tools, including scanning electron microscopes and high-powered particle accelerators.

Clements studied the structure of the tully eye, specifically the structure and arrangement of protective pigment structures called melanosomes in the cells of its retina that preserve very well in Lagerstätte fossils; McCoy took thousands of tully fossils to Argonne National Laboratory to use their  particle accelerators like super-powered CAT scanners, trying to image the animals’ internal structures.

In 2016 they released their results, declaring Tully monsters not just chordates, but vertebrates, jawless fish related to living lampreys.

I thought that would be the end of it. Frank Tully’s mystery solved at last. Alas, science often doesn’t work like that.

Humans, you see, are really good at convincing ourselves of things. We build models in our minds to try to understand how the universe works. The problem comes when those models don’t accurately reflect how the universe actually works. Worse, our minds are wired with a tendency to automatically reject evidence that our models don’t reflect reality.

The beauty of science is it’s a constant testing and re-testing of our models against reality, not just by one lone genius but by many people, many groups—the more, the better. The more and harder our ideas of how the Universe works are tested, the more certain we can be the models that survive are an accurate description of how the world actually works.

When I went to refresh myself on my sources Saturday night I ran across an article that led me to this piece in The Conversation published November 11, 2019: “The mysterious ‘Tully Monster’ fossil just got more mysterious.” Trying to find a link to the scientific paper, I ran across an earlier article in phys.org, “‘Tully monster’ mystery is far from solved, group argues,” published in 2017.

The 2017 article describes a paper in the journal Paleontology (not linked, but here’s a UPenn press release) where a team led by assistant professor Lauran Sallan went through the Clements and McCoy papers and found major flaws in their reasoning.

First, Sallan and her team point out that the Mazon Creek formation was a marine environment, an ancient sea bed. Lagerstätte or no, that has major effects on fossil preservation. “In the marine rocks you just see soft tissues,” she says in the press release, “you don’t see much internal structure preserved.”

Next, they point out there were lampreys living with Tully monsters in that same ecosystem; their fossils are found with the tullies, in the same rock layers. And, according to Sallan, et. al, their fossils don’t look a thing like the tullies’.

Then they point out vertebrates were hardly the only animal group to evolve eyes. Eyes, of whatever level of complexity, are found in about every major animal group. And, according to Sallan, tully eyes weren’t that complex; Sallan’s group asserts Tullimonstrum had a simpler form of eye called a cup eye, like those found in many mollusks, nautiluses, some worms—and some primitive chordates.

If tullies had cup eyes, they could not have been vertebrates, however primitive. All known vertebrates, living and fossil, have complex eyes with lenses; there are some groups that lost their eyes secondarily, like some cave fish, but none have ever simplified the design.

Finally, Sallan points out that if tullies had been vertebrates, McCoy should have found two specific structures found in aquatic vertebrates—and only in vertebrates. The first are otic capsules, structures in the inner ear that provide the sense of balance (we have them; we call them the semicircular canals). The other is a lateral line; a sensory structure found in all fish and many amphibians but lost in land vertebrates. Lampreys have both otic capsules and lateral lines; if Tully monsters were really lamprey relatives, as McCoy asserts, her team should have found them in the thousands of fossils they examined.

The 2019 conversation article was written by paleobiologist Chris Rogers from the University College Cork in Ireland. In it, he describes his own work on comparing the structure and chemistry of tully eyes to those of other animals, both vertebrates and invertebrates. Specifically, he focused on their melanosomes, like Thomas Clements did.

Clements claimed the structure and arrangement of melanosomes in tully eyes was the same as in vertebrates, leading him to put Tullimonstrum among the chordates. Rogers tested that claim with a two-pronged approach. First, he studied and compared melanosome structure and arrangement in living and fossil invertebrates with large, complex eyes, finding that some invertebrates, like cephalopods, had similar melanosome arrangements, and that these can be found in fossils as well.

Rogers concluded the arrangement of melanosomes in Tullimonstrum eyes isn’t enough to prove it was a chordate.

Next, he took a page from McCoy’s book, using high-powered X-ray beams generated by particle accelerators at the California’s Stamford University to analyze the chemical makeup of traces of melanin left in fossil tully eyes.

Rogers’ team analyzed melanin in living animals, finding a slight but consistent chemical difference between vertebrates and invertebrates; we vertebrates have a higher ration of zinc to copper in our melanin than invertebrates do. When they used Stamford’s accelerator to analyze melanin traces in fossils of known vertebrates and invertebrates found at Mazon Creek they found the same difference. When Tullimonstrum fossils were finally put under the X-rays Rogers and his team found the traces of melanin left in their fossils’ eyes was more like that of invertebrates.

Rogers is careful to say that this does not prove the Tully monster was not a vertebrate, merely that Clements’ and McCoy’s analyses aren’t the “smoking gun” the popular science press of the time thought they were.

So the mystery remains, the debates continue, and that’s okay. Because that how science happens. Now Clements and McCoy may go over the data they collected some more and answer the concerns raised by Sallan and Rogers. Maybe Clements can show that tully eyes were built just like those of fish, as opposed to the superficially similar eyes of say, cephalopods. Maybe McCoy will go over the thousands of tully fossil X-rays and find otic capsules and lateral lines—or show that contemporaneous vertebrate fossils don’t preserve those either. Perhaps someone will point out flaws in Sallan and Rogers’ work, I don’t know.

Hopefully, what will happen is as these and other scientists look more and more closely at Tully monster fossils, sooner or later they will find some feature—some anatomical or biochemical clue that will point us toward tully origins, and maybe perhaps some living relatives.

Sorry about the wall of text. I’ll try to make my next posting a bit shorter.

References:

Clements, T., Dolocan, A., Martin, P. et al. The eyes of Tullimonstrum reveal a vertebrate affinity. Nature 532, 500–503 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17647

McCoy, V., Saupe, E., Lamsdell, J. et al. The ‘Tully monster’ is a vertebrate. Nature 532, 496–499 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature16992

Baillie, Katherine Unger. “'Tully Monster' Mystery Is Far From Solved, Penn-Led Group Argues.” Penn Today, University of Pennsylvania, 20 Feb. 2017, https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/tully-monster-mystery-far-solved-penn-led-group-argues.

Rogers, Chris. “The Mysterious 'Tully Monster' Fossil Just Got More Mysterious.” The Conversation, 11 Nov. 2019, https://theconversation.com/the-mysterious-tully-monster-fossil-just-got-more-mysterious-126531.

[hermit-writes]

Chase the Morning

Art by @pimentogirl​

Summary

In the fallout of their Shadow rebellion, things have been hazy for the Winchesters. The black mark on their name wasn’t unexpected, but bracing for impact doesn’t lessen the pain.

In the new status quo, Sam struggles.  He wants to prove that he can pull his weight and, in his own way, shine.  Easier said than done when one of the things he needs to break is his brother’s overprotective instincts.

An impossible task – built on more myth than fact – might allow him to do just that. Or it might lead him to a fall he can’t climb back from.

Read on AO3

Tags

AU – Shadowrun fusion, AU – Altered Carbon fusion, Technomancer!Sam, Matrix, Cyberpunk, Dystopia, Bobby Singer Lives, Charlie Bradbury Lives, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, Overdose, Near Death Experience, Sam isn’t having a good time, dub-con kissing, memories, hurt/comfort, there is only one bed, no plan ever survives initial contact, Roshambo, altered carbon stacks, self-sacrifice, mature

Excerpt:

The images sped up, floating and twinkling like the misfiring of lights on a gaudy Christmas tree. Sam snatched one, freezing the frame as the others continued to tick by, carefully labelling it and setting the snippet aside. Video surveillance was tedious and only ever made bearable via proper documentation. As it was, Sam was stretched as wide as he could get, smoke tendrils creeping into low-security systems until he had a dozen eyes unblinking over a sector of the city. Two of the windows flickered and went black, having run out of recorded data. Sam closed them and pulled himself back, looking for new viewpoints. The smoke recoiled and swirled back into his body like a slow exhale being run in reverse

“Found her on Pine & 5th Ave.” Charlie’s voice made Sam look up. She pushed a cube of video his way, her expression inscrutable beneath the painted porcelain of the noh mask she wore. The raven feathers of her cloak flared as she settled next to him. Sam caught a glimpse of the bright stars swirling beneath the soft darkness. The cloak was bigger on the inside, and not everyone who dove into its depths came back out. Charlie had turned part of her persona into a gateway to her own private host. She’d let him glimpse the framework of it, and the sheer complexity had left him dizzy.

“Thanks. I was hoping to get more footage before she vanished in the Ork Underground.”

Charlie laughed, and though her expression didn’t change, her tone was both proud and triumphant. “Behold! Oh, ye of little faith!” Her hair billowed in unseen wind, bright red and long, tracing elegant curves modelled after the sun’s corona. A second crystal cube joined the first, the image on this one closer, less stable than the surveillance cameras Sam had been tracking. It moved and bounced, focusing on objects and people as it walked down the tunnel and through the checkpoints.