#if nobody uses my drag ideas I will be forced to go to an amateur night and do them my fucking self

[deer-trees]

Drag mix of Bounce With Me in which a drag king gets frustrated with his tits getting in the way of his number and performs top surgery on himself mid-song. Hello. Is anyone listening to me.

[ornii]

My Better Bitter Half, Part 9

Part 9: Pilgrimage

“Let's assess, shall we? Bag over my head for optimal disorientation, wrists tied tight enough to cut off circulation, and no idea if I'm going to live or die. It's definitely my kind of party.”

(Y/n) and Wednesday, twins were bagged and dragged into a dark decrepit hole unbeknownst of their location.

“Who dares breach our inner sanctum?” A haunting voice comes out, their masks were suddenly taken off as they look around, and realize they’re still in the library.

“You can take the mask off, Bianca.” Wednesday says.

“And just like that, my hopes were dashed against the rocks of bitter disappointment. My foe was no psychotic killer. More like a bunch of high school clowns.” Wednesday thinks as they remove their masks

“Wait, I preferred you with it on.” Wednesday said.

“How did you get down here?” One asks

“Rowan” (Y/n) chimes in. “She tracked the watermark to the Poe statue. Then I solved the riddle.”

“Wait, there's a riddle?” One asks, “I thought we just snapped twice.”

“Wow, absolute Einstein here” (y/n) says with his burning sarcasm.

“The Nightshades are an elite social club.

Emphasis on elite.” Bianca said.

“We have roof parties, campouts, the occasional midnight skinny-dip. And Yoko's an amateur mixologist. She makes a killer virgin mojito. It can get pretty wild.” One girl adds in.

“Wow. Do you guys even have a bedtime?” Wednesday said with her cold sarcasm

“Last I heard, the Nightshades had been disbanded.” (Y/n) said.

“Yeah, the group kind of lost its charter 30 years ago after some normie kid died.” Xavier says

“But we have a lot of wealthy alumni, so Weems looks the other way as long as nobody makes any waves.”

“Someone like Rowan?” Wednesday adds in.

“We booted that loser last semester. Question is, what are we gonna do with them? Only members are allowed in this library.” Bianca says, and Xavier comes up with an idea.

“I say we invite them to pledge. They’re Addams, both legacy.” He explains.

“After the crap they pulled in the Poe Cup, there's no way in hell.”

“Are you mad we beat you at your own game? Let me save you the trouble glow fish.” He stands up and reveals his undone bindings.

“I'm not interested in joining, and I’m sure my sister isn’t.”

“You're seriously turning us down?” One says.

“Yes Because your little social club is so inviting.” He walks to the door, but is stopped by Kent, the mermaid and the twin of Divina.

“If you think the little burns you had at the Cup were bad, I’ll fillet you alive, get out of my way.” (Y/n) says with such unnerving calmness, Kent awkwardly side stepped and (Y/n) turned to Wednesday.

“When you’re done toying with them, let me know.” He heads up the flight of stairs to leave his more than capable sister there.

Minutes later he’s awaiting at the gate of the school, and his sister arrives.

“Good, you’re done playing with them, we can figure out our next move.” (Y/n) says.

“It seems the Nightshades were a dead end. They’re not capable of murdering Rowan, they’re barely capable of kidnapping two people.”

“Well your Standards are unnaturally high.” He says and nudges his sister, she stares at him and he walks back to his dorm, Wednesday watches her leave.

“There were so many threads to my investigation, I could weave a burial shroud. I still have no idea how Rowan mysteriously rose from the dead. Or why that monster is prowling the woods. But right now, nothing intrigues me more than this book. If I'm going to be responsible for Nevermore's demise, the question is, why am I sharing this apocalypse with a pilgrim?”

The next morning, The Students Are forced to stand at the Quad as Weems gives them the rundown for their Jobs.

“All students will report for their volunteer jobs at 10:00 a.m. sharp, followed by a community lunch at 1:00. As you know, this year Outreach Day culminates in a very special event, the dedication of a new memorial statue in the town square, which will also include performances by Nevermore students. As representatives of our school, I trust you will all put your best face forward.” She says, and hands out slips of paper for the Postions they’ll play. The Addams twins and Enid get theirs.

“Yes! I got Pilgrim World!” Enid says and (Y/n) checks it.

“Me too.” He ways, “I have natural people skills and a love of performing, so it's kind of the obvi choice.” Enid says, and grabs (Y/n)‘s arm.

“We can wear matching clothes!” Enid says smiling, which quickly changes the sullen demeanor of (Y/n). Who smiles.

“ I suppose I don’t hate that…” he says softly, and Enid turns to Wednesday.

“What'd you get?”

“Uriah's Heap, whatever that is.” She said, the students convey to Jericho to assist at Pilgrim world

“Ew. It's this weird, creepy antique store.” Enid says. “You'll love it though. I'm crossing my claws Ajax and I will be outreaching together.” Enid says, which (Y/n)‘s smile quickly Fades.

“Fantastic.” He walks off, and Weems has reached the front and begins.

“Welcome, welcome, Nevermore Academy.

Now, on behalf of the entire Jericho community, we are so, so pleased to have you all here today. Your generosity and hard work are truly... outreachous! Okay, everyone. We'll see you back here at one o'clock for lunch. Enjoy!” Weems says, (Y/n) adjusts his tie, ready to Woo Enid and make her forget about Ajax, as Enid prepares, Wednesday approaches her.

“Enid. Switch volunteer assignments.”

“What? No. Uriah's Heap is definitely not my bag.”

“It's an emergency. I need to check out Pilgrim World.”

“But Wednesday, this is not a fair trade. Why would I agree to spend the entire day at some dumpy emporium of crapola?”

“Because Ajax is volunteering there. Thing sneaked a peek at his assignment. But if you're not interested...” Wednesday begins to retract, but Enid grabs it.

“No! Oh my God, thank you. You're the best!” Enid skips away, (Y/n) stands with the ground, he turns left as he senses the approach of a woman, he turns with a smile to face enid but he unfortunately sees Wednesday.

“Wednesday? Where’s enid? You didn’t hurt you did you?”

“No, she swapped assignments with me.”

“Uh, why?” He asks, “She hates all things creepy.”

“Ajax is working at the Heap. That convinced her.” Wednesday says, (Y/n) was at a loss for words, the anger and disappointment was at a maximum as he lost his chance to possibly sweep Enid off her feet.

“I would have preferred Enid.” He says.

“I still cannot comprehend what you see in Her.”

“You don’t understand the Human emotional spectrum? I’m so shocked.” He says with sarcasm. “I’d like to spend time with women who aren’t related to me, unless you just don’t want Enid to snatch me away from you~”

“You are absurdly full of yourself, She’s After Ajax, do yourself a favor and accept cold reality. Wednesday says, He opens his mouth to say something less than appealing to his sister, but Eugene intervenes.

“Hey, Wednesday, want to grab a Hummers group photo?” He says, standing in the frame and the twins turn to face him, now both of them with the same stone face.

“Guess not.” Eugene says sheepishly as he walks away, suddenly, a woman approached, dressed as a Pilgrim.

“Good morrow, my young Nevermore kin. I am Mistress Arlene. A real OC. Original colonist. Now prithee, put your cell phones on vibrate and make haste, for you are about to travel back in time to the year of our Lord 1625, to Jericho's first pilgrim settlement. Yonder. Behold, the meeting house. Inside is a collection of artifacts related to Jericho's most beloved and pious founder, Joseph Crackstone. And beyond is our privy, America's first gender-neutral restroom.” She says, “Does anyone have a question about the bathrooms?” (Y/n) begins to raise his hand but Wednesday puts it back down.

“I haveth a query.” Wednesday said.

“Pray, be quick, child.”

“In the meeting house, which of Joseph Crackstone's artifacts are on display?”

“It is truly a treasure trove, including original farm tools, tableware, even the Crackstone family chamber pot.”

“Sounds fascinating. My Brother and I volunteer to work in there.”

“Pray, no. That exhibit is being renovated.

Today, thou will all be working at the beating heart of Pilgrim World. Ye olde fudgery!” She says, and shows the children a Fugde production shop

"Ye Olde Fudgery?" (Y/n) says, raising an eyebrow.

“More like ye olde diabetes in a box.” His sister retorts.

“Volunteers, prick up thine ears. Fudge is the lifeblood of our humble community. And samples equal sales, so grab a uniform and a box and make our forefathers proud.” She says. And adults hand out pieces of the uniforms.

“Are these for muzzling tourists?” Wednesday says.

“No, perhaps we can use them for muzzling troublesome siblings.” (Y/n) thinks.

The twins unfortunately put on a perfect facade of creepy pilgrims as (Y/n) stands there with a plate of Fudge, and Wednesday next to him.

“Enjoy your "authentic" pilgrim fudge made with cacao beans procured by the oppressed indigenous people of the Amazon. All proceeds go to uphold this pathetic whitewashing of American history.” She says in fluent German.

(In French) “Also, fudge wasn't invented for another 258 years. But please, continue to fuel this soulless corporation with your money so your children can still call Native Americans “Indians” (Y/n) says in perfect French.

“Any takers?” They say in Union, which creeps out the tourists and they leave. He calmly tosses the plate over his shoulder.

“This is getting ridiculous.” He says, Wednesday looks around and eyes the door she wishes to enter and walks off, (Y/n) follows, eventually the duo reach the door and Wednesday, using her oddly knowledgeable skill of breaking and entering unlocks the door and heads inside, he follows closely and the duo see the house, it was obviously turned into a museum, displaying multiple items

“My grandmother once told me secrets are like zombies... they never truly die. I'm not sure what secret Crackstone is hiding, but I have a strange feeling the answers to my future lie in the past. The Old Meeting House, 1625.”

“(Y/n), this is the girl from my vision. She's even holding the same book. That black one she had outside Crackstone's crypt.” Wednesday says, and (Y/n) turns to see a book on display.

“Codex Umbrarum. Book of Shadows." He opens it, and sees it all Empty. “Great. It's a fake.” He checks the back of it as his sister peers over his shoulder.

“I don't know who Etsy is, but I doubt she was an outcast settler.”

“No, she wasn’t.” He says, their investigation was suddenly sidelined as Arlene sees them.

“Just what the fudge are you two doing in here?” She says,

“Mistress Arlene.“ (y.n) said, “I proclaimed the meeting house is under repair.” She says “I know thoust heard me.”

“We don’t have firm for this. What happened to the original?” (Y/n) says, and Arlene frowns

“A child unknowing to respect thine elders, The original was stolen last month during the two o'clock witch trial.”

“It was probably the only authentic thing you have in here, yet you still charge $29.95 a ticket?” Wednesday says.

“Hold thy tongue. I'm reassigning you both.

To fudge-churning duty.”

“The original meeting house, the one in that painting, where is it?”

“How the hell should I know?

I only moved here from Scottsdale in April.” She says dropping the attitude.

“Fantastic, we’ll have to find it ourselves, I’ll ask around.” (Y/n) says.

“Ask who? No one living knows—“

“Exactly, no one living. Now If you’ll excuse me sister.” He says to Arlene, she frowns and walks off.

Back at Nevermore, (Y/n) sits cross legged in an Ally, with Wednesday watching guard, she turns to face him.

“Have you found the information yet?” She asks, his head suddenly jerks back and then forth and he opens his eyes, Gasping for air.

“I, think I do…” he says, and walks off into the forest, almost zombie like, they reach a burned down building, they search but, find nothing.

“Can you touch a leaf or something and get a vision?” (Y/n) asks.

“No, I can't just touch something. My visions seem to happen spontaneously.”

“Mother could help you learn some of the power”

“I would rather dye my hair pink than ask mother for advice.”

“Why am I not surprised, Maybe You’re Just afraid to see a vision.” He says sarcastically.

“Oh, you want me to prove it to you?” She says and grabs random items

“No. Nothing. Ah, I bet this will give us some real insight.” She says holding a Taco Bell bag..

“My visions are about as predictable as shark attacks.” Wednesday touched the gate and immediately stiffens up and convulses. (Y/n) rushes to her side and grabs her.

“Wednesday? Wednesday?!” He yells, she seems to be lost in a vision, and (Y/n) takes her away.

Minutes pass inside his room, he had a circle drawn around Wednesday, using his otherworldly skills to try and assist his sister, but her body suddenly awakens and she sits up.

“(Y/n), I saw her! The girl from my visions.

Her name is Goody Addams, and I believe she's our ancestor from 400 years ago.”

“Okay, but what does that have to do with Crackstone?

“I saw Joseph Crackstone in front of me as clearly as I'm seeing you now. He gathered all the outcasts in the meeting house and burned them alive.”

“I see, I see.. so that’s why they’re connected, Joseph killed Goody. Then Crackstone has to do with what’s going on… well, we have to think about this later, we have the concert to perform at? I assume Weems told you.

“Unfortunately so.”

“I thought nothing scared me, but that was before I stared into the eyes of Joseph Crackstone. I don't believe in heaven or hell. But I do believe in revenge. I usually serve it warm with a side of pain, but I've never faced an adversary cast in bronze.”

The Addams Twins are with other students in Jericho, preparing for the Band, but (Y/n)’s guitar skills were unmatched. But his sisters cello ability was unmatched. Weems approaches the podium.

“Thank you. It is my honor to celebrate our town's history and Jericho's noble forefather, Joseph Crackstone. Now, he believed that with a happy heart and an open ear, there was nothing our town couldn't achieve. So together as one, our community and our friends at Nevermore Academy, we've built a monument to celebrate his memory. Now, may the spirit of Joseph Crackstone be memorialized for eternity.” She says as they reveal the Statue of Crackstone, which begins to flow water.

The band begins playing of "Don't Stop" by Fleetwood Mac and the crowd cheers, but (Y/n) was still miffed by his loss of possibly wooing Enid.

The crowd cheers, but their cheers quickly turn to horror as an explosion bellows from the statue, it seems someone swapped the water with gasoline, and all it took was a single match. Screams, terror, fear rang though the center, but what truly took the eye of most was the hellish screeches of an electric guitar, and a cello, as the twins play a harrowing version of Vivaldi's "Winter" as the guitars strings bellow though the area, the cellos haunting dreary tone perfectly compliments the guitar, but Weems wasn’t enjoying it.

“That was a disaster. The mayor is furious!

I've lost count of the angry phone calls, emails, and people in the town, alumni and parents. They want answers and so do I.” Weems says with such vitriolic rage at the twins sitting at the office.

“I would lead the inquisition, but I left my thumbscrews and rack at home.” Wednesday said.

“Miss Addams... you're already on thin ice.

Wafer-thin ice.”

“I swear Principal, our hands are clean.”

“What happened to you Mister Addams? You weren’t like this until your sister darkens our dorms.” She says, which changes his mood, maybe he was going back to his old ways. Weems turns to Wednesday.

“I may not have hard evidence, but I see you.

You're a trouble magnet.”

“If trouble means standing up to lies, decades of discrimination, centuries of treating outcasts like second-class citizens or worse...”

“What are you talking about?”

“Jericho.” (Y/n) cuts Weems off

“Why does this town even have an Outreach Day? Don't you know its real history with outcasts? The actual story of Joseph Crackstone and his hatred for Us?”

“I do…To an extent.” Weems says.

“Then why be complicit in its cover up? Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” Wednesday chimes in.

“That's where you and I differ. Where you see doom, I see opportunity. Maybe this is a chance to rewrite the wrongs, to start a new chapter in the normie-outcast relations.”

“Nothing has changed since Crackstone. They still hate us. Only now they sugarcoat it with platitudes and smiles. If you're unwilling to fight for truth...”

“You don't think I want the truth? Of course I do. But the world isn't always black and white.

There are shades of gray.”

“Maybe for you. But it's either they write our story or we do, history isn’t written by those who are right, it’s by those who survive.” He says, weems Just sighs.

“You two are exhausting.”

“We know.”

“Goodnight, Minster and Miss Addams. But know, I don’t tire easily.” She says with the last foreboding warning, the twins leave the office and head back to their dorm. A but silent between each other, Wednesday was typing upon her typewriter, and Enid shows off a few outfits.

“Too much?”

“I feel like you just napalmed me, Enid.” Wednesday says.

“So glad I have my date with Ajax tonight.

Get my mind off that trainwreck of an afternoon. I literally think I have PTSD. I didn't even get to do my dance routine.” Enid says.

“What a tragedy— wait Date?” Wednesday asks.

“What kind of twisted psycho would want to sabotage such a life-affirming event?” Enid says, Wednesday ponders for a moment, and looks a bit saddened. He brother truly does care for her.

“…You're going to be late.”

“Wish me luck.” Enid says with a giggle and leaves. Meanwhile (Y/n) stands at the window, staring out into the moon, sighing solemnly as his eyes reflect the full moon.

“I don't believe in mandatory volunteer work, sugar-coated history, or happy endings, but most of all... I don't believe in coincidences. To paraphrase Agatha Christie, one coincidence is just a coincidence, two are a clue...and three are proof. Rowan's drawing of me and Crackstone happens sometime in the future. Goody Addams' warnings about Crackstone were in the past. And the monster is here in the present. Three coincidences that I know are connected. That monster could be anyone. The sheriff thinks they only exist behind the walls of this school. The truth is, there are monsters everywhere. And sometimes the monsters we least suspect are the most dangerous. They don't need teeth and claws to terrify. They hide in the shadows until no one is looking. And then they strike. But I'm looking now. And I won't stop until I find the truth.

[fu-aki]

So this is going to be my attempt to summarize the newest episodes of the fairy gala event (episode 1 to 10) of twisted wonderland.

Again, spoiler alert since I’m about to write out everything that happened, and I apologize for my grammar in advance.

Both Kalim and Jamil are asking Crowley what is going on, the warm Scarabia dorm suddenly started to snow -> and on their way here, the mirror room was hot like oven -> Crowley explains how temperatures in this school are kept by the fairies and they use a magic stone as a source of energy, so maybe something happened to the stone -> so they all went to check -> the stone was gone -> Crowley called for all dorm leaders for an emergency meeting

Crowley explained what happened -> Azul mentioned about the big fairy in the room -> Malleus “are you saying, that I, the next in line for bramble valley, will do some petty crime like this?” -> Azul apologized -> Kalim “nobody here think you did it, we just want you to tell us if you know anything related to the topic, anything about fairy.” -> Malleus mentions how he saw an unfamiliar fairy when he was taking a walk yesterday, it carries a rainbow color stone with them and was around botanical garden -> everyone headed towards there

The fairies are crowning a bigger fairy -> that tiara has the missing magic stone on it -> Malleus recognized the bigger fairy, that is the queen of fairy town, and if she’s outside in time like this, it’s likely that she has chosen NRC as the location for fairy gala -> Malleus also explains that fairy gala is when fairies dress up in elegant clothes and participates in a fashion show in celebration of spring -> Leona “fashion show? Don’t joke with me, let’s just take the magic stone now” -> Crowley disagree since he don’t want to anger the fairies that’s controlling the temperature of school -> since the celebration of fairy gala last around 3 months, if they don’t get the magic stone back, the school won’t be able to function for 3 months ->

Crowley “why do none of you look motivated!” -> Riddle “it’s not our job after all.” -> Vil “it should be you, the school principal’s job.” -> Crowley then announced that if this problem keeps going on for 3 months, everyone would have to repeat for a year -> no one want that to happen so they went back to brainstorm on how to get the stone back

Kalim “Malleus you are also a fairy right? How about you go and just ask them nicely?” -> Malleus ”there’s many different types of fairies, from thistle fairy to dragon fairy like me. Their size and languages are all different. And it’s not guaranteed that we get along, just like humans. Besides, if I just step in, the smaller fairies will probably run away in fear.” -> Leona “tsk, so useless... if we can’t do that, only way left is to take it by force right?” -> Azul “maybe there’s someway we can take it without being noticed?” -> Vil suggests to switch that tiara with a fake one -> since it’s a big event, it’ll be easy to sneak in too -> Crowley “sounds like a good idea, it would be nice if we can have something to disguise ourselves as fairies..” -> “IN STOCK NOW!” -> Sam says he heard about this from his friends on the other side so he brought some fairy dust, which is the power source for fairies in fairy town, so if we sprinkle it on, fairies would register us as part of them -> Crowley bought it with school budget -> now they are trying to decide who’s going to sneak in fairy gala -> Malleus mentions that fairy gala is the place where only upper level fairies gather -> Sam also said that he heard the theme of fairy gala this year is “exotic”

Kalim “what’s wrong? Is there anything on my face?”

Leona “hey, stop staring at me.”

Malleus “exotic to the fairy town... that will definitely be you two.”

Vil “yes, it would be rare for them to see werehumans or the culture of the desert.”

Azul “and no matter how much Leona has fallen, he’s still royal, and Kalim is the son of a rich family.”

Riddle “won’t that means they are used to parties like this?”

Idia “k the infiltration team would be Leona and Kalim, gg!”

-> Azul then left -> Malleus left too since he wasn’t invited in the first place -> Kalim happily took the position -> Leona refuses ->

Crowley “Kingscholar, if Asim failed and the spring won’t came, wouldn’t it bother you the most? As a feline, you won’t be able to use your full power if the winter just keeps going. Most of Savanaclaw students are werehuman too, and there’s a lot of them that can’t do anything if the temperature changes right? Savanaclaw’s power will go down greatly, are you... really okay with it?” -> Leona then agrees to join -> Kalim was excited and ask if he can bring Jamil -> Crowley agrees and suggest Leona to bring someone too, since he don’t want Leona to ditch halfway through -> Leona decided to bring Ruggie along -> Crowley called for you to work on it

In ramshackle -> both Jamil and Ruggie are complaining about Kalim and Leona drag them into troublesome things again -> but if they didn’t everyone has to repeat a year -> they finally stopped fighting and started to plan it out -> Kalim suggests to just use magic -> but fairies are really sensitive to magic, so it’ll fail right away

Ruggie “we are magicians but can’t use our magic, this feel so hopeless.”

Leona “i-diot, this is the reason why you are here, Ruggie.”

Ruggie “me?”

Leona “you’ll switch the tiara with the fake one... by using your hands, directly.”

Ruggie “...EEH!!!! ME!!???”

Ruggie mentions how it’s actually harder to steal something that’s on top of someone’s head like that -> Leona ask how many seconds do Ruggie need to do it -> Ruggie “15” -> Leona “make it 10” -> Ruggie “where did that 5 seconds go!!!” -> Leona “you could do it easily anyway” -> Ruggie “darn you see me right through” -> Ruggie “but if you can’t distract her, it’ll still be tough for me.” -> Kalim suggests to make a parade for distraction -> but only 4 people can get in the event -> Jamil suggests to do some performance to distract them on runway -> Grim and you has to support Ruggie -> so rest of them has to go on the show -> but all of them are super amateur at fashion shows -> Jamil says he has an idea

He brought Crewel and Vil -> then Crewel gives them some clothes ->

Vil ask them to show some walks, since no matter how pretty the clothes are, if the person’s posture are bad, it’s going to be a waste anyway

Vil “really... it’s surprising.”

Vil “you can actually walk this elegantly...”

Vil “...you did a great job, Jamil.”

Vil “Kalim too, your posture is really proper, is it because of the education at home?”

Kalim “is it? Hehe thanks, but I think it’s because we liked to dance.”

Jamil “Kalim has been learning the traditional dance since he was young, and I have an interest in street dance.”

Vil “compare to that... Leona, what’s with your lame walk. Your feet are dragging, your postures are wrong, and”

Vil then completely roasted Leona -> Crewel “for a bad puppy like Kingscholar, shouldn’t we teach him how to walk on twos first? Or else it would be the same as letting a new born kitten on runway.” -> in the end they decided that Leona is just going to do a walk while Kalim and Jamil doing dances to grab attentions -> and then the training starts

Vil commented on Kalim has beautiful moves but always make mistakes on swings, in comparison, Jamil made no mistake at all but it felt lacking because of it -> Leona on the other side, has vases full of water on his head and shoulders, he has to walk around the room without spill anything -> to make sure everyone can do great on runway and remember everything, Vil announced -> if they sit without Vil’s approval they’ll have to do 500 squats -> if Leona spills the water again, he’ll have to do wall sit for an hour -> if either one of Kalim and Jamil made a mistake they have to do three legged race around the school -> Leona “ordering us around like that... who do you think you are!?” -> Vil “I’m the world’s super model... Vil Schoenheit sama!!!!!”

And that’s all of the episodes so far, I can finally go check out Leona’s personal story now, he look so great and life is so great

[saltedpeppermintmocha]

into the night (bakugou x reader) - chapter 4/?

Summary:

You were born to die.

It is a fact you’ve known since your quirk first manifested, and one you have been denying for just as long. You refuse your supposed fate and try to live the best life you can while remaining undetected.

But maybe fate has another plan. A chance encounter on a mountainside changes your life forever.

Chapter One

MATURE : MINORS DO NOT INTERACT // 18+

The day feels almost dramatically longer than normal. You love your dad and really should be relishing the time you get to spend with him, but your brain is elsewhere the entire time. It swirls with the urge to do more research, to try and figure out who exactly the blond is and why he was here. Especially if he posed any sort of threat to the small town, or if this was a sign of more heroes arriving. Unfortunately, being with Dad meant you couldn’t risk looking him up. It just wasn’t worth the risk of him seeing your phone.

So the day drags on until Dad leaves for his weekly ‘game night’ with the other older men of the village. He offers for you to join, but you wave him off and say that you’ll meet him at home. You remember being forced to go as a kid - at least until he was comfortable leaving you with someone else - and absolutely hating it. A bunch of men drinking, playing card games, and reciting awful jokes was never your style. Or you thought so anyway, but you seem to be spending many similar nights at Naoko’s bar.

There is a bit of extra time before the call with Naoko, so you pop into a nearby restaurant and grab some food to take home. You chat lightly with the man behind the counter, someone you knew vaguely from school, grab your food, and head out. One hand occupied with the bag, you use the other to reopen your search on your phone on the hero. You click the first article that comes up.

The article is dated from about three weeks ago and has a small paragraph at the top which spoke of a villain attack on the western side of Musutafu. Directly underneath it is a slideshow of photos. The first few showcase a rather vicious-looking villain destroying a small street. They seem to have some sort of mutant quirk along with...crystal manipulation? You wonder at the crystals surrounding the villain for a moment before swiping further. The next photo turns out to be a video. You hit play.

It’s a shaky amateur video, probably taken from someone's cellphone, with no sound. The camera follows an explosion in the distance quickly getting closer. The man you now know as Ground Zero appears on the scene almost impossibly fast, sending concrete flying around him as he lands in an explosion. The video ends there. You swipe to the next video. This one seems to be taken from above, out the window of a nearby high-rise building. Ground Zero fights from the air, held afloat by explosions. He calls out to another hero fighting on the ground. The distance is too far to see anything of the other hero other than the colour red. The video stops. You swipe to the next. The last part of the slideshow is a photo. Ground Zero isn’t in it at all, but the villain has been defeated. The red man from before is shown placing cuffs on the villain.

The actual article doesn’t have much information on Ground Zero. Actually, it doesn’t speak of the explosive hero much at all. If you hadn’t seen the pictures, you wouldn’t think he was a big part of the fight. The most the article speaks of is the destruction he caused at the site. The other hero - Red Riot apparent - takes the spotlight in the article, as it goes on about his numerous accomplishments and motivational words. It seems a bit unfair, truthfully.

By the time you have read through the article, you make it home safely. You hang up your coat and scarf, and toe-off your boots before heading into the warm house. Placing the food on the kitchen table, you make your way upstairs to grab your laptop. Laptop and charger in hand, you head back down to the table and get yourself set up. It is only a few minutes to five when you start the video call.

It rings for a few moments before being picked up. Naoko smiles in the video, giving a small wave before sipping from her glass of wine. She looks like she is at home, relaxed on her plush white couch. “So, any run-ins with your mountain boy today?”

“He’s gone.” You grab your food, sliding it closer. “Apparently he checked out this morning.”

She frowns. “So, no autograph then?”

“I guess not.” You shrug. Not like you were planning on asking for one anyway. That would be much too awkward after everything that happened. You begin to unwrap your take-out food, the call silent as you try to figure out what to ask first. “So, any idea why he was here?”

“I’m not sure.” She adjusts in her seat, crossing her legs and taking another sip of wine. “There's been nothing online about it, not even in the groups I’m in. It’s weird, usually, the media is all over him.”

“Why?” You ask, finally freeing the food from its plastic wrapping. You attempt to throw the plastic into the proper recycling bin across the room. It misses. Figures.

She chuckles. “Well, you met the guy for like a minute and determined that he was an asshole.” Okay, that's true. “He’s prone to acting out and gets into trouble with the media a lot. Especially recently.”

“I guess that makes sense.” You pause to take a bite of your food. “Why is a guy like that even a hero?”

Naoko shrugs. “He doesn’t really talk about his motivations or anything in interviews, but he’s good enough to be number six even with that personality of his.”

Number six? You swallow, thinking. Wait. “The number six hero?!” Your voice raises in shock. The hero rankings were pretty important, even you knew that. To be anywhere in the top ten meant you had to be absolutely amazing. “How?!”

She doesn’t react to your question, instead looking off to the side and swishing her wine. Her lips are pressed together in thought. “Maybe...maybe he was on a break.” She finally speaks, her voice trailing off a bit. “After all the drama from the JHBC...it would make sense to disappear…”

“Drama?” You prompt, after a long moment where she does not continue.

Holding up a finger in a ‘wait’ motion, she downs the rest of her glass quickly and stands up, disappearing from frame. A minute later she returns with a full glass and sits down. “The last JHBC was about two weeks ago-”

“What’s that?”

“The Japanese Hero Billboard Chart.” She gives you a look for interrupting but continues. “It's where they announce the new rankings. Usually, you can sort of tell who is going to be where in advance, this is more of an ‘official’ thing, but this year the number five spot was a toss-up between Ground Zero and Deku.”  Ah, one of the heroes you actually vaguely knew about. It was sort of hard not to know of the ‘new symbol of peace’ or to see his merch essentially everywhere, even in Hokkaido. “Deku blew everyone away by not only cracking the top five but moving immediately to the top 4.”

“Ohh, so there was drama between Deku and the old number four hero?” What did this have to do with Ground Zero being in Makkari?

Naoko smiled. “Nah, Edgeshot didn’t really show anything but respect for Deku as he took his spot. I mean, we all saw it coming in a way. That man is going to be number one sooner rather than later. The drama came from Ground Zero.”

She takes another long sip before continuing. “Nobody knows the specifics, although there is a lot of speculation online about it. As Deku was announced as the number four hero, there was a loud scream and a sound off-screen. The entire stream got cut out for a few minutes. When it came back on, Deku was on stage looking really uncomfortable. Ground Zero was called for his spot as number six, but the audience was told that he had to leave for an emergency. The guy has been essentially missing from all media since.”

“Suspicious.”

“Extremely.” Naoko agrees. “The online consensus is that he lost due to his attitude. Around the time of the rankings, almost everything you saw about him was super negative. He seemed to be blowing up at everything. It was everywhere, I’m honestly surprised you never saw it.”  You shrug. It’s not like you had been aggressively avoiding all things hero for all your life. Nope.

“Anyways, after all of the media coverage, it was sort of weird when he just disappeared. Nobody saw him in fights or on patrol. Lots of conspiracy groups popped up that maybe he was injured or undercover or something worse happened at the JHBC, but no official source came forward.”

“And then he ends up here.” You mutter. “But why Makkari?”

“I don't know.” She shrugs. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in Hokkaido. He’s usually closer to his agency and the other top ten in Musutafu.”

All of that is interesting, sure, but honestly, the only thing you care about is: “Does that mean there's a villain here?”

“Let's hope not.” She sighs. “The heroes here seem to be acting the same. I saw Grand and Turtle Neck on patrol the other day and they seemed calm. Got myself an autograph easily enough.”

“Who?”

“Oh my god.” She pressed one hand to her temples. “You should at least know the local heroes, especially with your job.” You shrug, taking the opportunity to stand up and throw out your crumbs and extra packaging.

When you return, Naoko has a new glass of wine. “Well, no matter what he was doing here, he’s gone now, apparently.”

She hums thoughtfully. “Did he…Did he seem weird? Say anything?”

“I don’t think so.” You think back to your interactions with him. “I mean, I wouldn’t really know.” Drunk-you aside, anytime you spoke to him on the mountain was kind enough...wait.  “I gave him a lecture about his quirk…” You mutter. “Oh my god. I gave a pro hero a lecture about using his quirk without a license.”  You had been worried for him.

Naoko laughs. “Hey, it’s a story to tell at least.”

You think of your dad and shake your head. “No. I don’t want anyone to know. Nobody here seems to know there was a hero, and it's probably a good thing. And if he’s gone, there’s probably nothing to worry about.” Staring into the camera, you continue. “Don’t tell anyone, please.”

“I don’t get you.” She shakes her head, letting out a breath of frustration. “But, whatever girl, it's fine. I won’t tell a soul.” For a moment, neither of you speak. There's a bit of a weird mood between you both after the conversation, the type of mood that comes from two people with completely different outlooks on a situation. You wish you were there in person to break it.

A sound from her end echoes lightly through the computer. She gasps as a big black mass jumps up on her lap. Naoko makes a high-pitched sound and holds her glass above her head, careful not to spill wine on her white couch. “You little shit…” She mutters.

The weird mood breaks. You laugh. “And there is the man of the hour. I was wondering where he ended up."

“The only man allowed on my lap.” She jokes back, carefully placing her wine glass on the coffee table beside her laptop.

The conversation flows away from the topic of heroes and onto daily life. You grab a can of beer from the fridge and join her in drinking. By the time the call ends a few hours later, both of you are tinted red and giggling. You wish her goodnight and close the laptop. Your bones pop satisfactorily as you get up, stretching a bit once fully standing. You grab your stuff and head upstairs, depositing it on your desk before heading to the bathroom.

Nighttime routine complete, you change into warm pajamas and slide into bed. A quick look at the clock on your nightstand shows that Dad should be home in about half an hour, although by the way you’re yawning you doubt you will be awake. Stretching out comfortably in bed, you stare at the ceiling.

Your mind naturally drifts to the blond hero, going over the weird interactions you’ve had. A lot of what he said and did makes more sense in hindsight, like when he asked if you wanted his autograph or his complete shock at your warnings about his quirk and safety on the mountain. Honestly, you had thought he was just being a dick.

Well, it's over now. He’ll go back to Musutafu and you’ll go back to your life of only seeing heroes while on the job. In the end, Naoko was right, it’ll just become a story to tell in the far future.

The ground is covered in snow when you make your way back to Sapporo a few days. It happened quickly, as the weather tends to do this time of year. You had to cut your visit short by three days due to the heavy snowfall predicted for the area. Dad tried to argue that your team doesn’t need you that bad, but you were insistent.

The drive back is peaceful. It’s not too long of a drive, and soon you can see the city in the distance. You can't help but smile as you look at those big buildings looming ahead, lights almost like stars in the dark. The city is as congested as usual, but you make okay time as you drive through the city center towards your end of town.

After dropping off the car at the rental place, you make the walk home. The air here is nothing in comparison to the clear and fresh Makkari, but you’ll get used to it again soon enough. Pulling your luggage behind, you make your way through the city. It’s still early, really, so you decide to make a detour from your house. The sight of the bar, with its non-descript sign and dark windows, fills you with warmth.

It’s a quiet Wednesday night, with a few patrons littered throughout either drinking at tables or playing billiards. It’ll probably get a little busier a bit later. You glance over to the bar. Naoko is there, leaning against the counter and speaking to a customer. She looks up, eyes wide. Her mouth opens in shock, then she calls out your name. Leaving her customer, she rushes around the counter to wrap you in a hug. You return it happily. The customer, a regular that you’ve spoken to a few times, waves at you with a smile. It’s really nice to be back.

You sit on a barstool as Naoko makes her way back behind the bar,  placing your luggage beside you as best you can to not take up much room.

“I thought you were back on Saturday.” She says, a question in her statement.

“Weather.” You reply. “Makkari is supposed to be hit by a pretty bad snowstorm tomorrow.”

“I bet your dad wasn’t happy.” She hasn’t even met the man and knows. Naoko shoves a drink at you. You don’t know what it is, but take a sip. It’s...spicy.

You shake your head, a small smile forming. “He tried to convince me to stay.” It had been...difficult to say the least. He has always hated that you chose to live here. “So, what was I interrupting when I came in?” You smile apologetically at Naoko and the customer. The regular seems to be asleep against the bar. Huh.

“Ah, I was just telling Haru here about the fight I had to break up last night.”

“Oh?” You prompt, running a finger around the top of the glass. “What happened?”

“Just your average drunk assholes.” She replies. “Not regulars, thankfully. I had to use my quirk to get them out.” Naoko lets out a breath and leans against the bar. “I can’t imagine working here and not having my quirk.”

You nod absentmindedly. Her quirk - Calming Touch- does come into use pretty often at the bar. Calming Touch is pretty much what it says on the tin, she is able to calm down anyone she touches when she activates her quirk. It can work on any type of extreme emotion. Luckily, it’s not classified as a dangerous or physical quirk, so she is able to use it without a license.

Hm. There is a weird silence. You look up, locking eyes with Naoko’s. She seems tense. “What?”

“I’m so sorry!” She blurts out. “That was super rude of me.”

“Huh?”

“The quirk thing.” She continues. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

Ohh...you get it now. “You quirkless?”  The voice comes from your right. You turn to see Haru awake, leaning against his arm on the bar. Huh, you didn’t realize he had been awake.

“Ah, uh-” You stumble through your words.

“It's okay,” Haru mumbles, laying his head back down on the bar, facing you. Dark eyes stare at you.“‘ ‘m too.”

“Thanks.” You smile, ignoring the pit of guilt forming in your stomach. You turn to Naoko. “ It’s okay. I’m used to it. Lived this way my entire life.”

“Still…” She sighs. The bar door swings open, slamming loudly against the wall. You turn to look over your shoulder. A large group of people has come in, a few of them looking at the door in shock. Well, it’s not like you haven’t accidentally done the same thing. After a moment they head towards the back where the pool tables are, four splitting from the group to head towards the bar.

“I’ll get out of your hair.” You say, sliding off the barstool. “I should be getting home anyway.”

“Be safe getting home!” Naoko asks.

“Always.” You grab your luggage as the four converge on the bar. “Bye Haru!” You call out, not knowing if the man fell asleep again, and leave the bar.

Leaving the warmth of the bar for the cold outside hits harsher than before. You wonder idly if the temperature went down while you were in the bar. Burying your face in your scarf, you turn left and head down the street. It's busy this time of night, but you maneuver effortlessly through the crowds.

It takes less than ten minutes before you reach your apartment. Looking up at the large building, you make your way up to the front door. It's not an especially nice building, but not horrible either. It’s pretty average, although the landlord is known to never reply to complaints. Still, the apartment takes up a huge portion of your paycheck.

You take the elevator up to the sixth floor and make your way down the hall to your door. Opening the door to a dark apartment, you’re hit by a sense of comfort. It’s always nice to be back in your own space. You toe off your shoes, hang up your coat and scarf, and head inside. Leaving the luggage at the door - a problem for tomorrow- you turn on a lamp and head over to your couch, plopping down.

After a few minutes of molding to the couch, you grab your phone from your pocket.

[Contact: Bossman]

You: I am back in Sapporo a few days early. Let me know if there is anything I can help with.

It might seem a little sad to give up your last day of vacation but you love your job, and it’s not like you have much else to do. Most of your friends share the same job as you, so it’s not like they are free often. You can accomplish everything you need -groceries, laundry, etc- tomorrow. Unless you go back to work, you know you’ll be spending most of the next four days on your couch watching tv.

You let yourself lay in the quiet for a bit longer. The mix of traveling and whatever drink Naoko had given you -and oh wow you forgot to pay, shit- making you a bit more tired than you would have suspected. It’s going to be an early night. Finally, you stand up and make your way to the bathroom. You feel a bit better after a quick shower, the last remnants of cold seeping from your system. But something about that warmth just adds to your tiredness. You don't even put on clothes, you just head straight to bed and fall asleep.

You dream of playing billiards with a bear. You lose.

It’s your phone that wakes you up. Opening your eyes a bit, you stare at the ceiling and contemplate the benefits of not picking up. In the end, the phone wins out. You roll onto your side and grab it, checking the contact.

[Contact: Bossman]

Huh? You pick up on the last ring. “Hello?”

“Hey!” The voice on the other end is way too chipper for this early in the morning. Wait, is it early? You check your phone. 8:35. Hm. Acceptable. “I got your message yesterday. If you want to come back early, I have no problem with that.”

“Really?!” You sit up. Ouch. A crick in your neck.

“Well, there's a bunch of paperwork you need to do.” You groan. He laughs. “Don’t be like that. It’s your paperwork that I’ve kindly allowed you to put on hold during your holiday, but it needs to be done.” A pause. You feel your excitement droop. Maybe a few days of laying on the couch will be better than paperwork, but if you have to do it anyways...“If you get it done early, I don’t see any problem with having you at-ready.”

“Yes!” You say instantly. “But, why?”

“There’s been an uptick in villain attacks recently.” He says. “We need all hands on deck. That’s all I can really tell you.” Ah, the wonders of bureaucracy. He always says the same line when it’s an order from the top.

“Alright.” You conceded. “Can I come in today?"

“Whenever you want.” There's a sound in the background.  “Gotta go. I’ll see you later?” You agree and hang up. After that conversation, you’re wide awake. Part of you wants to go straight to work, but you know you have some stuff you need to do first.

You stretch and slide out of bed. It’s colder than you expect. You shiver, looking down. Oh yea, you’re naked. Right. Heading towards your closet, you pick out some casual clothes and get dressed. You start the day with a quick run to the grocery store, grabbing take-out breakfast on the way home. You eat on the couch, laptop in your lap and check up on emails. After, you tackle the errands around your house by organizing your luggage, laundry, and watering your plants. You hum as you mist the nerve plant on your window, looking out. Your eyes scan the area around you. It's busy on the street below, as is usual for this time.

Your eyes lock onto a building a few blocks down. You can barely see it in between the other buildings, and it looks relatively nondescript from your angle. But that building is the single reason your rent is through the roof. The hero agency. It had been by your Dad's insistence that you moved to this building. It was the only one in the area with a rent that you could possibly keep up with. At first, you thought it was odd that Dad was so insistent upon you being closer to heroes, but the more you thought of it the more you understood. The only thing that man is more worried about than heroes is villains, and villain attacks in the area surrounding a hero agency are extremely rare. None have occurred even close to the area since you moved in.

Your phone alarm goes off, warning you of the time. 12:00p.m, time to go. You get dressed in your uniform, throw on your coat and scarf, and head out. Your workplace is on the east side of Sapporo, so you take the subway most of the way. The building, tall and surrounded by various emergency vehicles, takes up almost a block.  

The receptionist waves at you while on the phone as you walk by. You smile at him and continue to the elevator. The third floor is, as usual, in an organized state of chaos. Coworkers rush past you on their way out to some sort of emergency. Others sit at desks furiously typing away or are on intense-looking phone calls. You head towards the large office at the back, your boss's office. He is on a call but locks eyes with you through the window. The man looks at your uniform, rolls his eyes, and points towards the back of the room. You look over and fight back a groan. An empty desk sits there, a stack of paper already on the edge.

Still, you head over and plop down. The stack of paper looks even larger up close. You wish the department could just go paperless. You log into the computer, then log into your account and take a moment to stretch. A deep breath, and you begin.

Nighttime hits way before you are even close to being done. You take small breaks in between for coffee runs and the occasional small walk for exercise, but otherwise, you remain glued to your seat, determined to finish this work by the end of the day. The idea of leaving more of it for tomorrow is just too horrible.

Eventually, you submit the last of your work. You don't exactly feel accomplished, but the relief hits you nonetheless. Sitting up from your hunched position, you can feel the bones in your back crack happily. You check the time: 8:00 p.m. Not that bad, actually. You essentially did a full 8-hour day.

“Done?”  You look up at the voice. It's your boss. He has a coat on, probably on his own way out. You nod. “Alright, I’ll put you back on the roster. Keep your pager close.” He tosses you a pager and leaves.

At eight hours, you have four more that you could be on-call. Logging out of the computer, you stand up and head towards the elevator. After eight hours in this building, you need to get out for a little bit. You wander around the perimeter of the station, looking up into the sky and missing the stars.

The pager buzzes in your pocket. You startle and grab at it. The display simply reads EMERGENCY and a number. You look at it and break into a run back for the building. Luckily, you’re not far.

The number corresponds to the vehicle that you have been assigned. You find the ambulance quickly, the last of your team to arrive and jump into the back. The team usually consists of four people per vehicle. Two sit in the front, and two ride in the back. It’s a bit surprising when three people jump in the back. You sit down and buckle your seatbelt, looking over the others. The first is a man you’ve worked with before and the second is one you haven't. The new guy barely manages to do his seatbelt up before the vehicle begins to move.

“Hey.” You smile. The man looks over, face nervous. “I haven’t met you before. What’s your name?”

“Eito.” The guy has an adorable voice. Damn. “I’m a new hire.”

“And they stuck you with us?” You ask, raising an eyebrow. New hires don't normally go to your section of the department.

“My quirk.” Eito mutters. “I can create a shield of energy, only for about a minute, and they’re pretty weak but…”

“Ah, I see how that could be useful during a villain attack.” You nod, moving on to ask him questions about the emergency. Apparently, the call itself was vague, although that wasn't unique in your job. The Villain Attack division is called in the moment a villain is reported, so you never had enough information.

The ambulance comes to a skidding stop. You’re quick to unbuckle your seatbelt, gear up, and jump into action. Opening the doors was a weird scene, to say the least. Large cloth-looking dolls walk down the street, hitting buildings. They don’t seem strong enough to destroy them in one hit, but some of the nearby ones are crumbling. You can’t see the villain that must be controlling them.

The vehicle is stopped on the outskirts of the fight, carefully hidden away.

“We have one injured reported to the right.” The coworker in the passenger seat pops around the side of the ambulance holding a radio. “Let’s go.”

You move as a seasoned four-person team, the driver having to stay in the ambulance in case it needs to move. Your team stays on the outskirts of the battle raging on as you walk, ducking into buildings and behind cars to avoid notice. Eito trails behind you carefully. Eventually, you reach the injured woman. She is awake and bursts into tears as she sees your team. Eito and you watch the area around you as your coworkers attend to her. They assess vitals, ask questions and make the final decision that she is okay to move. She seems to have a broken leg, so they help stabilize the leg before helping her up. Your two coworkers are practically carrying the woman as they move, with you at the front and Eito at the back as lookout.

As you move, something catches your attention in the corner of your eye. A shoe on the ground. You pause, looking a bit closer. Shit. That’s a leg. Hopefully connected to a person. They’re mostly hidden behind some rubble, so you can’t even tell if they are alive or not.

You look at your coworkers and tell them the situation. “I’ll help you get her out, then I’m going back in.”

Your coworkers agree, and you all try to speed your walk as fast as possible to the ambulance. The moment you can see it in the distance, you call for a split and turn around. “Eito, come with me.” A two-person team is only slightly better than a one-person, in the case of issues popping up, but you’ll take anything.

Eito nods and the two of you make your way back to the area you saw the leg. As you make your way back, you notice that the fight has gotten a lot closer than it had been previously. You are going to have to be quick. You motion to Eito and the two of you creep up the street until you reach the rubble.

At first, you think he must be dead. The man lying there in a pile of blood just can't be alive. Eito crouches down beside him and checks vitals. “He’s alive!”

“Woah.” You crouch down and begin your own assessment. You use Eito mostly as an assistant, aware that time is not with you for many reasons.

The outcome of your assessment is grim. The man is bleeding heavily from a wound in his stomach, the cause of the blood around him. His whole body is twisted weirdly, likely a spinal injury. You can’t move him. Shit.

Eito works to stop the flow of blood as you reach for your own radio, calling for a stretcher and immediate assistance. Reaching into your pocket, you grab your small flare and light it, watching as the red light floats above the buildings. The flare is used in situations where the EMT needs assistance immediately but is unable to properly communicate their location. Your team will be able to find you soon. You hope. You go back to helping Eito stem the bleeding.

A large vibration echoes through the ground.

crack

You look up again at the sound. A piece of the building above you crumbles, sending large shards of metal and concrete towards you. You think that you could survive this. Your patient won't.

As you stare, a green light overcomes your vision. The metal and rocks hit it harshly, angry sounds echoing throughout the area. Your wide eyes look over at Eito, who has his hand up, a green light emanating from it. A terrified look is on his face.

“I can't hold it!” Eito exclaims, arms shaking wildly. The green aura suddenly disappears. You close your eyes and brace for impact.

BANG

The impact never comes, but it almost feels like it did. The sound, deafening. Hot air forces you sideways harshly into the ground. Dust fills your nose.

You cough through the dust, opening your eyes. A blurry figure stands amongst the debris, covered in the same dust you’re breathing. You rub at your eyes and push yourself up. The figure - probably a hero- is standing with his back to you. You can't see much of him except for...gauntlets on his hands and blond hair.

Wait.

No.

The figure looks back. Your eyes lock with red ones.

No fucking way.

[pulpwriterx]

THE RISE AND FALL OF KYLO REN (CHAPTER TWO)

Chapter Two: The Punk and the Godfather

Two Years Later

Han Solo had no idea what Snoke’s Number One guy would want with a smuggler like him, but he was about to find out.

The Stormtrooper brought him and Chewie to a conference room.

The big man in a black mask and a black cape sitting at the head of the table brought back some bad memories.

Han was in the presence of another Vader.

He could feel it.

“Take their binders off. Leave us.” The man told the trooper.

The trooper did as he was ordered.

“Come to the head of the table, gentlemen.”

Han sat on one side of the Man in the Black Mask, and Chewie sat on the other.

“Did either of you pirates ever wonder what the Empire did with sixty years of the spoils of Galactic war? I know more than do do. A good chunk of it ended up on this ship. The Finalizer. I asked Master Snoke for this ship. But he wasn’t inclined to give it to me. So, a couple of years ago? I took it. The ship is mine. And so is everything in it. Did you know that before I took this ship, the Galactic black market was completely disorganized? A bunch of small time operators, with no supply chain, and nobody in charge. Untalented amateurs. Now? You can get whatever you want, on any First Order ship, or base. And to some extent , along the Outer Rim. For a price. But that’s not enough for me. It’s so small-time. But then again, Captain Solo? So are you.”

“Look, pal, if you’re going to kill us, kill us. But I’m not going to sit here and listen to shit like that coming from a guy like you!”

“Sure you are. Because there’s money in it for you.”

“Money?” Han asked.

Chewbacca coughed into his hand.

He was trying not to laugh.

“Yes. Money. And something better than money. Did the trooper walk you past the hangar. Did you see the black, streamlined YT-2400? She’s my ship. I called her the Hellfire. You know how I could afford a ship like that? I’m sitting on a gold mine. Imperial gold coins by the chestful, guns and coaxium are just the tip of the iceberg. But I have no Galactic network. No connections, outside the Hutt Syndicate. Not like Han Solo does.”

“You want me to go into business with you?”

The masked man kicked a black chest over to Han.

“That’s one of my chests full of Imperial Gold Coins. I also have a First Order Captain’s Medal for you. And one for your co-pilot. And don’t worry that I’ll make you do all the dirty work. The Hellfire is the fastest ship in the Galaxy. She made the Kessel Run in 11.5 parsecs. I had to fry three engines, put in an experimental space-time hyprerdrive, fry another engine, spend a fortune on streamlining and retractable hoods for my guns. Not to mention I almost got myself killed, several times. To do it, I had to fly the Hellfire sideways through a pocket in space-time while at lightspeed. But I did it. I beat you, you old pirate son of a bitch.”

The truth finally hit Han Solo like a ton of bricks.

“Ben? Ben, holy Mother Force, is that you inside that tin can, kid?”

Kylo Ren released the mechanism that loosened his mask, and took it off.

“Who the fuck else would it be?”

Han had about five faces that he normally made.

He cycled through all of them in less than a minute.

“Am I going into business with you, or with the First Order?”

“Me. They’re convenient for my purposes.”

“Who?”

“The First Order. I’ll use them to finish my grandfather’s work. But there’s only one problem with finishing his journey.”

“There’s no money in it.”

“Not a red farkling cent. I’ve already got my command crew loading up the Falcon. They’re loyal to me. They won’t talk.”

“Because they’re afraid of you?”

“No. Because I’m a good commander, and I never ask them to do anything I won’t do. Because they respect me. And because I cut them all in for a piece of the action. You’re my father, Solo, and I don’t want to kill you. So I hope you take the deal.”

“Listen to him talking tough, Chewie. Kid, I never knew you took the family business so seriously. I just thought you wanted to get away from Jedi School.”

“Well, I did that, didn’t I?”

Kylo Ren smirked.

“Yeah, you did. Of course I’ll take the deal.”

“Good.”

Kylo Ren took his glove off, and extended his hand to his father.

He and Han Solo shook on it.

***

“But you can’t leave me, Kiera! I love you! I freed you and your whole family from slavery! I saved your life! I’ve given you everything you ever asked for. Tell me what more you want? Anything? Anything in the Galaxy? It’s yours. Your family. Do they need a new house? More money? Anything.”

“Kylo, I am grateful to you for your mercy and your generosity. In spite of everything you do, you’re still a good man at heart. And you really are some kind of man. But I can’t live like this, anymore! Your secrets, your moods, your nightmares! You’re…a whole bunch of guys, and some of them? They scare me. I hate to break your heart, I do, because you’ve given me everything. And I know I’ll never find another man like you. But that’s part of the problem. I’m an ordinary woman. You don’t need an ordinary woman. You need somebody like you.”

“You’re leaving me, too! Just like in Jedi School! Why? Why do you all leave me?”

“Your love’s too heavy on the human soul, Kylo. I’ll never forget you. Or what you’ve done for me. But I can’t bear it. You’re going to break me. I can feel it.”

Kylo Ren sighed.

“I understand. I’ll take you back to Tattoine. But not before I buy you that garage you always wanted.”

“You don’t have to do that, Kylo.”

“Yes I do. If you have to leave me? I want to make sure you do it with a solid-gold parachute. Will you still be my mechanic?”

“Yeah. And when you come to get some work done? Don’t feel like you need to stay at an inn.”

***

“Kylo, let me in.”

“Go away, Phasma!”

She let herself in.

“Why do you do this to yourself? Every time, you think this one, this girl’s the one. I love her, and she’ll never kick me in the teeth and take me for everything but the clothes on my back. And every time, you’re wrong!”

“Maybe if you had more than two days a week for me, Phasma?”

“That’s more than enough, Kylo. But maybe we’ll make it three, for a while. Unless we try to kill each other. Now, wouldn’t you like to take a bath, and shave, and brush your teeth? You stink of self-pity and Huttese whiskey.”

***

Kylo Ren's face, behind his mask, was incredulous.

“I’m not following you, Solo. What the fark are you talking about?"

He really wanted a drink.

But he had the mask on.

“Look, Ren, you’re kidding yourself if you think Her Generalship is done with you. And if you think Snoke is going to continue to let me live? It ain’t gonna be money, money, money, and business as usual, forever. She’s going to push from one end and he’s going to push from the other. And eventually? We're going to be in a tight spot where Leia sends me to get you, and Snoke orders you to get me. So we have to make a plan for it.”

Kylo Ren called to the barmaid.

“Bring me a pitcher of Corellian Ale, a bottle of Huttese whiskey, a packet of cigarillos and a double serving of tonight’s special. And whatever Captain Solo wants.”

In the dark, smoky cantina, Kylo Ren took off his mask, and gloves.

In the three years they had been in business, he had never done that.

Ben had a black eye, and a full beard under it, and his hair fell to his shoulders.

Two of the fingers he ran through his hair were taped together, and all of his knuckles were black and blue.

Even in the dark, Han could see that the kid wasn’t at his best.

But that wasn’t all he could see.

“I know. I need a shave, and a haircut, and I look like hell. You were in the Infantry. You know what the Imperial Dirty Work is like. That, and Kiera left me. They always leave me. Where the fuck are my drinks?"

“Everybody is so full of shit! You don’t look like Vader, you look like me!” Han said, proudly.

"Great."

"Don't worry about that girl, kid. You get too serious about these women who are just in it to take what they can get from you. Let it go. She just wasn't the right one for you."

"Who is?"

"You'll know when you meet her. The Thunderbolt will come and knock you right on your ass."

The food and drinks came, and Kylo hid his face from the barmaid.

“How about a cold pack? He’s hiding his face because it looks like it’s been through a machine.” Han asked the barmaid.

“Yeah. I think I look like both of you. You, and my grandfather.” Ben said, after she left.

Kylo drank half off the picture of beer. He also tossed back the slick, viscous, oily Huttese whiskey, right from the bottle. Then, holding the cold pack against his injured eye with one hand, he started shoveling his food into his mouth with the other.

Han was going to ask him if he always drank like that, but it was obvious that the kid was tired, he was in pain, and he probably dragged himself out of bed just to come to the meeting.

“So what’s your plan, Solo?”

“Well, Kylo Skywalker had to come from somewhere, right? Back on Arkanis, he has to have a father. With a name. And papers. And a story. And who could a guy like Kylo Skywalker, AKA Kylo Ren trust to watch his back other than his own father?" Han said.

“You want to join the First Order?"

"No. I want to join my son, and make sure he doesn't die in battle, get assassinated, or drink himself to death."

There was a commotion at the door, and a tall blonde woman in an Imperial uniform pushed her way over to the table.

“What are you doing in this dive, Kylo?”

“Meeting my business partner, Captain.”

“Business partner!”

Phasma looked from one man to the other.

“Business partner! You are so full of religious nerfshit! That’s your father, isn’t it? Don't lie to me, Kylo. It's VERY obvious. Are you trying to impress him? He doesn’t look impressed! He looks worried and sad! Why are you always such a child?” Phasma insisted.

“Don’t talk to me like that, in public, in front of Solo!”

“Solo! What kind of a way is that to talk about your father? If I had treated my father with that kind of disrespect, I would not have lived long enough to learn enough from him to give him a warrior’s death! I didn’t know this meeting was with your own damn father! He would have waited, until you were in presentable shape!"

“Phasma, don't lecture me. I’ll leave with you when we’re done talking! Business doesn't wait until you're at your best."

"In your case, Kylo, that would be never."

Han averted the next phase of what he figured would be a long argument.

“Hold up, Vader Junior. How bad is he, sister?”

“My Lord Ren is supposed to be in bed.”

“I thought so. Well kid, think about it. Next month, we'll iron the whole thing out. Figure out when Han Solo disappears and Papa Kylo turns up.”

Ben pushed the bottle of whiskey across the table.

Han took a drink from it.

Kylo turned to Captain Phasma.

“Sit down. You came for this, Phasma, now you’re in it. But I’m warning you. Don’t try to cross me. Or Solo.”

“Or you'll kill me? You couldn’t.”

“No, but I could, sister. You want me to kill her, now, kid?” Han asked.

Casually.

“That won’t be necessary. Yet.”

“I wouldn’t cross you, Kylo. I can’t cross your son, General Solo. I owe him the debt of my life and my honor.”

“Oh. I see. And that’s all, huh? OK. I’ll play along. So, you get it, Ren?”

“So far. But then what?” Kylo Ren asked.

“Well, you and Captain Blondie have to keep up appearances and back my new identity until the war is over. It won’t be a farkling picnic for me. But it’ll keep the business going, and it’ll keep me alive. I know you don’t think you’d ever feel guilty about killing me, but trust me, Junior. Once I’m dead? You’ll miss me.”

Kylo finished his picture of beer and banged it on the table.

“You were a terrible father, Solo.”

“You hear that, Captain Blondie? I’m a rotten father. I left his mother. I’m in business with him. I meet up with him, in that mask. I never see his face. He calls me Solo. Every time I see him, I risk my life. His mother won’t see him. His uncle abandoned him. They won’t come near him, because of their fucking precious religion. Not now he’s embraced his inner Vader. But I don’t care. He’s my son. Whatever he does, whoever he is? He’s my son. And I’m with him. That’s right, you spoiled farkling brat! I’m a rotten father.”

"Okay, so you're not as bad as you used to be. But I'm worse than ever. Worse every day. Let's face it, Solo. Nobody in this farkling Galaxy gives a damn about me."

“I do. Why the hell do you think I don’t wanna die? Somebody in this family has to know what the fark is going on. You got some brains, alright, kid, but your mother and your Uncle Luke? Their heads are are full of Jedi nerfshit, and they don't know what the fark is going on."

Kylo Ren raised his pitcher.

"I'll drink to that, Solo." He said.

Link to Chapter Three- Tainted Love

[lesetoilesfous]

For the DADWC: “We could get arrested for this.”

Oooh I have an idea :D Thank you!!!

(If you want me to write you a dragon age fic, send me a prompt from here!)

@dadrunkwriting

Pairing: Nanders

Characters: Nathaniel Howe, Anders

Tags: canon-adjacent chaos, anti-chantry, I put barracks into amaranthine because it made sense to me? and also because i do what i want

Rating: Mature

“We could get arrested for this.” Nathaniel says the words quietly, bending over Anders as both of them peer around the corner of the wall behind which they’re hiding, across the courtyard to the door into the Amaranthine templar barracks.

Below him, Anders hums, and pushes his hair behind his ear before turning to shoot Nathaniel a bright, pretty smile. “We could also remove that stick from your ass, but the Warden says it does wonders for your posture.”

Nathaniel is still trying to figure out how in the name of the Maker he’s meant to respond to that when Anders straightens, and he steps back. The other man has an inch or so in him in height, but it’s noticeable enough, for all that he’s slender as a dancer. Anders picks up his staff from the wall. “Ready?”

Nathaniel tries to frown at him. It’s not easy. Nearby, chickens cluck on the street in a hutch outside a small, squat house. Anders grins at him again, tilting forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek before running into the square outside the barracks and flinging his arms wide.

“Oh NO, I’ve been CAUGHT, Maker whatever shall I do?” 

Nathaniel folds his arms and watches the way the corners of Anders’ mouth jump as he tries not to smile, even as he reaches up and pulls the tie from his hair, shaking it loose in a wave of red and gold. Anders glares at the alley in which he’s standing, and Nathaniel grins at him, gesturing for him to go on. Anders’ glare gets sharper, but he continues.

“How could I, an Evil Runaway Apostate, possibly have been caught by a Howe? That very family so recently damned in Amaranthine for the treacherous actions of Rendon.” Anders seems to take great pleasure in rolling the R of his father’s name. Nathaniel thinks, briefly, of how angry his father would be to be spoken of in such a way, and cannot find it in himself to be anything other than amused. 

He steps out of the shadows, and feels a light breeze run over his face and through his hair. Above them, the sky is blushing lilac with evening. From within the templar barracks, there’s no sound. In the corner of the courtyard a wide-eyed, filthy elvhen child stuffs a hunk of bread into their mouth, stands and flees. Anders scratches his chin.

“Damn. That was our only witness.”

Nathaniel smiles at him. “Perhaps it’s best to avoid the amateur theatrics.”

Anders raises his eyebrows at him, resting one hand on his hip as he cocks it. “Are you saying I’m a bad actor, Nate?”

Nathaniel huffs, and tries to ignore the way he’s flushing. “I’m saying you’re a terrible one.” He jerks his chin at the templar barracks. “Looks like nobody’s home.”

Anders hums, stepping forward and peering through the window into the dark room beyond it. “The Warden might have killed them all when we tried to recover my phylactery.”

Nathaniel watches him carefully. Anders had a tendency to keep his tone persistently, stubbornly light, even when he spoke of things that would have driven lesser people to drink or madness. He rarely wore his heart on his sleeve. It tended to shine through regardless.

“They will still be able to find you, as long as they have it.”

Anders gives him a sarcastic smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. They’re honey gold in the low light of evening, and his cheeks are scattered with freckles. He is a very beautiful man. “That’s how it works.”

Nathaniel nods, and fishes the locksmith’s tools the Warden had given him from his belt, bending to pick the lock on the door. On the street, there’s the quiet chatter of city folk, and occasionally a wash of sound as someone opens the door to The Crown and Lion. Nathaniel breathes, and tastes the smell of mud, manure and sea-salt that permeates Amaranthine. He fiddles with the pick, lifting the latches inside the lock. 

“What are you doing?” Anders hisses, and Nathaniel freezes at his sudden proximity, trying not to let the warmth of the body curving over his distract him from the task at hand.

“Picking the lock.” He says, returning to his work, and shutting his eyes as he tries to concentrate.

“That’s insane.” Anders’ whisper is loud in Nathaniel’s ear, and his hair tickles the back of his neck. But Nathaniel manages to keep concentrating for long enough to finally, finally break the lock in the door. It opens with a satisfying thunk, and Nathaniel gives the light wood a push and watches it swing open with a creak. He turns to Anders, spreading his arms wide.

“You’re welcome.”

Anders stares at the darkness, and swallows. For just a moment, Nathaniel catches fear in his eyes. It hadn’t been there when they were in the Deep Roads, or Blackmarsh, or even the Wending Wood. Carefully, lightly, Nathaniel sets a hand on Anders’ arm. “I’ll go first.”

Nathaniel draws a dagger and steps into the hut, half wishing he could use his bow in such tight quarters. He moves quietly, listening closely for any kind of movement. When there’s none, he straightens a little, and moves to a wide, expensive desk to light the candle on it. He turns back to the door. “You can come in. There’s no one here.”

Gingerly, Anders’ does so, slender fingers clenched in a white-knuckled grip around the staff the Warden had given him. Nathaniel watches him carefully. “Do you want to look around?”

Anders looks at him, then, and there’s something wide-eyed and childish in his expression that makes Nathaniel want to drag him away from this place and back to the Vigil, where he can protect him, and make sure he never has to meet another templar again. But Anders nods, once, and Nathaniel feels something give way in his chest as he does so. He turns to the drawers, opening them and picking up everything he can find, shoving it into his bag to sort through later. 

Anders moves to a chest in the corner, crouching to push it open and reach inside - pulling out old chainmail boots and more papers. Nathaniel waits for him before going deeper into the building: down a corridor and past a chamber for bathing and a latrine, before they reach a small, narrow holding cell. Nathaniel narrows his eyes. The thing is much smaller than the cell in which he’d been kept at Vigil’s Keep, barely wide enough for a man to sit. 

When Anders sees it he stumbles back and away. Nathaniel moves to follow him, but he waves him off. Nathaniel hears him make it a few more steps before he vomits. He purses his lips, fighting the urge to go after him despite his wishes. He thinks about the look on the Warden’s face as she’d told him, quietly, “He was kept in solitary confinement for a year. Don’t be surprised if he reacts poorly to close spaces or the dark.” Her eyes had flashed, then, and in them Nathaniel had seen a hint of the legendary Hero of Ferelden. “Do not be cruel to him about it, either.”

Hesitantly, Nathaniel steps forward, fumbling in the dark for the chest by the cell. He pulls out a small amulet and a folded piece of paper, and finds Anders in the first room. He ignores the smell of vomit in the corridor. But when he gets to Anders, he makes no effort to hide his concern.

“Are you alright?”

Anders doesn’t look at him. “Yeah, fine. Shall we get out of here?”

Nathaniel nods, and Anders leaves the room like a kicked cat, crossing to the other side of the courtyard in a handful of long, loping steps. When they’re back on the other side of the building again, Anders leans back against the wall and rests his head against the stone, shutting his eyes. Nathaniel tries not to be distracted by the length of his eyelashes, and the shape of his nose, and the pink curve of his lips.

“Maker, I hate templars.” Anders sighs, then opens his eyes and looks down at Nathaniel. “So? What did you get?”

Nathaniel offers up the necklace and the letter. Anders looks at the necklace curiously for a moment, but then his gaze runs across the letter and everything about him becomes very, very still.

Nathaniel frowns. “Anders? What’s wrong?”

Anders ignores him. Nathaniel forces himself to be patient. Over their heads, the sky flushes a deep blue. In the distance, there’s the sound of cows in the fields outside Amaranthine, and dogs barking on the street. The wind pulls Anders’ hair across his face, and he pushes it away absently. Nathaniel watches him re-read the letter twice before he looks up, brown eyes bright with excitement. 

“Nate, I know where my phylactery is.”

Nathaniel stares. He does not know what it is like, to have such a noose around his neck. But he knows what Anders has told him of it. He starts to reply - to say something - but then Anders’ long hands are catching his face and he’s kissing him. He must have chewed something recently, because his mouth tastes moreish and honey sweet as elfroot. His lips are soft and warm, and his hair tickles Nathaniel’s cheeks as he kisses him. 

After a long time, and no time at all, Anders pulls away, grinning, and presses a kiss to Nathaniel’s cheek. “Thank you.” He kisses his nose. “Thank you.” He peppers kisses over his forehead and chin and lips and cheeks and jaw. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Nathaniel laughs, subjecting himself to the shower of affection as he winds his arms around Anders’ slender waist. When he’s done, Nathaniel reaches up to push a long strand of red-gold hair back behind his ear. “How about we do something really illegal?”

Anders eyes are wide and bright and gold in the light of the setting sun. “Like what?” He asks, breathless.

Nathaniel leans up, and kisses him, and feels the way the other man gives beneath him, sighing into the kiss. He tightens his arm around the mage’s waist as his other hand gently cups the back of his neck. When he pulls back, he presses their foreheads together. “I think it’s time we stole your phylactery.”

Anders gives him a bright, crooked, blinding smile. “Nathaniel Howe. I like the way you think.”

[sexywookieesquadron]

Origins: Mey-Gon

Hey all, we’re finally ready to start sharing our OCs! This is the first chapter of OC Mey-Gon Niek’s backstory, created and written by Megan. We hope you enjoy and follow along as we introduce the rest squad and their wild adventures!

Word count: 1336

Chapter 6/9

Summary: How does a famous, wealthy party girl end up joining forces with a controversial paramilitary group like the Resistance?

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

xxx

29 ABY, Canto Bight

For the first time in a long time, Mey-Gon felt out of her league. The other patrons of the Canto Bight casino were more wealthy and ruthless than she could ever dream of being. They were throwing down bids the size of her entire acting contract on single rolls of the dice at gambling tables. A number of them gave her a second glance, as though they recognized her from somewhere. It was very possible that her holos had made it all the way to the Corporate Sector of the Outer Rim, where Cantonica was nestled, but nobody went so far as to admit that they were a fan.

Regardless of her actual status, Mey-Gon visually blended in with the human and alien crowd perfectly. Her copper hair gleamed with the oils she had used to smooth it up into an avant-garde style and her rich, velvety black dress featured an off-the-shoulder neckline that plunged into a distractingly deep “V” while the rest of the fabric clung tightly to her curves before flaring out below the knee. When the look was this on-point, she had no problem acting the part flawlessly.

The whole assignment was so clandestine and thrilling, she felt like a character in one of her dramas. Excitement simmered under her confident exterior, potent enough to rival the moments before a big audition or the opening buzzer of a swoop race. This kind of adventure was bound to get just as addicting as her other pursuits; and if the Resistance benefited from it, then all the better. Mey-Gon had already met with the arms dealer the previous day, and her first ever black market transaction had proved to be quite the challenge. It was a good thing she liked challenges.

She had found the Toydarian on a balcony overlooking the beach; and from there, he invited her out onto his private yacht for the negotiations. It turned out that the dealer didn’t really like to negotiate and Mey-Gon was terrible at it anyway. She had no idea what weapons were supposed to cost, and so she didn’t really know what kind of discount to ask for. Paying full asking price from the seller was probably a scam only amateurs fell for; but she had the credits, so the deal was sealed.

According to her accountant, Mey-Gon’s occasional rant against the First Order and New Republic, alike, had cost the G.I.D.E. a handful of steady donors over the past few weeks. Interestingly, though, the number of anonymous contributions had actually increased in the same time period. She had also lost a couple racing sponsors, so her personal wealth took a small hit; but the purchases on this trip weren’t coming out of her own account. Arming the Resistance accomplished all the same goals that her charity was founded upon, so the G.I.D.E. was unknowingly covering the costs.

Tonight she was gliding through the casino, looking for the dealer that had agreed to discuss ships with her. Vague anonymous notes had been exchanged via a dark corner of the holonet which Leia had introduced Mey-Gon to in order to set everything up for this trip. The ship dealer had told her to come to the slot machines on the third level at this appointed time and look for the fuzzy tauntaun. At first she had wondered if this was some kind of code that she didn’t understand or if someone would have a stuffed toy with them or maybe even a complete live animal - rich beings were eccentric like that. But when she didn’t see any of these items along the row of slot players, she suddenly realized it meant the drink. Finally, she located the frothy drink sitting on top of one machine and she paused next to it, happy to see that the gambler was an older near-human male. Those were her specialty.

Sensing her behind him, he turned and dragged his gaze up her figure, nodding in appreciation, “Finally, the jackpot.”

“If your rings line up right,” she promised.

“I can’t wait to find out,” he stood, heading toward the nearest lift.

She followed him, feeling that tickle of danger and excitement bubble up even stronger. They rode the lift to a floor with restaurants and lounges, and without even exchanging a word, one of the casino employees nodded at them and led them to a private booth, pulling a curtain closed around them that immediately dampened the sound.

“So you can tell me what you’re in the market for, or you can browse my catalogue and let me know what strikes your fancy,” her companion cut right to the chase, pulling a projector disk out of his jacket pocket and setting it down on the table in front of her.

“I know the general categories,” she activated the disk and started scrolling through the tiny images, occasionally selecting one to enlarge, “How about you buy me a drink while I narrow it down?”

He chuckled, “Only if you let me choose the drink.”

“All right,” she agreed, “Just no fuzzy tauntauns; they don’t agree with me. Pick something strong.”

His chuckle grew into a genuine laugh, “I think I’m going to like doing business with you.”

Mey-Gon had selected a medical frigate and a couple shuttles by the time their drinks arrived. Hers turned out to be a glass of straight bourbon from some exotic world, served over spiced ice and with a sprig of herb. She clinked her glass against the man’s and took a sip of the delicious liquor.

“Mmm, I think I’ll enjoy doing business with you as well,” she smiled, “Now, I want to see the fighters.”

He reached over to bring up the requested menu and leaned back to watch as she scrolled through. She casually sipped on her drink as she looked at her options, until one caught her attention and made her gasp.

“X-wings!” she enlarged the holo and watched with sparkling eyes as it rotated in front of her, “You know Luke Skywalker used to fly one of these.”

“Well,” the dealer seemed amused, “His was a T-65B, if I recall correctly, and my stock is mainly T-70s. Still Incom manufactured, if it matters to you.”

“Oh, yes, just as I’d hoped,” she said, even though she had no idea what he was talking about, “I’ll take a dozen.”

“A whole squadron?” he raised his eyebrows, “I’d hate to be the ex that kriffed you off, lady.”

“Yes, you would,” she replied mysteriously, sliding the projector back towards him as she returned to savoring the liquor.

He reviewed her selections with a nod, “Will this complete your order, miss?”

“For today,” she said and reached into her top to produce a datachip, “This contains my account information and the empty space coordinates for where my people will meet you to take delivery of the order. You’ll be sure to route this through an account that makes it look like a relief package for Hays Minor, as we discussed?”

“Of course,” he took the datachip, “I wouldn’t do anything to endanger the opportunity for further dealings with yourself. In fact, I’ll tell you what. I’ll include an entire case of that bourbon with your order,” he nodded toward her drink.

She smiled weakly, regretting the fact that she wouldn’t actually receive the gift, herself. Hopefully, Leia would enjoy it. They did have similar taste.

Mistaking her expression for a true lack of enthusiasm at his gesture, the man continued, “And, those X-wings you loved, I’ll throw in a custom paint job on one of them, free of charge - just for you,” his eyes moved from her body-hugging dress to her coiled hair, “Black and orange, in honor of the beautiful lady it flies for.”

Genuinely flattered, her smile grew wider and she raised her glass, “Cheers to that.”

[mikami]

Death Note Audio Drama 05

Disc 5: Exclusion Criteria - a summary / partial translation

Prior translations / an explanation as to what the fuck this is.

In this: Rem dragging Misa for like a minute before then settling into her usual ‘I’d die for her’ pattern without a single explanation. Light, Misa, Rem and Ryuk going to Space Land! L arguing with a waiter! Otherwise there is a whole lot of canon-close plotting going on.

____

We begin with Rem talking to Gelus (the name used here), who is watching Misa. Gelus tells her that Misa is going to die today. Rem points out that everyone has their set time on Earth and calls Gelus out for behaving unfitting for a shinigami by mourning.

REM: What’s so special about this... Misa Amane?

GELUS: Her parents died in a break-in, but she’s tough. She’s working as a model, did you know? It’s a hard job. Every day can be a set-back, the people are judging you.... but she stands her ground and--

REM: Are you serious? She’s living off insurance money and smiles into cameras. That is a ‘hard job’ to you?

GELUS: I’m just saying--

REM: And I say, 17 years in a first world country in the 21st century. A pretty good life, if you ask me.

GELUS: I did not ask you.

REM: Get over it, Gelus, her time is up. If you don’t want to watch her die, you better look away now.

We hear the stalker approach Misa, trying to get her to die together. But then Gelus begins writing! Rem tries to stop him, but to no avail. 

_______

TITLE MUSIC

_______

RYUK: The thing with this girl is playing with fire.

LIGHT: I’ve got a few things that can burn.

RYUK: Beginning with L?

LIGHT: She can see people’s true names. I just need to make sure she meets him and she can bring an end to him. And then nobody will be a danger to me anymore.

RYUK: Her, maybe.

LIGHT: That’s something we can deal with later. Now come on. We’ve got a date.

RYUK: I’ve got no interest in Rem. Her teeth aren’t--

LIGHT: Shut up!

______

The task force is sighting the security camera material from Aoyama. L’s actor still mispronounces it as ‘Ayoyama’ and he’ll never stop, it’s killing me.  L orders that Light is getting an agent tailing him again, since he was also in Aoyama.

______

Light, Misa, Ryuk and Rem are on a rollercoaster!

RYUK: I’m not sure what’s up with this human idea of putting yourself into a state of fear on purpose.

REM: I second that. I feel no desire to be pulled up there only to then drop down again.

MISA: Ooh, be quiet back there! Just try enjoying the ride.

REM: Maybe it’s all about the side effect. The females can scream and hide in the arms of the males. A good excuse for physical proximity.

RYUK: How’s a bit of cuddling supposed to help when you’re crash landing?

LIGHT: Is there any way for you two to make yourself inaudible and invisible?

REM: Maybe they enjoy the anticipation of the fall... 

Light then decides to change the topic and ask Misa how she got her Death Note. She tells the story. In this version, the Death Note just immediately fell in front of Misa, rather than Rem deciding to give it to her.

The rollercoaster starts.

REM: Ryuk! Let go of my arm.

Ryuk: ‘m sorry!

______

Mogi, who is trailing Light, informs L that Light has a date. 

______

Misa complains the milkshakes aren’t big enough, while Light gives her Kira-related instructions for a new message to announce she’ll kill independently from Kira now and spread her powers (like in canon). 

______

Ryuk and Rem discuss ferris wheels. Ryuk supposes that it’s all about getting the view, Rem points out that it’s also about couples getting privacy. 

______

Light tells Misa to never disclose their relationship or anything to the police. Misa tries to ask for more dates, Light declines, everything just as in the manga. The whole ‘I’ll have to date other girls, too’ happens here as well. Light threatens Misa and then Rem threatens Light, all according to normal script.

_______

Mogi informs L of the fight in the burger restaurant, though he also supposes they have made up by now (Mogi: “Yeah... yeah... He just got a goodbye kiss on the cheek that I’d care massively aggressive.”) Mogi asks L who he should follows after the date. L tells him to follow Misa to find out who she is.

_______

Light and Ryuk discuss the situation. Nothing really interesting here except for sum-ups of the situation.

Light walks past a magazine and spots Misa on the cover of Eighteen.

______

Light comes home. Sayu immediately confronts him with the Eighteen issue. There is a whole feature on Misa in it, about her hobbies and what she’d like in a man (Sayu: “By the way, I don’t think you’re here type, but whatever.”), etc etc.  Light asks Sayu to keep quiet, she asks for the money just like in the manga.

Misa drops by for a visit that isn’t really explained, since they just got off their date.

______

Mogi informs L of this. 

______

Light and Misa go to his room.

LIGHT: You never told me you’re a model.

MISA: Just look at me! What else am I supposed to be? A car mechanic?

LIGHT: You didn’t think to at least bring it up once?

MISA: You never asked! Which, by the way, is so typically Boy. You only talked about yourself and your great plans and your important mission. You don’t even know my favorite color.

RYUK: Blue.

LIGHT: Blue. We read the article.

_______

Misa’s new Kira II tape plays. L figures out that the two Kiras are in contact now. L suspects Light a little less because Kira II didn’t insist on showing L on TV and he figures Light would want that. 

_______

Misa and Light walk in the park. Light talks Rem into agreeing to kill L for his and Misa’s happiness.

_______

Matsuda brings in forensics results for the newest tape. They found a blonde-dyed hair. L informs Soichiro that Light is Kira, if he dies in the next few days. Soichiro complains about none of L’s reasoning holding up in court.

L: Calm down, chief inspector. If I’m right, I’ll be too dead to care. I hope I’m wrong, and then you can call me an amateur next Friday instead.

_______

L shows up at campus again. Light makes a quip about having thought L would turn to dust in the sunlight. The rest of their conversation is close-ish to the manga.They go for a coffee.

______

The task force is in a surveillance van, spying on the campus. The only mention of L liking sweets is made here.

They suddenly have a stranger on their police channel, only taking a moment to figure out it’s Mogi, who is in the perimeter because he’s following Misa.

_____

WAITER: So here’s two coffees and the cookies. Would you also like a blueberry muffin?

L: Why would I want one?

WAITER: They’re on sale.

L: If I wanted one, I would have ordered one. 

LIGHT: Just don’t mind him, he’s not from here. 

WAITER: Not a problem, I’m just asking. 

L: No, you’re suggesting to me to order a blueberry muffin. Because you’ve got too many blueberry muffins.

LIGHT: That’s enough, L. Here.

Coins clink.

WAITER: Thank you.

LIGHT: As an apology for my friend here, who is being such an idiot.

L: Friend? I’m flattered. 

Light (sighs loudly): ... of course. Let’s just sit down here.

L: To still call me a friend after all I put you through so far...

LIGHT: Well, we’re similar in many ways.

L: Oh really?

The conversation is interrupted when Misa enters the cafeteria and approaches.

______

Ryuk and Rem sit in the university’s bell tower and talk about why their respective humans are here. Misa actually has a photoshoot directly at college here.

_____

Misa comes by, chattering.

MISA: Don’t you want to introduce us?

LIGHT: No.

MISA: Oh, don’t be so grumpy, darling. Hello, are you a friend of Light’s?

L: You could say so. I��m Hideki Ryuga.

L gives his usual spiel about liking Misa as a model, Misa is happy and then---

LIGHT: Her fans are losers.

MISA: Darling?!

LIGHT: I’m just saying. A lot of them are really batshit. She has to keep her private life secret.

Ah, so it’s an excuse for not telling L about her earlier. L lays it on thick and calls Misa his “favourite photo model” and Light his “best friend”. Then Misa gets spotted and the usual commotion happens. The waiter offers a free blueberry muffin to Misa.

_______

The task force in the van can’t see anything through the commotion. Mogi can’t get close either. 

_______

Misa’s manager comes to drag her outside. She is called “Miss Yoshi” consistently here, though Misa calling her ‘Yoshi’ in katakana and without honorific in the manga suggests a nickname. Especially since she’s from Yoshida Productions. Her real last name is likely Yoshida.

_______

L gives Mogi and co. the cue to arrest Misa. It’s kind of silly because now they all act like they have this defined plan involving Mogi? When earlier Mogi’s presence in itself was a surprise.

________

L goes to grab some cake, Ryuk comes into the coffee so Light has someone to talk about his plans to. Light tries calling Misa.

L talks to the waiter again.

WAITER: Okay, so two cheesecakes, one more coffee, would you maybe like a---

L: Look at me. Do I look like I do?

A phone rings.

WAITER: Are you going to pick up?`

L: Hello, darling. I can see who’s calling. Light, I know it’s you.

They briefly argue about how L got the phone, L informs Light of Misa’s arrest.

______

Misa on her photoshoot. We hear the cameraman give her directions for a while. Then the team suddenly swoops in to arrest Misa. They somehow publicly say she is arrested for  “resistance against the state, blackmail, and a conspiracy with the goal of killing people” and read her her rights. 

______

Rem comes to Light to blame him for Misa’s arrest and tell him to fucking fix it. 

______

There is an absolutely strange segment here of Soichiro talking to Yoshi, about Misa’s arrest. Yoshi strongly protests it, keeps pointing out that Misa is a minor, generally wants to know what Misa is even arrested for. She seems to have a small hunch that Misa is arrested for being a Kira suspect.

I’m not bothering to transcribe this scene though, since Yoshi literally never appears again after it, so this scene is just entirely pointless.

______

Misa in her cell. She’s panicked. Nothing of substance is said.

______

L talks about Misa’s containment position with Matsuda, since an audio drama listened can’t see it. 

______

Misa begging to be killed, wohoo. Rem talks her into giving up the notebook.

_____

Light buries the Death Notes in the park and hands one to Rem. She flies off.

_____

Misa lost her memories and now refers to L as a stalker. He is confused. It’s the same as the manga, really. L interrogates again.

_____

Light handed himself in to the police. He has an official interrogation by Mogi, which Soichiro angrily interrupts, but Light continues testifying. The actual testimonial is alike to the manga.

_____

Soichiro accuses L of driving Light mad, but eventually consents to Light being put under arrest, under the condition of also being under arrest.

_____

Ryuk complains about boredom in the cell. (”Repeated attempts at getting Light to play ‘I spy with my little eye’ were grandiose failures.”) Ryuk just narrates dramatically to relieve his boredom.

_____

Watari wonders how to punish Kira, if Light really has a split personality. How to punish Kira and reward Light, when they’re in the same body? 

L just wants to proceed according to plan and Watari just... “We’ve got a plan?”

_____

Ryuk snuck out to eat an apple and came back, because he can’t stand being in the cell anymore. Light gives up the Death Note, finally.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

No Hallows’ Eve

Septics Inverted

A JSE Fanfic

How did the infamous “Say Goodbye” go down in this universe? Well, this story has an answer for you. It ended up shorter than most of my stories, for once. On a side note, today I learned the word “Hallow” means “holy” or “saint.” Well, we can’t have that here :D Hope you guys like it!

Read the intro story: Part One | Part Two

Various other AU-related stuff found here

Taglist: @evyptids @awkward-bullshit @watermelonsinmyattic @asunachinadoll @a-humble-narcissus @metautske @odysseus-is-best-boi  @acuriousquail

It was a normal apartment in the city. A nice one, but normal. The furniture was taken care of, but the room was still fairly messy, like someone had tried to clean but got tired halfway through. The setting sun shone through the open windows. The lights were off. Someone had knocked a figurine off a shelf, but otherwise nothing was touched.

Then something happened in the middle of the room. The air itself seemed to warp and bend. The world strained like somebody was trying to push through. And with a single crack, it gave. Shards of purple appeared out of nowhere only to go flying in all directions, embedding in the walls before fading away. Now, a man stood in the center of the room. He wore a black t shirt, blue jeans, and an eye patch. He didn’t move, but he wasn’t still, as his body kept glitching and distorting.

Anti shook his head to clear it of any leftover magic. “Fuc͝kín̕g̕ magi— when did he ev̛e̢n l͡e̷a̕rn̶ to͡ ̛dó t̛ha̴t?” he muttered. He thought he’d kept a close eye on him, but apparently he was wrong. Maybe he hadn’t learned too much. Enkávma a’Ousiika—the burning of something’s essence—was one of the simplest black magic spells to learn. It was a trick in the beginner’s arsenal. Maybe the magician hadn’t progressed further than that. But it was also a possibility that he didn’t want to waste his energy on a stronger spell because he didn’t think it would be needed. And he set up those wards, too. Rudimentary, but it still took Anti all day to break through them.

He looked around. They had to still be in the apartment. He hadn’t felt them leave. But where where they? “Jack?” he called, both with his voice and his mind. There was no answer.

There was a flutter of something in his stomach that he didn’t recognize. Something jittery. He didn’t like it. Frowning, Anti glitched to the kitchen. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink, just like they had been when he’d been forced out that morning. “Jack, are you here?” Nothing.

“Your fans want you to play that new game,” Anti said. “That one with the animatronics.”

“Sister Location,” Jack replied absently. He looked away from the computer screen where he was editing. Anti could’ve done that for him, but it hadn’t even occurred to him that could be an option. Jack didn’t mind, he just asked a friend to help him out. “It’s a FNaF game.”

“I know that,” Anti said, folding his arms. “Are you gonna play it?”

Jack’s eyes lit up. “Yeah. I actually had a cool idea for it. And if people like it, we could go for the whole month.”

“Really? What?”

“I want to scare the shit out of the community,” Jack grinned. “You know how I like horror. I’m thinking I could take some of that and put it in real life. Hence, the scaring-the-shit-out-of-them part. But I kinda...need you for this.”

Intrigued, Anti leaned forward. “Keep talking.”

He wasn’t in the kitchen. He wasn’t in the bathroom. He wasn’t in his bedroom. He wasn’t in the closet. None of them were. That left just one room: the recording room. That morning, Jack had dragged a table in there, along with a set of knives. That was the room where it all happened. Anti glitched into the room, looking around. If he could’ve breathed, he would’ve been breathing fast. Everything was exactly the same. The pumpkin was there, the knives hadn’t moved, the camera and its LED screen were still set up. Both of those had turned off, probably affected by the surge of released energy when the cat-themed magical girl of a magician decided to throw him out.

 “Jack, w͠he̷ré ̸̢a͟r̵e ̸y̡o̵̡u͠͞?!͢” Anti shouted. Maybe they were hiding, or magically camouflaged. Anti spun around and in a fit of glitches he was back in the living room. His hands twitched as the distortion spread outward, searching.

“Everyone is freaking out,” Anti said delightfully as he leaned over Jack’s shoulder, watching him scroll through Tumblr.

“Hell yeah they are,” Jack agreed. “They probably think I’m possessed or something. Hey look, they even caught onto your name.”

“Or they made it up and just happened to be right,” Anti rolled his eye, but he let a flicker of a smile slip out. “We gonna keep goin’ with this?”

“What do you take me for, an amateur?” Jack said, knowing full well he was making this up as he went along. “We’re gonna do something big on Halloween.”

“Like what?”

“Uh...I hadn’t thought that far. I was thinking maybe we could get some ideas from these guys. A lot of them think you’re gonna kill me...I can work with that.”

Nobody was there. Nobody was anywhere. How had they left? He would’ve sensed that! Unless they’d found some way to stop their electric signatures from being detected. Was there a spell for that? If there was, it must’ve been recent enough that he didn’t know about it. Anti told himself this. He couldn’t stand the idea that he’d been so focused on breaking the wards that he hadn’t even noticed them take Jack away. “Jack,” he muttered. “Why’d you choose t̷͟͠h̨̡͠e҉̢͏m of all people?”

“It’s okay, he’s gone,” Jack said, shutting his front door.

The lights flickered overhead as Anti made the switch from electricity to mostly flesh. He scowled. “I don’t like him,” he said without preamble.

“You don’t like anyone.”

“I hate him.”

Jack sighed. “I know. You’ve always hated him, which I don’t get. He was my roommate in university, y’know.”

“I do know, I was there. And I’m still here, listening every time he talks. You ever notice how he switches from hating his ex to wanting her back on the flip of a coin? Or how about how you just go along with whatever he says because not doing that would make you guilty? And his house mates! There are some inconsistencies in their records, and they act...strange.”

“He’s not—and I’m not—they—emotions are complicated, Anti. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Maybe you should.”

Anti reappeared in the recording room. He was twitching more than normally, travelling across the room and back in half a second. That Enkávma a’Ousiika spell had more of an effect on him than he wanted to admit, and he made a note to avoid it in the future. He glared at the carved pumpkin on the table. He clenched his fists and fought the urge to throw it. That wouldn’t help Jack at all. But he had to do something. He growled, and slammed his hands down on the table, rattling the candles.

This was his fault. If he hadn’t been so distracted, if he had just insisted a bit more to Jack that they were not who he thought they were, maybe...maybe nothing would’ve changed.

“People are theorizing!” Jack said joyfully. “They're pulling apart the Instagram story I posted.”

Anti dissolved for a moment as he double checked all the digital platforms. “They look like they’re having fun.”

“Good!” Jack said sincerely. “That’s the point.” He picked up one of the knives—the fake one—and fiddled with it. “So, you noticed the places I left in where you could do your thing?”

“I did.”

“Perfect. Now we just need this last bit. It should look as real as possible, like you’re actually in my head.” Jack dug around in his jeans pocket and pulled out a tube of fake blood. He’d dressed similarly to Anti’s usual outfit for this occasion.

Anti hesitated, then asked something quick, before he could change his mind. “What if we could make it real?”

Jack paused. “What d’you mean?” he asked, curious.

“Human bodies run on electricity like any computer. A different source, and more complicated, but you’re electric all the same. I can use that, influence that, travel through nerves like they’re wires.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “So you could actually possess me?”

“Not unless you want me to,” Anti explained hastily. “I was..made to understand, a long time ago, that your will is important. So I won’t take control unless you tell me to.”

Jack considered it, passing the fake knife from side to side. “Alright...we’ll try it out,” he said slowly. “But if I’m not okay with it, stop.”

Anti nodded. “Of course.”

The camera flickered on and off, in response to the glitch’s whirling thoughts as he disappeared and reappeared around the room at random. He knew where they’d probably taken Jack. Unless they had a new base he wasn’t aware of. He could get him back. Probably. They had pretty serious wards set up, and if had taken him a day to break through the hastily-made ones around the apartment—even if that was right after his essence was burned, he didn’t like his odds. He had to figure out some way to get in. He just needed to plan

But there was a part of him screaming to “Do something right now!” that he didn’t think was totally unreasonable. He could go to the police, in the meantime? He immediately dismissed the thought. A good portion of them were...not exactly moral, and the rest were lazy. They wouldn’t do anything unless the public demanded it. But...maybe there was some way to get people to notice, to get a lot of people invested in the case of the missing Jack McLoughlin.

His eyes strayed to the blinking light on the camera.

It had all gone well at first. Jack’s mind wasn’t exactly guarded, and slipping in was easy for Anti, as easy as holding his breath. He ran down Jack’s limbs, testing them out. He blinked his eyes and rolled his shoulders before finally settling down in his neurons. He could read Jack’s thoughts here, and he wasn’t upset. Somewhere between weirded out and fascinated, feeling his body move on its own, but not upset. Yet.

“I’m going to start putting the makeup on,” Anti said, using Jack’s mouth. He felt Jack’s approval.

But before they could proceed, the door to the apartment opened. Anti tensed, mentally and physically. “You expecting anyone?” he muttered. Jack was not. Jack thought it would be a good idea if Anti left so he could take care of this.

But Anti didn’t leave. He froze, sensing the familiar electric impulses of their minds. “What are they doing here?” he growled. Jack wondered who. “Three of your ‘friends.’ Hat, cat mask, glasses.” Chase, Marvin, and Schneep? “Yes, those ones.”

Jack felt relieved; this was good news. He’d thought someone had broken in. “They d̢i̛̕d̴ break in, Jack. Your door was locked.” But he knew them, surely there wasn’t a problem? Anti should just leave. And Anti almost did, but then he gritted Jack’s teeth and decided not yet.

They found the recording room easily enough, they’d all been there before. Chase opened the door and entered first, followed by Marvin, in his mask as always, and the doctor, in street clothes but carrying a strange bag that Anti didn’t like the look of at all. “Jack? Sorry, are you recording?” Chase asked. “You left your door open and we were—”

“It was locked,” Anti said. “I’m not an idiot, Brody.”

Chase’s eyes widened. Marvin and Schneep exchanged glances, moving a bit closer together. “No need to snap, dude,” Chase continued. “Or use the surname, jesus. We were just in the neighborhood and decided, hey, let’s go see Jack! I know you weren’t really planning on doin’ anything for Halloween, so we thought we could have a little get-together here. We could wait until you’re done recording, of course, but we brought games! And treats, too.”

Jack started pushing against Anti’s control, causing his hands to shake. Come on, it didn’t sound like they were up to anything. He could lurk in the wiring and watch like he always did when they were around. Then he’d see that there was nothing fishy going on.

Anti ignored him. “So is that what’s in the bag? What were you doing in this area anyway? It’s all apartment buildings. And you just happened to have shit for a party while you were roaming around the city, huh?”

“What is the matter with you?” Chase asked, suddenly angry. “You’re acting very weird, not like yourself at all!”

Anti laughed. “Oh, really?”

Marvin leaned toward Chase and said something under his breath that made him go pale. Chase looked at “Jack” with wide eyes. “Uh, dude, Jack—”

“Jack can’t answer the phone right now, can I take a message?” Anti asked in a singsong voice. Stupid? Maybe. But so much fun to watch the color drain from their faces.

Everything happened at once. Anti twitched, and the knife in his hand was suddenly real. Chase pulled Schneep to the ground as Marvin’s eyes lit up violet. A purple ball of fire launched from his hands, and Anti glitched out of the way, dragging Jack’s body with him. Jack screamed mentally, and Anti wasn’t sure if it was the breaking sensation of glitching that caused it, or the entire situation. Marvin hurled another fireball, and Anti glitched forward, taking a swipe with the knife that the magician barely managed to dodge. “Ge͞t ̨ou̵t̕! ̀Le͠ave h̶i̴m͝ ͝a̕l҉ǫņe!” Anti shouted.

“We do not have time for this!” Schneep shouted. “Do something fast!”

Marvin paused for a millisecond, then new fire shot forth, a brighter shade of purple. It curved in a wide arc, and though Anti tried to glitch away there was only so much he could do while towing a body that was not meant to break from reality. The fire hit him. It did no damage to Jack’s body, but Anti felt a sense of wrongness, of destruction and eating away. He screamed as he was ripped from Jack, left hanging in the air, no more substantial than a cluster of pixels. “Ib hauc luca, quosei ecité!” Marvin shouted, and Anti was flung away, so far away...and when he gathered the energy to return, the magician had set hasty protection spells around the apartment. He spent all day fighting to get past those, only to realize that it had been a distraction all along...

With a flick of power, Anti started the camera recording. He double-checked everything, making sure the table and pumpkin were exactly where they were when those three had barged in. He wrote the words “HELP JACK” on the whiteboard to the side. Then, he put all his effort into solidifying his body. He changed the hair color, making sure it matched Jack’s shade of green. He duplicated Jack’s tattoo. And finally, he took off his own eye-patch. There would be no hiding what was there when it was seen without a filter, but he could edit the footage well enough afterwards. He didn’t want to scare the viewers too much.

And then, Anti enacted the scene he’d planned with Jack. But a few major differences. The knife was not fake. Slowly, he cut. He could feel it tear apart his flesh, though it did not hurt. It was the first time he ever wished it did.

And then, he let his solidity fall away, and he spoke lines they had not planned. Not just warning, but anger poured out.

“You͞...̡H̶i̛s ҉mi̡nḑ ͏ẁas weak!̶ ҉Yǫu áĺĺ ̧saw t̸h̴e̷ ̶s̸i̧gn͝s, ̸ḱept hi̡m—҉” he couldn’t stay together. Reality was breaking. “I ̛am h̶er͏e҉ ͠now!҉ I͢t͏'s òn͡—y͠ou̴!͟ ̷I͞t̨'̵s ̶a̛ll̡ ́o͠u̴r̕ ̛faults.̢ T͡ǫo ̷l̴on͟g҉—li͏stene̕d̡ t́o th̡em̷.͞ Y̨o̴u all sa̵w i̕t̕ h̸a̕ppe̶n͏. ̷Yo͢u c̴o̡uld've ̢s͟top͝ped̸ ͠thįs.͠..̢b̢u̡t͟ y͏ou͞ ͠ju̴st ҉w̕a̢t̕ched.́ As th̸i̢s̴ hap̡p͠ened!” His head cracked from side to side. ̕”N̕o̡w̸—h͢e's͝—g͟o̵ne͏ ҉fo̵r̵e̵v҉er͟.”

He fell apart. But he had one last message. “G̢̀e̷͠͏t͏̷ ҉h̴i̢m҉͞ ̵b̛͢͡a̴͢c͡k҉.”

A message to himself as well. A promise.

Two days later, he reformed once again. Furious. Jack had uploaded a video the next day, explaining how it was all fake and the community didn’t need to worry. And most of them didn’t. That fact alone made Anti want to scream. Just like he said, they all watched Jack’s life and did nothing. They watched the videos he did with Brody and didn’t remark on how he did whatever he said. They listened to him talk about his friends and chose not to pick out the signs that were blatantly there.

Still, there were a few who thought the words he chose were odd for something dismissed as an evil monologue. They analyzed it, picking out bits and pieces, trying to understand. He had to keep an eye on them, nudge them in the right direction. Help them realize something was wrong, not just in the story they thought Jack was creating, but in reality itself.

Though Anti could’ve repaired the damage his own hand had done, he didn’t. It was better this way. Its seeping blood reminded him. He would not let it heal until Jack was safe.

And until those psychos paid for what they’d done to him.

[pluckyredhead]

Daredevil 101: Playing to the Camera, Part 1

Okay, I know we just got started on Bendis, but we’re taking a quick break for something more lighthearted before everything is terrible for a full decade. “Playing to the Camera” ran from #20-25 of Volume 2 (between “Wake Up” and the rest of the Bendis run), was written by Bob Gale and drawn by David Ross, and is basically, well, legal farce. (HEY SHOW WRITERS: I know you finished Season 3 already but I would strongly suggest throwing everything out and starting from scratch with the words “legal farce” in huge letters on your vision boards.)

The adventure starts with a wealthy philanthropist named Samuel Griggs coming to Matt with an...unexpected request:

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS, even those giant awful 90s suits.

So why does Griggs want to sue ol’ Hornhead? Well:

Basically, Daredevil and some ninjas smashed up Griggs’ greenhouse and booked it, leaving him to clean up the (expensive) mess. He can afford to do so, of course, but he doesn’t think it’s right that superheroes can cause widespread property damage with impunity, so he’s decided to sue Daredevil to establish a precedent that will stop this behavior.

Matt and Foggy tell him they’ll think about it, and then talk it over. Matt insists that the incident Griggs described never happened, but that Griggs is telling the truth, or at least believes he is - which means there’s either a Daredevil imposter out there, or someone’s playing with either Griggs’ or Matt’s memory. Anyway, Matt, of course, wants to take the case.

Foggy is like “OH MY GOD NO THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA AND ALSO FRAUD.” Matt argues that if they take the case, they can both find the imposter Daredevil and control the narrative, whereas a less scrupulous lawyer might dig into secrets about Daredevil that they don’t want getting out. Foggy’s like “Well, it’s still a terrible idea, but I’m Foggy Nelson so if you say MATT YES I say Foggy also yes.”

So they take the case! It is, unsurprisingly, a complete disaster.

For starters, the minute Nelson & Murdock sign on, Griggs goes straight to the press, turning the case into a media circus.

Oh, and there’s zero physical evidence for the incident having actually occurred. Good for Daredevil; not so good for Nelson & Murdock.

Meanwhile, there’s the issue of subpoenaing a masked vigilante. Matt and Foggy’s plucky new employee Elaine gets creative:

CALLED. THE EFF. OUT. What I love about this, besides Elaine’s sheer, hilarious chutzpah, is that Matt’s like “Omg this was the most belligerent, melodramatic way to do this possible, I HAVE NEVER BEEN PROUDER.”

Unfortunately for Elaine, the people of New York love Daredevil and aren’t thrilled that he’s being sued. In fact, a mob gathers when Elaine attempts to serve DD:

Jimmy Olsen over there lights the subpoena on fire and, well, that’s that. Matt’s surveying the scene from a nearby roof (in costume, of course), but he recognizes that showing up might cause violence to break out, so he stays clear.

Soon after, Daredevil’s old enemy the Jester is released from prison. He promptly hits a bank...

...but he doesn’t seem to be robbing it? He’s just kind of...pranking people?

Anyway, Daredevil gives chase, and the Jester hits him with the best prank of all:

Oh Elaine, always thinking outside the box! (Matt is less pleased about her hiring the Jester than he was about her calling him out publicly.)

Anyway, the Jester makes a good point in that last panel: now that Matt’s been served, he needs legal representation. Foggy agrees:

I’m not sure whose apartment that is but I’m so charmed by these two marrieds making coffee and watching TV together.

Matt finally settles on a nobody lawyer named Kate Vinokur:

Kate, I like you, but what is that skirt. Please don’t. On the other hand, that office is amazing.

Kate’s got integrity, and she doesn’t ask Matt his secret identity, so he’s confident he’s made the right choice. But he’s still going to Foggy for overall strategy:

Okay, this is clearly the same apartment as before but now instead of Foggy making coffee for Matt, Matt is making cocktails for Foggy. Are we sure they’re not actually married?

(Also they’re talking about the case, whatever.)

Meanwhile, Griggs offers a settlement in exchange for a public apology, which of course Matt is not going to give him, because he didn’t actually do the thing he’s being sued for:

GOD, SHUT UP, GRIGGS

Anyway, not only is this bad for Daredevil, it makes Matt and Foggy look like amateurs who can’t control their client. They’re tempted to drop him, but that would hurt their reputations too, so they just read him the riot act. Meanwhile Daredevil “borrows” $100,000 from Tony and T’Challa (fellas, you’re not getting that money back) and holds his own press conference so that Kate can announce that he is making the donation because the children deserve it without it being held hostage to a lawsuit, but that he is not apologizing because he denies the charges, SO THERE.

Oh, also somewhere in there Kate reminds him to be in court for jury selection and they take the opportunity to flirt:

SUB MATT CONFIRMED also this is CUTE.

Across town, Team N&M works on filling in the missing pieces of their case:

When you regularly read comics from the 40s-60s, a comic from 2001 doesn’t usually feel “old.” Like, this is about when I started reading comics, so it pretty much feels contemporary to me, like it could have come out a couple years ago. And then I run into lines like “If he was at home, why would he call from his cellphone?” and I realize that this comic is 17 years old and the world is extraordinarily different now.

P.S. I see Elaine’s brought her best mullet and several-sizes-too-small tank top to the office today!

Matt investigates. Turns out Griggs wasn’t at home - he was with his mistress:

The mistress won’t testify against Griggs because she cares about him, but now Matt knows that despite Griggs’ continued insistence that Daredevil trashed his greenhouse, it definitely never happened. He and Foggy confront Griggs with the tenuous nature of their case:

There’s no physical evidence one way or the other, and even if Griggs’ mistress won’t testify, the very fact that he has a mistress might come out and sway the jury against him. If Griggs won’t let it go - and he won’t - then they need to find a witness who can back him up.

Suddenly, a janitor named Bradlee comes out of the woodwork to corroborate Griggs’ story...and weirdly enough, he uses the same language Griggs did. Like, exactly. Matt theorizes that they’re getting that language from the same place:

Foggy’s so good at his job. Bless. <3

It turns out Griggs saw his therapist, Arnold Quaid, between talking to Matt and Foggy and Bradlee coming forward. Matt suits up and heads over to confront Quaid, who he’s pretty sure is the mastermind behind all of this:

GASP! IT’S THE MATADOR! He’s reformed, sort of, and implanting false memories in people...just because he can, really?

Anyway, Matt is NOT ABOUT THIS, so he drags Eloganto over to Griggs’ office to end this farce once and for all:

Neither Eloganto nor Griggs have any idea what Matt’s talking about. Neither one has ever seen the other before, and Eloganto insists that he is not Quaid and has no idea why Matt’s dragged him off the streets for this confrontation.

A very confused and embarrassed Matt is forced to retreat...and unsurprisingly, Kate is not happy with him. He insists that the rabbit hole just goes deeper than they thought, which she’s pretty skeptical about, until...

DUN DUN DUN!

What will happen at the trial? Find out next time on Daredevil 101! Spoiler: it’s EXTREMELY SILLY.

[professorsparklepants]

Girlvek secret marriage au

(AKA: Falling in love with Gil Hotzfaller was the worst mistake Tarveka ever made).

So, here’s what I got:

Tarveka “Veka” Sturmvoraus, the eight year old second daughter of the Prince of Sturmhalten, begs, pleads, and weeps crocodile tears until her father sends her to Castle Wulfenbach to be educated with the future rulers of Europa. There she meets orphan-without-a-past Gil Hotzfaller, who quickly becomes her best friend, and when they break into the records vault looking for his family records, instead of staying behind to dig deeper, she runs after Gil to try and comfort him. Neither of them get caught. 

Several years pass. Both of them break through remarkably early, likely around the same time, and they’re told by the Baron to keep Gil’s spark quiet (sensibly, Veka thinks, since a breakthrough this young in a boy without any family will draw the attention of a great deal of people eager to piss off the baron). Other than the Baron and Von Pinn, she’s the only person who knows about it, since she just happened to be in the fight place at the right time, which was next to Gil, where she always is. 

(I haven’t decided when exactly Gil found out about his real parentage, but it’s somewhere around his breakthrough. Gil gets scared into keeping quiet, but his friendship with Veka never suffers because he knew she was his friend even before he was someone important). 

Somewhere around 13 or 14 she and Gil start quietly dating. It’s an open secret among the kids at the school, who’ve known they were going to and up together for YEARS, but since Gil is a nobody and Veka is 50 families they know to keep quiet and save the two of them grief. Everything seems to be going great until their first big fight as a couple, because it’s a BAD one. Veka wants to look into Gil’s family more, because she remembers how miserable he was after the vault and knows something else is going on. Gil reacts badly and accuses her of not caring about anyone unless they’re useful to her. Veka snaps back that Gil has been anything but useful to her. Gil says he’s been useful enough keeping all of her secrets. Things deteriorate further from there; they both run off in a huff.

Gil mentions the fight (if not the context) to his father, because Veka looking into his past is something he knows the Baron doesn’t want. Klaus then proceeds to over-react and expel Veka from the school.... without telling Gil. Veka is under the impression that Gil went to the Baron and sold her out. Gil is under the impression that Veka threw a fit and decided to break up with him in the most definitive way possible. She refuses to look at him or say goodbye when she leaves.

Several bitter, miserable years pass. 

After living with her father’s terrifying and ethically unsettling agenda for god knows how long, Tarveka finally able to escape and attend university in Paris. She’s not free, because the Mongfishes rubbed their dirty fingerprints all over the Order and there’s no way to escape their agenda, but she’s as good as she can get. Maybe while she’s gone she can formulate a plan to scrub the order down. 

Mostly she ends up finding dead bodies at society parties, but that’s practically normal in her family. Developing a hobby of amateur detective work is not, but it’s significantly more fun, and she gets a good friendship with Colette Voltaire out of it, so everybody wins. She’s almost starting to enjoy herself when she runs into Gil again.

Their first meeting is not pleasant. Neither is the second. Or the third, or the fourth.... For two people who hate each other, Colette is fond of pointing out (to the both of them) they tend to meet a lot. Tarveka is fairly certain it’s because the universe hates her. It’s the only explanation. 

After several vaguely humorous events where Gil ends up crashing one of Tarveka’s cases, or Veka ends up caught in Gil’s adventures, or their two seemingly unrelated genres of after-school activities turn out to have been entangled from the beginning, the two of them settle into a vitriolic partnership founded on mutual survival and Not Talking About It, With Anyone, Not Even If You Paid Me Colette. The turning point is when they get into a REALLY BAD fight where they drag up all the stuff that happened on the castle and find out that both of them have different stories and someone must be wrong here, and maybe it’s both of us.

I’m not sure on the specifics of how their relationship progresses from there but I’m sure it involves a lot of attempted murder and rampaging monsters and slow burn, and the two of them in various stages of undress due to action scene clothing damage and pulpy fan-service tropes. At one point Colette suggests that Gil knock Veka up so she can retire from politics in disgrace to become Paris’ greatest dressmaker and everyone chokes on their drinks in horror (Wooster) and embarrassment (Gil and Veka). Maybe there’s fake dating. Eventually they start REAL dating again, and Veka makes a lot of jokes about Gil being her kept man, and everything is (mostly) great.

This is where the secret marriage plot comes in.

Martellus comes to town for a few weeks and pays more attention to Tarveka than normal. Like, a weird amount of attention. He danced with her four times at the last ball they both went to, and even spending time “keeping Grandma company” hadn’t deterred him. She’d been forced to resort to throwing eligible young ladies with power hungry mothers at him to keep him away from her. 

Meanwhile, Anevka’s letters start mentioning lab accidents at Sturmhalten--specifically, her lab. They never have lab accidents at home. The idea is ludicrous, which means someone is trying to kill Anevka and not even bothering to be subtle about it. Which in their family is a long list. 

She doesn’t think to connect the two until she has a dream one night where she’s the sovereign Princess of Sturmhalten, happy and glowing, congratulated by her many powerful and influential guests who all adore her. Someone asks if she’s looking forward to the coronation, and she replies Only as much as my husband is! And an arm wraps around her waist and she leans into it as Tweedle kisses her cheek and calls her wife and she wakes up in a cold sweat. 

She and Anevka are the only thing standing between Tweedle and incontestable rule of Europa. If either of them have sons, their claim will be better than Tweedle’s, unless they’re his sons. Anevka is dangerous and stubborn and would castrate him with a socket wrench if she knew he was even considering it, but everyone thought Veka was a pushover who did whatever her father told her because that was the price of surviving. Grandma hadn’t stopped Tweedle from dancing with her even though Veka knew she was the favorite grandchild, which meant either she was in on it or she was expecting Veka to solve her own problems, and if Grandma wasn’t openly supporting her then she had little chance of talking her father around, and she would have to marry Tweedle, and have his children, and let him touch her--

TWEEDLE CAN’T MARRY HER IF SHE’S ALREADY MARRIED TO SOMEBODY ELSE. 

This is more of a ”panic at 3 am” plan than a Tarveka plan but when she wakes up (again) the next morning it seems like a good idea, because she’s actually still panicking. Gil spits out his coffee when she brings it up and then Colette spits out her tea when they ask her to be the witness. 

In the future when asked, Gil’s defense for going through with this is 20% “I thought it was just technical and she would ask for an annulment later” and 80% “I didn’t actually believe it was really happening until we literally signing the marriage contract”. Tarveka’s is, besides the aforementioned panicking, “AT THE TIME Gil was the only person I trusted not to take advantage of me”. Colette, when asked, claims that a. they were clearly hopelessly in love, b. she knew that Tarveka was miserable at home and would be even more so if she ever broke up with Gil to get a political marriage, and c. the fallout was going to be HILARIOUS. (None of which are WRONG, per-say).

There’s a short honeymoon period until Gil realizes that like.... if they’re.... actually doing this.... he should probably like.... actually tell Veka who he is. So they have a serious talk about the trajectory of their relationship and how neither of them actually wants a divorce and at one point probably like, mush, and then he tells her. And she is SUPER PISSED. Especially since lying about your identity makes it a voidable marriage.

To quote Doc, who gave me permission to steal this piece of gold:

"Hey, I'm still the same Gil you know and love, right?" "Sentimentally, YES! Legally, NO!"

Like, this puts her in an amazing political position over the order and tbh most of Europa but she’s still SUPER PISSED because she married Gil specifically because she loves him and thought she could trust him and the fact that he was lying to her about this! For years! Even when they were kids! Fucks her up a little. 

Right in the middle of this emotional shit show is when Tarveka finds out her sister is dying. She makes up with Gil, a little, when she’s leaving (and she has to leave, because even if Anevka was a menace and made her skin crawl she’s still her sister), and promises they’ll talk more if when she comes back. 

THEN she finds out their father put Anevka into the summoning machine, and more panicking happens. Because her father put his DAUGHTER and HEIR into the summoning machine to get possessed by his EX-GIRLFRIEND and after he got over his hypocritical grief there was no proof he wouldn’t try it again with the spare.

I imagine that the extra years spent on Castle Wulfenbach gave Veka time and space to come to the same conclusions Tarvek gets to in canon when he finally has time away from his family--that no one deserves the sort of thing Lucrezia wanted to do to them. The difference here being that she got thrown back into it as a young teenage girl with the implication that as long as she was good, she’d be safe. This is proof that was a lie, and that she’s never been safe here at all, and maybe only survived through luck. 

Clearly now the only way to make sure she survives long enough to heal Anevka is to cut her father and the Other out of the equation altogether. So... she contacts the Baron about the veritable army living underneath her town, armed with dozens of hive engines. As you do. 

I think you guys can imagine how exactly that goes. 

After everyone that needs killing’s been killed and everything that needs handling is being handled, the Baron tracks her down and demands to know why he shouldn’t just kill her immediately for treason and harboring Agents of the Other.

To which her response is “Because I’m your daughter-in-law.”

And that’s where things start getting interesting.

[violetsystems]

#personal

I don’t think anybody would disagree the weather out here in Chicago is on some bullshit.  I was kind of glad to have a day off.  People around this time can be extremely moody and unpredictable.  I’ve been there so I can attest but this year I’m not at all.  I’ve been positive enough to keep pushing forward towards my goals.  One of those is no longer music and I think it’s starting to settle in with people finally as to why.  I already work hard enough.  All music has ever brought me socially was unwanted problems and stress to deal with.  I still make music on my mpc 2000 in the back bedroom.  I stayed home last night and played this Yugioh game I ordered from Amazon.  People expect me to be social and front facing every waking moment of the day.  It starts to bleed into my commute sometimes if I don’t bark it off.  This city can be brutally oppressive when it isn’t welcomed.  When people talk about scams and being scammed, Chicago can be as tricky as they come.  I think the reverse is true.  When someone like myself has had every single dirty trick in the book thrown at them, there’s a wisdom in that.  People still try me.  I’ve isolated myself enough to know where I’m comfortable and how far I can push that.  A good night’s sleep helps.  It’s ridiculous to me sometimes the pattern of behavior that I’ve set up for myself.  I’m up at five drinking coffee.  I wander into work or the gym before seven.  I had to adjust my schedule.  We all remember why.  I was being sexually harassed at the gym by a group of men.  You peel the onion layer back deep enough with me and you know that isn’t normal.  I’ve been targeted online and in real life more than anyone could possibly know.  Some people cry out for help.  Some people call uncle.  And some people shift out of phase and watch from the rafters.  I’ve lived to tell about it.  Over and over again.  People believe what they want to believe about me but one thing is for sure is that I have been through some shit.  Particularly with this city.  I can never escape it.  I was sitting in an airport in Shanghai and a pilot started talking to me about the area back home I went to college.  I had totally forgotten it was a pilot school.  I went there to study English and Psychology.  I told the guy I knew the place.  There in Pudong airport I announced our college was conveniently located right across from the state Maximum Security Prison.  The same prison where they executed that clown.  Also the same radio station I used to broadcast at four am and receive letters from inmates.  Here I am years later writing the love letters tuned into the CVS satellite radio’s broadcast of Ambrosia’s timeless classic “You’re the only Woman.”  It’s hard enough to stay focused when it follows me around everywhere I go.

Things follow me to New York too.  There’s this concept many people promote of the idea of a global citizen.  Someone who travels respectfully between boundaries and margins and gets things done.  Promotes culture, tourism, and goodwill.  There’s expectations traveling alone that I have never even imagined.  There are also cues wherever you look.  When you are focused on something like myself, it tends to drag me in.  It’s like gravity.  I like to have my emotional baggage light so I can be completely crushed by the romantic weight of it.  So I live how I talk.  And I love just as deep.  And it’s very hard to explain and there’s never really any need to when you feel free.  And for a person like myself regardless of a few bumps here and there I am free to feel that way.  I am also a white cis male heterosexual with a career in a world full of glass ceilings.  I don’t flog myself over it.  People have projected their own fears onto me for decades too.  If anything I seek the place in my heart to empathize and show love rather than hate.  And what happened a couple of days ago here in Chicago is something that is not representative of what belongs here.  An openly gay Black actor travelled in much the very same way as I would like from New York to Chicago.  That person became the victim of a very obvious, targeted hate crime.  The assailants even had the balls to say this was “MAGA” country.  The arguments stop there.  There’s nothing really more to understand.  Hate crimes don’t belong in Chicago.  That was a hate crime.  To me that’s terrorism.  I know terrorism in this city very well.  People have been gaslighting me for years to prove me wrong.  I realized the futility of constantly fighting to justify myself.  I only know what we’re fighting against.  And by we I mean us as a community of people.  The strengths in my life that I’ve come to rely on has been community.  Togetherness.  A care and appreciate for the life that each of us leads regardless of how that plays out.  Validation that isn’t just for show.  Some sort of anonymous virtual private network that phases us just out of reach from bullshit.  Prying eyes, judging glances, toxic rumors, and organized crime.  Those things evolve with the times.  Safety has to as well.  And the infrastructure of safety within communities is the power we all share together.  

Chicago is something I’ve shared with the world at this point.  Much like my love, care and respect for one person very far away yet close in my heart.  It haunts me over satellite radio and airplay every once and awhile.  It has it’s own language and way of speaking.  It’s own magic and rules.  It’s my own perspective and right to see a better future for myself.  I was really struck by that quote from Kazuki Takahashi about the hidden self.  I just like yugioh as a game for the most part.  I never really got that deep into the manga or art until recently.  But what he basically says is that we all have this egg inside of that might hatch into something amazing one day.  But outside forces and society tries to mold us and trick us away from our focus.  Sometimes it takes a long time for that egg to hatch.  Sometimes it requires a person to become very inward and quiet.  Sometimes if it’s a relationship in it’s infancy, it’s far too delicate from the social pressures put upon it.  Everybody is judging everybody these days.  Everybody wants control of the greater narrative.  People like myself tune in and out of that narrative.  Nobody has ever listened or respected what I have to say up until now.  When people anonymously ask if I think it’s worth it to visit Chicago, I will still say very much so.  And I say this full well knowing what is safe and not safe.  I’m appalled that anyone would commit a hate crime let alone an organized one.  That was two people that attacked that guy.  That speaks to me as being premeditated and organized.  It’s crime.  It’s terrorism.  And if you know one thing about how small this city is and how people work together, you know that’s a dangerous thing to try here.  Because this city is organized in ways that you don’t know.  Just like Chicago and New York are two places where I feel accepted no matter what.  That is a right for everyone.  This is not MAGA country.  These people are nothing but amateur terrorists like John Wayne Gacy or Ted Bundy.  People who hate women, minorities, people of color and the people like me that protect that idea of inter-sectionalism.  These things keep bubbling up.  I keep standing my ground.  That should be a very clear signal that the time is up for this bullshit.  Just like the vortex will lift and spring is around the corner.  Hate won’t last.  Only love will.  And this is a city where love should grow.  <3 Tim

[videogamelover99]

The Pine Tree

A/N: Heyyy guys long time no see? Yes, writing this latest chapter was like wresting a rattlesnake while balancing a few ceramic plates on top of my head, but here it is! Plus I already started working on the new one, so hopefully it’ll be out relatively soon. In the meantime, enjoy this small detour before the plot rears its ugly head again. 

Au by @doodledrawsthings, based on Flat Dreams by @pengychan.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

“Hey, who’s the new guy? He’s kinda cute.”

Dipper tore his eyes away from the book he was reading to stare at Wendy in mute horror. She was glancing from the corner of her eye at Bill, who had taken the opportunity to rearrange all the snow globes on the shelves as a petty way to spite Grunkle Stan. Why they even let Bill into the gift shop was anyone’s guess. So far, all he managed to do was to scare away customers and give everyone a headache. No one recognized him so far, which was a good thing, but most of these people were just passing through the town anyway, and had no idea about the disaster that took place last summer.

Wendy had just come back from a hiking vacation with her family, and since nobody expected her to be back so soon, they had no idea what to do with Bill. Dipper assumed they would have to tell her eventually, seeing how she was a regular employee, and was definitely smart enough to connect the dots by herself at some point. Better to warn her ahead of time than to wait until she dragged in an exorcist or something. Not that Dipper though it would work. At all.

But Hearing his past crush call the devil in disguise “cute” was something vaguely traumatic. And it showed, because Wendy suddenly looked concerned. “Hey Dipper, are you okay? You look like you’ve just seen Stan in his underwear again.”

“I-uh.” the boy cast a look at Bill, who was now stacking the Mr.Mystery bobbleheads into a pyramid, humming something under his breath. He would have to tell Wendy. Better do that sooner than wait for her to find out on her own. “Wendy, I gotta tell you something-”

“HEY RED! PUMA SHIRT OR PANTHER SHIRT?” Dipper froze.

Wendy turned to look at the demon, who was now wrestling two hangers in his hands, and squinted a bit. “Dude, just buy both. That’s what the mayor did.” The teenager turned back to look at Dipper, then did a double take. Her eyes traveled from Bill to the bobblehead pyramid he constructed, then back to Bill.

Dipper grew more worried, hoping to stop, or at least control the train of thought the girl was aboard. “Uh, Wendy? I gotta-”

“Sorry Dipper, you can tell me your thing in a sec.” she looked as pale as a sheet, and before Dipper could stop her she leaped over the checkout booth, a murderous glint in her eye. Oh boy.

There was a scream, followed by lots of yelling, cursing, and flying merchandise. Dipper winced, hiding behind the cash register just in case.

…

“So you don’t know why he’s like this?”

“Dipper, if a month ago you would have told me Bill Cipher would be living under our roof, I would have had an aneurysm.” His great uncle pushed up his glasses, a habit that Dipper had learned was a pondering one. Then he frowned, his his gaze distant. “Did, did she tell you anything? Any information about this situation we have?” Dipper sat up straighter.

“Uh, no?” he answered, shrugging uncomfortably. “I mean, she told me a lot about how her stuff works. And to be honest, it kinda looked like she wanted to...get rid of us? Not in a bad sense!” he corrected himself at the scientist’s questioning expression. “Just, I kinda think she wanted to...talk to Bill? So she sent us off? I mean, from what I could tell it looked like the two had history. And knowing Bill, it probably wasn’t good. So, uh, yeah?” The teen fidgeted in his seat, staring at his unfinished cup of tea in silence.

“I see. And the scissors?” Grunkle Ford looked deep in thought, chewing on one sparkly pens Mabel had gotten him for Christmas.

“Mabel has them. You gotta ask her.”

“No no, that’s quite alright. She can keep them for now.” Stanford stood up, the unfinished tea, which had probably cooled by now, still in front of him. “Well, if there’s anything concerning you, feel free to share it with me. For now, I feel like it’s about time I graded some papers.”

Dipper hopped off his chair, straightening his hunting hat. “Same goes for you, Grunkle Ford.”

“Of course, of course.” The man gave him a forced smile, and Dipper had a feeling Grunkle Ford was just waiting for him to go. Far from being offended, the boy kinda understood. Sometimes a guy just needed to think, and other people tended to distract from that. Dipper turned to leave with a parting wave, and had just reached the elevator doors when he heard a familiar, yet very unwelcome voice echo through the wide expanse of the room.

“Wow, this place is a mess.”

How had Bill even gotten down here without running into Dipper? Was he like, lurking in the shadows? Because that was seriously creepy.

“What do you want now, Cipher?” Grunkle Ford sounded tired. Dipper probably shouldn’t be hiding around the corner, spying on...whatever was happening. But curiosity was a temptation Dipper could never resist, so he stayed anyway.

“Like I need a reason to visit an old friend.”

“Have you forgotten the part where you betrayed me and tortured me?”

“Huh, kinda. But considering that you literally set me on fire,” there was a loud creak as Bill sat down in the chair Dipper had been occupying not even a minute before. “you could say we’re kinda even.”

There was a long lasting silence as Stanford glared at the man across from him. “Have you come here just to bother me? Or is there something you want?”

“Hey, what’s with the cold shoulder, Fordsy? You’re actin’ like I just threatened your friends and family right in front of ya.”

“Cipher.” there was a dangerous tone in Ford’s voice, something that even made Dipper have chills down his spine. In a flash, Bill’s whole demeanor changed, the causal, teasing mood replaced by something much more serious.

“Fine. Where are the scissors? I need them.” So Bill wasn’t lurking around during their conversation. That was good, at least.

“What for?” the dangerous tone was still there. “And if you think we’d just let you go prattling into another dimension, you’re greatly mistaken.”

“Wow, haven’t slept in weeks, and you still manage to sound all heroic and stuff? Kudos to that.”

“What do you want them for?” Stanford tried again, this time sounding a bit more forceful.

“Noneya business. But I’m guessing you don’t have them.”

“If you’re thinking you can just-”

“Well, BEEN NICE TALKING TO YA. Even WITH THOSE AMATEUR PRYING EYES RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER.” Bill jumped off his seat, and Dipper scrambled for a hiding place. Seriously, how did Bill do that? The boy scrambled behind a tower of dirty cardboard boxes, hoping they were enough to cover him up. He watched Bill pass him buy, and the demon suddenly shot a wide grin in Dipper’s direction, his eyes boring into the teen’s. And then he was gone.

Dipper breathed deeply, trying to calm down his racing heart. It was fine, Bill was just messing with him. It’s not like the demon could actually hurt him. The guy got decked by Wendy a few days ago, if that didn’t say something. Nevertheless the boy shot out of his corner, rushing to get to the elevator before Grunkle Ford saw him, and planning to get far far away from the Shack for a while.

...

Dipper chewed on his fifth pen for the day in frustration, glaring at the makeshift web he had drawn in his journal. The boy adjusted himself so that the ridges of the birch tree he was sitting against weren’t digging into his back, and crossed out a few lines. No amount of thinking could calm down his bundled up nerves, beacause nothing about their current situation made sense. Okay, so Bill Cipher was back. Great. How? Just a few weeks ago he was a piece of rock in the middle of the woods. Now he was alive, not only that, but a human, stealing their soda and sabotaging the Mystery Shack on a daily basis. Hanging around...around...

The boy’s fist clenched the pencil a bit to hard, making the fragile wood crack under his palm. Mabel. It was pretty obvious that Bill was trying to manipulate her, to somehow get the more trusting twin on his side. Dipper had absolutely no idea what the demon had planned. But whatever it was, he would make sure Mabel wouldn’t be a part of it.

The boy turned the page of his journal, his eyes falling on his newest illustration. Seven eyes, drawn in black ink, stared right back. There was the other mystery that needed solving. Meeting Jheselbraum the Unswerving made Dipper understand even more why his great uncle was so fond of her. It was hard to pinpoint what exactly she did with just one journal entree at hand, but visiting the dimension below the mountain gave both of the twins, along with a bagpipe, a discovery of something much more interesting, interesting enough to even warrant a fall into the bottomless pit.

All the natives they had talked to turned out to not be natives at all, but refugees from other dimensions. Or, more importantly, the dimensions that Bill took over previously. And all of them had absolutely no idea where their oracle had come from, only that she was the one to take them in and care for them. The oldest one, a creature who looked like a cross between a lizard and a bird, claimed to have been there for several thousand years, and still could not give them any new info about who exactly his caretaker was, only that she had welcomed him and had been nothing but kind. As far as this old geezer can tell, he had said, she’s been there since the dawn of this place.

Well, that was all nice and good, except that Dipper still didn’t know who or what the being that saved his uncle’s life was, and how exactly she was connected to Bill. And there was definitely some kind of connection.

Dipper slammed the journal shut, getting up to stretch from the uncomfortable position he’d been in for the last hour. The twin made a glance toward the birch tree he had just been sitting against, shivering as he felt the eyes that littered the white cracked bark stare silently back at him. Of course, Bill couldn’t spy on them anymore, not when he was in this state, and yet the eye-shaped ridges still gave Dipper the creeps. The boy quickly turned away from the tree, heading deeper into the woods, away from any sign of the demon. He needed to think, and recently he found out that walking aimlessly through the shrubbery was a good way to do just that.

The younger Pines twin tripped over a couple of roots, jumped over a small stream, and chased away the hungry mosquitoes aimed for his face. Okay, so maybe nature was just as friendly as he’d remembered it, but at least there was no-

Dipper froze in his tracks, the blood freezing in his veins as he realized what clearing he’d stumbled upon.

There, across the small patch of grass, it stood there like some sort of twisted monument, just as overgrown as it’d been before. Dipper wanted to turn back, to run toward the shack as fast as possible, because no matter how ridiculous and creepy the Bill Cipher there was, this one was just plain terrifying. It didn’t matter if the statue was just a piece of rock now, something in Dipper’s instincts just screamed danger about it. Maybe it was Weirdmageddon taking a toll on him, or maybe it was some other, supernatural reason, but what the Pines twin needed to do right now was get as far away from that thing as possible, and the sooner, the better.

But there was the other, slightly more familiar part of him that wanted to come closer. Because as far as Dipper knew, that statue could explain everything. Why, and how, Bill survived, the Oracle, and maybe even why his uncle was acting so weird lately. Somehow, simply by shaking his hand, Mabel had managed to bring Bill Cipher back to life. But that made no sense, there had to be something else at work than a stupid handshake, something-

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”

The unmanly, high-pitched squeak that tore out of Dipper’s throat was something he would later deny he ever let out. The nearby resting birds flew up into the air in a crying swarm as the boy jumped, spinning around to face the creature he’d not so long ago wracked his head over. “B-Bill, I, what?”

The demon grinned back at him, looking strangely cheery despite the deep, sleepless bags under his eyes. “Pine Tree, Pine Tree, Pine Tree. Finally, someone I could count on to be an obsessive nerd over just about, well, anything.” Bill strutted over to him, and the boy shivered under the piercing gaze, struggling to keep his heartbeat under control.

“B-Bill, uh, what are you doing here?”

“Coulda asked the same thing, but then again, can't really blame ya.” The demon moved away from him, and the lack of proximity helped Dipper calm down a bit, which he was pretty thankful for. Bill pat the statue fondly, before leaning on it with one arm, the ever-present grin still on his face. “So what got ya poking around my dead body?”

“Your-” Oh. Right. This was the body Bill had created for himself, wasn’t it? The one he left behind when he died. Gross.  

Bill scowled at Dipper’s silence, flicking his hat to the side. “Houston, we've got a problem, Pine Tree’s officially lost in the exosphere! What's with the blank look kid? Not gonna lie, kinda miss those times where it's a look of pure terror instead.” The demon leaned on the statue once again, his fingers tapping lightly against the stone. “So what's got those cockroaches in your head running around?”

“Why are you like this?” Dipper blurted.

Bill rolled his eyes. “Ha! If I had a negative twelve dollar bill every time somebody asked THAT I would have owed-”

“No! I mean why are you a person?” Was he a person? It was kinda hard to tell, considering that most of Bill consisted of nightmare fuel and dead baby jokes. And okay, asking outright wasn't really the best strategy, but what was the worst that could happen? Bill refusing to answer, spouting some nonsense?

Dipper missed the way Bill suddenly stiffened at the question, too busy running scenarios through his head. When the demon answered his voice was a lot less bombastic than before. “Why? Why are you?.”

Dipper blinked. “I- because I-”

“Exactly.” Wow okay.

Bill’s attention was now turned to the stone hat, which he tapped on absentmindedly. “Man, kinda miss the hat, not gonna lie.” The demon finally noticed Dipper’s stare. “What?” His hand left the statue as he folded his arms over his chest.

“You’re patting your own- you know what, nevermind. This isn’t the weirdest thing I’ve seen.”

Bill took a moment to look offended. Then he straightened up, no longer leaning on his statue, and strolled right past Dipper, not even bothering to glance back. “HAVE FUN WITH THAT, KID. And if you’re here too break it, good luck! I’ve tried already.”

The boy turned around to Bill’s retreating back, his train of thought once again disrupted. Why would Bill want to break his own statue?

“BY THE WAY!” The demon called out once again, his voice echoing from somewhere beyond the tree line, “16 °C to 18 °C, NO HIGHER THAN 24 °C, SEE YA!”

...What.

…

“Candy! What do you think?” Mabel held up a black and white flannel shirt.

“I think you should get yellow.” the girl answered, squinting at the apparel in thought. Somehow, through his sister’s amazing talent of conviction, Mabel had not only told her friends about the demon living in the Shack, but also convinced them that going clothes shopping for Bill Cipher was somehow a good idea. Dipper needed to know what mind controlling powers his twin possessed, because there was no other explanation to how come Candy and Grenda were not running away in terror from the creature that had destroyed their home town only a few months ago.

Speaking of which, where was Bill? The boy swallowed down the brief panic at the image of some poor store owner set on fire, and frantically searched for the subject of Mabel’s fashion spree.

He found Bill leaning over the counter, harassing the poor cashier girl manning the register. “So that’s why clothes made for human females have no pockets!”

The girl, who looked a few highlights away from being crowned queen of punk rock, stared at him open mouthed. “Holy shit. And here I thought it was for some horrible design choice or something. Joke’s on them, I’m sewing my own damn pockets.”

“Atta girl! Don’t let those corporate idiots control your consumerist needs! THROW THEIR OWN DISGUSTING MASTER PLAN BACK IN THEIR FACES.”

“Yeah!” the punk rock girl suddenly took out her purse, throwing it on the ground viciously. “Screw you, Coach, for making me buy your horribly overpriced purses!”

“Uh…” Dipper wondered what the probability of Bill somehow finding someone just as insane as him in a mall full of normal people was.

“Could have done without the dramatics, to be honest.” the boy jumped at the new, yet strangely familiar voice next to him. Dipper looked up to see a young, dark haired woman somewhere in her early twenties. She was staring at the scene before them with something between amusement and annoyance, and he couldn’t help but think he’s seen her somewhere before. The woman then looked at him, and the uncomfortable amount of perception in her gaze gave Dipper involuntary shivers. It was like she knew something he didn’t, something important, and was letting herself be slightly smug about it. The boy looked at the ground, searching his memory for where he’s seen her before, because the feeling of deja vu was not leaving him alone. Dipper turned back to ask-

The woman was gone.

That...okay that was seriously creepy. Even for him, and Dipper dealt with the supernatural on a daily basis.

“DIPPPERRRR! Where’s- oh. There he is.” The boy jumped as Mabel suddenly leapt at him from behind, yelling excitedly in his ear. Dipper rubbed his forehead as the girl rushed past him, capturing Bill’s arm and dragging him to one of the changing rooms, the demon expressing only slight protest at being manhandled. That was also weird, how easily Bill got along with Mabel now. Dipper decided to dismiss it as Mabel’s magnetic personality, and worry about other things instead. Like how to prevent all of them from wreaking the store.

...

“Soo, what do you think?” Mabel asked, watching Bill stare at himself in the mirror.

“Still a horribly limiting fleshsack.” the demon responded, fidgeting with the buttons of the bright yellow cardigan he was wearing. “This needs a bowtie.” he decided, and Mabel groaned behind him.

“No it doesn’t! Stop ruining my masterpieces with your awful fashion sense!” Bill had the nerve to look offended.

“It looks good.” Candy said thoughtfully from Mabel’s side, hand on her chin.

“TRIANGLE MAN IS FIXED NOW.” Genda whooped, patting his sister on the back.

“I was never-” Bill’s rant was cut off as the three girls shoved more clothing in his hands, pushing him toward the dressing room.

Dipper had to admit, he wasn’t feeling very sorry for tagging along after all. Watching Bill Cipher get manhandled by a bunch of teenage girls was hands down a highlight of the summer. A few customers gave them odd looks, and as Dipper spotted a few familiar faces, suddenly his mind was on something else completely. His paranoid, overly nervous brain took care to remind him of the one giant problem that was now arguing with his sister over ties.

While the Mystery Shack took the demon’s return relatively unscathed (scathed, but relatively un), the town would not be as okay about it. Or at all, to be honest. If any of the townsfolk found out Bill Cipher was not only back, but camping out in the Shack, it wouldn’t matter if Stan was the town hero or not. They would come running with torches and pitchforks, ready to get rid of that yellow menace for good.

And judging by how easily Mabel and her friends managed to subdue him, the demon wouldn’t even stand a chance.

Bill and Mabel were looking like they were about to tear apart the whole accessories section. Candy and Grenda weren’t much help, observing the argument at a safe distance, eating the stash of chocolate his sister had given them as a reunion gift. They weren’t the only spectators. Seems like security finally noticed the disturbance in their store. “Oh man,” He needed to get over there and prevent any further disaster from happening. And quick.

Dipper narrowly missed running into a coat rack, and ran as fast as he could to the source of the chaos: his sister, and the murderous entity they had somehow brought back from the dead.

“We’re not buying a bowtie for you, Bill!”

“You’re limiting my freedom of self expression. How’d ya like it if I burned all your sweaters, huh?”

“First off, leave my sweaters out of this! At least they’ve got a whole lot more pizzaz in them then you ever will!”

Bill’s eyes flashed dangerously, and Dipper would have been a heck of a lot more frightened by that if what he was angry about hadn’t been that ridiculous. “Shooting Star, do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“Someone with like no taste.”

There was a quiet -ooooh- from Grenda, and Dipper had a feeling that if he didn’t defuse the situation fast enough, the whole mall would probably go up in flames. “JUST LET HIM KEEP THE STUPID TIE AND LET’S GO.”

…

He collapsed onto the bench in exhaustion, watching as the group made their way to the food court, and rubbed his eyes, exhaustion creeping into his limbs. Dipper hadn’t even realized how little sleep he actually got, at least not until the caffeine he had consumed during breakfast had run out of his system. The sleepless nights were all Bill’s fault anyway. That stupid riddle, if it could be called that at all, would just not leave him alone. What turned out to be Dipper’s best effort to ignore something that seemed like just a jumble of nonsense had quickly turned into a burning curiosity because what if it somehow made sense. Probably not, because expecting Bill to give straight answers was like expecting a penguin to learn to fly. Yet there he was, trying to figure out a puzzle which probably had no answer in the first place.

“Mind if I join you?” Dipper jolted in his seat, earlier frustration momentarily forgotten. The woman he saw a few hours earlier, the one that mysteriously vanished, was now looming over him, something between amusement and awareness in her gaze. The boy spent a few more seconds picking his jaw up from the floor, swallowing thickly. “S-sure! I mean, I don’t mind? I mean-”

The woman laughed lightly, nothing mean spirited about it at all. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

She sat down, and Dipper shifted in his seat awkwardly, trying his best to avoid her gaze. “So, uh, what’s up?”

The lady smiled. She seemed to smile more with her eyes than her mouth, something the Pines twin found strikingly familiar. “Nothing much,” she glanced to the side, “Just came to visit an old friend, that’s all.” Her eyes were focused on something that completely escaped his vision, and Dipper was getting that itch, the tingly feeling in the back of his head that told him that he was dealing with something supernatural. The woman looked convincingly human, but the more he observed, the more he started to realize that something about her appearance was off. It was like watching someone put on a fancy suit, yet completely ignore all manners. Like the time Mabel tried to dress up as a mermaid for halloween, but the elastic fishtail she had shoved over her legs did nothing to disguise the fact that those were still legs under it.

It was like the stranger next to him was dressing up as a human, but didn’t necessarily know how to act like one.

“Friend huh?” The boy’s voice came out a bit too high. “Not from around here then?” Please tell me she’s an alien and I’m not just crazy.

“You’re not just crazy, Dipper.”

“Oh thanks I- what?” The boy scrambled back onto the edge of the bench, pressing himself against the potted plant next to it, the wide, bright green leaves blocking the edge of his vision. “How did you, are you a-?!”

“-Mind reader? No.” Then she winked, and Dipper had definitely seen that gesture before, not done with two eyes, but…seven.

“Jheselbraum?”

The woman winced slightly. “That’s actually not how you- nevermind.”

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, you, why are you- how are you-?”

“Why I am here is because your uncle requested I come. I believe he requires my help on something urgent, and I’m more than happy to comply.” She smiled, her gaze so calm that Dipper found himself relaxing a bit more. “As for my appearance, I doubt humanity would be thrilled in seeing an alien species walking down the street. Especially after what happened in this town last year.” Her tone darkened slightly. “So I asked for a small favor.”

“A favor.” he echoed, “So you’re not a shapeshifter?”

“Oh, of course not.” the woman sounded a bit indignant. “I’m an oracle.”

“Yeah, okay.” Dipper frowned, looking away. The thrill of meeting the extra dimensional being again was slowly fading, and the boy found the situation getting more awkward than anything else. “Wait, why would Grunkle Ford-?”

“Well, well, look who the frilly salamander dragged in.”

Bill’s voice cut through the crowd, as unpleasant and unwelcome as it usually was. Dipper watched as Jheselbraum’s expression instantly turned stone cold.

The two beings just stared each other for several seconds. The Oracle’s air was still unreadable, but harsh. Bill, for his part, still had that sarcastic smile pasted on his face. Dipper felt the tension in their little corner flare up, something unspoken once again rearing its ugly neck between these two. The twin was ready to excuse himself, and run as fast as he could toward his sister, where at least he wouldn’t feel like he was sitting on a ticking time bomb.

“So what happened, Seven-Eyes? I thought you were pretty clear on the whole ‘never wanna see your face again’ thing.”

“I never said that. Or anything like that, really.”

Bill looked away. “Nice makeover, by the way. What, did the giant pink know-it-all decide to curse you too?”

“I forgot how unpleasant your voice is.”

Bill stiffened, looking ready to fire back another retort. Just then, thankfully, Dipper’s sister chose to demonstrate her impeccable timing. “Hey guys! Why the heck are you all over- oh.” Mabel froze, standing dead still between Dipper and the two interdimensional beings that were busy having one of the most intense staring contests both twins had ever seen. Nora was the first to break it, turning to the newcomer with a sudden pleasant smile on her face. “Mabel, it’s nice to see you again.”

Dipper could visibly see the gears in the girl’s head turning. “Wait, hold on…” His sister squinted at the Oracle suspiciously, before something clicked, and her face split into a giant excited grin. “It’s about time you showed up! Grunkle Ford’s been getting reeeally paranoid, you know. ‘Cause of this jerk over here.” She pointed her thumb at Bill, who by some miracle remained silent throughout the exchange.

Jheselbraum raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been expecting me?”

“You promised to visit.”

“Oh, of course.”

“Wait,” Bill interjected loudly, “Why the heck are you-”

Nora cut him off. “I believe your friends are waiting for you two.”

Mabel and Dipper whirled around, spotting Candy and Grenda, who slowly made their way towards them, pushing aside shoppers and stepping on heeled toes. The two girls came to a stop in front of Mabel, both breathing heavily.

“Where did you go?” Candy asked, straightening her glasses. “We were looking all over for you and-”

“Oh my gosh guys you have to meet someone. This is-” Mabel turned around, gesturing at- empty space. Dipper blinked.

The Oracle was gone again.

“Alright, have to give credit for that disappearing act.” Bill muttered under his breath.

[alberteamllc]

Fancy That!

So there I was, your ever-humble narrator, enjoying a pint of something kind of fancy and minding my own business in one of the most chi-chi establishments on the Smallfellow main drag when who should blunder in one but one of those schmucks from the palace where I used to run that hobo operation. Of course he wasn’t in his dopey palace livery, he had on rags practically, which, like, was pretty racist-- this is a nice bar, wine and tapas and everything, look around you buddy, everybody in here but you is a halfling and nobody here has spent less than five silver pieces on their shoes alone, what, do you think all halflings walk around barefoot and eat ten breakfasts a day and live in pastoral squalor? Get real and try educating yourself for a change.

Anyhoo, he ambles up like he’s being sneaky and slips me this envelope. I guess after Prince Whoever had his big temper tantrum last time I went to collect what he owed me (it was embarrassing for him, but even more embarrassing for Ewer-- that moron got his adam’s apple turned to apple sauce that night!) they decided to try the “subtle” approach. Still pathetic. Strictly amateur hour. So I look him in the eye and loudly say “SORRY BUDDY I’M BY ENGAGEMENT ONLY THESE DAYS. IF YOU WANT THE FRANCIS FLIEG EXPERIMENT (my new nom du stage--like it?) I’VE GOT A SET AT THE BELL & WHISTLE FROM SEVEN TO NINE EVERY DAY THIS WEEK. NO ENCORES” but then just for the sake of appearances I take a little peak inside this envelope and holy st. merriwether dear reader did I like what I saw! Never let it be said I’m too stubborn to be receptive to a sudden change of heart. So I treat the bar to a round of the second cheapest champagne the place has and say hey look I’ve got this dry sense of humor sometimes, I really think we can work out a way to do business.

So I decide to indulge in some of that old-school Francis Flisk chicanery and dine and dash just to see what this stuffed shirt does about it. Squat. Good sign-- because I feel like his boss needs me for something illegal, and in most cases dirty money’s easier to get than clean money. Anyway we wind up at this apartment not far away, right on the edge of that human neighborhood, I forget the name, where all the hip young second sons and first daughters who can’t hack it in the dynasty game go to drink expensive coffee and become priests and priestesses of that tacky fucking bank. It’s one of those digs that you know the cops or the government keeps decorated in the most blandly tasteful and lifeless way possible to use for stake-outs and deniability stuff like this.

It turns out this job is my worst nightmare. It’s extremely hard work and barely illegal. Out of the shadows steps this cop. I know the guy. He’s crooked as the road to Schockonote, pardon a folksy halfling saying, the human audiences eat that shit up and it’s become a force of habit. Caowulf Cutty. A real bastard but he’d looked the other way for me plenty of times during my days with the Handsome Lads in exchange for modest kickbacks. But now-- what the hell?-- he’s acting like he’s never met me before and he’s got me pinned to the wall with his elbow at my throat and my feet dangling in the air, calling me criminal scum and this and that. Ok, sure, like he can talk. They make like they’ve got me in some kind of sting-- like, they caught me running tundra tar or something and if I don’t do what they say I’ll blah blah blah but I’m all like, yeah? Prove it. I’m clean, pigs (I’m not). After a while we work out a deal. I’ll keep 10% of the money in that envelope and they’ll stop hassling me about this alleged tundra tar business I did/didn’t do.

It’s like this-- once in awhile when I’m really hard up I’ll do a job for this guy Salomon Six-Fingers. He has a little tavern by the docks, slings this truly appalling sodfish stew but he’s a nice guy, honest, and somehow he’s managed to make a little name for himself running jobs under the nose of the Quiet Guild without getting killed despite being nice and honest. Mostly stuff the Guild couldn’t care about or fail to make overcomplicated because of course. And people work for him because obviously the guild doesn’t get a cut.. Or because they get off on pretending to have morals or professional ethics or whatever. Anyway one of the big things people go to him for is salvage jobs. Old ruins. Humans are too stupid to go into them because they think their precious mediators will pop out and say BOO at them and they’ll piss their britches so it’s good work for us halflings if we can get it.

All this time the dipshit from the palace hasn’t said who he’s working for. Like I don’t know. It rhymes with Rinse Cranselm Brinsatsi. But what they want me to do is they’re gonna leak Six-Fingers word of a ripe little abandoned mine called Sweetroll Hill and say the only thing keeping people out of that sweet ore is the fact that the place is overrun with the infamous Handsome Lads. Ok, yeah, “infamous,” big scary halflings running around with sticks and empty quivers. But I’ll get to that in a second. A little team is assembled-- including yours truly as the thief and the guy who knows the gang, knows the mine (which, I do and do, but again-- presumptuous and racist)-- and then we go and clear it out. But here’s the tricky part. All the way there I’m making little signals, leaving a little trail, and behind me, the fuzz. And on our way out, the triumphant heroes are caught red-handed with armfuls of stolen loot and a pile of dead halflings in their wake. I get off scot-free, the suckers who know about the place are in jail where they can’t blab about the location, and the “mysterious employer” gets to swoop in and take whatever he wants down there. Which sounds like a lot of work but again they wouldn’t drop this tundra tar thing. Oh well. The mine isn’t far and it’s run by a bunch of D-listers. Big-Stud Broly, who’s no Huge Hunk Haglund to say the least, and a snot-nosed little wannabe called Leander Hawthorne. If you want to know how vast and capacious the barrel they’re scraping the bottom of is, they’ve even got a goblin in their crew. I also get to help pick the team.

So obviously I’m presented with a moral quandary. I’m picking people for what’s essentially a suicide run. This is the end of the line for them one way or the other-- if they don’t die on the job (not impossible) or when the cops get rough with them (not unlikely), then they’re headed to prison for a long time. So I think and I think loooong about who I hate enough in this business to make this whole thing really hysterical and satisfying instead of just pretty hysterical and satisfying. I come up with a wish-list:

1. Davey Driftwood: This schmuck shot me with a crossbow once when he was guarding a caravan that me and the boys were trying to get our meat mitts on. He definitely doesn’t remember this but I know he kind of remembers my face because he always gives me this little nod and smile when we’re both at Salomon’s or that little place that gnome runs by the bazaar with the good bread. Couldn’t wait to wipe that goody two-shoes smirk off his face. He’s also some local celebrity upriver in the boonies because he knocked off some nobody bandit a few years ago. Occasionally some hick recognizes him at the bar and buys him one of those watery pee beers trash humans drink. I hate humble guys like that who don’t capitalize on a good thing. And I especially hate people who get famous for doing the cops’ jobs for them and then have the nerve to act like we can still be pals. DEFINITELY on the list.

2. Bloody Bonnie: B l o o d y  F u c k i n  B o n n i e. Ever meet someone who thinks they’re funny? That’s Bonnie. Some land pirate. Dumb term and anyway gnomes invented it. Yeah yeah, gnomes and halflings, different species, and I’d rather cut my own head off than kiss a gnome, but we little guys have to stick together and I hate it when humans bite our rackets. Speaking of which, right, she thinks she’s so funny. I’ve heard all the halfling jokes before and I’ve heard them all again another three dozen times from her. Wouldn’t kick her out of bed though. Had a brief idea about tipping her off before the bust and seeing how puny she thought I was after that.

3. Paolo the Exile: First off, what a joke. Who calls themselves “the Anything.” Can’t stand that bit. Second of all, I hate dwarves. I’ve only met the one but I hate stories about dwarves and I hate Paolo. Too quiet and I don’t like anybody who won’t show their face.

4. Roxan McClintock: People call her “Flinty” but she’s a Roxan through and through. You know these guys, these McClintocks? No, that’s McBEAM idiot, I mean the McCLINTOCKS. But don’t get me started on fucking McBeam. RIght, so-- I was born poor. My dad-- Moldew-- and my ma-- Instke-- they were both poor too. They grew up in tall grass over their heads and they worked until they died from it, because they were stupid. I’m smart. I knew I had to do whatever it took to have a roof over my head, with a chandelier on it, and a bed with eight pillows on it and a girl on each. And look, I’m young, and two out of four ain’t bad! The roof doesn’t leak and the pillows ain’t too shabby themselves! But yeah-- that’s why I degrade myself with these fucking jobs. Because I need to. That’s why I crawl through the dirt and show stupid tourist humans how to get through the swamps. For the money that I DON’T. HAVE. Roxan does all this shit because she “wants to.” Because “she ain’t no high class broad.” Yeah, stick a paintbrush down my throat already. She’s all “hey y’all” and “yeehaw” but Roooooooxaaaaaaaannnn is pure Smallfellow, get it? Her dad’s a university professor, her ugly brothers are university professors, they eat caviar and pear jelly with rich humans all day and wipe their asses with silk hankies. She should know her place and marry some rich tailor and cook fiddlehead fry every night and have a million dumbshit babies who marry rich tailors and so on and so on until they fucking choke on their gold pieces and die. If she wants to bark with the big dogs so much she can go bark in the kennel.

5. Huxley Swallowtail: This guy’s just awful. Just atrocious. Big hat with a feather on it. Pantaloons with stripes. Just the worst. The worst. Opposite problem as McClintock really. He acts like he’s some Seven Fingers of Sin gentleman thief but he’s really just alley trash who made his bones breaking arms for loan sharks and beating up younger kids for their lunch money. You can’t smother trash stink with fancy cologne.

But unfortunately I can’t pick all of these clowns so I write down DAVEY DRIFTWOOD in big block letters on the top of my little sheet of paper and then I roll a dice for the other two. Paolo and Roxan it is. To make a long story short the job goes fine. It gets dicey for a minute because I’m saddled with three incompetents. McClintock makes friends with some revolting hermit and comes back waving around some magic stick and later on they tip off the entire camp somehow and wind up cowering behind boulders. But it works out fine in the end. McClintock is shipped off to Fort Stolas to crack open rocks for the rest of her life-- priceless-- and Davey gets to have his precious reputation dragged through the muck. The best part is the dwarf-- he makes this pitiful “don’t worry about me, run, I’ll hold them off” martyr complex speech and just as they put a dozen windows in his stupid body he can see his friends getting hogtied and hauled away! God I wish he didn’t wear that fucking helmet so I could see his face when he realized he died for literally nothing. Exile, right, exile from reason maybe.

For a few days I’m walking on air. I have money in my pocket, shows booked, and I get to go to sleep dreaming of  McClintock and Driftwood toiling away in their cute little prison pajamas. But then that guy the Octopus shows up at my door. I’d heard stories but the first time I met him actually was the bust at the mine. He was in charge. I didn’t like him. His face didn’t change the entire time-- just straight lines. Before I know it I’m on the ground, can’t move a finger, and he’s telling me I’m coming with him. Well, not much I can do about it. So off we go and I realize we’re rolling up to the palace. I’m terrified. I mean, I’m cooking up a dozen escape plans but I’m a little scared, I’ll admit it. In we go and I’m trying to play it cool and he shoves me in this huge room with a fireplace and portraits of rich humans who look like they have permanent constipation and holy moley it’s the prince himself! Again. The first time I was kind of in awe of him. He knew how to run a good racket. But this time-- well…. I don’t know. On the one hand… I was scared. He didn’t… look right. Something lifeless about him. About his eyes. And that tiara or whatever, which, and I mean I didn’t get a good look, but looked like it was made for an elf head or an especially fat gnome head, it was… on him. Let me back up. It was on him but it shouldn’t have been. It shouldn’t have fit. It… there wasn’t blood but… I don’t… I can’t explain it. I… I was shaking, friend. But on the other hand it was kind of sad. This wasn’t the guy I’d seen knock the smirk right off of Elias Ewer’s face. This was somebody who didn’t know where he was going. You get a sense for that kind of thing in the circles I used to run in. People taking stupid risks and picking pointless fights because they’re just running out their time on this stupid planet and are trying to speed up the process. That was him. He looked exhausted.

But, you know, I tipped back over into scared pretty damn quick because-- oh, hey, this is off the record, right? Ok, good. Right. I tipped back over into scared pretty quick because he bares his teeth just like a dog and he’s on me with a fancy saber, just bludgeoning away with the pommel. I’m on my back with the first hit, because I’m fucking shocked, and then he’s got his legs on either side of me just going to town. I’m-- I’m blubbering like a baby, trying to wave my hands, say no no, get off me, and he’s got me by the lapels slamming me into the floor saying “Leave the McClintocks out of this, leave the McClintocks out of this, you filth, you worm, do not touch them, do not bring them into this” or something like that. Which-- what? Really? They’re well-off by halfling standards but what does he care about a pack of three foot tall hypernerds? But one way or the other he’s practically foaming. It takes that scrawny bodyguard of his to pull him off me. The guy dusts me off himself and walks me outside. He apologizes! He apologizes right to my face. I forget what I say. I don’t remember the rest of the night really. I got drunk. I got really really drunk.

But now he’s dead. Funny how that happens to people who cross me. And McClintock’s out of jail. Look, I can’t get revenge on the prince, because the idiot got to himself first. But when you mess with me and there’s something important to you, I’m going to do what I can to break that thing. And when you’re giving me a concussion while drooling some nobody poser’s name into my face, I don’t forget that name. And she’s not gonna forget mine.

[linssikeittomies]

Apocalypse. In 50 Years. Chapter 1: Virgin Allison

I’m lucky. Always have been. Me, my parents, their parents, and their parents as far back as we can remember have always been lucky: none of them have been seriously ill, gotten into a serious accident, or suffered major financial setbacks. We don’t have any hereditary diseases. No one has died before their 80th birthday. There hasn’t been a single divorce.

I had a good upbringing, a stable family situation and a healthy diet. My parents bought me an apartment, I got in to college on my first try, I have hobbies I love and time for them, summer is just around the corner and we’re planning a vacation to Hawaii, everything is great and I should have nothing to worry about.

But every second of the day I feel this anxious tension in my chest.

I always feel like I’m doing something wrong, or I’m supposed to be doing something else. Something is not correct, and I don’t know how to correct it. Something’s expected of me, but I don’t know what. I’ve tried going to church and mosque more, I’ve tried doing more sports, I’ve tried volunteer work, arts, science, philosophy, psychology, travelling, soul searching, nothing works. That nagging feeling just won’t go away! Sometimes it’s right there on the surface, sometimes it sinks to the background, but it’s there every second of the day and my sanity can’t take another month of this feeling! I might be the first person in my family line to have a mental breakdown.

--

There’s some kind of sound… What is that, I don’t like it, I don’t like beeping when it’s so warm. Just let me find that last bunny. It got scared of the sound. Aww, I found it, right on my desk, the alarm…

Oh, the sound was my alarm clock. Damn brilliant, time to wake up already. Whose bright idea was it to force people up before they were ready? The professors can’t like being woken at the ass crack of dawn either. Just stop having morning lectures, people! Nobody wants them! I’m the nicest girl this country has ever seen and I’m getting an impulse to murder a guy. I’ve been getting up at 5:45 the whole week, maybe I should’ve gone the other route and just not slept at all. Would’ve made it easier to drag myself out of my soft, warm, loving bed… I’ve been trying to clean up my language, but I just have to curse some right now. Gives me enough anger to push myself up. Makes me feel bad about myself, too.

The classic white and blue sailor fuku has seen a lot of use this past month, but since it still feels marginally less wrong than all my other clothes, it’ll see a little more. I brush my hair while I wait for the frying pan to heat up enough fry my omelet, then pick at it and end up only eating half. Ughhh, why did I stay up reading that fanfic last night, again? I’ve read it like ten times already, I already know damn well what’s gonna happen! I get so queasy when I’m tired… I should probably pack the rest of this omelet up and take it to school ‘cause I’ll just get hungry an hour later.

I manage to cover the bags under my eyes with make-up, and since for once I was smart and packed my bag ready last night, I just grab it and get out the door. I’ve barely closed it when my next door neighbor Ricky comes out his. He’s really nice and kinda cute, but his obvious crush on me makes our relationship a little awkward. Not that I don’t reciprocate – he’s easy on the eyes, super cute with all those freckles and dimples and supposedly carefree hair combined with a caring and shy personality. So yeah, I once considered dating him, but the overwhelming sense of WRONG! WRONG! had unfortunately made that impossible. It always flares up particularly bad when something romance-related comes to my mind, maybe I’m just extremely aromantic without realizing it? It seems being friends with him is a-ok, however. And it’s got its perks.

“Oh, morning, Ally. Did you like the cookies I gave you yesterday?” he asks, as if there was ever any doubt. “I think the cinnamon made them a little too Christmassy.”

“Not at all, they were great! I don’t get how you make them soft in the center, whenever I try they just dry up.”

“Might be too much flour”, he theorizes as we go down the stairs. He moves his messenger bag from his free side to between the two us – I’ve noticed he does that a lot, I think it’s some kind of unconscious attempt at putting up a barrier because he feels so self-conscious around me. “Or maybe you keep the oven on for too long. I always turn it off when they’re close to ready.”

I almost ask for a baking lesson, but again the WRONG flares up so I give up on the idea.

“You might be on to something, I’ll try that next time.”

He’s bad with words, so he tries to find something to say but can’t. He scratches his arm absently and opens his mouth only to close it immediately. Our conversations are rarely smooth, and these kinds of pauses are the norm. I don’t mind them that much – no point in saying words solely for the sake of making noise, after all. But Ricky seems to find them incredibly uncomfortable and a sign of failure, so often I just say something completely meaningless to help him out, give him some ideas.

“How’s school been lately?”

Ricky’s a journalism major, and has a huge collection of magazines and newspapers at his place. I wonder why he didn’t go into confectionary since he’s so good at it already. Maybe he prefers to keep it a hobby? Not even with a gun to my head would I animate for a living, even though I spend like 90 percent of my free time staring at anime.

“Nothing special”, he mumbles. “A lot of work… It, uhh, might get a little worse now that my computer broke…”

“Aww crap, I feel for you!”

“Thanks… I… spilled milk on it last night”, he admits embarrassed. He likes drinking milk with cookies, he must’ve been eating those cinnamon cookies while working on something. “It’s probably busted even if I can get it dry.”

“I can lend you my tablet if it’s any help.”

“Thanks, but… all my files were on the hard drive.”

Oh jeez, he didn’t even save the most important ones to a cloud? This guy’s just hopeless. I don’t get how he’s managed to stay alive living on his own for two years. A cute face doesn’t help much with keeping track of bills and switching fuses.

We part ways on the street and I dig out my headphones. My bus route is noisy as hell, thanks to all the “edgy” teens going to high school. For some incomprehensible reason so many of them think it’s entirely necessary to loudly laugh at the worst non-jokes and gossip about this bitch and that bitch and those assholes, while also apparently hating each other judging by the amount insults they throw at each other, but still they hang out together so I guess they really are friends…? I just don’t get them. I was never like that in high school, I actually liked my friends.

Speaking of which, I get a new message from ~BFF~.

Good morning! Saida says, and sends a selfie. Seems she’s been clothes shopping, as I’ve never seen that tunic before. The hijab is old, but it’s draped pretty elaborately. It looks really good on her, red’s really her color, and the tunic’s greenish gray complements it surprisingly well.

Woah nice! Looks great on u (^o^)b

Thanks^^ Took ten tries to drape it good, I’m thinking wearing it like this for the premiere. Only a week from now! SO excited! >o<

Grrrrreat peeps gonna luv it \(^-<)

Keep both thumbs up for me^^

Saida’s an aspiring playwright and works on a lot of amateur productions. This will the first play she wrote completely on her own. I’ve been to a couple of their rehearsals, so I know the story is about a woman whose father is murdered and she vows to catch the perp – but in the process learns that her father was actually a terrible person and was killed in revenge. I didn’t want too many spoilers so I haven’t read the script.

Can we go togthr im so proud of u (/>3>)/

Of course! We’re going for a dinner afterwards so you can come with us too

Aww, I wanted u all to myself orz

If only you were a guy you couldXD Too bad :p

Deciding to tease her about this raises the wrong feeling back to the surface, but the opportunity is just too delicious.

Ill keep that in mind (^3^)b

Oh jeez, in hindsight that was a bad joke (/-_-\)

U get im gonna teez u about this all ur life k:DDDD

In hindsight that was a REALLY bad joke -_- Have fun AT SCHOOL you little devil!>:D

Aww orz

She barely has classes this week, not that it means she actually has less work – just that she’s supposed to working on assignments at home. Unlike me, she’s really diligent and actually does her homework over a few days instead of the previous night.

--

The professor is late, as usual. Students don’t have keys for the classrooms, so we have to wait outside. It can get pretty cramped, especially at places like this: at the end of a narrow hallway, with the smelliest toilet in the building at the other end. Everyone tries their hardest to squeeze out of the way of the stench. At least in the summer it gets a little better – in the winter the pipes get frozen, and when the water doesn’t flow, the smell really starts melting off faces.

I fail at stifling a yawn, and a classmate gives me a sympathetic look. It’s so hard to stay awake when I’m not on the move, any small break just reminds my brain of how tired I am, and then it wants to go back to sleep. It even forgets about the horrible stink floating in the hallway, if only for a moment. When my head drops and I snap back to attention, it suddenly fills my nose again. I’ve repeated the process about five times already.

In fact, I’m right in the process of drifting back to sleep again when I notice her. The pale, young woman dressed all in black, sporting abyssal black hair and glowing, ember-like eyes. She stares at me intently, like a hawk hunting a rabbit, and emanates a malicious aura. Everything about her is… dark, somehow. Like she’s hard to make out, and even the bright lamps seem dimmer around her. She looks human, but in an… elongated way. Her face, her body, and especially her fingers, look a little too long and a little too spindly. She looks like a daddy long legs. I can’t shake the mental image of her creeping up the wall and skittering away in to some slight crack. I’m not used to being nervous – I consider myself a particularly brave person, but this lady is giving me the creeps! I find myself crossing my arms at my chest to get at least some kind of barrier between us, despite her standing several meters away. It’s not far enough. If possible, I would rather put several countries between us – but as it stands, all I have is half a meter of hallway.

Her eyes stare at me unblinkingly as I squeeze closer to the door, their dim glimmer drowning out all other light. I can’t look away – her gaze holds me prisoner, and laughs at my fear.

Then a light weight settles on my shoulder, and her thin lips curve into a sharp, sadistic facsimile of a smile and she whispers

                                                  FOUND YOU

before turning around and walking out. All feelings of dread melt away with her gone, and I turn to look at whoever defended me.

It’s a hand. A translucent, poorly defined, watery hand that peters out of existence at the wrist. Seeing it floods me with tranquility. It twinkles like moonwake and grips my shoulder reassuringly before fading away.

…

Wow, I must be really tired! Guess those five hour nights finally caught up with me! As interesting as this awake-sleeping was, I’d rather not repeat it anytime soon. Or, like, ever. I have got to catch up on sleepy times this weekend.

--

By afternoon I’ve almost forgotten about the creepy lady and disembodied hand. It’s Friday, I’m too excited about finally having the time to finish my Ayato cosplay to think about sleep deprivation hallucination thingies. If I hurry, I should be able to finish the coat, maybe work on the pants some more. I need to get some more glue and find the right kind of buttons, the crafts store is still open so I’ll stop by there before going to my parents’ –

“Hey, Ally!”

A classmate drags me out of my thoughts.

“Ellie decided to throw an impromptu birthday party to herself tomorrow at her place, wanna come with us?” Lisa continues. Bryan is at her side, while Lotte and Yao come up on my right.

“She’s invited a lot of her other friends, too! Place is gonna be crawling with cute chicks!” Brian informs me as he pumps his fists. He then seems to remember he’s talking to a girl. “…Or guys, if that’s your thing”, he adds meekly.

Lisa firmly shakes her head.

“Her place can’t fit more than twenty people, and our class is gonna be at least thirteen of those people.”

“Yeah, the afterparty is what’s filled with hotties!” Lotte pipes in with stars in her eyes. Our class doesn’t actually share a lot of courses, but we try to stay in contact with each other. We have a whatsapp group, and sometimes we plan parties or get-togethers. I try to take part every now and then, but so often everyone just wants to go drinking I don’t see the point in going.

“Don’t worry, Ellie said her place is an alcohol-free zone for tonight because she doesn’t want a repeat of last year!” Lisa assures me. “It’s just gonna be music and games until we go clubbing.”

Ellie is pretty nice, and the only person I kind of consider to be a friend other than Saida. I might make friends easily, but keeping them is a genuine problem. If we hadn’t been neighbors all our lives, I don’t think I would still be friends with even Saida, either. So I’d like to at least try and hold on to Ellie while we’re still in the same school.

“Alright, I’ll be there!”

“WOOOO!!!” Lotte screams and everyone else flinches.

“Jesus Christ Lotte, control yourself!” Yao snaps at her, but of course she doesn’t give a damn. Instead, she starts dancing right there in the hallway and singing some pop song off-key. I know for a fact she’s not drunk because she acts like that even in class, but it’s still almost impossible to believe. Yao grumbles quietly and facepalms in shame before walking off without another word.

“See you tomorrow!” are Lisa’s parting words, and she smiles brightly as she waves bye. Bryan punches her lightly on the shoulder and she silently pumps her fist. They’re so happy that most of the class will be there. We used to this kind of stuff a lot more often in our first year, but then summer break came and everyone drifted apart.

“Wear something nice... but not too nice”, Lotte advises, winking conspicuously. “That’d be a bit too scary.”

“Scary how?” I ask puzzled. She just blows me a kiss before WOOTing again and pseudo-dancing out the door. In a way I almost envy her utter indifference towards social norms, being her must be so freeing. I can’t imagine the tiniest worry ever enters her head. For sure she never feels anything she does is wrong.

I popped in the crafts store on the way to my parents’ – on Friday’s we always have dinner together. This week it was dad’s turn to cook, so I helped him make the asam laksa, after hiding the curry- he always tries to put in too much, and mom’s so white she can barely salt her food.

“Bismillah”, dad and I say.

“God is great, by his hand we are all fed. Amen”, mom and I say.

My parents are great at working around their faiths. They both let the other do their own thing while holding onto their own. They never tried to teach me one faith was wrong. I came to think of God and Allah as different aspects of the same entity, in a way, and had no problems growing up bi-religious. As a child God felt closer, but after graduating middle school I became more drawn to Allah, maybe partly because of Saida. That’s when we really started being good friends, despite being neighbors since birth and always being in the same class. I even wore a hijab for a while, like her, though only for, like, ten months maybe? It wouldn’t have been even that long had my parents not been kind of worried, and had I not been a rebellious little shit. I wanted to make them squirm a bit. Imagine that, an Ally who wasn’t a total goody two shoes.

“We’ve been thinking about getting a dog”, dad tells me. “I think a Maltese would be best, they’re small and playful. A dog should be social and playful, right? Real companions. I have some breeders scouted already.”

He’s super excited about this dog. One might even say suspiciously excited…

“You’re suffering from empty nest syndrome”, I quip and chuckle.

“Nonsense, I’ve always wanted a dog.”

“You never mentioned dogs before Ally moved out, honey”, mom reminds playfully.

“What? Sure I did. The house was just too small.”

Mom rubs her chin mock-thoughtfully.

“The man doth protest too much, methinks.”

“He really doth.”

Dad gets flustered and still tries to claim he’s doing no such thing. Everyone and their grandma knows he has a soft spot for anything cute and fluffy but he still likes to pretend he doesn’t. Oh, that pink teddy bear on that shelf? It was a gift for my wife, she loves things like that. I heard your cat had kittens, can I bring my daughter over to see them? What’s a few mice, they’ll be gone by winter, getting mouse traps is too much hassle.

We had to call an exterminator for the mice. In a few months they had taken over most of the kitchen.

“Well now neither will get to name the puppy.”

Aww, and I was so looking forward to that yappy little shedding machine. I would have named it Fluffy of the Incessant Noise.

“I’m thinking O’Malley. That could then be shortened to either Max or Madsie.”

“He hasn’t been this excited since your youngest cousin was born”, mom says while nudging dad with her elbow. Dad claims the dog would be mostly for mom, so she won’t get lonely while dad’s at work. Mom says Of course, honey, and lets it slide. She has a part-time job, she’s only home alone for nine hours a few days a week.

--

I leave when it starts getting dark outside. I live close to my parents, so I decide to walk home. It’s getting a little chilly outside, but that only means the air is fresh and getting under the warm covers will feel that much better. It’s quiet – oddly quiet, it’s only quarter past eight. Why are all the lights already off? I could get a few people being asleep already, but the whole neighborhood? It’s not a blackout, the streetlights are on. Weird.

I’m starting to get a little nervous. Logically thinking there’s nothing worrying around, but my gut keeps telling me something is wrong more insistently than usually. And it’s a dangerous wrong, not the this-is-not-expected-of-you-wrong.

I pick up my pace a bit, and that’s when the streetlamps start going out, too. Each one I pass under fizzles out after me. The feeling of wrong is replaced by GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!! In a blind panic I start running, but then the lamps start breaking before I even reach them! Hot glass shards rain over me as I’m left in total darkness in a large city that never sleeps!

No, that not entirely correct… There is still one light on. A single streetlamp a dozen meters away illuminates a small patch of sidewalk. Something is standing under it. Some kind of dark creature, with long talons and glinting fangs. I can hear it chuckling darkly… and it charges at me!

On instinct I put up my dukes, only realizing after the fact that it’s probably the one choice even worse than simply running – I’ve never hit anyone in my life and would just break each of my fingers before getting mauled to death… Shit! Okay, okay – but at least this way, I can die on my own terms – bring it on, bitch!

But just as quickly as it attacked, it is defeated. A blindingly bright spear of light shoots down from the sky, piercing the creature’s head clean in the center and nailing it to the asphalt. The resulting shockwave drops me on my ass on the ground. The spear stays standing, unbearably bright to look at but barely illuminating the surroundings at all. And the creature lies there motionless, not bleeding, but it’s so obviously dead I almost want to go up to it and investigate a little. My wrong radar goes off, though, so I give up the idea.

And, well, I wouldn’t have gotten that far anyway, since now a watery, half-there hand fades into view around the hilt of the spear – the same hand from school. This doesn’t feel like a dream, and in a dream I sure wouldn’t wonder if this was all a dream, but I just have to consider the possibility. Because if this is reality, I’ll have to readjust my beliefs on ghosts and I really, really don’t want them to be real!

A faint sound of flutes drifts in as the hand lifts up the spear and offers it to someone invisible. The corpse of the demonic beast quietly crumbles to dust, and all the lights flicker back on. The invisible someone starts forming a body – at first as poorly defined as the watery hand, like a half-remembered memory, but soon solidifying into a slender, paper white arm, alabaster robe, platinum blonde curls… and massive, pure white feathery wings flaring out from this picture perfect woman’s back. A softly glowing halo hums into life above her head as a single, clear ring of a church bell tolls.

If – if this isn’t an angel, nothing is. There I am, on my ass on the pavement before an emissary of God, and I can’t even manage to not gawk at her like some fucking moron!

The angel takes the spear in her hand, the watery hand waves to me and disappears, and still I can’t manage to even close my fucking mouth!

“I take it you are unharmed?” the angel asks me, her voice pure and melodic and all that poetic crap, and all I say is “Praise be to God”, like some generic and zero-thought-process and out-of-habit phrase like that is going to do any good in this situation. THINK OF SOMETHING TO SAY, DAMN YOU BRAIN!

“Get off your ass already!” a new voice huffs and startles me enough to actually make me jump despite not even standing. On my left, there is a lesbian – honestly, that’s what best describes her! She’s wearing red flannel, for fuck’s sake! A super short lesbian, she’s almost a head shorter than even me… What the hell – heck is she doing here? Can’t she see the angel standing right there? Why isn’t she boggled out of her mind at the incredible sight?! It feels so right to be in awe of her – wait… It feels… right? Why… why isn’t anything wrong now? I… This is so confusing. Where did the wrong go?

The angel graciously offers her hand to this idiotic creature, and all I can do is stutter out a simple thank you. Partly it’s my confusion at the inexplicable disappearance of wrong, and partly because she is - and I’m not shitting or embellishing this in the slightest - the most beautiful woman I could have imagined even in my wildest dreams. It’s not just how she looks, it’s also how she feels – and yes, she does look stunning, but she also emanates this aura of peace, reverence and contentment. That aura, combined with her perfectly symmetrical, slim face, large eyes in multiple hues of blue and nearly translucent, evenly toned skin puts Aphrodite, Venus and Istar all to shame.

“Thank you”, I say automatically. The angel smiles and I swear my heart skips like ten beats. Not only is she indescribably beautiful, she’s also insanely tall – I don’t even reach her armpit. As I stare up at her like some love-struck idiot, her face subtly changes – her eyes go from double-lid to monolid, her nose flattens a bit, and her cheekbones travel upwards. She’s turned from completely Caucasian to part East Asian – like me. She skin still stays just as pale, though, it even faintly glows a white light.

“We need to go, asshats!” the lesbian snaps. I reluctantly turn to look at her instead of the wonder in front of me. Her hair is blonde as well, but instead of freely flowing long waves, it’s a straight, long bob and pulled into a ponytail. Her eyes are an even turquoise, and that’s one of the only two things worth mentioning about her looks – she’s impossibly plain. She’s so plain you can’t call her ugly, not even standing next to the angel. The other thing worth mention is that bitch face of epic proportions. How she can be anything but awestruck around the angel is beyond me, but that look makes it pretty clear she despises nothing on this planet as much as she does me.

I thought the angel would be incapable of negative emotions, but even she gives a slight glare at the lesbian, like she’s being inappropriate.

“Yes, it would be best to move on before more demons arrive.”

That thing was really a demon? Not just some monster? Why was it after me? And why am I important to warrant an honest to God angel to save me? Not that I don’t appreciate it, it’s just weird that a nobody like me gets special treatment. My family’s not important, and I’m not even planning a religious career.

The angel and the lesbian start walking towards my place, and I don’t question how they know where I live. I just follow, legs weak, suddenly noticing how funny the short lesbian looks next to the giant angel. As I stifle the chuckle, I realize how rude I’m being, and to a celestial being at that!

“Ah! My name’s Ally binti Badraan! Nice to meet you!”

Both women turn to look at me, but keep walking.

“We knew that”, the angel replies smiling gently. “You may call me Rapture.”

We both look at the lesbian expectantly, and she blanks for a good five seconds. What, doesn’t she know her own name?

“…Meta. Got any smokes?”

Rapture looks like she wants to facepalm, but it wouldn’t fit her image.

“Uhh, sorry, no. I don’t smoke.”

“What are you even good for?” Meta huffs. Excuse me? What the hell kind of manners are those?! She was totally raised in a barn!

“I apologize for my subordinate”, Rapture grumbles. “It may be difficult to believe she is also an angel, but she is capable despite her personality.”

What?! The lesbian is also an angel? But – she’s nothing like Rapture! She seems like the furthest thing from angel excluding demons! Rapture, yeah, she could only be an angel, but you can’t tell me that Plain McBitchy belongs in the same genus!

“I’m here to fight demons, not to baby these bonebags”, Meta comments with a sneer. I decide not to bother with her, and address Rapture.

“So you’re powers, am I correct?”

Rapture smiles so bright I swear the whole street lights up. I hate being a broken record, but she is so beautiful! I might have to look away soon, wouldn’t want my eyes to overload.

“Oh, good to see you have read your Bible! It has been very long since I met a true believer!”

I don’t have the heart to tell her I haven’t even read the whole Bible… I skipped like 70 percent of the Old Testament. I read all the angel stuff on Wikipedia.

Come to think of it, does this prove Christianity to be the only true religion? What am I going to tell dad and Saida?

I’m just about to ask, when the angels – no, I just can’t consider the lesbian an actual angel – suddenly turn invisible. We’re right at the corner of my apartment building, and I hear someone walking towards us. I don’t want to panic, because for sure Rapture wouldn’t have left me to fend for myself if it was a demon, but can you blame me for imagining the worst when I was a second away from death mere minutes ago?

I couldn’t hide behind the dumpster fast enough, and Ricky caught me at a very embarrassing situation.

“Did you drop something?” he asks. I feel my face growing red as I try to nonchalantly brush my clothes clean and look like I didn’t just dive on the ground.

“Oh, yeah, my… thing. Girl thing.”

“I have two sisters, you can say tampon”, he laughs as he throws in his trash. I am so glad he doesn’t realize I made it sound like my tampon just fell out. “Nice evening, right? If it weren’t for the lights, you could see the stars clearly.”

Yeah, the sky is clear and there’s only a light breeze in the air. I look up at the sky, but can only see a few dots here and there. I’ve always wanted to go in the countryside somewhere at night so I could see the starry sky in all its glory. It’s just that driving in complete darkness in a strange place would be a little too scary, and I am not sleeping in a car.

I catch Ricky looking at me with a slight blush on his face, and wait for the wrong to set in to discourage any kind of romantic notion. But it doesn’t come. What happened to it? It always comes at moments like this!

“Um…” Ricky starts, wrings his hands, looks at the ground, looks at me, and starts again. “I – I cooked up something really good, if you’d, maybe, like to come in and, I don’t know, watch some anime?”

Where is that sense of wrong? I feel completely fine with saying yes to this ridiculously obvious date. It’s like it’s suddenly okay to like someone.

I – I kind of want to see what happens. It doesn’t have to lead to anything serious, I can just leave if wrong returns. Claim I didn’t realize this is a date.

I’m gonna do it!

“Yeah, okay! I got some mochi at my place, you liked the green tea ones, right?”

Ricky can’t believe I just said yes. His smile is so wide you could fit a camel in his mouth, despite him clearly trying to play it cool, like he’s a smooth player.

“Those were the kind you got me for Christmas? Where did you buy them?” Aww, he remembered! He hadn’t looked too happy with his first taste of mochi, but I guess they grew on him.

“The Chinese store on West street, they got many kinds.”

“Never thought I’d say I like green tea”, Ricky jokes and stops even trying to hide his joy.

“My favorite is durian, smells horrible but tastes heavenly.”

Does that count as an accidental pun? Rapture and Meta are still around, aren’t they? Just invisible. What’s up with that, anyway?

“Was that the purple one, or –“

Ricky is cut off by Meta suddenly appearing right at his side and making him jump away in surprise.

“Will you two just get ON WITH IT!” she yells exasperated. “I’m TIRED, I need my SMOKES, and I’m not getting EITHER while you two keep standing here FLIRTING WITH EACH OTHER!”

Ricky stares at her in terrified silence, and I can’t think of anything to say either. Meta huffs again – seems to be her thing.

“Do you at least have smokes?”

Ricky shakes his head timidly.

“Well of FUCKING COURSE you don’t! Fucking useless garbage! Thirsty little bitch who probably still wets the bed…”

“What the hell Meta?!” I yell. Yeah, I’m a nice person, but I’m not gonna just stand there while this bitch insults my friend! Angel or not, she needs to show some basic respect! “You can’t just blow up like that! Apologize!”

She stares at me in stunned silence, and I can just hear the Did this bitch honestly-! Uh-huh, you bet your ass I did! “Ricky’s a nice guy, he doesn’t deserve you giving him shit for not enabling your bad habits!”

Uh-oh, bad move. Meta goes from disbelief to fite me! in under a second.

“You realize he probably beats off to you every single night? Nice guys like him watch the most fucked up Asian bondage porn”, Meta shoots, and stomps inside.

“She’s wrong!” Ricky instantly squeaks. “I don’t even watch normal person! I swear! SHE’S LYING!”

…and he escapes. I doubt this date is happening anymore.

When I get inside, Meta is already sprawled out on the couch. Rapture becomes visible the second I close the door. She begins a long, furious rant that same second.

“Meta! Your work ethics are deplorable! We are under strict orders not to show ourselves to normal humans! You mouth off any human you meet and spend your time smoking and rotting your brain with TV and lazing around and drinking and nothing I say ever gets through to you! Get up! What a fine image you are giving your client!”

Rapture is a lot less angelic when she rants at someone she clearly considers beneath her. That feel-good aura is completely gone and her face contorts in inhuman ways. Her voice also is also slowly losing its melodic qualities and turning more and more shrill every ten seconds. And she talks for many ten seconds. Wow, can she flap her lips! She just keeps going and going and going about the innumerable flaws Meta has, while the object of this rant does nothing to hide her prissiness though she never defends herself, either. Guess she’s used to this, and knows the fastest way to get it over with is not to argue. I may not like her, and maybe I do agree with Rapture on many points, but it’s still overkill to put someone down for almost ten minutes.

“Please calm down, Rapture, I’m sure she got the message.”

Despite this being such a meek protest, she actually turns to face me – her eyes have turned black and her face is considerably more angular and sharp than earlier. She returns back to normal in seconds, like she forgot I was here and tries to pretend she didn’t just chew out her partner. Her huge wings knock off two glasses on my table, which thankfully don’t break, and after some deliberation she decides her visage is angelic enough without the wings. She sheds them by letting the feathers fall of in a dramatic cascade. Fortunately they fall through the floor and don’t just pile up for me to clean up.

“I assume you would like an explanation of the situation?” she asks, and I nod. Behind her back Meta rolls her eyes and drops back on the couch. “Your grandchild will be the second coming of the messiah.”

Messiah? As in, Jesus Christ? And his second coming? Woah, seems Christianity is the only religion. Am I gonna have to give up Allah?

“We will stay here to protect you, to ensure the bloodline keeps going.”

“Have you been protecting me my whole life? But – why would you never show yourselves?”

You’d think protecting me was a little easier if I knew what could happen to me. I could, you know, maybe try and prepare, instead of freezing and trying to fistfight a demon. Plus I probably would have gone to church a lot more often. God likes it when people go to church.

“Oh, no, we were assigned to this task today. Powers are much too conspicuous – before this, a guardian angel was more suited to the task. They are everywhere and have very little power, so they do not attract attention. But now that you have been discovered, Satan will do all in his power to break the bloodline. He will do anything to escape judgment.”

She smiles reassuringly, but suddenly her smile doesn’t captivate me like it just minutes before. Yeah, she’s still super beautiful, but hearing her nag so passionately didn’t exactly earn her points in my book.

“Not to worry, we can take anything the enemy throws at you.”

Right, yeah, I guess I should be worried about my own life, now that she mentioned it.

“So Christianity’s God is the only true god?” I blurt out. Rapture smiles brightly, while Meta vigorously shakes her head behind her back.

“So… is He or isn’t He?”

“Of course He is! What else would He be?” Rapture barks.

“He’s so far from the only one he’s not even a decimal”, Meta comments. Rapture shoots her a truly venomous look, and clearly plans to lecture her some more later.

This is all a bit much to take in… I’m the grandmother of Jesus, and angels can’t agree on whether God is the only god or not, and I’m gonna have to tell mom and dad all this craziness… Oh and my life is gonna be in danger basically 24/7 now.

“Okay guys, I need some alone time. Good night, sorry but I only have that one couch… Try and share it or something.”

Rapture lets out an indignant scoff, but I don’t look at her. I just close the bedroom door and fall on the bed. I should do my evening prayers, but what can I even say tonight? Should I pray to both my Gods, or just one? Should I address one to all the possible deities, since Meta said there’s a whole lot? Would just one shared prayer do or am I gonna have to sit here ‘til I faint from hunger?

Eventually I settle on praying to both God and Allah, as I do every evening. I simply pray for guidance. As predicted, Rapture nags at Meta, but at least she’s doing it quietly, and lets me fall asleep.

--

Crumbs… Crumbs everywhere… Poor sandwiches, can’t be easy going to school when you shed all over the floors and eat yourself for lunch, and Ham can’t even find its cow.

“BLESSED SILENCE!”

I hear a confused groan and it takes a few seconds to realize I’m the one who made it. It’s pitch black in my room.

“Sorry, it got a little too quiet”, Meta explains. I groan again. This is just great, she woke up in the fucking dead of night because it was too quiet? That’s the ideal for night!

At least I fall asleep again reasonably quick.

[witches-and-thieves-blog]

Another Day in the Pits

"One more day, another 50 zergling stows away to drag away to the Pits" thinks Barney Rhodes as he introduces the morning startup arrangement for his SCV. The "Pits" are what Barney Rhodes and whatever remains of the Terran Dominion's SCV Corps call the offices where butchered zerg are brought for transfer. Consistent with their name, the Pits are pretty much cavities produced using Battlecruiser or Siege Tank barrage, and once loaded with zerg can be burned by a demo group. Prior that week, a forceful Terran push into the crawl drenched gorge of the Thralian Moon left more than 3,000 burned, nuked and totally damaged zerg bodies for Barney's outfit to tidy up. Barney will be making his 32nd excursion to the Pits this week and can just anticipate more as his outfit infiltrates further into zerg domain. Barney's employment was to make the Pits full the main way that could be available: get, convey, dump, return, rehash. The dullness of the occupation combined with the unbelievably disturbing, smelly and despicable rotting of zerg bodies sent 3 of his kindred SCV pilots doled out to the Pits straight to the hospital from injury instigated regurgitating and mental meltdowns.

Barney Rhodes, Class-B affirmed SCV pilot, has been in the utilize of the Terran Dominion military since he was pulled off of his Bhrexian family's regular citizen miner business amid the alleged Brood War. Simply out of secondary school, Barney and whatever remains of his associates in his local Planera would be sent a long way from home with no thought when or on the off chance that he would return. At first appointed to gem collecting, at that point development, and after that vehicle repair and hack shop obligation, Barney in the end turned into a lasting expansion to the 101st Marauder Battalion, Fido Company's assigned Pits Duty SCV move. He was a junk jockey for a regiment whose resume incorporates visits on 10 zerg plagued frameworks, 35 gleam zones and just required Battlecruiser bolster twice. The contingent was likewise known for purposefully jeopardizing the lives of its SCV pilots and Barney brushed with death more circumstances that he might want to have risked to.

Regardless of the undesirable parts of Pits Duty, or PD, for Barney Rhodes, it really has made his existence with the 101st moderately unwinding as it is most likely the most secure occupation of any SCV move in this piece of space. After a position has been cleared and secured, the PDs make room for new structures and material to be raised to supply the progress of the cutting edge powers - as it were, his work is vital to the calculated strength of the brigade - and for this he was glad for, in any event as pleased as he could be tidying up another person's chaos.

As the Thralian dawn washed the Pits in red light, Barney's SCV's cockpit com speaker sizzled to life, "Testin'! Testin'! One, two, four! PD Alpha-One to PD Alpha-Two, read me in the event that you see me! This beyond any doubt beats the helloutta precious stone pickin' under flame don't it?!" "PD Alpha-Two, understands you Five-by-Five! Furthermore, right you are, Gums!" returned Barney in affirmation. Gums Manson was the main other SCV move that comprehended the significance and pride of being appointed to PD, and survived similarly as long as Barney regardless of the brigade's shenanigans. Likewise, in light of the fact that like Barney Gums wasn't one of the 3 volunteers to be taken off dynamic obligation because of "PD Syndrome" and furthermore on the grounds that both Barney's and Gums' folks were miners, they had a considerable measure in like manner and they rapidly moved toward becoming companions.

It was the seventh and last PD pull of the day that changed all that eternity.

"...(crack)...(shhh)...(zap)...wirrrr..." Barney's com collector whimpered. "Gums! We got any amateurs joinin' us today?" Gums answered, "Not on the list - why ya askin'?"

"Appears we got somebody over here b'sides us! A' they got no sign how's to function the com!" answered Barney. "I'm gon' git to higher ground t'see if somebody's meandering where they ain't assume to. Will you be a'right here by yer' desolate?"

Gums' answer, covered with static broken out "Ro(shh)ger that!...(crackle)...don't take too long now, ya listen? We still gotta cut up that Ultralisk'er 'fore we head back!" "Alpha-2 duplicates! Be back 'fore you can state Mengsk's momma wears armed force boots! O'er n' out!" consoled Barney. Gums' laugh resounded on the speaker as Barney punched in the directions of a summit 1.5 klicks only outside of the gorge.

Most of the way to his goal, Barney's cockpit was again loaded with static sizzling over the com. "There unquestionably be somethin' out 'ere b'sides us," thought Barney as his closeness goal HUD moved toward 1.2 km.

After five minutes Barney Rhodes, pilot of PD SCV Alpha-two achieved the summit. Billows of Tharlian moondust, burned earth and zergling scales blew surrounding him in awesome blasts as the summit finished in a precarious drop-off ignoring the PD zone establishment. The impacts from the 101st Marauder Battalion's strategic nukes flagging new pushes into the neighborhood zerg hive bunch can be found out yonder, with murshrooming mists still thick as Cirian microscopic fish crest in its half-yearly summer. Barney flipped each switch he could perceive and soon every bit of reconnaissance hardware his SCV had - acoustic indicators, CT analyzers and a couple of others he had no idea in the matter of what they were implied for - all sprang to existence with startling movement. There were such a large number of instruments gleaming with screen after screen of frequencies and dynamic continuous diagrams that within his SCV was similar to a Tarsonian Night Club on the Emperor's birthday.

The excellence of the SCV was its shoddy cost however outrageous flexibility. It was configuration to withstand the most exceedingly awful territory known to humankind and needn't much else besides a Vulture permit to work, which prompted its allure among private miners, mass-excavator societies and even the most intense of Terran military groups all through the Koprulu area. In Barney's SCV he incorporated a best in class suite of finely tuned instruments that would complete him the most work at all measure of distress. Each instrument's show indicated information about the quick five kilometer range of the SCV, which included substance recognizable proof, topical height mapping, radar and underground impressions, air thickness and radiation samplers. From what Barney could tell, everything was peachy - no oddities recognized and unquestionably nobody else out there.

Barney got himself in thought at that occasion. "Nobody else?"

"Alpha-Two to Alpha-One, I've achieved my directions. I've finished my prelim'nary contact check and soon going to be goin' daze." Expecting to hear Gums' laugh over the com, there was just hush. Barney went to full quality dynamic hunt and-get. Nothing.

"Gums! You duplicate?!" Barney rehashed. As yet nothing. Not even a squeak on the com, and just the same old thing new distinguished after achieving the summit.

"Damn it, now I've lost contact with Gums" thought Barney, yet he kept after standard SCV exploring convention and addressing nobody specifically, "Alpha-Two here. I think my instruments 'r broke! Switchin' to visual affirmation!" Barney anxiously sat tight for some affirmation from Gums, however when none came, he continued to shut down his SCV's observation suite. The HUDs and watchers squinted off one by one and at the end of the day Barney came to perceive the singed landscape of the once peach shaded soil of the Thralian Moon.

The summit where Barney's SCV now remained upon disregarded a ten broad gorge which was assigned the ideal scene for Pits Duty. Barney began to rotate his SCV 180-degrees so as to get an eyeful of the gorge where he and Gums were working, and position him on an arrival vector.

Barney's SCV turned around and was met by a tornado of neighborhood moondust, covering his shelter and blinding him for a half-second. Another half-second later, Barney's SCV turned around once more, yet this time a blood-souring shout resounded from the cockpit and tumbled into the gorge beneath. The last considerations to race through Barney's head before vanishing into the profundities of the Thralian Moon were of his family back on Bhrexia and how they may never find what happened to their child.

Moving gradually and ceasing at the summit's deadly edge, Gums Manson's SCV groaned and sat. Its shelter soaking with buildup and steam sprung open and the climate of the Thralian Moon streamed in.

"The Queen directed it," sputtered from Gums' cut and immaterial jugular, past his recently split and agape mandible with a sound that would make any developed Terran man upchuck. A couple of spindly appendages crisply burst from his expanded and emptied rib confine helped his exit from the SCV cockpit onto the moon's surface.

Presently standing where his "accomplice" once did, Gums looks past the gorge towards what used to be the forefronts of the 101st Maruaders, now in full and pointless withdraw from their sporadic progress into the core of zerg domain hours earlier. Once surging billows of the exploded Terran atomic weapons appeared to disperse and break down into a large number of airborne zerg of various types and strains. Gums thought, smiling as just a pervaded Terran zerg could smile having no longer any lips, "From the Swarm, there will be no escape via arrive or by sky, keeping in mind that one discovers salvation in the half-filled Pits of my own craftsmanship."

So finished the Terran progress on the Thralian Moon thus finished one more typical day for the plagued Terran Gums Manson as he discarded a disposer-of-zerg. The one string of human interest left inside him considers what the following day will bring. Maybe the Queen will allot him another errand in the round of butcher and genocide against the Terran danger.