#it inverts more into his face every chapter

[jaratedeguadalupe]

[thepersonperson]

Sukuna's Loneliness Part 2 (Sukuna is a fraud and it's funny.)

Part 1 Part 3

Before we start...

1) I will be mainly using the TCB scans because of their accessibility. 

2) This was written as of JJK 262.

(Click pictures for captions/citations.)

Fraudkuna

You’ve probably heard JJK dudebros call The King of Curses a fraud. Fraudkuna to be exact. I want to say that they’re 100% right, but that doesn’t make Sukuna a bad fighter. Sukuna is a fraud in the way Saul Goodman is a fraud. He’s so good at being fraudulent that it’s his very way of life.

This person puts it succinctly. 

And remember Reggie’s Star’s words of wisdom.

The best sorcerers are masters of deception.

Mimicry

Sukuna constantly steals from people—he takes something that isn’t his, and then morphs it into something for his purposes whether it’s bodies, Cursed Techniques (CTs), or strategies. This guy barely has original ideas of his own, using someone else’s work as the base and then building himself on top of that. This is fraud behavior. 

Puppeting Megumi

In a 2 for 1 special, Sukuna steals Kenjaku’s original idea to turn body parts into cursed objects and Megumi’s 10 Shadows along with his body.

Naturally he steals the hand signs for Megumi's CT too.

What’s interesting about this copying is that the hand signs are inversed for every Shikigami except Mahoraga.

I think the inversion for Sukuna is an act of disrespect or a form of acknowledgement for a lesser since the hand sign for Mahoraga, who Sukuna respects greatly, is identical to the original form. Sukuna’s Mahoraga is virtually unchanged in design as well. It might be slightly bigger, unlike the other Shikigami whose forms are distorted compared to Megumi’s.

I lean towards distortion being an act of disrespect since Sukuna despises Choso almost as much as Yuji and steals his Piercing Blood while tweaking the hand sign.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery. And just about everyone has picked up on Sukuna’s Megumi obsession. However, what most don’t realize is that this obsession wasn’t for Megumi the person, but his potential. Mahoraga to be exact.

And though Sukuna adores Mahoraga, his obsession with this Shikigami is in service to someone else…

Professional Gojo Satoru Simp

When I was writing this section, I was greatly surprised. I went back and scanned through everything post-Gojo Death (JJK 236-262) to see how often Sukuna copies Gojo as evidence of fraud. What I found fundamentally changed the direction of this analysis. I will tie it all into how Sukuna is a fraud don't get me wrong, but there's something else at play here...

Post-Gojo's demise, Sukuna thinks of Gojo whether directly from himself or implied by the narrator. 15 TIMES.

Sukuna, for no discernable reason, keeps copying everything Gojo did. It's not a one-off thing like Megumi for a long-term goal, it's a consistent non-stop mimicry after their fight. Here's all of them so far:

1. Using Reverse Cursed Energy (RCE) to heal a burnt-out CT.

2. The hand sign for Unlimited Void. (Aside: Yuta inverts the hand sign as Yujo, but in his case I think it's an act of respect since he doesn't see himself as Gojo's equal.)

3. The hand sign for Red.

4. Shrine based Infinity barrier.

5. Using Blue's gravity to fast travel.

6. Black flashing to restore Cursed Energy (CE) output.

7. The chanting and Honored One Pose at the same time. (And there’s even more layers to the chants themselves check out this post.)

8. Detonating his own technique on himself.

9. Even the way in which he smiles as he beats teenagers up.

By the way this face punch he did to Yugo is a replica Gojo's very first punch he landed on Sukuna.

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery but got dang. This is a bit obsessive to put it lightly.

But it didn’t start here. Sukuna’s Gojo obsession started from this panel. As Sukuna himself confirms.

No. Let’s go back further. This is when it began. Chapter 2 of the manga and Episode 1 of the anime in early June of 2018.

This motherfudger has been planning on how to slaughter Gojo for 200+ chapters. In canon time that is about 6 months.

I want to point out that his promise to kill Gojo first wound up being a lie on multiple fronts (more fraudulent behavior). He admits that it's the wrong brat's body while leaving out the fact that Gojo wasn't his first kill.

Technically Sukuna made Yuji's body his temporarily in Shibuya and killed thousands, but that wasn't deliberate. Sukuna didn't target those civilians specifically, they just got caught up as collateral in his fights with Jogo and Mahoraga. The first person Sukuna went out of his way to kill was Yorozu/Tsumiki (killing Ryu along the way). And he didn't tell Gojo that for a reason.

Much like Gojo, Sukuna is a 2 birds and 1 stone person as in he has multiple reasons for doing a single action. This can make his motives appear dubious or have plausible deniability. Sukuna on the surface went after Yorozu/Tsumiki to subjugate Megumi's soul. But that too was still in service of killing Gojo. Yorozu’s Perfect Sphere, if you remember, acts just like Infinity. And Sukuna trained Mahoraga on it deliberately to get past it.

This also means that retroactively, his Megumi and Mahoraga obsession is a part of his Gojo obsession. He saw his personally trained student’s potential, found out about Mahoraga’s adaptation, and used it specifically to upgrade his CT for the sole purpose of killing Gojo. Sukuna admits to this himself.

Not with his own technique by itself, but with Megumi’s because deep down he realized Gojo’s CT was better than his and he’d lose to him in a fair fight. A fraudulent way to victory.

By the way, when Mahoraga finally adapts to Infinity in a way Sukuna can copy, he's observing the adaptation from the shadows, fully bumming the fight, as Gojo 1v2s Agito and Mahoraga.

What’s so fascinating about this planning is that it was made up on the fly. Sukuna has been obsessing over how to kill Gojo Satoru since their first 10 seconds interaction. (Toji behavior much?) Megumi and Mahoraga being a part of his plans occurred by chance. There’s a certain level of adaptability and skill needed to think on the fly like this. It truly makes Sukuna the Best Fraud in verse.

Lies and Hypocrisy

Simply copying those you admire is base level fraudulent behavior. What makes Sukuna the King of Frauds are the contradictions in his words and actions. This isn’t like Gojo Satoru who is actively hiding his true feelings as a trauma response. Sukuna betrays his own inner logic on convenience. Uraume even notes this as his “capricious nature”.

These are excuses made by a Professional Sukuna Understander who also acknowledges just how much he was into Gojo despite Sukuna actively denying it himself. (He’s just a fish? What kind of fish engages in 6 months of psychological mind games and preparation to catch outside of Moby Dick? Yes I know he’s a whale but the obsessiveness bordering something else is there.)

We'll get back to this eventually. For now we will focus on how Sukuna picks on children.

Hating Ideals and Roles

Sukuna hates ideals. Everyone knows this because he tells Yuji constantly how much he hates them. He spits on Yuji for having ideals and goals. And then turns around and gets hyped when he finally has his own goal to chase. The hypocrisy speaks for itself.

But that’s not the end of it. He also berates Yuji for seeking a role in life, outwardly teasing him when he finds one besides cog. And then gets this excited when Maki “forces” one on him.

He’s not just being a hypocrite here. I think it’s envy. Yuji gets all the things he was denied—a society that does not exclude him for the circumstances of his birth, clear cut goals and purposes alongside others, and fulfilling connections with equals. In the worst case of Sour Grapes I’ve ever seen, he derides the things he believes he’s incapable of having. But the second he gets a taste, he starts salivating.

Hating Love

Sukuna's hatred of ideals and roles in society is but a microcosm of his one true hate—love and connections. Anything soft like bonds makes people weak. Sukuna seeks only strength so he believes the following:

Not only does Sukuna admit here that connections with other people are a weakness, he believes Gojo to be the modern pinnacle of casting them away to obtain strength. In a very roundabout way this is him praising Gojo for being a monster like himself.

And that's where the next contradiction lies. Despite Sukuna preaching the benefits of isolation, he still craves that monster to monster connection. He adores anyone just like him. Monsters who throw all their humanity away just like him. He wants that connection so badly. Look at how often Sukuna gets excited when he thinks others might be like him. (Notice the half-assed Brat is Sukuna calling Yuji out for not committing to monsterhood.)

Uraume of all people should fulfill a bit of that social want Sukuna has, but they put him on a pedestal. They are his servant and he is their master. Even though they can intuit his needs, they can’t fulfill all his emotional ones since their relationship is one with inherent distance between them. That being said, Uraume still understands exactly what Sukuna is looking for—other monsters.

Professional Sukuna Understander once again gives insight onto how this fraud thinks. Sukuna is strong enough to endure solitude. He is fearless and alone by embracing power.

And yet Sukuna cannot abide by his own principles against love.

December 24th is the most romantic day in Japan. This information is in part how we infer Gojo Satoru is in love Geto Suguru time and time again. Kenjaku calls Gojo out for this. Setting a battle date to December 24th is romantic in nature. And Sukuna, of his own volition starts seeing Gojo as the one who will teach him love.

No. That's not right either...

Gojo has never been the one trying to teach Sukuna love. He never heard those words from Yorozu. Not once. It's the other way around. Sukuna is the one trying to teach Gojo about love. Every single time "The one who will teach you about love is..." appears, Sukuna is in the final frame. It's never Gojo. It's always Sukuna.

The loneliness that comes with unrivaled strength. The one who will teach you about love is...Sukuna.

Kashimo takes Sukuna up on the offer. He has Sukuna teach him about love. When Sukuna first starts his speech about love, he speaks of Yorozu as someone who could've taught Gojo of love—as in Gojo was the one who needed teaching. He also spells out for Kashimo that the strong love with their violence. Sukuna himself admits that he loves by slaughtering. All while saying it's worthless in the end, because the only thing that matters to him is strength.

Wanting love and strength is greedy. You can't have both. Sukuna killing Gojo was not only an act of love, but an act of denial in pursuit of self-preservation. Sukuna found someone he could possibly love and he did everything in his power to kill him for the sake of maintaining his strength.

This could be proof he's not a fraud when it comes to hating love. But he still engaged with it and became stronger as a result of it—contradicting the very principles on which he decries love as weakness.

In retrospect, this makes this particular Gojo glazing Sukuna sequence from the infamous JJK 236 ironically hilarious.

Gojo never realized that Sukuna obsessed over him for 6 months nonstop after meeting him for 10 seconds. He never realized that Sukuna's cruelty and cuts were trying to reach him. The most Gojo knew was that Sukuna bagged Mahoraga to kill him. He didn't know about the planning that went into it or the heart behind it all. Gojo has always been iffy about understanding other people's feelings towards him mind you, but...

In the same way Geto did not understand Gojo's love for him until both of them were dead, Gojo did not understand Sukuna's love for him even in death. Because Gojo and Sukuna are the same person.

Umineko no Naku Koro ni (When the Seagulls Cry) is a visual novel about a person who is fundamentally misunderstood by those around them. They desperately want to be loved without being perceived, believing themself to be unworthy due to trauma and immutable characteristics given to them at birth. Instead of telling anyone these feelings directly, they play games akin to torture. They torment the ones they love over and over in hopes they'll see through their actions and understand them.

The Consequences of Fraudulent Behavior

The tragedy of Sukuna is his inability to fully realize his desires. He wants an equal in strength to play with or be killed by, but he crushes anyone with the potential to do that. Gojo was the closest thing Sukuna ever got to realizing that desire. Hence the “You cleared my skies. I shall remember you for as long as I live.” and subsequent "Where's Gojo Satoru?" ad nauseum.

Instead of allowing these potential companions to realize their abilities fully, he kills them and then gets upset about it. There's honestly no difference between him and a dog impulsively tearing his favorite chewtoys to pieces and getting confused by the outcome. (And in the case of Gojo Satoru, that's the dog catching the car but if the dog had spent half a year studying the exact speed and timing down to the stud before ripping the bumper off.)

I genuinely cannot tell if Sukuna is aware of this problem himself. Seriously, I don’t think anyone has told him that if he wants a matured fighter, he needs to let them…mature in the first place. I know he was treated like animal since birth, but he’s smart enough to know better. 

He’ll never reach satisfaction like this and it’s as funny as it is pathetic. Even Megumi, the first person he saw with the potential to entertain him, was chewed up with ease. Not just him, but the very reason he took interest—Mahoraga. Instead of having a Shikigami that will always evolve with him and therefore always be a source of everchanging entertainment, he tamed it and added it to his arsenal.

Sure all of that was to kill Gojo via masterclass frauding, but that too cucks him in the long run. Gojo is still the only person in Sukuna’s entire existence to keep up with him and nearly kill him on his own. If Sukuna were smarter, he could’ve developed a lifelong rivalry that fueled both of their growths. But Gojo beats him fair and square, so he binding vow frauds his way out in a way that permanently destroys this source of fun.

And on top of that, his killing of Gojo may have also been Sukuna trying to trick himself into believing he doesn't need anyone to satisfy him ever. He probably believes this from the bottom of his heart. Kashimo calls him out for it. "Then why mince your soul into cursed objects and watch all those years go by?" Why get so excited when Uraume shows up too?

I'm not saying that Sukuna has been secretly craving romantic or sexual love for the past 1,000 years. He has had plenty of opportunities to engage with this kind of love and has chosen not to. (Though I do think Sukuna saw his fight with Gojo as a some warped version of a date at this point.) The kind of love Sukuna seems to crave is one between friends, peers, and equals. What I'm saying is that Gojo shattered his world view in the same way Gojo also shattered Toji's world view. But unlike Toji who was able to admit his way of thinking was flawed, Sukuna is actively in denial.

He denies his own feelings and desires for companionship while running around looking for another Gojo Satoru that will never exist. All that Sukuna is left with are disappointments and ghosts to chase. The only person who keeps getting up stronger every time he knocks them down is Yuji. And he hates Yuji. 

I’m not sure what this all means in the grand scheme of this story, but I am fascinated by how this absolute menace sabotages his own chances at happiness because his power and fraudulent behavior has stripped him of his ability to socialize.

[luveline]

I love your writing sm!!! would you be willing to do something with Spencer where he calms reader down from a nightmare ? thank u so much!!! have a good day ❤️

thank you sm! ♡ gn!reader

cw drug use mentioned

In the dream, Spencer lives. 

Surprisingly. So many of your dreams are made of his demise. In one dream he gets killed in a cemetery, crying and alone and strapped to a chair. In another, a needle stays stuck to the crook of his arms as he slips into a too-heavy sleep. Sometimes he dies bleeding out from his leg, other times he makes it to the hospital long enough to feel the building crumble beneath him. 

You wouldn't want Spencer to stop telling you things, but every ragged chapter of his life acts as nightmare fuel. Every sentence, every line. Here he's lonely. Here he's afraid. 

Here, despite everything, he's alive, because this is the dream where you die first. 

You die like the snap of a firecracker hitting the ground and find yourself inverted, flinching up where gunpowder spilled down, your hand knocking into the soft of Spencer's stomach as you gasp for air. You're dead. You're dead, and Spencer's alone, and no one is going to look after him now. 

"Y/N?" His voice. The plastic and wood scrape as he grabs his glasses and shoves them on. "What? What's hurting?" 

You put your hand over your heart and will it to stop pounding so hard. It aches like a new bruise. 

"Baby," Spencer says softly, curling his arm behind the small of your back. He pulls your bodies together, tucking the sheets up your legs again with the other. 

"Bad dream," you say, wishing you'd woken crying. At least then you'd know what the emotion is under all your abject panic. 

"Just breathe… just breathe." He takes a slow, deliberate breath for you to follow. When he speaks, it's calm as the summer sea. "Another one. I'm sorry, you've had a lot of these lately, huh?" Spencer brings the hand furthest from you to your cheek, encouraging your cheek against his chin. "You want to tell me about it?" 

"I died." 

It must surprise him. For once, he doesn't have anything to say immediately. He turns his face in to kiss you, not fussy about where his lips fall. A slow, steadying kiss. 

"Those ones are some of the hardest," he says sympathetically. 

"I didn't… it didn't even matter. I hit my head and I woke up. But I…" How to explain it? "Spence, there was this split second where I thought I left you alone." 

"Don't worry about me," he says.

"But I do worry about you. I know you can look after yourself better, but– but people have let you down. I've let you down." 

Spencer's smile is audible, a lilt to the dulcet murmur he presses into your hair, "You're the last person I'd say let me down... You know, nightmares aren't scientifically quantifiable, there's no statistical data on what it means to have a bad dream, but. There are hundreds of thousands of books about it, and more than you'd think tend to agree that after you've had one, the fear remains. Like a bad cell. You can't remember it and it sticks around despite it." 

You wait for the silver lining. 

"So?" you ask. 

He chuckles quietly. "So, I know it sucks, but it's a good thing that you remembered it. Want me to tell you what the books say?" 

"About what it means?" you ask. 

"They say it's transitional. You're saying goodbye to something. Starting a new chapter." 

Spencer turns your face, his thumb stroking your cheek. Dead morning light floods the room like a splash of milk into tea, illuminating the small apples of his cheeks, the thick triangles of his lashes behind his glasses' lenses. He looks woefully handsome considering the hour, and, to your relief, he's completely unafraid. 

"Just don't say goodbye to me, okay?" he whispers.

You nod, fatigue pressing on your shoulders. 

Spencer gives you a quick, dotting kiss. "Thank you. Let's go back to sleep, yeah? Lay down." 

You curl up under his arm. His hand takes loop on your shoulder, drawing lazy, meandering circles until you're falling into a much quieter crop of sleep. 

[moonbaby26]

Title: Basement Negotiations

(Chapter 1 of Doflamingo’s Marine Series)

*Crossposted to AO3 Here*

Reader/(Y/N) type: cis female marine

Pairings: Doflamingo x Reader as primary. Smoker x Reader is in the past. And Kuzan/Aokiji x Reader is there a little too.

Chapter Warnings: nonconsensual, dubious consent, language, violence, biting, blood, unprotected vaginal sex, fingering, oral sex (female receiving)

Chapter Synopsis: Imagine being an overly ambitious young marine under Tsuru’s command. You’ve just had a very public breakup with Smoker, and without knowing also caught the Heavenly Demon’s eye for quite a while now. But you may have finally crossed the line in interfering with the warlord’s business dealings. Either way, Doflamingo will make sure you get what you deserve today.

Chapters: 1, 2

———————————————

———————————————

“You aren’t listening!” Smoker barked back at you, those two cigars pinched between his now bared teeth.

Things had unraveled here so quickly. Just minutes ago you’d been calmly following him as he’d asked to have a private word in the courtyard here at Mariejois.

For three months the two of you had been apart on assignments in different seas, and almost nightly you’d imagined finally seeing him again. You’d envisioned sharing a bed once more and doing everything you knew you had both been waiting for.

But now Smoker’s expression was practically a snarl and it just snapped something deeper within you as that final straw broke.

All the weeks that it’d been hard to get him by transponder snail, you hadn’t even worried. He was busy. You were busy. And you’d finally made the rank of captain. That next crucial step towards your own dream of becoming a vice admiral someday. You’d been riding that emotional high, just anticipating getting to celebrate together with him.

But this man who you thought would share in your pride and accomplishments the most, looked you dead in the eyes and said you had an obsession. That your desire to so rapidly climb the ranks at the expense of all else was not healthy. You were going to crash and burn, and he would no longer be a party to that.

But he hadn’t wanted to do this over snail. He’d come all this way just to tell you that the two of you were over straight to your face.

And as hotheaded as the both of you could be, the resulting argument had escalated explosively to this.

His subordinate Tashigi had dashed out, tears almost in her eyes by then as she begged for the fight to stop. You considered her a friend, but even she wasn’t enough to reason with you then as you’d landed the first solid kick against his clenched jaw.

A haki infused strike that even a logia fruit user couldn’t dissipate away from. The sound of the connect had been audible through the courtyard as he reeled back.

“He thinks I’m weak!” You called out spitefully to Tashigi as you immediately followed up to invert your body with a dive and a handspring that let your legs wrap around Smoker’s neck next before he could fly away.

Every place your bodies touched, you coated with haki in order to keep a hold of him. He tried to grab your thighs, but you still completed the maneuver to set him off balance and pull him down to the ground instead.

You wouldn’t stop fighting now until you either drew first blood or pinned him as symbolic victory. Because it drove something in you absolutely livid to be thought of as physically less than any other marine.

What he framed as caring about you, you could now only see as him not believing in your strength and ability to outlast your peers.

He didn’t know what sacrifices you’d already made. How hard it had been to claw your way up even to this point. You had worked so doggedly to be here, and you would go even higher, with or without him.

You knew you could mitigate his abilities better in close quarters. But he did knock you back enough to finally turn to smoke and take to the air.

Besides your haki though, your other weapon of choice was the rope dart you now unwrapped from your shoulder. He wasn’t out of your range yet as you infused the dagger with more of your willpower and launched it at him in the air.

You sensed his frustration mounting as well, and you knew he was about to make a mistake. You saw it so clearly in your mind that you focused on nothing else.

And that was the exact moment in which you lost the battle, as you didn’t account for the surprise attack from behind.

You did gasp aloud as your feet seized to the ground. The sudden cold felt like knives piercing all the way up your bare legs and beneath your skirt as your upper body stilled in that brief paralysis.

Your rope dart went limp on the ground as you’d stopped controlling it. You were trying to catch your breath as that unnatural cold had risen all the way up into your chest then.

“Enough sparring for this morning…don’t you think?” A new voice questioned calmly, yet still imposing enough behind you.

“You always take his side,” You muttered through an involuntary shiver. You’d completely lost feeling in your legs by the time Aokiji walked by you with his hands back in his pockets.

“Congratulations on making captain.” The admiral said sincerely. Before adding, “Tsuru said she has a new assignment for you though. I’d head fast to her office, yeah?”

You stared after him in surprise as he kept walking, but with a mix of a little dread building in you all the same. Tsuru was the last person you wanted to be scolded by right now. But this fight had all happened so fast. Could she already know? 

You quickly started refocusing your haki to melt off the ice. It looked like little bits of steam coming off of your legs before you were able to stagger forward with the rest of the excess ice shattering off of you as it fell to the ground in chunks.

Smoker was possibly getting reprimanded by Aokiji next. You could see them talking now. But the two men were friends, so it was doubtful. You really only saw Tashigi still looking upset, like she wanted to say something to you. But you turned your back to them all after collecting your weapon to wrap it back around your shoulder.

When you did so, you realized just how much of an audience you’d acquired in the courtyard. Not just people all gawking on the ground level, but shadows moving in the balconies above as well. Too many to care about right now as your long marine coat flowed behind you as you stormed off.

————————————

No part of Mariejois was actually a marine base. But in cooperation with the World Government, these administrative offices and meeting areas were shared with the marines.

You moved purposefully through the familiar corridors then, only stopping briefly at the women’s restroom area to mirror check yourself.

There was no time to change. All you could do was button closed your marine coat enough to cover up how your skirt and the bottom of your shirt were still wet from the melted ice. 

You then took a wet towel next to clean your face of scuffs or dirt. It wasn’t so much vanity though as it was pride. You couldn’t look too disheveled, because that would mean that Smoker really had gotten the best of you.

He had been your longest physical relationship to this point. Two years of your life to that man. And now he’d just pulled the rug out from under you as his thanks for all the effort. 

And as you’d turned away from the mirror, you heard the door and two other women coming in. They were talking amongst themselves.

“And she just attacked him right out there in front of everyone!”

“What a psycho!”

By their clothing, they were just two World Government clerks, glorified coffee getters actually. Not anyone whose opinion you gave a shit about even as the color drained from their faces when they saw you.

But you didn’t have the time, just shouldering roughly past them and right back out the door.

——————————— 

As you entered Tsuru’s temporary office, still concerned for whatever discipline might await you there, you were only surprised to see a couple more of the crew helping her pack her things rapidly away.

“You’re leaving already, ma’am?” You asked, knowing the whole purpose of the trip here had been for the warlord meeting she was always a part of.

Even as a captain yourself now, your official post was still on her battleship. You had sailed under this woman from your very first marine recruitment actually. And for the dynamics of Tsuru’s crew, that meant she was more like a stern mother figure to you by this point.

“There’s been an incident near Amazon Lily.” She responded while sliding her notebooks into one of the bags they had. “Sengoku has asked that we go immediately and deescalate the situation to mitigate any casualties.”

It was no secret that Tsuru preferred a mostly female crew. So logically it’d make sense for you all to deal with Hancock and her Kuja Pirates if it came down to it.

“Yes, ma’am.” You answered, relieved to already have another fight to focus on really. “I’ll go to the ship now and help ready for sail then.” You had started to turn on your heel for the hallway too before she responded.

“You’re not coming with us.” The Vice Admiral cut you off.

The confusion in your eyes as you looked back must have been evident as she immediately continued.

“The warlord meeting is starting now. I need you to present that report on the war in Charybdis in my place. The World Government is still hemming and hawing about giving us the funding needed to move into that area.”

Yes, you were the one who had made the report for her in the first place. But always with the intention that it would have her authority as a vice admiral behind it when presented.

She knew you well though, and even that brief moment of silence made clear your hesitation. Of course she would have none of it. “You know the data better than anyone else. It’s your report, so make it work. Get us that funding.”

“I’m not a salesman, Tsuru-san.” You still protested. If the marines didn’t move in to turn the tide in that war soon, so many more lives were going to be lost. It was not minor politics to be played at by a novice.

“You don’t have to be a salesman. Be yourself, that’s authentic enough. They’ll believe you as long as you’re firm on it. And when it’s over, you can sail back to Marineford on Sengoku’s ship this evening.”

She shoved the report folders into your arms next, the last things that had been on her now cleared desk. “File everything of the reports in the government archive here too when done please. We may still need to reference them again later for those other things we talked about.”

“Of course,” You could only agree reflexively, knowing now she had obviously made up her mind.

And you were all walking back into the hall together soon after as they’d taken everything else that they needed.

“Good luck!” Your other crewmates offered cheerfully to you.

But it was Tsuru whose brow still furrowed as if she’d remembered one last important thing. She spoke to you quickly, but with emphasis. “The only two warlords who showed up today are Bartholomew Kuma-” Because of course he always did. “But also Donquixote Doflamingo.” Who almost never did. 

And her eyes were truly serious in that moment as she warned you. “I would say Doflamingo must have a vested interest in the war as well for him to come here now. Nothing altruistic either I’m sure. You’ll be fine with Sengoku there of course. But, do not let your guard down with that pirate. He’s conniving and dangerous. You know this.”

“Yes, ma’am.” You answered again. Tsuru had been the vice admiral chasing Doflamingo from long before he had immunity as a warlord. And before he had been king of Dressrosa either. You’d been there for some of it too, all the way back from those North Blue days as a chore girl on her ship. But you knew their shared history predated even your time on her crew.

That brief look she gave you of still lingering worry was what finally made you relax slightly though. Because it wasn’t that same patronizing concern that Smoker had had.

Tsuru knew damned well what you were capable of. She didn’t try to keep too tight of a leash on you either. She had always done her best just to guide you instead. Direct the weapon instead of dismantle it. 

“I’ll be fine.” You nodded at her. “I won’t be intimidated by someone like Doflamingo. It’d be an embarrassment to our crew.”

“I know. But go on then and be careful. They’ll already be starting.” She shooed you on after, before you both turned to head in your opposite directions.

———————————— 

And they had already started. You’d paused briefly, making sure your posture was just right and befitting of a marine before you walked in through the ornate meeting hall doors.

Vice Admiral Momonga was speaking about previous meetings’ minutes as you kept your calm even as you realized every chair seemed already occupied.

Mostly by lesser staff, World Government fodder likely here as well only for discussions about the Charybdis war. They would be your audience soon enough for this damned report.

There was at least one chair still open though as you rounded the table. And you thought you knew why. No one wanted to sit by the warlords.

But if they had to choose one, apparently they still chose Kuma. Because at this far curve of the table, it was another marine, then Kuma, then Doflamingo, the one empty chair, and then another government official.

So you didn’t have a choice as you slid silently into the empty seat beside Doflamingo and placed Tsuru’s folders on the table.

No one seemed to acknowledge your arrival. And that was fine as you were trying to discreetly reread the reports as the others kept working through their normal meeting preamble. You’d turned these reports in to Tsuru over a week ago, so the refresher was prudent.

But even as you listened while reading, there was something else that almost immediately distracted you.

The heady scent of cologne. It was odd to think that anything could smell so expensive. But it very much did as you saw movement in your peripheral vision.

You refused to look away from your paperwork though. Even as Doflamingo sank slightly down in his chair, as if he were getting more comfortable. His hands were in his pockets as he spread his knees wide open. 

The warlord’s bright capris pants were then encroaching into your space to almost touch your own knees before you shifted your legs carefully away from him.

Your knees remained closed, then pointing towards the government official on the other side of you as you kept reading. 

You didn’t know if anything in Doflamingo’s actions was intentional. But when he had moved, you’d smelled that cologne just minutely stronger. Affirming that the rich scent was indeed from the tall pirate.

Sengoku was speaking next. And you did finally glance up as you heard the fleet admiral mention you.

“Vice Admiral Tsuru has been unexpectedly occupied with a sudden matter concerning the Kuja pirates. Her subordinate, Captain (Y/N) will be presenting the Charybdis report in lieu of Tsuru this morning.”

And damn if every eye in the room wasn’t on you then. Though that oddly excited feeling was there as well as you realized it was the first time you’d been so publicly addressed as a captain. And there was absolutely no shame to also be noted as Tsuru’s subordinate in the same breath considering the immense respect you had for that woman.

“I do thank you for joining us on such short notice.” Sengoku continued to you, before uttering the words that really put the pressure on. “If you could please go ahead and present the report. I know you likely have work elsewhere as well.”

“Yes, sir.” You answered as a visual transponder snail was passed in your direction. 

Never had you presented at this level. But you’d been in enough lower level staff meetings to know the technology as second nature when you let the snail broadcast the documents onto one of the large screens that had been brought into the room.

You’d also been taught to stand whenever giving information to those who outranked you. So you were in your element as best as you could be, pushing your chair away to stand as you just got right into it to begin speaking.

But that wasn’t the hard part either you knew. Giving the information in a digestible format was one thing. Where it really came down to it would be when the questions started. You knew all too well that Tsuru had put her trust in you to not only relay your report, but to defend it as well.

And so you talked about the contributing factors of the war, the major players in it, the casualty estimates to this point, and the destabilization that it was ever escalating in the region.

To any humanitarian, the horrors of those details alone should have warranted full marine forces to intervene and force an armistice to stem the bloodshed immediately.

But you knew the real ways the World Government worked as well. And so lastly was the thing you were most trying to “sell” if anything. Your estimates on just how much was now being lost in trade and taxes with this region because of the indefinite conflict.

You wanted the government to conclude that it’d still be cheaper to deploy the marines in what would surely be a drawn out demilitarization of the area, than it would be to just let things continue unchecked as they had been.

The only variable that you really still worried about was who exactly was feeding the weapons sales on both sides. You’d only gotten an alias out of the pirates and mercenaries you’d captured on the ground there.

There was some individual named Joker still operating out there that they were more afraid of than even your rope around their throats.

You had told Tsuru of course, but both of you had agreed to omit this name from the reports. Because you didn’t know how in bed that individual may already be with the government. The criminals you’d interrogated had been too low level to know either.

That would be a beast to chase another day.

And when you were finally done with all of this and the questions did begin, it was the onslaught you’d expected. Just one voice after another, over and over.

They wanted verification of figures, verification of sources, this, that, everything.

It was hard not to grow irritable after awhile. You’d rather have been doing punishment laps in Marineford with Akainu screaming at you by then rather than defending all these inane quibbles the government officials had.

But finally the moment came where you waited for the next stupid bureaucrat to speak and only silence rose up instead. 

Sengoku was a savior though, as after just that first initial silence he made sure to close the interrogation for good. “Thank you again, Captain.” He nodded to you. “This information will surely weigh heavily on our decision whether to mobilize forces to the region. We won’t keep you either. You are dismissed.”

You could have hugged the Fleet Admiral by then. But of course you didn’t let the relief show, only nodding respectfully before picking up all Tsuru’s folders again as you remained standing, then sliding your chair back in.

Sengoku was already speaking once more to the others as you turned to leave the table. And in your intense focus to defend your report, you hadn’t realized that at some point your warlord neighbor had further stretched out one of his long legs. But this time directly behind you.

It had to be on purpose now as you’d turned around and immediately tripped over it.

Only your reflexes saved you. Well arguably so as even though you didn’t fall, you’d had to reach out one arm to catch yourself.

The folders were clutched to you. But your other hand grabbed the nearest thing to steady your body.

As Doflamingo was still seated, it would have just been his shoulder if he were any normal man. But with his taller height, your palm then splayed out against his goddamned bare chest beneath his open shirt.

It was only a second of skin to skin contact. Your palm against the bottom edge of his stupidly firm pectoral muscle. And you prayed that no one else even saw it as you’d recoiled your hand just as fast and straightened up to keep walking. You may have even scratched him with your fingernails for how hard you’d pulled back.

Before now, Doflamingo had not made a single sound the entire time you’d been in this room either. But you heard a disapproving cluck of his tongue as you passed him.

And then something else that pulled from deeper down in him. It was so low, that you doubted anyone else could have possibly heard it.

“Tease.” Was the menacing whisper, making it the first time you’d ever heard that foul man’s voice directed to you alone.

But you didn’t look back. Physically relieved actually as soon as those doors had closed back behind you, and you’d been able to escape to the corridor with the outside guards looking on.

——————————— 

You tried to remember your promise to Tsuru of not being intimidated by Doflamingo as you moved through the halls on your way to the archive next. But your body was ignoring your brain somehow. 

You felt flustered again. Not so unlike you had with Smoker this morning. But it was clearly different. With Smoker you’d been angry, hurt even if you were finally being honest with yourself.

You felt angry now too obviously. That some arrogant warlord would try to embarrass you in front of your superiors like that. 

But that wasn’t all. You were frustrated by his insinuation. Because why did he say that to you? It wasn’t even the word really. It was the way in which he said it.

Tease.

Like a promise…or a threat. You realized just how much your conflicted feelings must show on your face as well for the very weird look the World Government pencil pusher gave you as you walked up to their desk at the entrance of the basement archives.

“Security clearance please.” The worker still said reflexively.

You said your name and rank as you flashed your marine card from out of your pocket. “I’m bringing these documents to be filed about the Charybdis war.” As Tsuru had also requested you to do earlier.

The clerk looked at the government numbering on one of the folders briefly. “Bottom level, store room D. Please leave them in the return lockbox there and they will be cataloged in three to five business days.”

Ah, the joys of bureaucracy. “Thank you,” You said anyway as they pressed a button on their desk to unlock the stairwell door.

Once you were past the door and you heard the deadbolts slide back closed again though, you sighed.

You just needed to forget all of it. Fuck Smoker and his betrayal, fuck Doflamingo and his mind games. Nothing was supposed to be like this today. 

But to your horror, you realized your eyes were finally trying to water a little as you began the long descent.

The basement archives were an absurd thirteen levels and you were now heading for the bottom as you descended the narrow stairwell.

Of course everyone had warned you. They’d said that you would be too much for Smoker to put up with in the long run. But you’d wanted him. Or maybe you’d just wanted someone who could hold his own against you period. And Smoker had just happened to be who fit the bill and was available at that time.

You wiped idly at your face and the new dampness there. You’d waited three months too, thinking you’d have a real man in your bed again tonight. You’d behaved in every port of call and ignored the catcalls and the stares of useless boys in the ranks in order to stay abstinent.

And for what?

To be left with nothing but a goodbye fight in the middle of Mariejois.

So that’s where your mind really was as you kept on down the stairs. The overly loud ventilation fans made even hearing your own footsteps difficult. But the constant white noise was kind of soothing too.

As you finally entered storage room D on the very bottom level, you had to click the lights on. There was a large metal table in the room’s center, with rows of shelving all around. Shelves full of different file boxes, as you found the lockbox noted for those still to be filed. 

You slid your paperwork into the slot to complete your task. But hesitated after, now thinking how little your somewhat irritated thighs were going to enjoy the equally lengthy stair climb back up.

All alone at last, you opened your marine coat then to take a better look at your bare legs. The damage really wasn’t all that noticeable visually. But couldn’t Aokiji just have stopped at your calves? Did he have to ice burn you so far upward past that?

You were fiddling with your tight skirt next, trying to shift it slightly so that the side seam wasn’t pressing as much into the irritated skin there when you actually caught the smell of something.

Just the faintest hint of expensive cologne, completely out of place here as you realized with a sudden dread that you had left your back to the open doorway. 

Your observation haki was still the weaker of the two types you possessed. But not unusable to you, especially when it screamed in your mind to move now as your body instantly chose fight over flight.

You could actually feel the air movement against the tears still in your eyes as Doflamingo’s strings passed you in a near miss as you dodged.

The coil of your rope dart was already slid off your shoulder by then as well. The dagger tip and rope glowing with haki as you struck back at your attacker, launching your weapon towards the doorway in a blur.

For how tall he was, the warlord moved as fast as anyone you’d ever fought though. Faster even, with only your haki keeping him from shredding your rope dart with his strings as they entangled one another.

His long fingers were jerking this way and that as you tried to keep up. It was exceedingly more difficult to protect yourself and your weapon at the same time.

His strings were slicing through anything else they contacted. The lockbox you’d just used exploded like confetti behind you.

String after string was dancing around your body too as you blocked with a pepper of armament coating. The confines of the room made strategy limited. There were only so many evasive moves you could make before you had to get in closer to him.

And your legs were your best weapon once the rope dart was out of play. You were too close to him now to get enough throw in the dart anyway, switching to kicks as your heavy ankle boots went for him hard.

Hard enough that he grunted with the rapid strikes, actually taking a few steps back. But you knew his own coating was protecting all those vital points just as quickly.

Haki meeting haki over and over as you tried to be fast enough to find a weak spot before he could cover it.

And when you couldn’t with your feet, you went for punches instead. You knew the switch up may give you a single chance to land a significant blow, and it really did.

He had still been focusing on your legs as you’d sprung off of your foot, up in the air, but then clocking him as hard as you possibly could in the left side of his face with your haki flared out from that punch.

The connect and the resulting way his face whipped to the side was the most satisfying thing you had experienced in ages. Even more so than hitting Smoker this morning in front of everyone. 

But your satisfaction was short lived as Doflamingo’s leg came up in brutal retribution.

“Athlete!” He snarled the named attack, his entire leg coated with that aura of willpower then and strings arcing behind it from his foot as you tried to block.

It was too strong to matter though. Even though you did block him, your back still crashed into the far wall after the hit. Files flew everywhere through the air as you had shattered and twisted multiple rows of shelves when you’d been sent straight through them.

You’d coated your spine and the back of your head before the hit to keep from having your back broken or worse. But it still knocked the wind out of you and hurt like a mother fucker before Doflamingo’s hand was then tight around your throat before you could hope to charge him again. 

He’d crossed the room in an instant to follow you. And you choked once initially in his grip, but didn’t plead as you glared up into those blood red glasses now looming above you.

That single moment of being stunned was all it took for him to lock you in place as well as you felt the strings now tightening around your arms and legs when he pinned you.

He was breathing audibly though with blood running from the side of his mouth as he did so. Your earlier punch had put his cheek into his teeth enough to shred some of that inner flesh you realized.

You could see the hateful sneer on his face and the angry blood vessel bulging on his forehead. But he didn’t even speak at first. When his strings were fully tight enough on your limbs, only then did his hand release your throat.

Which let you take a gasping breath of course, refilling your lungs as soon as able. Yet you felt his fingers on the side of your face next. Calloused fingertips as they moved roughly across your tear streaks to smear them even further.

“Don’t tell me you came down here just to pity yourself.” He said almost as a growl then. 

“I thought you liked to fight.” He added soon after though. But the way he was watching you made it feel like he was beginning to pivot from frustration to gloating already.

“You attacked a marine unprovoked.” You breathed again, trying to get some mental grasp back by falling into protocol. “Your immunity doesn’t give you that right.”

His head tilted slightly at your wording, that predatory body language remaining. “Unprovoked?” He was starting to smile too. But it was an equally cruel looking expression. “I strongly disagree.”

And to your shock, the strings around your legs actually started to spread them open as he only smiled larger. “You have no idea how long this has been coming. Tsuru’s little pet…” He mocked with an unnerving chuckle. “And she finally let you out of the nest alone. What did she expect would happen?”

As he said this, he only paused long enough to remove that gaudy pink feather coat, hanging it out of his way on one of the mangled shelves.

But this boded even worse for you. Showing he was planning on remaining here for more than a short time as you tried to move against the strings abruptly then. Even testing your haki to see if you could weaken them that way. But as thin as they were, they were just too many to break. 

At least not without incurring severe injury on yourself. You felt the immediate sting as blood ran down from one of your calves to drip on the floor when you’d pulled too hard against the sharp strands.

“Mmm.” He almost cooed, watching the fresh blood for a moment as he partially rolled up the white sleeves of his open dress shirt. “Willing to lose some limbs just to show me how tough you really are then?” He questioned. 

But you shuddered as his hand found your inner thigh immediately after. He steadied your leg with his grip initially, actually keeping the string from digging in further. But he didn’t stop there as his palm slid up for his long fingers to press against your underwear after.

“You can’t be serious.” You spoke in complete disbelief at the unwanted touch. He was a warlord, a fucking king of an entire country actually. In what world would he feel the need to prove anything by forcing himself on the likes of you? Maybe that wasn’t where your thought process should have been in this moment. But that’s where it goddamn went as he started to massage you shamelessly through the fabric.

“I already told you.” He chided as he never looked away from your face now. “You and me…you’ve been playing with this fire for quite awhile, little marine. Fair is fair.”

What was he talking about!? You’d never even interacted with him before now. Not directly at least, and never alone.

You were startled again though as with just another flick of his fingers, your underwear was cut apart. He pulled the loose fabric away, letting the pieces fall to the ground as his probing fingers replaced the previous massaging immediately.

“And don’t worry about us being interrupted.” His voice was so smooth too as if he wasn’t now attempting to finger fuck you just below your skirt. “That peon upstairs isn’t going to say a word. I work for the World Government remember? And my influence here is still more than most would think.”

“But the marines,” You shifted, trying and failing to sound threatening at all as one of his fingers pressed quickly past your sensitive entrance.

“Heh,” he laughed a little as you tightened around his finger, trying to resist it moving deeper. “I told your cohorts that I had to take a piss. But my string clone is being a good boy in my place by now I’m sure.”

“The fuck did I ever do to you!?” You retorted at that, hating how simple it all really was. Was no one really going to realize his trick? And would he just kill you when it was all said and done to keep you from talking about this?

“You really are trying to bait me, aren’t you?” He laughed again. “Can’t I just say I want to fuck you? What’s so wrong with that? I’ve seen you around for how many years now? In your slutty little skirts, always ready to fight. But still ignoring me like the bitch that you are.”

No, you still didn’t fully believe that. There had to be more to this. Had you done something that made you a threat? But you’d be stupid to rile him up too much more. So you tried to focus on just surviving the here and now.

“And you’re still tighter than I thought you’d be.” He commented anyway though, clearly giving his attention back to the way your walls kept closing on his finger. “I bet even a weakling like Smoker felt big in there didn’t he? I saw the show you put on with him earlier. Made me a little jealous…” 

His voice was also trying so hard to entice you. Every time he spoke, you felt like you were reacting to that just as much as his touch.

“Was that pissant really what you were crying over though? Did he break that little marine heart?” He continued, tracing another finger over your shirt, directly between your breasts at the word. “You know…the best revenge is just getting right back up and onto a new cock.”

The odd way his tone still deepened then, was he speaking from experience? You’d heard the rumors about him and Sir Crocodile. 

But Doflamingo was also really moving his other hand harshly between your legs now. You could feel how slick it had already gotten to your shame as well.

Men or women, it likely didn’t matter to him. As long as he got to be the one in control. But still, why you?

“You talk a lot.” Was what you finally said, trying not to let your hips move against his hand like your traitorous body already wanted to do. He’d added a second finger inside you now, spreading things even a little more.

But he didn’t get angry when you responded again. It was as if he’d been waiting for it actually. 

“Then kiss me and shut me up you marine bitch.” He taunted in return. Yet with it obvious that you were restrained and could make no such move before he suddenly bent down to take your lips by force instead.

And there was nothing you could do but endure as his obscene tongue quickly pushed its way past your teeth. The taste of his blood from your earlier punch was still heavily there as well.

He made a greedy sound against your lips, trying to coax your own tongue out as you held back.

And when you wouldn’t meet him there, he suddenly bit your bottom lip instead. Hard enough that you yelped into his mouth and pulled against the strings again.

But he only laughed as he grabbed you by the back of your head. Keeping you from biting him in return before the blood started pooling from your wound.

“You really thought you wouldn’t be punished for trying to break my goddamn jaw earlier, woman?” He was still smiling as he said it though, now watching your blood run down your chin.

“I think red really is your color though.” He added needfully too, and before you could turn your face away, he’d leaned in again to actually lick the blood trail from your skin.

Which transitioned into another wet kiss even as he held your hair with his fist tight against your scalp.

“Just accept what I’m offering you, woman.” He growled a little as he broke the kiss once more. “You want to live I’m sure. But I’m not unreasonable. Keep your mouth shut after this, and I’ll make sure your rank doesn’t stop at captain either. There’s no reason we can’t both have what we want.”

“You don’t even know me.” Somehow you still found those words to say. Even if you knew it was useless. You’d made the mistake of briefly glancing down when he’d shifted too. His large arousal was now obvious through his already tight pants.

But he spoke again regardless. “Don’t I? I know ruthlessness when I see it. Ambition.” Abruptly he’d slid his fingers back out of you now. His smile was nearly ear to ear. “That’s why Smoker turned on you. Don’t you get it?”

And you could only be more surprised as he squatted down in front of you without warning. Long legs bent, his ass almost touching the ground. But not quite as he grabbed your outer thighs to start pushing your skirt up and out of his way.

“They’re afraid of you, darling.” Doflamingo nearly purred, the warmth of his breath then against your exposed slit.

“So I’m the man you need now.” He said almost softly, just before his mouth closed around you.

You bucked and it only made him press harder, he was sucking you audibly. Mouthing your clit before letting his long tongue back out to sweep across it as if it needed to be licked clean. As if it was his absolute mission to send those trembles through your thighs and hear you whimper for him.

He had no hesitation, no shame at all as he kept his mouth and nose buried against you. You could feel even his glasses scraping your skin as he worked roughly and you shuddered multiple times.

“You see?” He did speak after another long lick, looking up at you again. “You want it don’t you? All of it. So take it. That’s what power is.”

He really was a manipulator, changing as fast as the tides to meet his goals. To imagine this level of confidence existing naturally in anyone would have been hard to believe if you hadn’t been right here to witness it.

“Are you recruiting me or fucking me, warlord?” You asked, but too overstimulated for it to sound like anything more than you struggling with yourself now.

He stood back to his full imposing height then, yet fondly licking the residue of you off of his mouth as he did so. 

“Both.” He answered simply.

And as he said that, another few flicks of his fingers had every button falling off of your shirt. Both his hands spread your shirt open after, before he started feeling across the newly exposed skin.  

There were bruises across your torso of course, but also still those little reddened areas from Aokiji’s ice burns of earlier. You realized just how much attention Doflamingo was paying to every inch of it too, tracing any damage before he slid your bra up and out of the way to begin squeezing your soft breasts.

“Are the rumors about you and Aokiji true as well?” The pirate asked straight out of the blue however as he looked over the light burns. “He did seem to take special care with you.”

“What?” You almost stammered as your chest continued to be groped, even as you felt another shift in the level of danger. Doflamingo was abruptly more serious again.

And when you didn’t immediately answer him, those glasses were staring straight through you.

“You’ve fucked him too haven’t you?” He clarified, as if you were too slow to understand.

And of course you had known what he meant the first time. The question was why it suddenly mattered, and why you knew to your core that things would explode now if you lied to him.

“We did.” You answered quietly. This was something you never talked about. “Before Smoker. But it didn’t last.” And even then, you felt you had to give an excuse as to why. “He thought I was too young then.”

“I remember that,” Doflamingo actually admitted though, squeezing your breasts a little harder then. Almost to the point of being painful after your confession.

“The rookie that already knew haki. Another pain in the ass whenever Tsuru’s ship would roll up in one of my towns before I became a warlord. I lost a lot of soldiers to prisons throughout the North Blue because of you all.”

Yet he didn’t sound angry anymore over that part of it. And he just kept on. “But now with Smoker out of the picture…I wouldn’t be surprised if Aokiji tries you for another round. You’re all grown up and an officer after all. But too bad for him, I got here first…”

And as if to reiterate that point, Doflamingo leaned down and kissed you again without warning. But even with your bloody lip, it was still different than any one he’d given you before now. He wasn’t dominating this time. He wasn’t even forcing you. It was a real kiss as you finally allowed your tongue to reciprocate in complete surprise to yourself.

Because it actually felt so very good. Good enough that you even made a wanting sound, leaning into it a little more.

You wanted to be held then too. But his hands weren’t on your chest anymore. He was doing something with them, and you weren’t watching as you were living for this kiss in this moment with your eyes closed.

It didn’t take long however to realize the trade off that had already been made. Because you felt the pressure of his newly freed cock against your entrance soon after. That was what his hands had been doing, loosening his pants enough to free himself.

It was so sudden. And he didn’t give you the option of even a verbal refusal either. You just felt yourself stretch abruptly as the head pushed inside of you.

He had straightened up again by then, breaking the kiss as he did so. And whatever pathetic sound you made at the pain of penetration, had him only stroking his fingers across your hair and scalp as he kept pressing in further with his other arm snaking around your back to hold you to him.

“Good girl, let me in…” You heard him breathe as you continued to stretch. “Open up for me.”

He was the biggest you’d ever felt. But you refused to even look down, not wanting to see how disgustingly your poor skin would be pulled to tearing just to hold his girth inside of you.

“Relax.” He commanded again. Moving his hips ever so slowly as his skin slid against your inner walls, still going deeper.

When his tip finally bumped against your cervix, you heard him chuckle quietly as you tried to bury your face against him in the pain. “See?” He spoke in almost a whisper above you, so intimate now. “There’s the end. That’s as bad as it’ll be.” His fingers were still stroking your hair as well, like petting a wounded beast.

And even inside you then as deep as he could go, his hips still weren’t fully flush with yours. He was just that sizable. But that tightness clearly was pleasurable enough for him as he moaned a little already, starting to move his hips in a slow pumping motion.

It was maddening. Both torturous, but overwhelmingly erotic to be filled like you never had been before. Pleasure and pain shifting back and forth interchangeably as his thrusting began to quicken.

His breathing had changed too. You could hear the almost desperation in what was becoming more a panting sound as he let himself give in.

You even felt the strings start to loosen as he wanted to hold you more with his own hands. He had grabbed your legs behind the knees now, bidding you to wrap yourself around him as he picked you up.

“Fuck me, (Y/N). Come on. I want to hear you.” He said in the closest tone to begging that you thought anyone would ever hear from this man. All the while his hips kept pumping into you.

And it was the very first time he’d called you by name as well. Not bitch, not marine, not girl or woman. He was talking to you as he fucked you shamelessly. And he wanted the same attention in return.

“Doflamingo…” You finally said it too, holding on to him as the strings let go even more in response.

You felt so sore already, so it wasn’t easy to start to move your hips for him as well. But he groaned as soon as you did, his fingertips then digging possessively into your ass as you pumped up and down on his shaft while he stood there holding you.

You even felt a slight shudder go through him before he started to walk. Still inside of you, he carried you back to the center of the room and the metal table there before roughly setting you down on its edge.

His movements weren’t smooth at all by now. He was far too consumed as he forced you onto your back, your cunt still hanging off the table edge with his hard cock inside.

He loomed over you as he held your legs up against his torso and started thrusting so hard in and out again.

So much so that the table legs screeched as they shifted a few inches across the floor while you cried out.

He growled in pure satisfaction at your own sounds. But he wasn’t talking anymore. He was watching you as he fucked you, as if trying to commit your every tremble and whimper to memory. 

Your exposed breasts were moving with your body as you panted for him. His fingernails dug into one of them, making you cry again as he shuddered once more.

It went on and on like this, the deep penetration and the pleasure within that pain. It was only when he realized you’d turned your face away, that he grabbed you by the jaw to make you look at him again.

“You’re mine.” The words were almost animalistic when they finally left his throat. Only seconds before his orgasm overtook him and you got to see the proud Heavenly Demon bite his own lip, overwhelmed as his body absolutely trembled.

And to drive home that possessive declaration, he never even pulled out of you. You could feel the tell tale pulsing running up from the base of his cock instead as his seed released inside. He purposefully held his length in too, as deep as it could possibly go for your body to take in every drop of him that it could keep.

Only the overflow was sticky and warm as you felt it dripping out to run along your ass soon after. He was still watching you as it did too, a slick of sweat on his abdomen from the body heat the two of you had made.

You both stayed like that for what felt like the longest time too. Surviving in the little aftershocks and neither wanting to let go for a few minutes.

He was still panting too, before he leaned back down over you, finally letting his now softening cock slide back out with a wet sound.

And you didn’t resist as he kissed you again with your back still on the table. Even with the pressure of him finally removed from between your legs, it ached terribly as you felt the last of the strings detach from your skin as well.

He knew he didn’t need them to control you anymore.

It was actually you who was the first to speak though. Just staring into those emotionless glasses when the kisses finally stopped again. “What now?” You asked warily as you felt him touch your hair again.

He wasn’t smiling. But he was thinking. “It really would be a waste to kill you.” He eventually admitted. His fingers traced almost delicately across your throat next however. A throat you knew he was considering how easy it would be to cut.

“But I won’t tolerate you interfering again, do you understand? I’ll forget Charybdis this time. You can have it. Because it’s become more trouble than it’s worth now. But if you ever hear the name Joker again, keep your pretty head out of it.”

Your eyes widened just ever so slightly, realizing that your instincts had been correct all along then. He had followed you down here specifically because of what he thought you already knew. And to destroy the reports no doubt in case there was anything else in them that could come back to bite him.

Whatever lust he held for you was just a bonus. If it could be called that anyway.

“We’re not pursuing Joker,” You breathed in return, still with his hand touching you as you actually turned your face to move it more into his palm. You didn’t know why you still wanted to be touched. “We don’t have enough evidence. My word alone wouldn’t be enough either.”

He huffed slightly, but still ran his fingertip against your wounded lip in return. “Then make sure it stays that way. Don’t make me ever regret sparing you. Because forgiveness won’t happen twice, even for you.”

With that he did back away, letting you sit up on the table at last.

And only then did you get to see his still wet cock as he grabbed it to begin tucking it back into his open pants. It wasn’t at its full glory any longer of course, soft now even with a visible vein running the length of it.

You did get the briefest glance of his impressive balls as well. Hung like a young bull almost before he’d pulled his pants back closed and started tying the drawstrings that held them around his waist.

“So you are a natural blond.” You mumbled tiredly, daring to smirk a little actually. You’d seen his short pubic hair around the base too. It looked like he’d shaved it recently and it was only just growing back a little. What a vain man.

“Heh.” He smiled lewdly, more back to his normal attitude then as he replied. “And I’ll expect you to kiss it next time.”

“Oh yeah?” You questioned despite yourself as you slid off the table back to standing. “Well I’m probably going to be arrested for treason and being a warlord fucker long before then.”

You couldn’t see his eyes, but his tone made it sound like they would be rolling at you now. “I told you I have more influence here than you think. This room will be sealed and cleaned up as soon as we leave. They’ll say they misfiled your reports and that will be the end of it.”

You raised an eyebrow at him. He’d put his pink feather coat back on now, and was just lingering with his hands in his pockets as he watched you also try to redress.

You’d pulled your bra back down and straightened it. Your skirt too before you’d buttoned your coat shut again as there was no way to close your shirt after he’d ripped the buttons off it earlier.

As you also regathered your weapon, you could only hope the cum still dripping out onto your thighs would remain contained in your skirt and coat until you could get to the showers and find a change of clothes.

It was him that spoke again though as he still watched you. “I wasn’t bullshitting earlier either. Keep your friends off my ass and I’ll pull my strings literally and figuratively to get you promoted again soon enough.”

You glanced at him skeptically once more. “Just so you can have a high ranking marine in your pocket right?”

“Well of course. …And in my bed too.” At that he stuck his tongue out in a very vulgar gesture before laughing abruptly.

His legs were bent a little as he started to walk though, it looked funny until you realized he was trying to adjust himself. His still wet cock must have stuck to the inside of his pants. 

You tried not to think just how bad the larger implications might be in the future though as you followed him back out into the stairwell. You had no doubt you were saving your own life, and likely some of Tsuru’s crew as well by keeping Joker’s identity under wraps for now.

But he’d expect this same level of cooperation ever after too, wouldn’t he? And likely even more before long. As you doubted anything would really stop here with an opportunistic man like this.

Yes, you had certainly fucked up today. But there was no redo to be had now.

Looking up the stairs, even your body thought you were an idiot in this moment. The accumulation of two fights, being frozen, and being fucked hard enough to still be hurting all the way into your cervix had worn you down as you thought just how many individual steps still lay ahead.

Doflamingo only hesitated one more time as he saw that tired expression on your face.

“I could help you, you know…” He teased as he levitated up a few floors instantly through the use of his strings.

You blinked, realizing he’d likely gotten to skip the stairs coming down as well. He could go up or down so easily.

“But then again-” He flipped to hang upside down briefly in the stairwell, clearly showing off for you. “No pain, no gain…right, my little marine?”

And before you could respond, he’d shot straight up the stairwell and out of sight with a deep, echoing laugh as his only memento while you were left staring.

“What a dick.” You grumbled to no one then as you started trudging slowly up the very first flight.

You deserved it though. Didn’t you?

———————————

    T⨂  BE 

CONTINUED

———————————

Thanks for reading!

[starwrighter]

I am not a baby!! (Yes you are)

(Ao3) (Masterpost) (Previous)

(Chapter 19 another long one)

His base shook like an earthquake hit, knocking him off his feet. The lights in his sea base flashed an angry red, a jarring siren sounding inside metal walls. “Shit shit shit shit shit!” Danny screamed, rushing to the front hatch, silicone flippers slapping against the floor.

Thoughts cluttered Danny’s throbbing skull. Had the reaper followed them? Why wasn’t Dami doing anything about it? Did the reaper hurt him that badly? Why wouldn’t this door fucking open?!

It didn’t give a single inch no matter how hard he pushed the sturdy glass hatch. Nothing he tried seemed to work, the door didn’t want to budge. Even when he threw all his weight against the glass like a living battering ram something pushed back every time. Staring through the glass, his blood began to broil like milk placed on a hot stove.

What.

The.

Actual.

FUCK!

Curses fell past his lips like heavy rainfall. Words that would make a sailor blush and land him a permanent grounding if someone heard. Barely legible words, too big for his mouth to keep up with. Feelings too big for his body left him wailing on the metal floor.

His only door was blocked by Dami, keeping him prisoner in his own Seabase. Forget anything he said about Dami not being cruel, this fish was a cold, callous bastard who deserved to be mauled! False imprisonment. Kept in a cage like a rowdy puppy!

This was a setup for a gruesome true crime documentary. One that’d have scary music with violins and a poorly tuned piano for dramatic effect. It would have that one moment where a photo of them had its colors inverted so the narrator could build up suspense. “They were friends until they weren’t,” Then they’d go on to describe in graphic detail how Danny starved to death in his fucking base. He’d be the cautionary tale Alterra would use; twisting the actual cause to benefit the company and shame employees.

His Seabase suddenly felt incredibly small as breathing sharpened. Yanking hard on locks of raven hair Danny let out a scream. Snot dripped down his nose, scalding hot tears burning against chilled skin. He wasn’t trained for any of this shit! Why did nobody think to put a “giant fish bastard,” protical in the survival guide? Didn’t Alterra pride itself on being prepared?

Slamming fists against glass, he could feel his flesh begin to bruise; short fingernails dug into his palms with every heavy hit. Feet slammed into the door like mini hammers. Hinges creaked as Dami put more weight into keeping his base sealed tighter than Pandora’s box. Fucker!

He felt like a toddler throwing a tantrum, kicking, screaming, crying. This was a justified tantrum though. Nothing about this situation was trivial. His entire body could be crushed within a matter of minutes. All Dami had to do was put a little too much weight on his roof and he was flat as a pancake. It didn’t even need to be purposeful! The worst part was; he couldn’t even look his captor in the eye because his thick skull was blocking the fucking door!

Coiled around his base like a snake he made himself at home. Technically, this planet was his home but the fucker was suffocating himself to be petty. Normally, he respected petty behavior; pettiness flowed through his veins but this shit crossed past the line of petty revenge or malicious compliance.

All it would take is one wrong move for his solar panels to be damaged. Just a few seconds of curiosity for him to pluck them off the roof like dandelions in an open field. Without a source of power pumping breathable air into the base would be a distant memory. One he’d miss oh so much when his face was turning purple as he slowly suffocated to death! To add insult to injury, he’d be dying in a place he specifically built to be his safe haven in a sea of salt water.

Even if they weren’t damaged, his power situation looked as bleak as his academic future. Daylight wouldn’t last forever and solar panels weren’t exactly known for their effectiveness at night! A power outage that lasted more than a few minutes would kill him. Such a stupid way for him to die; the only redeeming feature of that death would be the location. Dying on a planet unexplored by humans was decently cool no matter how you spun it.

Would he come back afterward this time too? When he’d been gargling on his blood as his Lifepod crashed to the sea; not once did he think there would be another chance for him. Danny could only assume it’s three strikes and you’re out, but when it came down to weird zombie resurrections he could never be sure. Would he be caught in a death loop? Doomed to slowly die of suffocation over and over again until Dami decided he’d had his fun?

Is this a normal prank for a fish teenager to pull? Because this was sociopathic behavior if this was a prank. The language barrier made the situation a little better, but it wasn’t a get-out-of-jail-free card. Language barrier or not this was still leaving a dog in a hot car levels of stupidity.

This was such a cruel thing the universe decided to do to him. What had he done to deserve this? He hadn’t cheated on the CATs. Not in this timeline at least. Was this some form of divine punishment or did he just have an aura that made everyone want to screw him over? Either way, if this guy really thought of him as a pet he’d be in for a surprise when Danny built a fucking taser. Let him have a taste of what made him so awesome!

With a sneer, Danny watched the window. Dami’s midsection was pressed against the glass. Dots ran across his body, a straight line of tiny circles glowing dimly with the setting sun. A built-in night light to help Dami sleep at night knowing how terrible he was being right now. Pale desaturated blue faded to a shadow-like black. The transparent looked ghostly, like he could run his hands straight through it. A feat he was capable of doing without breaking a sweat not even a week ago.

Glowering, he slammed his hands against the window with a rage burning brighter than the stars in the sky. How could he convince a giant sea serpent teenager to piss off? Without his ghostly wail to boost his volume loud enough to shatter glass and crumple buildings, shouting was a useless scare tactic.

Dami couldn’t plan on blocking the door forever; could he? Maybe he was just pissed Danny ignored him about the crash zone. If he’d understood that hungry murder fish were chilling near the crash zone he probably would’ve gone anyway just to see it. But he hadn’t known; how could you punish him for that?

Actually, there were a lot of people who’d do that.

With a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagged, every breath of fresh air exhausted him to the core. Eyelids drooped anxiety battling against the growing need for rest. He could wait this out; Dami’s only mortal, he can't stay forever…

But he could keep his lazy ass parked here long enough for his supports to give in under his weight. His foundations continued to creak, a nauseating groaning of metal being strained. It was a pure miracle his base hadn’t collapsed already!

Danny screamed, collapsing into a heap of snot and tears. Chubby fingers smudged the glass. He’d never felt so useless in his life. Not when his parents rambled about ripping his alter ego molecule by molecule and not when his grades slipped through his fingers. Life sucked when you didn’t have a grocery list of superpowers at your fingertips. He felt further from normal than ever. Dying a second time had made him more freakish than the first.

A Useless freak! Wasn’t this just a wonderful predicament? This was the perfect use of precious time. It wasn’t like the Aurora’s drive core was a ticking time bomb that would explode into a massive conglomerate of metal with enough radiation to cause a mass extinction…

Oh, wait, what’s that? The Aurora is a fucking quantum detonation waiting to happen? And he’ll be stuck here like a toddler trapped in their playpen when it happens? How wonderful! Here Danny thought he could actually try to help. You know, find a way to be useful when the tragedy happened instead of waiting a week to gather the supplies he’d need to do anything.

Instead, he was trapped here with no laser cutter, no seamoth, no propulsion gun, and no radiation suit to do anything but wilt like a daisy planted in battery acid when the radiation spread out. He couldn’t go check if the Degasi base even existed either! He couldn’t check down there for anything useful and he couldn’t check to see if anyone was alive! All because a stupid teenager decided Danny’s a puppy who needs kennel training!

All he wanted now was to phase his hands through the glass and punch Dami when he wasn’t expecting it. To scare the teen into running to tell his parents about how mean Danny is. He didn’t care! He’d throw hands with however many parents and siblings Dami had! Lay down with dogs get up with fleas. Play stupid games win stupid prizes. At this point, ghosting should be the consequence of stupid actions.

Something tight wrapped around his wrist squeezing flesh and bone in a python-like grip. The curtain clung to his wrist, his entire hand stuck through it like he’d punched a hole through. A transparent ripple in the fabric circled his hand, a defiance of physics he’d never been so excited to see.

If anyone took a picture of him right now you’d think he won the lottery. Intangibility, his beloved! Oh, how he desperately missed it. Attempting to pull his hand back, Danny blinked owlishly when his hand remained firmly implanted in the fabric. He braced his foot against the glass, tugging as hard as he cut but the curtain rods just groaned, creaking under his weight.

It reminded him of the first few months after the accident; when his powers just didn’t do what he wanted them to do. Of all the times he’d fallen through his locker door. All the poor beakers and cups that'd slip through his fingers and shatter on the ground. Every memory of a mistake or malfunction a reminder that things weren’t always as easy as he mourned them to be.

What happened?

When did walking through walls become as easy as breathing for him? Something he could do without thinking or breaking a sweat. There had to be a turning point. A moment when everything clicked into place like puzzle pieces. Not having some sort of dampener might’ve helped. Maybe he just needed to think intangible thoughts?

Uhhhhh…

Blob ghosts!

Technus, Ember, Skulker, Pointdexter!

…

Nothing.

The cloth continued to strangle his wrist, cutting off his blood flow, turning his hand a frightening shade of red. Irritated and throbbing with every second the limb went without the crucial oxygen it needed. Yanking back with all his pitiful might, the metal rod groaned with each tug.

This stupid curtain was going to take his hand. The limb was going to go necrotic and fall off like a twisted 1600s fairytale! It wouldn’t even be one of those fairytales that got butchered into a poorly produced Disney movie! Just a cautionary tale that parents would use to scare children out of throwing tantrums. And it would happen because this thin piece of cloth just-

Wouldn’t.

Let.

Go.

Thud!

Blunt pain shot up his back as he toppled over like a house of cards. Static shot up throughout his arms, fingers tingling as blood finally flowed freely again. Wiggling each finger individually, bright purplish red faded to its normal pallor hue. Breathless, excitement surged in his chest, freedom at the tips of his fingers. Intangibility! It’d worked! An excited squeal died on his lips both hands blocking noise from alerting his self-assigned prison warden.

When this was over he’d never take his powers for granted ever again! Never in a billion years! Forget being normal. Normal is the path of the coward; he’s a fucking ghost! Danny Phantom; that’s who he is! Not some pet for an oversized oceanic teenager or the cowardly dumbass of a family chalked full of geniuses everyone thought him to be.

Freedom was just a few feet away now. All he needed to do was brute force his intangibility into working again…

Easier said than done.

Something somewhere in this solar system really didn’t want him to use his powers but that something could go pound sand for all he cared. He had a Seabase to explore and a Leviathan to punch when he got back.

Slowly, he crept toward the far side of his base. The closest he could get to kelp forests without leaving his base. The furthest he could get from Dami’s face. There would be no invisibility to shield him from Dami’s gaze if the leviathan turned his head.

This escape had to be flawless! Not a single glowing eye could land on him; not for a single millisecond. There was no doubt Dami would attempt to follow him. He’d been willing to follow Danny into reaper-infested waters to act as a guard dog!

Squishing his body against the floor, Danny squeezed his fists tight. He needed to be ready to swim. As fast as he could and as stealthy as physically possible; Dami couldn’t be given a chance to catch him. One poorly placed grab and Danny could be shish kabobed by his claws in an instant!

Metal walls groaned, Dami’s python-like grip denting titanium and straining glass. Danny hissed, a cheek pressed up against the wall; he’s going to implode at the rate things were going. This Leviathan needed to take a chill pill before he gave himself a heart attack and a murder charge.

He kept his breathing deep and slow; his eyes pinned to the window. Muscles lax, palms flat on the ground a tingling sensation sparked through his body as he slowly sunk through the floor.

There wasn’t a second of hesitation in his mind; when he made it through he booked it. Not a single thought of reluctance could make him falter. Any coherent idea was drowned out by the desperate need to reach the kelp forests. Only when he swam deep into green-tinted waters did he allow himself to look back. …

Dami hadn’t followed him?

Did Dami think he wasn’t worth chasing? How dare he. Maybe he just didn’t see him? There wasn’t exactly an abundance of creatures who could through both walls and flesh but Danny couldn’t help feeling disappointed. It wasn’t like he wanted to be hunted down like an animal but a little recognition would be nice.

Pouting, a frown tugged on his lips, his PDA lighting up his face in the fleeting daylight scrutinizing the coordinates on screen. A deep yellow light shone from clusters of seeds like naturally grown lamp posts in a busy forest of kelp. Groups of Stalkers prowled the biome, their lack of bioluminescence allowing them to cloak themselves in the setting sun.

The signal was closer to the Aurora than he’d previously thought. It wasn’t clear if it was directly in the crash site but it was definitely close enough to guarantee a lethal injury if the drive core decided to explode while he was busy poking his nose in Torgal Corps business. Was this really worth the risk?

…

Yes.

Absolutely.

Without a possible doubt.

There was something fishy going on and he wanted to know if this was a Scooby-Doo situation. The Torgal’s in all their eccentric glory dressed themselves up as giant fish to keep the planet for themselves. At least in a scenario like that everyone would be mostly alive.

A naive part of him wanted to believe that. Was the lack of human contact already getting to him? Maybe it was the PDA’s explanation for morbid realities? Death dumbed down and sugarcoated to the point your brain would rot if you took it seriously. It was like the PDA couldn’t grip his reading comprehension and common sense was above that of an infant!

The tablet not thinking he could piece together what happened to the people in lifepod three made sense. But life pod seventeen?? Ozzy’s death was clear cut; eaten by a giant snake,done! Trauma contained, business as usual until, finally in his late fifties he realized how badly the situation fucked him up. With how the tablet tried to explain things he'd go his entire life thinking Ozzy and anyone who didn’t make it to a life pod “Went to live on a farm off-planet,”

Would the PDA try to explain things away if he found a skeleton?

Yeah, he didn’t actually want an answer to that question. Finding someone dead was the last thing anyone wanted unless they were a mortician…Or a serial killer.

As hypocritical as it might sound, he’d prefer to find living people. At this point, he wouldn’t even mind if he found ghosts. He needed there to be ghosts. For those who died to tell him who they were. Names, their favorite colors, what they wanted to do with their lives. Anything to prove these people were something other than their last words. Something to prove they were something other than a number on a list of casualties. He had to find something.

He would find something; someone, scanners be damned.

A dense forest of kelp transitioned to the plateaus red grass sprouting from the seabed as distance ticked down. Wrecks he didn’t have the tools nor the energy to explore taunted him. Tantalizing, wires smoked and sparked as if screaming of all the possible valuables hidden inside.

See if he cared. There was someplace much cooler for him to explore! Ancient's forbid there be something as abhorrent as ugh; walls down there. Hopefully, they were sensible enough to leave a key under the doormat.

Chunks of seamoths half buried in the sand were scattered near each wreck. Storage crates filled with only the mangled remains of what once was a complex piece of technology. Tools gnarled and melted, fragments of what they used to be. Reduced to nothing but an expensive piece of scrap. It was a miracle his scanner could salvage anything from some of this stuff!

How would the PDA even make some of these blueprints useable? Would it babyproof the laser cutter? Cutting through layers of steel wasn’t what he’d call a safe activity. You could easily chop off a hand or foot if you weren’t careful. The heat would cauterize it too so the chance of reattaching anything was small. Maybe it was like those car doors that stopped automatically so it wouldn’t crush your hand?

How would it make the seamoth usable? He’d thought about it briefly before but now that he had the blueprints in hand his curiosity tripled. A seamoth was essentially just a submarine but felt closer to a car than anything else. Would the tablet even allow him to make one? He hadn’t had a license before the crash but now that he’s funsized it’s twice as dangerous!

The PDA did let him swim around with a knife, but giving him a car was a bit much even for Alterra. Then again; they did bring a fourteen-year-old into space so maybe the line was further away than he thought?

Watching the numbers tick down as he paddled closer to his destination, he shook his head. Alterra’s restrictions were a problem for the future. Present him should stick to worrying about the Degasi.

Between the bright red grass of the plateaus and the murky green of the kelp forest was what he needed. A chasm leading downwards was illuminated by mushrooms clinging to stone. A scratchy roar muffled by the depth gave him goosebumps.

He broke for the surface, taking a huge gasp of air as his tanks topped up. Those snake-like creatures Ozzy talked about were down there. Something he found terrifying on its own without knowing they already had a taste for human flesh. Flesh, bone, and everything in between, nothing had been spared.

Ancient’s, these guys better not be like owls.

Blinking a gruesome image out of his brain, he delved down into the chasm. Darker and darker, a purplish glow lit up his face. The jellyfish mushrooms he’d seen before filled the biome. With caps like pretty pink jellyfish and their stems dark and strong. A piece of flora he’d expect to see in the ghost zone but also fit with what all those old sci-fi comics said alien life would be like.

A fish that looked like a peeper swam near, its eye a bright magenta and its tail like dripping wax. The light from his seaglid startled the fish into a hasty retreat.

It’s not long until he finds what he was looking for… Or at least what’s left of it. Every inch of metal was covered in rust, barnacles fused to the roof. A compartment collapsed to the floor, seawater flooded the base.

He knew; before he even stepped foot in that seabase that nobody lived there for a very long time. Only curious fish looking for somewhere to hide.

A spotlight hung from the roof almost indistinguishable from the rusted rooftop. A water filter stuck out against smoother surfaces. The survivors who stayed here were in it for the long hall or at least they tried to be. It hadn’t exactly gone well for them from what he could tell.

A PDA glowing dimly where a compartment had collapsed. A single log transferred to his PDA before the tablet went blank.

“Son, there is always a pecking order, and in our world, money makes the hierarchy,” An older voice begins. “I pay Maida a fraction of what I pay, and you a fraction of what I pay me,” He’s confident like each word was a law set in stone.

“If money makes the hierarchy, why is Marguerite making the decisions?” A much younger voice questioned.

“We NEED her.” The older man emphasizes. “We let her think what she likes, so long as she does what she’s told,”

“And what if she doesn’t?” The younger prods.

“For enough money, she will. People always do.” This Paul Torgal sounded like he'd get along well with Vlad.

The whole “ Everything and everyone can be bought if you have enough money,” Was straight up the Fruitloop’s alley, never mind the fact that it’s blatantly wrong. They’re both delusional old men; maybe they could bond over that?

Shaking his head Danny stared at a duo of hanging plants. Downward spirals that reminded him of jellyfish stingers. Their bright purple glow screamed, “Touch me and you’ll have a very bad time.” A carnivorous plant that ate small fish.

Now, he wasn’t a fish; but he was small. Small enough to be eaten whole by a crabsnake and small enough to squeeze by the stingers without even grazing them.

Trash was piled throughout the base; wires hanging from the ceiling of a multipurpose room. Plenty of things to scan yet not a single person in sight. Though, he wasn’t quite sure he’d expected to find anyone in here in the first place. The base was flooded; bottom to top. Not a single foot of this base was free from seawater.

Two PDAs sat abandoned in the room. One stashed away in an open locker; the other sat flat on a desk. Both of them still glowed dimly despite human hands not grazing those screens since they were abandoned. It was a miracle these PDAs managed to turn on let alone transfer any data! Yet here it was; two logs and coordinates right here for him to gawk at.

Maybe Tucker was right about the older PDA models being better. A notification popped up on his PDA; a reminder that his “Bedtime” was near. He ignored it; simply ushering a gentle reassurance to the tablet. Clearly, it’s jealous and was trying to redirect his attention.

{Proposed Degasi Habitat (500m)}

500 meters down?! What were these people trying to swim down to the core of the earth?! This base already flooded! What made them think they could keep the seawater out when the pressure was a thousand times worse?

Tapping the play button he decided he’d give them a chance to explain themselves as he poked his scanner everywhere he could.

“You know what Maida told me today?” Paul's voice starts, leaving Danny to guess.

It had to be something along the lines of, “Pull that stick out of your ass!” Or maybe “ Stop being such a massive douchenozzle,”

“She wants to build a habitat 500 meters below sea level more than a kilometer northeast of here. And she needs Bart and I to do it,” Oh, that explained the crazy scuba diving he’d be needing to do. Maida won this battle.

With a shake of his head, Danny kept his scanner pointed at the water filter. It stuck out of the wall like a sore thumb a piece of tech that hadn’t been changed since the day it was sent out. Pretty sure the same brand of water filters had been tucked away in the cargo bay. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Though he’s not sure if that still applied when it came to life-saving technology.

Danny only paid half attention to the man as he rambled about Meida like he was a grade-schooler who didn’t understand bullying your crush wasn’t the way to get their attention. “She’s being so reckless! I am obviously the leader of this group meh meh meh meh meh,” Please, this guy had a superiority complex every word he spoke screamed of it. Even when he spoke with his son, it sounded so insincere and- what in the fresh fuck?!

He’s eighty?! No wonder he was spouting nonsense; he’s completely senile! Eighty years left in him; that was mother Gothel level shit right there. Does Bart have healing hair? Is that why Paul sounded so freaking. Seriously all this talk about mortality and replacing livers like that’s a normal thing to do when you get old.

“It’s my responsibility to make a decision. Return to the island and hope whatever knocked the Degasi out of the sky won’t do the same to the rescue ship, or take us deeper in search of answers. All the while hoping old age gets to me before the sea monsters do.”

Danny hoped old age got him first too. Not that he wanted anyone to die. He’d just prefer it if whatever sea monsters the old Fruitloop was talking about didn’t have a taste for human flesh. Maybe they already did? After all, two ships had been knocked out of the atmosphere with no hesitation. Not even a warning shot or redneck war cry of “Get off my turf!”

Just- BAM!

A hundred people dead without so much of a clue what the hell had happened! What was the point of that? It needlessly destroyed the planet. Was human flesh that tasty? Should he be flattered? He probably shouldn’t. People are dead and more would be dead if he didn’t find out what was happening on this freaky planet!

Swimming through the hallway the drooping stingers gave the room an eerie glow. Yet another tablet sat on a desk a few feet away from a double bed. The only bed he’d found in this seabase. Maybe they scrapped the other ones but Danny preferred to think the Degasi survivors packed themselves together like sardines. With Marguerit and Paul glaring daggers at each other while Bart acted as a living barrier.

A funny situation to think about while he did his best to brush away the morbid reality that these people were dead. To brush off the sinking feeling in his stomach that something much worse than flesh-eating sea monsters was going on here.

Call it morbid curiosity but he’d never been one to mind his business back home. What made anyone think he’d stop now that he’d been stranded on an alien planet? He’s the perfect example of a real-life horror movie protagonist. One you’d scream at through the screen as he waltzed right into a situation that’d kill him. With that said, he pressed play on another log.

“We’re already 200m below sea level! You want to go deeper,” He could empathize with the guy. Fish got freaky the deeper down you went. His PDA blared, an upgrade for his air tank added to his blueprints.

“Look around us Chief. Water leaking through the hull. Water outside the hatch. We’re drowning. Real slow.” Marguerite drawled out the last sentence. It’s clear in her voice; she’s already made up her mind.

If rescue arrives whatever shot us down is going to do it again. And again. Until it’s shut off. You see an off switch around here, chief?” The word chief sounded like a devastating insult when it came from Marguerit. A sardonic hint to her voice that

“Why would it any more likely be half a kilometer down?!” Paul shouted.

“Your kid found something on the scanner. There’s something down there. Something that shouldn’t be,” She states, and if Danny wasn’t on her side before he definitely was now.

“You’re mad,” He spits.

“I’m going all the same. And I’ve an idea you two are gonna follow. But if you do, be mindful: your authority stopped at sea level.” She ends, unwavering against Paul’s objections. He already knew who won this battle. Marguerit took no bullshit and went to chase down whatever Bart found on the scanner.

For some reason; he didn’t think they had the chance to find what they were looking for down there. Neither did he; Marguriet was right. There’s no off switch around here, and there certainly wasn’t a spare radiation suit hung up in the lockers that he could borrow.

All that’s left in these caves were the stones scattered throughout the biome. Paul was right about this place being chalked full of materials. Lithium clung to the walls and magnetite stuck out of the sand. An abundance of shale outcrops dropped gold and lithium, diamonds slowly drifting into his tiny hands.

“Remember that materials you gather are-“ The robotic voice cut off. The tablet decided whatever message pre-programmed into it was inappropriate to say to a baby.

Why did he get the feeling that the message was going to be a bill? It was a bill, wasn’t it? Anchient’s what kind of dystopian hellscape was Alterra running?! Billing a crash survivor for surviving? That sounded like something he’d expect of Vlad.

If the rescue teams showed up with itemized bills for everyone nothing would stop him from bankrupting Alterra. He’d bulldoze the corporation and turn every building they owned into a spirit Halloween maybe turn a warehouse or two into a hot topic. A little gift to Sam. No amount of backtracking on Alterra’s part would deter him. It’d be time for them to start rebuilding everything from scratch; with morals this time!

“Oxygen.” His PDA chimed; clearly a distraction to keep him from holding a grudge against Alterra for an imaginary scenario. The tablet underestimated the sheer pettiness he’s capable of; a rookie mistake on Alterra’s part.

Swimming up to the surface, Danny gasped, filling his lungs until they felt like they’d burst. His seglide helps him keep him bobbing above water seawater, moonlight engulfing him like a paper-thin bedsheet.

Stranded or not, he’d insist enthusiastically to anyone who cared that this planet’s moons were prettier than the one orbiting Earth. Glowing like a copper sphere half heated, several times the size of Earth’s moon. If he ever found that island Paul talked about he’d be stargazing like a king!

Staring longingly at the sky Danny kicked off, darting through the water as if he’d been born in it. His fingers lingered above the play button of one of Bart’s recordings. Bart was different from Paul and Marguriet in a way that made the thought of him being dead more distressing.

Marguriet was in her early forties when the Degasi dropped off the radar. Paul was in his late seventies when they crashed, turning eighty in the Jellyshroom caves. But Bart… He was just nineteen when he disappeared. It’s hard to wrap his head around that he’d be in his early thirties if he were alive today. Somberly, he pressed play.

“I thought it might get claustrophobic, living underwater. Father feels it is. He’d tell me it was childish but I stare out the window and sometimes I think how lucky I am to see this world up close.” The biochemist starts.

“Back on the island, I wouldn’t have believed the creatures that lived down here. The fish, they GLOW… There's one that’s 90% eyeball… and snakes twice the length of a habitat compartment” He says, awe oozing from each word he spoke. Sam would’ve gotten along with this guy.

“Certainly it’s not all friendly. Most of the plant life is toxic, I learned that the hard way, but I’ve managed to coax some marblemelons into growing indoors, and when they don’t cover our dietary needs…” There’s a slight pause and Danny really hopes he’s not about to confess to being a cannibal.

“We eat the fish themselves. It’s a bit gross, but nothing they wouldn’t do” Thank fuck.

“I’ve been attempting to document my findings. Father approves. He says understanding is power. That the more we know about the planet the more we can use it to our advantage,” Paul was right about that. Learning to differentiate between animals that wanted to tear flesh off your bones and the guys who just wanted to be left alone certainly was an advantage.

“I’m just doing it because it’s fun. It’s not easy without proper equipment and network access, but the old-fashioned way- Observing, taking notes, testing theories- shows me the world in a way spectroscopic analysis never could,” Bart continues.

“Lately I've been watching the crab snakes. They ambush their prey as it tries to feed on the mushrooms they hide in. What they don't eat settles on the seabed, which fertilizes the mushrooms, which feeds the herbivores, and so the chain continues. Co-evolution gives me the fuzzies.” Whatever floats your boat dude.

Biology never was his thing. He got a C in that class for a reason. Sure he’d gotten better but it wasn’t anything to write home about. Whatever notes he wrote about the local ecosystem were just entertainment for him. A way to fuel his obsession without having to look around and remember everyone was dead and there were no ghosts to be vengeful about their deaths. Most of the notes he wrote down on his PDA were solely for telling stories others hadn’t lived to tell.

They’d be another funny thing to explain when he found other survivors. Though hope was dwindling a bit at this point he wouldn’t give up just yet. There’s still a speck of hope for him to cling to. A logical expectation that the universe wasn’t stupid enough to leave him to solve problems on his own.

A piece of magnetite rested in his hands as his base slowly came into view. It’s strange to think a small stone like this was used to make torpedo systems all across the universe. Just another miracle of human intelligence. Anything and everything nature churned out could be made into a weapon if you scienced hard enough. … … … … Dami was gone.

It might be the crushing loneliness, but he couldn't help but be a little disappointed. Dami is classified as a teenager for his species he could have a parentally enforced curfew or something. That or maybe Dami found out he’d left and went to chase him down. Either way, if Dami tries a trick like that again he’s getting tased harder than a neckbeard at an anime convention.

Clliiick crickk....

A quiet noise echoed throughout the shallows. Like the click of a tongue, barely noticeable but creepy as hell to hear in the dark of night. Hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as he scanned the area for any sign of Dami… Nothing, not a roar or a croon. Just an empty imprint in the sand where the leviathan curled around the base.

A peeper, its eye half open and Danny could only assume it was sleeping. Did peepers snore or something? How could something so tiny make a noise so big? The peeper's beak opened…

....       ....

           ....Clllick crickk

Ah, that’s how. He guessed that made sense… It didn’t but he wasn’t down for vivisecting local wildlife for something as stupid as a little snoring. Sometimes it was better to chalk things down to Alien life being weird. Still, if he wanted to mark down peeper sleeping habits he needed to make sure this one wasn’t just congested.

Inching closer, its bright yellow eye snapped open. Darting away like a bolt of lightning before Danny got the chance to poke it. That didn’t look like a sickly fish? It acted the same as a healthy one. Terrified of everything unless it was trying to rub that weird fluorescent glitter all over you. Maybe peepers were the heavy snorers of this planet?

That’s the explanation he'd stick with for now. And if anything freaky happened later he’d facepalm at the obvious signs of danger. If he wasn’t brutally murdered, that is.

Another reminder chimed the five-minute mark before his Ai-assigned bedtime. Hastily he fumbled with the habitat builder building up a multipurpose room onto his base. He’d like to sleep in an actual bed tonight if that wasn’t asking too much.

Ocean water dripped from his hair when he entered the seabase; pooling down onto the metal floors. There’s no towels to dry him off here. No shower he could wash off in, daydreaming until the water ran cold. Unfortunately, indoor plumbing wasn’t included in Alterra’s survival blueprints.

There wasn’t enough time or power to place down a water filter. Solar panels were too weak to keep the base powered with a water filter running. Oxygen trumped the need for water just like water trumped the need for food. Despite what his teachers said about him, Danny did know how to prioritize! Ghosts just got in the way more often than not.

The room was gigantic compared to the basic compartments. Empty enough that his words held a slight echo; an empty canvas for him to decorate. Unfortunately, he’s got plenty of time to decorate his home away from home.

A timely rescue was a dream of the past. It took a decade to find the planet the Degasi crashed on and that was by accident! So for an unforeseen amount of time, he’s trapped on this planet. Far outside of federation space, stranded on a freaky ocean planet determined to outdo the Bermuda Triangle. This was what they made sci-fi movies about in the nineties.

With a shake of his head, he built a bed. It’s a double bed because he deserves that luxury. A thin blanket was tossed across the foot of the bed, the mattress more like a cot than anything else but who was he to complain? At least it was comfier than the ones in the nurse's office. Plenty of room for him to curl up and make a move toward sweet unconsciousness

… Hopefully, his PDA would wake him if anything was about to blow up.

[thebawdybaldurian]

Tavhalstarion Pregnancy Drabbles: The Breeding!

A day of sketching leads to a vigorous, inverted lovemaking session, where Halsin’s excited knot seals a new chapter in their lives.

Content and Warnings: Breeding, oral sex, fingering, face sitting, PIV sex, threesome, knotting, cum mixing.

Previous drabbles:

Astarion and Tav finding out Halsin Finding Out The Birth

As she finished up her latest sketch, Halsin let his head bow slightly, finding Tav’s gaze as he kissed Astarion’s shoulder. He’d seen her idle hand stroking her thigh more regularly as she sketched their posed figures and her breath had quickened a little. He knew she would soon have need of them. She smiled and nodded as his hands creeped down from Astarion’s waist, edging closer to his cock.

“Are we changing poses again?” Astarion asked as Halsin’s body continued to shift against him, stirring at his touch.

“I think she wants to see something more intimate now,” Halsin brushed his fingers just above the base of Astarion’s cock.

Astarion’s gaze flicked to Tav and saw she’d already pulled her skirt up a little. He let out a hissing sigh as Halsin’s fingers began to tease along his shaft. “You naughty little thing…Show me how wet you are,” Astarion requested.

She grinned and uncrossed her legs, spreading them wide and revealing a large, damp spot on her underpants. Despite their fairly innocent, but nude poses, she’d felt herself flowing throughout her sketching, the size contrast of their beautiful bodies making her stir. “You’re getting better with your self-control, my love,” he bit into his lip as Halsin cupped his balls. “How long have you been throbbing?”

“Since the first sketch,” she sunk back in her chair a little, pulling her panties to the side to show them the full extent. Both men made pleased noises in their throats.

“Would you like to join us or keep watching for a bit?” Halsin asked, sinking to his knees to tongue Astarion’s asshole.

“Watch for a bit longer,” she moaned, finally letting her fingers brush across her engorged lips.

She watched intently as Halsin hungrily ate Astarion’s ass and they both stroked themselves hard. Halsin eventually worked his way around to get his lips around Astarion’s cock. “Yeah,” she hissed, slipping a few fingers inside herself as her husband’s cock slipped into their lover’s throat.

“Come here,” Astarion moaned, gripping a tight handful of Halsin’s hair.

She obeyed, setting her art supplies down and slipping her dress off. Her panties hit the floor with a wet thump. She prowled to Astarion and kissed him with a hungry tongue, letting her fingers brush into Halsin’s hair too. “How does his throat feel?” she teased her tongue out, begging Astarion’s lips to engulf it.

“Incredible,” he sucked her tongue slowly, letting a finger drift between her ass checks. “But better if you added your mouth too.”

“Greedy,” she growled, but sunk to her knees beside Halsin.

He freed Astarion’s cock for a moment to kiss her and then they shared his shaft for a long tease. Halsin’s mouth then found its way back to her, lingering for a moment at her nipples before he lay down so he could sample his favorite honey. They shifted so she could straddle his face and still access her husband’s cock. Halsin suckled her clit clean, taking every ounce of honey that had been waiting for him.

Tav stared up at Astarion as she came quickly, her hand pulsing around his cock as her muscles did. “Let me have a taste now,” he smiled down at her. He pulled her up to standing, spinning her around and bending her back over slightly. He took a firm grip on her hips and buried his face between her legs, not needing to come up for air for even a moment. Halsin had gotten back up off the floor, seeing her mouth was hungry for his cock. She sucked him vigorously as Astarion continued to tongue her. “I need your cock too,” Tav finally whimpered, wanting to be skewered at both ends.

Astarion was more than happy to oblige, teasing his pre-cum slicked head against her before sliding it in. She moaned loudly, the sound muffled by Halsin’s cock.

They sandwiched her between them, their hands pushing and pulling her body back and forth in a slow rhythm. As Astarion began to fuck her harder, she huffed and stroked Halsin’s cock, demanding that both men needed to cum inside her. She slowly eased her hands down to the floor as she lifted her legs up, allowing Astarion full control of her hips. Astarion pounded her hard, Halsin watching the show and patiently stroking himself, waiting for his turn. He loved seeing her fucked in such unusual positions and felt his cock growing a little extra. Astarion grunted and groaned as he came inside her, able to guide her hips just how he needed. “Mmmm thank you, my love,” Tav sighed breathlessly, her face red from being inverted.

Astarion carefully relented his spot to Halsin, shifting his grip on her hips to the Druid’s hands. “I will be quick, my heart,” Halsin eased inside her, his cock meeting the cum that was still stored within. Not a drop had leaked out during their handoff. It made her even more slick, allowing his thick shaft to easily slide around at a frantic pace. She whimpered and moaned loudly as he fucked her even harder than Astarion had, the pale elf taking her chair to enjoy the rest of the show. She could barely keep her hands on the floor, gripping her fingers hard into the rug to hang on. “Oh Gods,” Halsin squeezed his eyes shut, his cock so engorged that he felt an involuntary knot bulging out of the base of his cock. He sunk into her with one final hard thrust, his seed joining Astarion’s in the swirling mess of her womb. His knot locked just inside her, sealing their mixture in for the foreseeable future.

“Oh no,” Tav gasped, barely able to catch her breath. She too felt the same familiar pressure at her entrance, knowing they would be tied together unexpectedly. Astarion had yet to be privy to it, so she was unsure how he would react.

“Problem, my love?” Astarion got up from his chair as Halsin carefully eased her completely down to the floor, his hips still glued against her ass.

“Halsin…perhaps you can better explain it,” she blushed deeply, lying prone and exhausted on the floor. The Druid’s cheeks were also heavily blushed.

“I have this…thing…when I get very excited…it…engorges and…locks me inside her…until the excitement ebbs away…” Halsin shifted to show Astarion the swelled bulb of flesh at the base of his cock.

“Oh…” Astarion grinned, letting out one of his boisterous laughs. “I’m sorry…it’s not funny…well it kind of is…but it is also kind of hot…You just stay…stuck inside her? For how long?”

“I think it was nearly an hour…last time,” Halsin blushed even deeper, remembering their last hunt fondly.

“Because you couldn’t stop playing with my clit,” she grinned, her face languid and glowing.

“The pulses of her cunt just make things tighter,” Halsin explained, tempted to give her one more climax so he could stay in her that much longer.

“I see…” Astarion grinned deviously, helping Halsin roll them both on their sides so they could rest a little more comfortably. He grabbed the pillows off the reading chairs so they could prop their heads off the floor and then snuggled on the opposite side of Tav. “So we could just…keep making her cum…she couldn’t get away…”

“Don’t you dare,” she grinned widely. Astarion shared a nod with Halsin, who slipped his thick fingers around her hip and began to circle her clit slowly. “Damn you both,” she whimpered as Astarion set his mouth to her breasts.

They took turns teasing and stimulating her four more times, each clench of her cunt milking more of Halsin’s seed into her. Her last, whimpering squeal meant she could take no more, so they finally relented. They snuggled close on the floor, using the sheet of fabric they’d used for a few of the draped sketches to keep them covered.

They fell into their trances, all of them sharing the same strange, interconnected dream of watching fish spawning upstream. A silver and a brown trout both battled against the rushing flow of water, jostling against one another to see who could crest first. Another large brown one came speeding along, unintentionally catapulting them both up into the calm pool above. “What a strange dream,” Tav stirred for a moment after their achievement, trying to double check that she’d taken her moon blood tincture that month. She couldn’t see the shelf where she kept them, but was almost certain she had and nestled back between her two lovers, feeling Halsin’s knot slowly starting to ease.

[kuzann]

Artistic Merit, Chapter 2

Also on Ao3. So this started as a silly little idea in my head but then it got kind of sad? They'll figure it out though. Summary: Sampo loves the wanted poster that Gepard made of him, but Gepard doesn't understand why. Sampo tries to explain.

Chapter 2: Argument

Gepard scanned his surroundings one last time—no fragmentum monsters in sight—and settled into one of the cafe chairs. He’d come to Backwater Pass in pursuit of Sampo Koski—not in an attempt to arrest him this time but for the sake of finding a breakthrough in a particularly long, annoying case of a missing painting. There were no lives hanging in the balance with this sort of thing, but the longer it was left open the more aggravating it became, and everyone dealing with it just wanted it to end. Hopefully he’d get the answers he was after and be on his way in short order.

The street was deathly quiet, save for the occasional breeze that meandered through. It was colder than other parts of the city thanks to the heaters having broken down from contamination and lack of repair. Though the fragmentum contamination had abated somewhat after the Stellaron was sealed there was still enough to keep civilians out, and to limit how long more professional traversals should last. It was still Gepard’s hope, however futile, that there would be a way for the citizens to eventually return.

Gepard checked his phone. Sampo wasn’t late yet. He sent a message to let him know that he’d arrived and left it at that.

With nothing left to do, Gepard kept an ear out and started scrolling through his phone. Lynx had sent him a video she’d taken on her latest expedition, and he opened it to find a pair of snow bear cubs playing about in the fresh snow. Gepard smiled as he watched them, thinking back on the childhood games they’d played on the rare occasions they’d had time and a lack of parental edict.

He suddenly became aware of a presence at his back, hovering just over his left shoulder. Gepard acted on instinct, leaping out of the chair and swinging Earthwork around at the intruder in a single flurry of movement.

The case hurtled through empty air as Gepard’s phone hit the ground with a clatter, Sampo having ducked backwards just in time to avoid his strike. Now he rested awkwardly on his hands and feet like an inverted crab, an apologetic and slightly shocked smile on his face as he stared up at Gepard.

It would’ve been a funny sight, had Gepard not almost knocked Sampo’s brains out just a moment before. Gepard sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he slumped back into the chair. “Don’t sneak up on me like that. What were you thinking?”

Sampo gave a somewhat breathless laugh and pushed himself back up to a standing position in a single graceful movement. “Well it’s not every day you see such a cute smile on the captain’s face. I was just curious about what caused it.” He rolled a shoulder, his smile taking on a rueful tinge. “But I won’t make that mistake again. Next time I’ll announce myself before I get within swinging distance.”

Less than a minute in and Sampo was already getting on Gepard’s nerves. Hopefully they’d get this over with before he regretted Sampo’s dodging capabilities. Gepard paused to pick up his phone and stood. “Do you have any leads for me or not?” he asked, getting straight to the point.

“Yeah yeah, I was getting to it,” Sampo replied. He took a thumb drive from his pocket and passed it to Gepard. “Here you go, this was all the intel I could get. Should lead you right to the current owner.”

Gepard eyed the thumb drive briefly, then tucked it into a hidden pocket. He would let their security experts examine it before plugging it into anything important; you could never be too careful when Sampo was involved. “If it leads to the painting we’ll send the reward your way.”

“I was thinking we could do a non-monetary option if that’s alright with you.”

Gepard gave him a sharp look; there was only sincerity on Sampo’s face, which only made him more suspicious. “Meaning?”

“Well...” Sampo summoned a picture frame and pen from his pocketspace and held them both out to Gepard. Within the picture frame, now within full view, was the wanted poster that Gepard had drawn for Sampo, wobbly lines and all. “Let’s just say your art has at least one big fan,” he said with a wink.

A blush rose on Gepard’s face as he stared down at the picture; he’d only drawn it because there was no one else to do so on hand and no photos available, and he’d been the first to ask that they be replaced with better versions. Just his luck that Sampo had to get his hands on one before they were torn down.

Sampo had to be making fun of him, especially given the poster Pela had created; Gepard had been absolutely mortified when he looked at them side by side. Or it was some kind of scam. This was Sampo he was dealing with.

Gepard crossed his arms and glanced sidelong at the paving stones next to him, to spare himself having to look at his painting instead. “That’s a cruel thing to joke about, Koski.”

“Uh...” Sampo’s smile began to fade, giving him the look of a man who was actively watching the plot escape but too stunned to know what to do about it. His hands—still holding the framed wanted poster and pen—drooped at the wrists, as if the unexpected turn had robbed them of strength. “What joke?”

Gepard sighed and brought a hand to his face, partly to hide the blush and partly to obscure the wanted poster from view. “I’m not a good artist,” he ground out. “I’m sick of people pretending to like my work just to be nice. I don’t need to be lied to like that.”

“But I’m not lying,” Sampo said, sounding more dumbfounded than anything else. “I actually like it!”

“Why?” Gepard snapped, looking Sampo in the eye.

Sampo scoffed, a little of his usual confidence returning. “Just look at it.” He held the poster up, and Gepard had to force himself to look at it. “This painting captures my energy perfectly, how could I not love it?”

“Energy... What does that even mean?”

“You can tell it’s me just at a glance!” Sampo declared, his smile returning as he brought the wanted poster up next to his face. The poster did look like him, but on the other hand it wasn’t hard to get Sampo’s look wrong—the dark blue hair and emerald eyes were very distinct.

“That explains nothing,” Gepard said flatly. Pela’s version looked as much like Sampo as his did, after all. Perhaps Sampo just hadn’t seen it yet.

Sampo sagged with an annoyed sigh, then straightened again. “You’re seriously asking me to write an essay on why I like it? I’m not qualified for that!”

Gepard sighed. “I don’t need you to write anything, I just need you to look at something.” He took out his phone and found Pela’s version—he’d taken pictures in the hopes of learning something from them, to little effect. Seeing the sheer difference in skill was still overwhelming. “See? This one looks like you too.” Gepard held out his phone to Sampo, Pela’s version on full display.

Sampo’s expression could only be described as utter boredom. He gave a weary sigh and rubbed his eyes with his pen-wielding hand. There was a somber tilt to his expression when he looked up at Gepard again. “Look, that’s a perfectly nice painting there. Whoever made it has a lot of skill and they’re probably a pro, but this picture just doesn’t do anything for me.” Sampo slowly shook his head. “Looking at it doesn’t give me the little burst of happiness that this one does.” He brightened as he held up the framed wanted poster again.

“But why?” Gepard was utterly mystified. How could anyone like his version better? The mere concept was beyond him. “And you still haven’t explained that energy thing.”

“Hoo boy.” Sampo lowered the wanted poster again, his gaze briefly drifting skyward as if searching for the answer there. “Well I can try to explain something as ethereal as why a piece of art makes me feel things, but I can’t promise it’ll make sense.” He walked past Gepard and propped the frame up on the table, then gestured for Gepard’s phone.

After a moment of confusion Gepard propped his phone up against the frame so the two wanted posters could be seen side by side. He fought back another wave of embarrassment upon comparing them again as he stepped back.

“Okay. You want me to explain the energy thing...” Sampo steepled his fingers in front of his mouth and stared intensely at the two posters. He closed his eyes for a few moments, then straightened with renewed vigor when he opened them again. “You’ve seen that chalk horse photo, right? No one knows where the picture came from, just that it’s really ancient?”

“Um...” Gepard brought a hand to his chin as he tried to puzzle out what Sampo was referring to. “I’m gonna need more information than that.”

“It’s a big grassy hillside with a white horse carving on it.”

Gepard thought on it again; it did sound familiar. An image came to mind, one he’d seen in Fragments of the Past—a book that contained archaeological information that had lost context over the long years since it was originally compiled, some of it not even from Belobog but from somewhere much farther away... The beautiful verdant hillside, and the stark white horse seeming to gallop across it. “I remember now. It’s not a very exact picture of a horse, though.”

“Sure it’s not exact, but it captures the movement of one,” Sampo replied brightly, giving Gepard a smile as he looked over at him. “You look at it and it’s not just some static picture of a horse, it’s the essence. It’s what a horse is.”

“What a horse is?” Gepard kept his eyes off the wanted posters as he thought it over. The way the horse seemed to flow across the ground did suggest it was moving at full tilt. “So... Swiftness?”

“Exactly! The picture doesn’t have to be exact, it can evoke the subject with far fewer strokes.”

Gepard looked at his painting again; any semblance of understanding immediately evaporated under the burning light of embarrassment. “Wait, how does that apply to my painting?”

“Come on, look at it!” Sampo said as he sauntered over to the table and gestured to the painting. “You didn’t just make a drawing of me, you captured me. My essence.”

Any kind interpretation failed to connect under the weight of Gepard’s disappointment in his own abilities. He thought again of the people who must’ve made the chalk horse and of how long ago that was. “Are you calling my art primitive?” Gepard narrowed his eyes as he asked the question, again wary of a possible trick.

Sampo’s smile went rigid, then he facepalmed hard enough for Gepard to hear it, his bangs waving in the gust of wind it kicked up. “I’m not trying to insult your art!” he snapped as the smile dropped and his hand dropped—there was a rapidly intensifying red handprint on his face now. “If you hear me talking and an uncharitable interpretation leaps to mind, discard it immediately!” He combed the fingers of one hand through his hair, then ran both hands down his face and briefly turned away to give himself room to think.

Sampo turned back to Gepard with a new resoluteness that might’ve been reassuring had it not been sharing his face with the handprint. “Let’s just compare these real quick,” Sampo began as he gestured to the posters, a hint of tiredness to his tone. “One of these was clearly made by someone who interacts with me on a regular basis, while the other one was made based on some traits they heard about. Can you tell which one is which?”

“Well I don’t have to look at them to know that, I know I’m forced to interact with you a lot,” Gepard replied with a scowl.

“Okay but which one of these is doing something you’d expect me to do?” Sampo gestured to the posters, the frustration in his voice growing.

“Well, I’ve never seen you with a rose in your teeth...” Gepard scratched the back of his neck as he stared at the posters. “But I don’t think I’d rule it out...?”

“But you’ve seen me doing this, right?” Sampo gestured to Gepard’s painting. “You even captured the air of goofy mischief!”

A flash of annoyance cropped up at being reminded of Sampo’s lengthy record of trouble—and the fact that Gepard had never been able to catch him before it was forgiven thanks to ‘community service’. “You do love to make things difficult,” he grumbled. “I guess mine’s more in character...”

“Exactly!” Sampo’s smile returned, though more hesitant than usual. “It’s not just what I look like, there’s a little story behind it too! Plus you can practically hear this picture when you look at it.”

Gepard looked at the poster again and Sampo’s signature giggle immediately leapt to mind, completely unprompted, which was more annoying than anything else. “So you like it because it strokes your ego?”

“Nope, stop right there!” Sampo said, holding a hand up as his smile faded. “We already dismissed that point earlier. Both posters are pictures of me but I only like yours. If it was just about ego I’d like both of them equally.”

Gepard looked at the two posters again, completely at a loss. “I still don’t understand why you like it,” he said miserably.

“Then let’s just stop here,” Sampo said as he let his head drop, the tiredness now readily apparent in his voice. He sighed and took the frame and Gepard’s phone from the table, passing the phone over and then returning the frame and its poster to his pocketspace. “I have to get away from you before you make me hate it too.”

Gepard glared at him. “You’re not entitled to me feeling a certain way.”

“No but I do think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Sampo replied with a glare of his own. “You’re allowed to be imperfect, no one should be held to an impossible standard like that.”

“It’s not about being perfect, it’s about being professional,” Gepard said. “My paintings are sloppy and juvenile and they shouldn’t have been posted. End of story.”

Sampo gave an exasperated sigh. “Even if I give you all that, I still liked them anyway! It doesn’t have to be professional or perfect for people to like it!”

“I thought you said the discussion was over,” Gepard snapped.

“Fine, fine! It’s over. I won’t talk about it anymore.” Sampo rubbed his eyes, his typical energy having almost completely drained away. “Just forget I ever said anything. I guess we’ll get in touch once you find the painting.”

There was a metallic clunk as something landed on the paving stones between them. Gepard looked down and spotted the bomb with its little heart insignia and brought Earthwork up on instinct.

A hollow pop made him flinch, but no explosion followed. Gepard shifted Earthwork to one side, his movements slow and cautious, and found nothing more than a few bits of paper mache and confetti where the bomb had been.

But it looked so real... And the sound when it landed—

Gepard took a step back and looked around. Sampo was gone, having disappeared as silently as he’d arrived. He still had no idea how Sampo managed to do that.

Either way, it was time to leave Backwater Pass. He’d lingered long enough in the fragmentum, and for such a silly argument no less. A silly argument that left him far more tired and miserable than when it started and with a hollow sick feeling in his chest besides.

Gepard checked his pockets, making sure his phone and the thumb drive were still accounted for, then started the lonely walk out.

[soulmate-game]

I guess I have to make up for AO3’s crash by dipping into my google docs and uploading every chapter of The Heroes’ Game on here for you guys. Once I run out of reruns of The Heroes’ Game, I’ll just have to start cranking out new chapters/fics/one shots.

Sigh. Look what I do for my your boredom.

—*—*—*—*—*

Chapter 1

Soulmates. That gooey, gushy, over-sentimentalized, overly relied-upon concept that was unfortunately (or fortunately, for romantics) very real. But unlike stories or movies, it was not uniform. There was not one universal soulmark or set type of soul bond. There were romantic soulmates, platonic soulmates, even familial soulmates (a subdivision of the above platonic, more specific yet stronger due to the distinction). But not only were the types of soul bonds broken into three separate categories, but the variety of types of soulmarks that a pair (or triad, in some rare cases) could end up with was still being discovered. Already, there were almost a hundred different catalogued forms that a soul bond could come in. All of them studied and confirmed by both science and magic as being valid. Even the timing that a soul bond chose to reveal itself could vary individual to individual.

Which led to the current dilemma.

A certain half-Asian girl with her blue-black hair up in pigtails was forced to watch as a blond boy and Japanese girl gaped at one another. As everyone present watched, bright spiraling designs that seemed to be made of light itself etched themselves on one arm of both teens, starting from where their hands gripped one another. The blond had tripped down the stairs, only for his hand to be caught by the smaller Asian girl and bright light to erupt from their palms.

The half-Asian, half-French girl at the bottom of the stairs could only observe in mute dismay as a swirling foil of pulsing maroon light sank itself into the right arm of Adrian Agreste, bright neon green markings adding detail to the stylized weapon. A matching symbol, orientation flipped and colors inverted, etched itself in glowing light on the right arm of Kagami Tsurugi.

They were soulmates.

The only person in Marinette’s class other than herself without a visible soul mark or completed bond (until now), the only person Marinette had believed herself capable of being with, had a soul mate. And by the way they stared into each other’s eyes even as Adrien continued to dangle perilously over the concrete steps, it wasn’t platonic.

Marinette felt cold, as if someone had stuffed a funnel down her throat just to dump ice directly into her stomach.

When Chat Noir immediately stopped hitting on Ladybug only to apologize in private and reveal he had met his soulmate, Marinette connected the dots. The magic of the Miraculous helped protect the identities of the wielders, but could not hold up against significant hard proof. That, and Marinette was getting more and more immune to the lesser Miraculous magic as she trained to become the next Guardian.

On the rooftops, Chat was still her partner. Despite showing up less often during Akuma attacks or nightly patrols due to having dates, he was still reliable whenever he showed up. But as Adrien Agreste, he and Marinette had never been further apart.

—*—*—*—*—*

“Still sulking?” The all-too-familiar voice of Chloe Bourgeois cut through Marinette’s intrusive thoughts, the usually haughty tone surprisingly gentle. After quite a bit of time, introspection, and character development, Chloe had become a good friend of Marinette’s. Still incredibly hard to tolerate at times, but dependable.

The black haired girl just groaned, dropping her face into her hands. “He was my first real crush, Chloe,” the girl complained, clearly still hurt. “I loved him. Or I thought I did, anyway. You can’t expect me to heal from it all that quickly.”

“Of course not,” The blond heiress agreed easily, shrugging even as she put a forkful of food in her mouth. Maybe trying to have girl talk with Marinette on the fourth floor of a five-star hotel wasn’t the best idea, her short friend being incredibly uncomfortable in the atmosphere despite her personally made clothing being more than acceptable for the environment. “But it’s been two months, Mari. It’s time to straighten your spine, and get out there looking again! You don’t need Adrien, just like you don’t need Alya or sausage-hair or any of the idiots that flock with them in our class,” the girl reasoned. “Adri-kins is sweet, but he has the entirely wrong approach to Lila, you know. Convincing you to stay quiet was the worst advice he could have given. Staying quiet would never have allowed me to change or see that what I was doing was wrong,” Chloe pointed out. “Why would it work for her?”

“Adrien is just being careful,” Marinette defended weakly, pushing her salad around her plate disinterestedly. Knowing he was Chat just made her sympathize with his motives even more. He didn’t know Ladybug was in his class to back him up instantly, after all. But still, Marinette knew Chloe was right. Adrien might have good intentions, but his execution of them left a lot to be desired. “He doesn’t want another Akuma.”

“We get Akumas every week, he should just suck it up. We get even more Akumas from her lies than we would if everyone knew what she was doing,” the blond girl continued easily, not giving in to her friend’s weak excuses. “Besides, telling you to be quiet just puts you at the most risk of Akumatization. He should know that. It’s a miracle it hasn’t happened to you yet,” Chloe’s perfect babydoll-pink lips thinned as she stabbed a piece of chicken on her plate. “Lucky for all of us, not that he knows that.”

Marinette just sighed in agreement. “Can we just, you know, stop talking about this?” The meeker of the two asked gently, finally managing a mouthful of greens. “This is supposed to be our girl time. Ever since you transferred schools, we’ve had less and less time to just hang out.”

Chloe frowned, but gave in with a nod. “Sure, sure. Oh! Daddy told me about how you won that Wayne Enterprises competition for your class!” Chloé suddenly perked up, leaning over the table in newfound enthusiasm, her suddenly exclamation making the rich crowd around them side-eye the two teenage girls. Marinette flailed her arms in an attempt to get her friend to calm down and be quiet, an attempt that she should have known would be futile. All Chloe did was lean slightly back towards her own chair. “Well?! Are you excited to be going to Gotham?”

“Of course I am,” Marinette finally stopped trying to calm down her excitable friend. “Being able to travel to America, study the fashion of Gotham City, be inspired by the foreign landscape—“ Marinette sighed dreamily, not unlike the way she used to sigh over Adrien. Her hands even cradled her cheeks as she lost herself momentarily to her daydreams. Her hands dropped as the illusion was ruined by the memory that— “The whole class is going though, so it’s going to be an uphill battle to avoid Liar Rossi spoiling the whole trip.”

“Nope, you said you didn’t want to talk about her. This conversation will be sausage-hair free until dinner is over, at the least,” Chloe chided lightly. “I heard Bruce Wayne himself is inviting your class to a charity gala at the end of the trip, and that you will be presenting a speech as an honored guest and owner of the winning submission!” Chloé gasped suddenly, dropping her fork onto her plate with a cacophonous clatter. “Oh. Em. Gee. You’re designing your own dress, aren’t you? Who am I kidding, of course you are!” Chloé squealed in delight. “MDC, strutting her skills overseas, it’s glorious!”

“Shh, Chloe!” Marinette went right back to flailing her arms uselessly. “There’s a reason I haven’t publicly come out as MDC yet! Someone will hear you!” The short blue-eyed girl was looking around the room frantically. The waiters wouldn’t dare kick out the mayor’s daughter, but other patrons were already leaving early or requesting a different floor in order to escape the infamous Chloe Bourgeois Chaos. On the bright side, none of them seemed to be paying any attention to what the young rich girl had actually said.

“Oooh,” Chloe leaned over the table again with a wide, mischievous grin. “What if you finally meet your soulmate?” Her smile widened impossibly. “Of course you’d have an American soulmate. Someone blunt, maybe, to combat your constant worrying. He’d have to always tell you upfront exactly how he feels or else you’d constantly be worried about misinterpreting them,” the girl mused, completely ignoring Marinette’s groaning and moaning about how embarrassing she was being. “And everyone knows that nobody does Blunt quite as well as Americans. Ooh, I wonder what your mark is gonna be!”

“Hopefully something invisible,” Marinette finally spoke up, her remark a mere grumble as her nose scrunched up. “It would kind of ruin the whole secret identity thing if it was noticeable, right? Do soul bonds even care about secret identities? Oh no,” Marinette blanched, spiraling in true Marinette Dupain-Cheng fashion. “What if it’s on my face? The magic can’t hide something that identifiable! Everyone will know who I am, and then Hawk Moth will attack my family and isolate me and attack me out of costume or akumatize me, and then he’ll make his wish, and then world war three will actually happen, and—“ The ramble was thankfully stopped by perfectly manicured hands slapping over Marinette’s mouth, one blond eyebrow raised at her as Chloe kept the word vomit from continuing stubbornly.

“No. Stop catastrophizing, the worst-case scenario doesn’t always happen, girl. La—“ Chloe glances around the suddenly half-empty room and lowered her voice. “You know who is such a deep part of you that there’s no way your soul bond will ignore that. I seriously doubt it will cause your identity to come out.”

Marinette’s shoulders slumped in relief. She waited until Chloe removed her hands and sat back down before saying softly; “I just wish you could come with me. Then it would be bearable.”

Chloé gave one of her oh-so-rare soft smiles to the smaller girl, nodding. “I know. I wish I could go too, but I can’t miss a whole month of school. But you’ll have Alix with you, which is better than nothing. And besides, everyone in Paris knows I’m Queen Bee,” Chloe flipped her hair haughtily, making Marinette grin. “I wouldn’t want to intimidate Gotham’s heroes.”

“In other words,” Marinette started slyly, a teasing grin overtaking her lips as she avoided Chloe’s gaze playfully. “You don’t want to risk attracting the attention of Gotham’s rogues because you couldn’t handle them, right?”

Chloe spluttered in denial, tossing her napkin at Marinette in false anger. “How dare you! The Queen Bee can handle any villain!” Chloe became serious again. “Be careful while you’re over there, yeah? Me, Ryuuko, and Viperion can keep Paris safe while you’re gone but you will only have Alix.”

And Chat, Marinette thought to herself, but Chloe doesn’t need to know that.

“It’s better if Ladybug doesn’t appear in Gotham at all,” Marinette agreed, “So I’ll be as careful as possible. The less evidence anyone has to connect me and Ladybug, the better.”

Chloe nodded. “Of course. Now, did you see Clara’s last music video?” The blond heiress/superhero was turned into a common teenager again as she squealed in delight. “It. Was. Fabulous. And the dress you made her for it? I want one.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Of course this would happen. Marinette stood in the lobby of the hotel where her and her class were staying while in Gotham, with no classmates or teachers in sight and the bus she was supposed to board already gone. At least I’m fluent in English, or else I’d be screwed, she thought to herself. Resigned to the fact that she wouldn’t be able to catch up to the bus, Marinette instead went over to the hotel information desk and asked for directions to the Gotham Museum of History, where her class had left to visit.

At least she had money for a cab.

A cab that apparently decided to kick her out two blocks from her destination in favor of picking up a couple that were positively dripping in expensive jewelry. Marinette dusted herself off, adjusting her purse on her shoulder with a frown. She couldn’t blame him for looking after his own finances, but he didn’t have to chase after tips that blatantly. The girl didn’t even bother arguing with the man, simply handing over the cash she owed him before turning in what she thought was the right direction, if she was reading the map on her phone correctly. It was already dark out, not surprising considering how their plane had arrived in the afternoon and they only got a few hours to rest before visiting the museum as their first activity of the trip.

Quickly memorizing what she thought was the right route, Marinette tucked her phone back into her purse and smiled at Tikki, who hid inside it. “Alright,” Marinette whispered to her Kwami. “I hope I haven’t missed too much!”

Quickly closing her bag, the girl started off towards her destination.

And promptly got lost.

“I thought I saw it this way…” she groaned to herself when she realized she didn’t recognize anything around her, and it had only gotten darker in the past half hour she had been walking. At least being Ladybug keeps me in shape.

Marinette straightened her shoulders, resigning herself to retracing her steps for the twentieth time. She turned on her heel, walking forward as her bright blue eyes scanned her surroundings for anything that might lead her to the museum.

Until she realized the street was oddly empty, and a soft crunch of glass sounded from behind her. Marinette had prepared for this, at least. I’m being followed. Careful to remain calm and keep on walking as if nothing was wrong, Marinette strained her ears and eyes. She managed to catch a glimpse of her tail in a window— tall, broad shouldered, biceps like hams. The girl frowned. She could easily outmaneuver someone twice her size, but it would draw a lot of attention.

Firmly in Ladybug Mode, Marinette slowed down just enough to let the guy come a bit closer, before she veered sharply into an alley. Risky? Yeah, but it would be much less likely to make a spectacle of herself when she handed the guy his ass.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the guy to attempt to grab her. As soon as she felt his hand reaching for her though, Marinette easily clamped onto his wrist and used her momentum to hurl the assailant over her shoulder. The large body hit the gravel roughly on his back, letting out a moan that was half pain and half anger. Marinette backed up just enough to stay out of the man’s immediate range, her eyes continuing to dart around.

He hadn’t been alone.

His boots are good quality, so are his cargo pants. No gun, but several knives on his belt. Professional, not out to kill. Capture? As soon as Marinette saw two other guys dressed identically to the man now pulling himself back up to a standing position come out to surround her in the alley, she put it all together. Each newcomer had a tranq gun trained on her. Traffickers.

Ever the improviser, Marinette quickly rolled out of the way of the first few darts shot at her and grabbed a misshapen hunk of wood from the ground to block the next two projectiles like a warped shield. Lunging to her feet, she whipped the chunk of wood at one man with deadly precision, the plank hitting him square across the forehead hard and fast enough to knock him out.

One down. The guy she had initially thrown over her shoulder took advantage of her distraction to wrap his large arms around her, trapping her own against her torso. Not one to be trapped for long, Marinette jumped up and flipped herself upside down so that her legs wrapped around the guy’s neck, and twisted so that her body weight unbalanced him. Combined with his sudden lack of oxygen and field of view, the guy stumbled just enough for Marinette to get one arm free and slam her elbow into his most sensitive area. The guy released her with a howl, and Marinette twisted into a three-point landing. She paused only long enough to slam the side of her arm into a pressure point on howling man’s neck that knocked him out before springing up to face the—

Marinette paused. The last attacker was already tied up, a much different muscular form holding the cursing man a few inches above the ground.

Batman.

“You know, you shouldn’t walk around Gotham at night,” a casual voice sounded from behind her, making Marinette swing around to face Nightwing. The blue vigilante was leaned against the wall, with the first guy Marinette had knocked out already tied up at his feet. “But that was pretty good fighting. You made a few unnecessary moves, but overall not half bad.”

A third figure dropped down from a nearby roof, making Marinette whip her head to the side for a third time. Ugh, I’ll get whiplash at this rate. How are they able to move so noiselessly? The last figure was Robin, who made short work of tying up the last guy before standing and staring straight at Marinette. He crossed his arms, and the French girl suddenly had the feeling she was about to be scolded.

“What were you thinking, leading them into an alley? Are you an idiot?” Were the first words Robin said, instantly making Marinette puff her cheeks out in indignation. How dare he?!

“Robin,” Batman interrupted whatever retort Marinette had been about to make. “Ducking into the alley made it less likely that anyone else would be caught in the fight. It was not necessarily bad a move. That being said,” the most experienced hero in the alley turned to the girl in pigtails. Marinette gulped. It was really intimidating, having Batman’s state focused solely on her. She forced herself to stand as straight as possible. “It was still incredibly reckless. You had no idea how many people were following you, or what their skill level was. I highly suggest you act with much more caution next time. Or better yet, don’t travel Gotham alone even during the day.”

“I’ll be careful,” Marinette agreed, the three heroes instantly picking up on her French accent. “This wasn’t exactly my choice. First, my class left the hotel without me even though I’m the one who applied for the contest that even allowed us to come here in the first place. Then, my cab driver kicks me out a few blocks from where I asked him to take me, and then I got lost. Merde!” Marinette threw her hands up. “It’s not my fault I have bad luck. And you,” she turned and pointed to Robin, about to give him her two cents about his critique of her. That is, until when fingertip actually made contact with his chest and both teens visibly jumped.

It was like static the moment they made contact, but nothing visual happened. Marinette was about to shrug it off as nothing when—

Her vision split in half, like a TV screen when someone was playing a two-player game. Suddenly she could see her normal perspective, with Batman to her left, Nightwing to her right, and her finger straight ahead pushing into Robin’s chest, but she could also see a second perspective.

A perspective where she stared straight at herself.

She watched as her own blue eyes widened in disbelief. She watched as she stumbled back a few shocked steps, and as Robin did the same in front of her.

“Mon dieu,” Marinette cursed breathily, unable to move her eyes from Robin or acknowledge the frantic questions being posed to both of them from Batman and Nightwing. The teens just stared at one another. “Of course my soulmate would be a vigilante.”

“Shit,” Marinette had no idea which of the three heroes said that, but they all seemed to share the sentiment. Shit, indeed.

Nightwing shifted and said; “At least all the traffickers are knocked out.”

—*—*—*—*—*

[green-tea-in-absinthe-bottle]

THE NIGHT BELONGS TO YOU

Blade x fem!reader fanfic

MASTERLIST

Summary - in this chapter we accidentally get entangled in political drama, Blade appears in second chapter but this one is very important for the story. Reader discovers her special ability that she will use a lot in next chapters, slight romance with side character.

CHAPTER 1 - In turning divine we tangle endlessly  

Sounds of heavy breathing filled the room, sultry air felt thick in her lungs. Y/n turned around in her sleep, visions of thousand futures kept her in a chokehold, made her want to scream. She begged this being to release her, to just stop this torture, but this half-insane deity she suspected to be Terminus, Aeon of Finality never really paid attention to her or her pleas. They seemed to only look through everything in front of them, engulfed in foggy memories of futures long gone and inverted prophecies. Y/n was sure she would end up the same if she listened to them any longer. Their partially incomprehensible incantations were carved into her mind.  

She felt her heartbeat speed up to the point at which she was sure she's dying. Drewing in a sharp breath, she waited for her end with dull headache and violently trembling body. It didn't come.  

Her eyes opened.  

Oh, how she missed the days when the only topic of her nightmares were the last weeks of her planet’s existence, Yaoshi's abominations  destroying the world she used to know. Her beautiful Arkona, burning and decaying. Forests she grew up wandering turned into graveyards, mountains she watched through windows of her home split in pieces, songs only she in the whole universe remembered never to be heard again, monuments turned into dust. The most painful day of her life. Still, she begged the constellations from her memories, so cherished and worshipped by her folk, to save her from prophet's madness even if she has to relive this suffering every night. 

She got out of bed and hurried to the nearest workshop. After Arkona ceased to exist Y/n found save place to live on Xianzhou Alliance’s ships as well as the chance to get revenge on abominations, she spent her days in nearby forgery, infusing swords and arrows with magic, power of Lan's blessing flew through her fingers and echoed in every spell.  

 - Is everything alright? - concerned voice of Zhang, blacksmith she cooperated with today barely reached her mind. 

Nothing was alright, she couldn't shake off feeling of unease and she could still hear words of Terminus, ringing in her ears. She couldn't hold herself together but for the sake of getting the work done she pretended it was fine. Y/n looked up at tall craftsman, admiring his tanned face and shoulder-length black, silky hair tied with black ribbon at the top of his head. 

 - You worry too much, I'm fine, it's just... I had a nightmare again. 

Compassion in his gaze surprised her, after all he had a reputation of a cold man. For a second he had an expression on his face like he wanted to hold her, but quickly it disappeared, leaving no trace on his face.  

 - I understand. Maybe you should take a break today. 

 - Absolutely not, if I have nothing to keep myself busy with all those memories will overcome my thoughts, trust me. It will only make things worse. - Y/n lied only partially, she truly hoped to find solace in her work, but it wasn't past she had to run away from today, it was the future.  

 - If you say so... Well, looks like it's your turn. Do your magic, charmer. - Zhang spoke as he stepped away from the newly crafted weapon.  

Y/n took still warm sword in her hands. Inhale, exhale. You did this so many times, she tried to convince herself. But something felt awfully wrong and familiar in the worst way possible. Ignoring how tense Zhang looked observing shakiness of her hands, she chanted. But what came out of her mouth terrified her to the core. 

 She could barely recognize her voice, words she heard in her nightmares seemed even more alien when spoken aloud. By her. And she couldn't do anything to stop it. Her own tongue seemed foreign to her, her lips no longer obedient. She could only watch how the sword levitated mid air, glowing with ominous light. At last, the chant came to it's end (or was it beginning?), strong hand of Master Zhang caught the falling sword and y/n's world stopped turning.  

She exchanged anxious glances with him . 

 - I will bring it to Furnace Master immediately - Zhang declared with serious look on his face.  

[crush3dmary]

A pal asked me for some ygo fic recs and I know I had a post before but I can't find it so here's some stuff that scratches my brain just right. No particular order.

shine a light on the good things that we did by youremyqueen "He’s not going to come out. If he was he would have done it by now, so if you’re only here to see him, you should probably just go." (tornshipping, oneshot, 1k)

loosen your grip before i choke by bloodfruit bakura ryou was born without a string of fate. (tendershipping, 5 chapters, 34k)

diorama by thebindingblade He wakes up to a miniature in his left hand and a paintbrush in his right.

Ryou tilts his head. He swirls the small plastic human round his fingers like water in his palm, watching each of the delicate folds in its robes ripple at its surface, light dancing across the tiny, intricate patterns carved at its ends so fluidly he can see its cloth sway and shift in the high tide. Bangles clink across its arms, wrists, and neck, yet do nothing to weigh it down, as the figure floats through his grip. Its doe eyed gaze stares back at him, so innocent and inviting, watching his face inch ever closer, until, he too, joins it in the water, and its form, from head to toe, is so white as to be artificial that he jolts and he’s back in the present, in his seat. He smiles.

He likes it.

He’d like it even more if he remembered how he’d got it. (gen, Ryou centric, oneshot, 2k)

H0URGLASS by SheIsHoldingACat hour·glass noun noun: hourglass; plural noun: hourglasses; noun: hour-glass; plural noun: hour-glasses

an invertible device with two connected glass bulbs containing sand that takes an hour to pass from the upper to the lower bulb.

~

Two character studies of Marik Ishtar and his darker half, meant to parallel each other and explore the cross-contamination between them.

INSPIRED BY CONTAGI0N by crushedmary !! (some eclipse/thief/mostly gen, two fics, 60k including optional second chapter of each)

nobody here but us ghosts by orphan_account Every good king has an heir. (Or: Bakura plans ahead. Ryou does not.) (implied tender, oneshot, 1,3k)

To the Heart by girahimu_sama The secrets of the Millennium Ring were never meant to be uncovered, but that wouldn't stop its host from digging. Meanwhile, an alliance formed between the Spirit of the Ring and a certain tombkeeper makes the matter all the more complicated.

A rewrite in which Malik and Bakura form their partnership before Battle City, spanning from there until Millennium World. Generally follows manga canon with some anime elements mixed in. (thief, 23 chapters, 128k)

Rien by AlexMartin (RandomDraconic) Alone, well and truly alone for the first time in years, in a decade, Ryou cried, and no one stopped him. (gen/implied tender, oneshot, 7k - one of my favourite fics of all time. If you only read one from this list make it this one.)

hello, i'm a monster too - by Ariasune It's not stockholm syndrome, thank you very much. (gen, Ryou centric, oneshot, 1k)

Can't Take it With You by Parsonsaj It was his first experience with death. He would have given anything for it to have been his last, but it was far, far from it.

A character study of Ryou Bakura, beginning before Season Zero through to The End. COMPLETED. (gen, implied tender, 41 chapters, 212k words)

[trustfallwithgod]

Day 36, 37 & 38: Gratitude and Trust

Blessed are you Lord, King of the Universe

From Philippians to Matthew, the Bible preaches a consistent attitude of gratitude and trust. In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, we see God's instruction to always be thankful: “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” In the storms of life, God is our only hope. His faithfulness and His goodness are present even during the darkest storm.

As advances in neuroscience have shown: you cannot be anxious and grateful at the same time, it is a remainder that this simple act of recognizing your blessings is the thing that reminds you of God’s provision and providence in your life. It makes concrete that which was previously un-perceived.

When life is easy, gratefulness is easy. But in the storms, in the hospital pacing, or simply watching your finances circle to nothingness, our gratefulness hinges on our willingness to accept God’s will over our own. In essence, can we accept that He is in control? Which ultimately begs the question: can we trust Him?

Colossians 2:7, “Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”

Anxiety is from Satan: false narratives from the enemy

Let’s return to Genesis, God literally gives Adam dominion and stewardship over all creation:

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

Adam gets to name everything in creation. Eventually, when Eve is added to the mix, we learn that they can partake of everything except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But Satan inverts that narrative, he plants the seeds of anxiety in their head - “Did God really say, 'You must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden'?” With this act of sophistry, the enemy makes us forget that we already have control of pretty much everything except one thing but yet he successfully plants the doubt and makes us wonder if God is withholding things from us and this is where it starts to unravel. Satan has tugged upon the smallest of threads: doubt leads to fear, fear leads to temptation, temptation to sin. Anxiety over what God really intends for us cause the first couple to eat of the tree that they were expressly told not to eat from.

“In this world you will have trouble… but… I have overcome the world” (John 16:33)

In every chapter since the exile from Eden, God has proven His faithfulness. Adam and Eve did not die immediately, animal skins were provided for (what is left unsaid is that when animals in Eden didn’t have to die for us, now they did to give us life and protection from the elements), in every circumstance, God has chosen us over every other thing He has created - all other aspects of creation now suffer the consequences of our mistake. Think about it: Abraham did not have to sacrifice Isaac, but God did not spare His son. We are let off the hook Every. Single. Time.

In the face of that, how can we choose to believe the enemy’s false narratives rather than giving our trust and gratitude to our Heavenly Father?

I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? . . . Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. (Matthew 6:25–26, 34)

Trust in the Lord is the greatest act of worship. Conversely, worry is an act of worshipping the devil

One of the greatest tools to help counter the temptation to worry is recalling the faithfulness of God. In every situation, worry wants you to think, "This is the one where everything is going to go off the rails". But the faithfulness of God tells you otherwise. Jesus asked, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?” Think about that for a moment. None of us can add even a second to our day. He continued, “Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?” (Luke 12:25–26).

Why is trust the greatest act of worship? Think back to how much of a compliment it is when you realise that someone has fully depended on you. In pop culture and media, it is no coincidence that they build pivotal high tension dramatic scenes merely to deliver a line of simple dialogue: “I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

Through Jesus and the Holy Spirit, you have all the power you need to win. Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit, who lives in you.” When you manage this, God is given all the glory. He’s got you.

[almostcolorfulcolor]

Death Note, meet Supernatural- CHAPTER 1

Relationships: L (Death Note)/Reader, L (Death Note)/Original Female Character(s)

Summary: What if Death Note existed in a world with Winchesters in it? Would L finally have the evidence he needs to prove Light is Kira? How will L fare in a world where monsters are real and not every case is solvable by him? Lucky for him, there's a hunter here to work side-by-side with him.

Chapter Summary: With data from L's investigation, it wouldn't have taken long for a hunter to find the mystery of Death Note, find the Shinigami and Kira, and ganking them both. If you're curious about how it plays out, read on!

Chapter 1: Japan, here I come!

I open my burning eyes. Tears blur my vision as I try to forget the images from my latest nightmare. My boys…my poor boys…“I will bring you both back”, I promise…for over the 100th time. Shaking off my thoughts, I get ready for the day mentally ticking off my checklist for my trip to Japan. The first truly big nuisance since Dick Roman, this Kira, was killing off criminals left and right.

It was not my typical case but something about Kira’s requirements of killing was supernatural. He needed a name and face to kill. With just those, he could kill anyone from anywhere. Which human could do that? And even if they could, the means had to be supernatural. Perhaps they made a demon deal, or Kira used a cursed object. Not only that, there was perhaps someone else with Kira’s power who only needed a face to kill. 3 Japanese police officers dropped dead during a TV broadcast- names unknown.

The world’s security agencies were stumped. The number 1 detective in the world, L, was working on it but even he hadn’t been able to put a stop to Kira's killings till now. I could only assume it was because of the supernatural factor. Which made it my responsibility. What the hell those Japanese hunters were doing I didn’t know- and I couldn’t find out because not many hunters trusted my little Team Free Will after the whole opening of the Devil’s Gate, starting the Apocalypse and releasing the Leviathans into the world. Couldn’t blame them tbh.

It did make this whole investigation pretty hard though. If only Sam was here…This was my problem. I had become so tangled up with the Winchesters that it was impossible for me to not think about them for more than 10 minutes. I was on my own now. Alone. A lone wolf. And I was about to feel like absolute shit once I landed in Japan and my social awkwardness came out to play in a foreign country whose language I wasn't familiar with. Fingers crossed.

—One plane ride later—

First stop, Wakoucha at the airport cafe. Overpriced but worth every yen. After a couple of sips, I got my bearings and hauled ass to the hotel the FBI director set me up at. Presidential suite, of course. Exorcising a demon outta his brother would go a long way.

A ping on my laptop draws my attention. A video call from the guy himself. Answering it, I say, “Hey, I just got to—” when he makes a shushing gesture. I pipe down, curious to see what he’s on about. He holds up a piece of paper for me to read. Surprisingly, I can read it perfectly. Which means someone must have taken the pain to write it inverted. There’s no doubt what it is. At my nod, he promptly sets fire to the paper with a lighter, gives me a thumbs up and ends the call.

Well, then. No time to waste.

I change into the charming suit that makes me look like a cinnamon roll, idiots never see it coming when I gank them. All geared up I go to my FBI-issued car (I miss Baby) and head up to meet the famous L and the officially “disbanded” taskforce.

—Time Skip—

The building is quite ordinary from the outside. The same old grey skyscraper with the corporate soul-sucking vibe. Somewhere inside there is a group of people with whom I will be catching a killer with supernatural powers. L’s right-hand man was informed of my arrival and he was waiting for me right as I step in the doors. He’s completely covered from head to toe so that I cannot even get one glimpse of his skin. The only thing I can say is he’s tall. The dude’s just standing there until I clear my throat and speak, “Verification?”. Nodding, he starts-“Jefferson” and I finish-“Starship”.

Codes confirmed, he wordlessly leads me down the lobby. The security inside is no joke. When the detectors beep, he gestures to me to upturn my pockets. Knowing there’s no way out of this, I take out the couple of guns and knives I had on me. He even confiscates my mobile phone. The holy water’s filled in a disposable plastic bottle so I can easily take it past the checkpoint. No way I could’ve broken in here on my own. I can’t help but feel like a dumb kid who doesn’t know the hell she’s doing. Before, with Sam and Dean, it was just natural to feel confident and self-assured. I try to channel some of that right now and attempt to make conversation. “Call me Anne (Pick your fake name). Pleased to meet you. How’s the case coming along sir? Any new leads since we last talked?” To my credit, my voice only wavers for 5 seconds max. The guy gives me a side glance but doesn’t respond. Not to be discouraged any more than I already am, I barrel on. “So I’ve been following this case like everybody and I already have a couple of theories- I can’t share them yet- but I’d like to ask you something about L. I’ve heard he’s a bit…moody and I don’t want to butt heads with him on the investigation or make him feel like I’m taking over. Any words of advice on how to make this smooth sailing?”

Silence. Fine then. I’ve already given too much power to him. Now it’s time to be all tough and laconic myself. We take the elevator and stop several floors up. My heart is fluttering as a tall dude leads me to a set of doors and just throws them open. Every head snaps my way. Well, shit.

I flashback to 1st grade when I changed schools. The teacher was mean and made me stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I hated her then and I hate the tall dude now. I turn to glare at him to find out he’s already left. Turning to face my audience, I wave and give a sheepish smile. I know I just look like a dork. God, what’s wrong with me? When did I suddenly become a schoolgirl? These guys will never take me seriously now. Damn it.

I jump when a voice pulls me out of my self-criticism, “Who are you? How did you get in?” It’s a guy about Bo…60 years old pointing a gun at me. Nearly everyone is except a couple of boys. I start to answer but another voice cuts me off. A warm, gravelly, soothing voice. “She’s our newest member.” It takes me a moment to realize the speaker is this cute little weirdo sitting in a big chair in front of a gigantic screen. Seriously, just wow. A moment of appreciation is required here. This guy is soooooo cute. I drink in his features- his big bambi eyes, his chaotic raven hair that I long to feel, his perfect mouth as he pops in a marshmall- “We have to tolerate her for now as the FBI has forced her upon us”, the said mouth pipes up. And just like that my fantasies take a sharp turn and I see my fist connecting with his teeth and his perfect mouth bloody.

Feeling sufficiently insulted, I snark back, “Shut the hell up, asshole. Like I’m thrilled to be forced to work with a bunch of incompetent jackasses who haven’t been able to catch a pathetic killer in months. The headquarters had to send in a babysitter to mind the greatly overrated L. Make sure you give me the case report before you choke to death stuffing your cakehole and do Kira’s work for him.”

His eyes narrow and I ain’t backing down. Let’s show him who’s boss.

A/N:

Thanks for reading my first work! More chapters to come- I've got the plot ready, hope you enjoy it :)

(Please reblog and comment if you please- they fuel my passion. Constructive criticism and genuine praise always help too!)

Until next time! CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

[crystalninjaphoenix]

An Interview

A JSE Fanfic

Septics Inverted AU

First IRIS Chapter | Previous

(I bet you guys thought I forgot about this. Nope, it’s just that MerMay took up a lot of my free writing time... and then like twenty more days passed in which I was busy XD But I’m back now! Let’s catch up on what’s happened to Chase since we’ve last seen him. And then we’ll peek in on Jackie and Frederick and their investigation. And yep. That’s the chapter ^-^)

Chase wasn’t sure how long he’d been stuck in here. The room had no windows or clocks, which made it hard to tell time, but he guessed it was at least a couple days. He had no real way to know. The lights didn’t turn off. He couldn’t even ask anyone for the date. Sure, there was a camera mounted in the corner of the room, watching him, but he hadn’t actually seen another human person since he woke up here.

If there was any doubt in his mind that IRIS was sketchy before, it was cleared now. It had to be illegal to transfer people to a different place while they were asleep. Yet that’s what they did. He went to bed, and when he next opened his eyes, he was stuck in a room that felt more like a cage than the literal prison cell he’d been in. At least in prison they let you leave the room a couple times a day.

That stupid camera was getting on his nerves. It just sat there, unchanging except for its blinking red light. He’d been lying on the bed in the room, but now he sat up and waved at it. “Hey. Having fun? You sick fucks. I know you’re watching.”

The camera, of course, didn’t answer.

Were they just going to keep him in here? That woman from IRIS said they wanted to help “people like him.” How was any of this helpful? If anything, it was the exact opposite.

Chase sighed. He stared at the camera in the corner for a moment more. Then idly scanned the room for the umpteenth time. The room was unremarkable on the surface. The walls were plain plaster—gray upper half, blue bottom half—and the floor was concrete. There was little furniture in the room. Just the bed and a table with two chairs. And the small alcove in the corner with a toilet and a sink, hidden by a curtain that looked recently installed. That was how Chase knew this was no ordinary room. This was designed to keep people in. Keep them for an extended period of time.

“Are you guys, like, a vigilante group or something?” Chase said, looking back up at the camera. “Is this a punishment? Cause I think I was being punished enough.” He paused. “No, wait, I got it. This is like some sort of human experimentation thing. You get people no one cares about to test your... whatever. Is that it?”

The camera still didn’t answer. Because it was an inanimate object. What was he expecting? Well, maybe there could have been an intercom in the room or something, but they probably would have used that earlier, when he tried to hit the camera in the corner with a pillow. He would’ve tried throwing the chair but he was worried about somehow hurting himself. That was a high distance to throw a heavy object.

Chase stopped staring at the camera and stared at the door instead. It was made of metal and looked heavy. There was a small gap in the bottom, with a flap like a main slot in the door, where someone outside—he didn’t know who, because they never answered him when he tried to talk—would slide trays of food, presumably every few hours. It wasn’t bad food. In fact, it was probably better than what he’d been eating for the past year or so. But he hated that he couldn’t leave to go get it himself. The door was locked tight. He’d tried.

But just as he was thinking about how secure the door was, he heard the distinct CLUNK! of a heavy lock turning, and the door swung open. Chase just about fell off the bed as he stood up as fast as possible.

A man walked into the room. He wore a black uniform of some kind, a uniform which vaguely reminded Chase of a security officer, but with the addition of a black mask covering the lower half of his face. The man also carried a black case, and he walked over to the table and opened it up. But Chase wasn’t paying attention to that. He was staring at the woman in the white coat that came into the room. It was the same woman who’d come to “let him know about the transfer” in prison. He recognized her short red hair. Another person in a black uniform waited outside, closing the room door as soon as the woman walked in. The lock turned again. Damn it.

“Hello Mr. Brody,” the woman said, and smiled.

Chase didn’t answer right away. He gave her a quick once-over, then looked back at the man in black. The woman only held a clipboard and pen, but the man had some sort of stick dangling from his belt. Definitely a weapon. Too securely attached to grab, though. Unless he was desperate.

“I hope you’ve found everything... adequate,” the woman said.

“I’m sorry? What the fuck? Do you think this—” Chase gestured at the room at large. “—is ‘adequate’?”

“Unfortunately, we have some safety measures that must be enforced,” the woman said. “Now. I’m here to talk to you, and I would appreciate it if this was easy for both of us.” She smiled again, but there was something tight about the expression this time.

Chase glanced again at the man in black. He’d finished what he was doing. There was now another camera set up on a tripod by the table.

The woman walked over to the table and sat down at one of the chairs. The camera was directed away from her, and towards the other chair. “Please take a seat, Mr. Brody,” she said, and began writing something on her clipboard. The man stood at attention behind her, out of view of the camera.

Chase really wanted to make this difficult for these people, but there was too much risk. He didn’t know what they wanted from him. Hell, they might just kill him if he resisted too much. So, as much as he didn’t want to listen, he reluctantly walked over and sat down in the other chair. He glared at the camera. Then directed that glare at the woman. “So, are you going to fucking explain what I’m doing here?”

“One second, Mr. Brody.” The woman glanced at the camera. A red light started blinking on it. She nodded. “The date is August 13th, 2019. We are interviewing... please state your name for the record.”

“Why? You know my name. You just said it.”

“It’s for the record, sir,” the woman said calmly.

Chase sighed. “Fine. My name’s Chase Brody.”

“Mr. Brody is a five-foot eight-inch white male in his early thirties. He has had contact with an individual who has been exposed to ALTR 114209, and has likely been exposed himself, though it’s unlikely that there has been exposure within the past twelve months. Mr. Brody, what do you know about this?”

Chase stared at the woman. “Uh... I’m sorry, that was a lot of words just now. Most of which I don’t understand. In this context, at least.”

“Ah, that’s understandable.” The woman nodded. “We’ll explain everything later. For now, we need to know if you’ve ever seen or experienced anything unusual?”

“I mean... define ‘unusual,’ I don’t think my life is ‘usual.’” Chase rolled his eyes.

“Anything that seems unnatural,” the woman explained. “Perhaps even supernatural.”

Chase’s heart stopped for a moment, though he maintained a neutral expression. Anything unnatural? Fuck, he’d have to narrow it down. IRIS was looking for the supernatural, then? That’s why they came after him. But that still didn’t explain what they wanted. And frankly, he wasn’t going to help them. Not after they’d shoved him in a room for a couple days and locked him in. “I dunno. I mean, everyone thinks they’ve seen something, right?”

The woman nodded, and wrote something down. “Alright. Mr. Brody, we know you lived with an individual named Jack McLoughlin for two years.”

Chase stiffened.

“Did you notice anything unusual about him in that time period?”

“Uh... I don’t know.” Chase stared at the woman, trying to figure out what she was getting at. But her face remained pleasantly calm. “Jack was a bit weird... He was, uh... f-f-forgetful... and spent... a lot of time, um... inside... a-and stuff.” He stumbled over his words as guilt curdled in his stomach. All of Jack’s ‘weirdness’ was his own fault, after all.

The woman flipped to something else on her clipboard. “While that is concerning, it is not considered unusual, since the cause of those behaviors are well-documented in police files, and has, in fact, been confessed to by yourself and your two companions.”

“...right.” Chase laughed nervously. He gripped the edge of the table tight.

“Was there anything unusual about Mr. McLoughlin besides those symptoms?”

There was a floating fucking eyeball and a living glitch. “N-no, not that I can think of.”

The woman nodded. She flipped back to the first page. “Do you recognize this facility?

“Uhhh...” Chase was about to instinctively deny it, but something stopped him. “Well, I don’t recognize you, but...” He glanced around the room again. There had been something about it... “This... building is familiar. It’s...” He paused, then hie nodded slightly as he put a name to it. “It’s like I’ve been here before.”

“Mr. Brody, I assure you, you’ve never been here before,” the woman said gently. “We have no records of you in this building before this.”

“No, it’s not like that, it’s...” Chase struggled with the words. “There’s... an energy here that I’ve felt before. But... it’s probably just deja vu or something.”

The woman’s eyes glanced sharply up. “Have you experienced instances of this before?”

“Like what? What do you mean?”

“Like... feelings of deja vu, like this has happened before,” she explained.

“Uh, yeah, of course. Everybody has.” Chase shrugged. “It’s just the mind playing tricks on you.”

“Have you had any similar experiences?” The woman asked. “Like, for example, seeing things that aren’t there, strange objects appearing out of nowhere, or losing track of time?”

Chase shook his head. “No, I’m not psychotic, if you’re asking.”

“That’s not what we were asking, it’s if you ever experienced occurrences like that,” the woman said.

“Well, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. That’s such a vague series of shit, I’m sure that everyone would answer positively to something. Losing track of time? Really? Everyone’s gotten caught up in stuff.”

“Hmm.” The woman nodded vaguely. “Mr. Brody, I referenced ALTR 114209 earlier. Do you know what that is?”

“I’ve never heard that word and series of numbers before, no.”

“That’s not what I was asking, Mr. Brody, I asked you if you know what that is.”

Chase threw a hand up in the air. “That’s the same fucking thing. So no. I don’t know. What is it?”

“We’ll explain later, Mr. Brody,” the woman said, not even looking up from her clipboard.

“Fuck that!” Chase shouted. “I’ve been stuck in here for at least two days, if you’re being honest about the date, the least you can do is tell me what the hell’s going on!”

“This concludes our session—”

“Session?! It’s been like two minutes!”

“These sessions will not be long.” The woman stood up. “I’ll be back tomorrow to give you an assessment—”

“What, like a psychological assessment or a check-up at the doctor’s?” Chase interrupted.

“You’ll see. You just have to be a little bit patient.” The woman smiled.

“My patience is going to keep wearing thin for as long as you guys keep me in here.” Chase gestured at the room. “You had such a low bar to clear, and yet this is worse than being in prison. This has to be a war crime or something. What the fuck.”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Brody, we know what we’re doing,” the woman said in what was supposed to be a reassuring tone, but which didn’t reassure Chase at all. “Try to get some rest, tomorrow will be a big day.” And then she started walking towards the door.

“Hey! You can’t just leave me in here!” Chase bolted to his feet and started running after her, but a hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He’d forgotten about the man in the black uniform.

The man roughly pushed him towards the bed, then followed the woman out of the room. Chase took a few steps forward. But he wasn’t fast enough. The two of them were out of the room. The door closed and locked behind them.

“Assholes!” Chase shouted. “You’re all fucking accessories in kidnapping! Trust me on that!” He sighed. They probably didn’t care. And he doubted they would answer for their crimes. If IRIS was able to make some kind of arrangement with the Mirygale prison system, an arrangement that let him just vanish into their care with no complaint, then they probably had enough power to avoid the consequences of all this.

He turned and started sitting down on the bed—not much to do but sleep in this room—but then he stopped. They’d left the camera on the tripod in the room. Was that on purpose? It had to be, right?

He stared at the camera for a while. Until he was pretty sure that anyone outside the room would have left. Then he stood up and walked over to the camera. “Hello there.” He waved. “So one wasn’t enough? You had to leave a second?” A pause. “Well I’m gonna say this is on you, then.”

And he reached out and took the camera off the tripod, turning it over in his hands. It looked normal. A bit old-fashioned in how bulky it was. The one weird thing was that there was no way to see the video the camera was recording. But he didn’t really care about any of this. He wasn’t really curious about the stupid camera anyway.

With one smooth motion, Chase threw the camera against the far wall, putting all his force into the throw. It flew through the air and crashed against the wall, falling to the floor. He walked over to check it out... but the camera was completely undamaged. Not a scratch on it.

“Fucking figures,” Chase muttered, picking it up again. He looked at the camera hanging from the ceiling. Taking careful aim, he threw this new tripod camera at it. SMACK! Metal clashed together. But the ceiling camera hadn’t so much as swiveled from its position, and the tripod camera was fine even as it landed hard on the concrete ground.

“What the fuck are these made of?!” Chase shouted. He walked over and kicked the camera on the ground, but that didn’t do anything.

He glared up at the corner camera, then at the door. He waited for someone to come in and tell him to stop it. But... nothing.

Unease creeped up on him. That... that probably hadn’t been a good idea. He’d let his frustration take hold, and had forgotten the fact that he was entirely at IRIS’s mercy. They could totally just leave him in here to starve to death. No one would ever know. Well... Jackie would probably know. Stacy and the kids would, too, even if he wasn’t sure Stacy would care. But the point was, they couldn’t stop it from happening.

Now thoroughly unnerved, Chase walked back to the bed and laid down, staring up at the ceiling. He wondered if people were noticing his absence now. If the story about the “transfer” was holding them over.

It didn’t matter. He doubted they could find him even if they knew about IRIS.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I want to come check it out.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Frederick looked up at Jackie, standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Do you know how hard it’ll be to adjust the wards for you? There’s one designed to specifically keep out non-magicians.”

“Well that seems like discrimination, if you ask me,” Jackie said.

Frederick chuckled. “It’s helpful. We don’t want random people breaking into the building and finding out magic exists. Anyway. Can we discuss this in the morning and not when I’m about to go to bed?”

“I wake you up every time I go to bed, anyway.” Jackie shrugged.

“Not every time.” Frederick had been lying down on the bed, but now he sat up straight. “Alright, let’s talk about this. Are you sure? You’re the one concerned that IRIS put tracking devices in their tech.”

“And you’re the one who reassured me that your safe house has all sorts of magical protection.”

“I’m going to repeat what I said about it being hard to adjust the wards for you.”

“Well, you should’ve thought of that before you let me help.” Jackie folded his arms. “If you didn’t want me to come check out the fancy WTCHR camera your magic taskforce bought, you shouldn’t have told me you were buying one to check out in the first place.”

“Yeah, that’s on me, that’s fair.” Frederick nodded. “Look, I’ll have to talk to the others. It’s a group thing, after all.”

“Who’s in charge? Just ask them.”

“That’s not really how things work.”

“What d’you mean? Someone has to be in charge.”

“No, we’re all the same,” Frederick explained. “We’re all agents. There’s no ranking system. Sure, we have supervisors, and of course, the Magi is in charge of everyone, but it’s not like I’m a—a lieutenant and someone else is a captain. It’s all equal until someone’s promoted to supervisor, and none of us are.”

“Aren’t you and Yvonne like... special agents for tracking down black magic magicians or something?” Jackie asked.

“Yeah. So are all the others in the group. Except for Briony and Nick. They’re wizards, which are technically different, but it’s still about equal to an agent. Just with a different skill set. Anyway, that’s only two out of seven, so it really doesn’t matter.”

Jackie stared at him. “The ABIM is weird. Anyway, can I come look at the IRIS stuff you guys bought or not?”

“If the others will agree, yeah, of course.” Frederick nodded. “But I have to ask why you want to see it. Just curiosity?”

“I want to help,” Jackie insisted. “Have you guys done any magical experiments on it yet?”

“Briony’s kept it in a detection box since it arrived this morning. It has to run for a full day for us to get the results, so... not really.”

“Well, maybe once you’ve done those magical experiments, and maybe if you don’t find anything, my non-magic eyes will give you a new perspective,” Jackie said. He hesitated. “And... yeah, I’m a bit curious. I want to see what you guys are gonna do to examine it.”

Frederick smiled. “Alright, melon. I’ll try to convince them. Here, I’ll start right now.” He reached over and picked up his phone from the night stand nearby. “I’m messaging everyone.”

“Can’t believe the magicians have a regular-ass group chat,” Jackie muttered.

“It’s a Discord server, actually.”

“Holy shit that’s even more unbelievable!” Jackie gaped.

Frederick laughed. “C’mon, magicians have been able to protect their stuff online since the beginning of the Internet. You know this. It can’t be that hard to believe.”

“It’s just weird to hear you name-drop popular online stuff.”

“That’s fair.” Frederick went silent for a while, typing. Then he paused for a moment. “No immediate replies. I’ll check again this morning.” He looked up at Jackie. “Now can I go to bed?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jackie shrugged. “I’m gonna be here in like an hour, though, so don’t get too comfy.” That was a bit of a joke. He knew that Frederick fell asleep quickly; he would absolutely get comfy.

“Good night, Jackieboy.” Frederick set his phone back on the night stand. “Turn the light off, please.”

“Got it. Good night.” Jackie turned the light off and left the room, closing the door behind him.

He said he was going to go to sleep in an hour, but that didn’t happen. There was something bothering him. He wasn’t sure what it was. It was just a gut feeling that something was wrong. That he was being... watched. It made it hard to calm down, and he ended up staying up until three in the morning, trying to distract himself. But that didn’t fully work. He ended up switching from video game to video game, and nothing could immerse him enough to make him forget about that feeling.

Eventually, though, he had to try to sleep. He got changed, brushed his teeth, and walked into the dark bedroom, silently finding his way to the bed and climbing under the blankets. As he’d expected, Frederick’s breathing shifted, and he mumbled something in Chinese before rolling over. One arm draped over Jackie’s side and pulled him closer.

Jackie let out a breath. He felt a bit less uneasy now. A bit safer. But the feeling of being watched still didn’t disappear, not until he eventually drifted off to sleep.

[hylianassassin]

CONTRAST

Chapter 3: Consequences

By the time he had been brought home, Jori had steeled himself. The elegant stonework of the shadow king’s temple, grey, black and violet motifs of writhing dragons, animal skulls and geometric patterns that were framed by vaulted arches and columns of teal and veined orange was a stunning sight to most, but for Jori it had little appeal anymore; especially now as it rang with snarled orders. Steward constructs hustled about in organized mayhem as they strove to complete one task or the other. He was greeted pleasantly by a few, but he did not pause to do more than thank them as his rickety governess shepherded him towards the throne room.

Members of his father's inner circle sneered down their noses at him when he passed, and he returned their judgment with a rude gesture. Even if he had no interest in the throne, he could still imagine a pleasant outcome where every one of them found themselves unemployed.

He rounded the corner, and there he saw him: his father clad in robes of black and violet, seated upon a dark wooden throne carved with the same motifs that decorated his keep, and at its apex, two wooden dragons held a circular icon with an inverted triangle in its center, with smaller circles adjacent to each of its faces; the icon of the shadow tribe.

Jori curled his lip in disgust at the sight. The king did not look up at him, however, choosing instead to focus upon the black plank straddled between the arms of the throne. It was draped with a red cloth. A trio of violet candles glowed in one corner beside a jar of deep violet ink, and in the other sat a crystal decanter of dark red wine and a nearly empty glass beside it. His father scribbled some notes, then picked up a handful of ivory pieces inscribed with a variety of symbols.

Haxion put his quill down and gestured elegantly for the governess, and everyone else for that matter, to leave. Once they were alone, the king clasped his hands together and shook them, their contents clicking together eerily before he dropped them onto the table. Jori stood there in awkward silence as his father took up the quill again, muttering to himself as he tapped each bone with the feathered end of the quill, reckoning each symbol in turn before he returned to his notes.

Jori shifted his weight, the silence deafening as Haxion once more picked up the ivory and cast them again, repeating this process until his son could barely stand from the soreness and exhaustion. Just as he made to slip away, however, Haxion’s voice cut through the air and made the prince flinch.

“Nine times, and twice by nine times again, have I cast the bones for you tonight, and every time they speak ill of your future.”

Finally they locked eyes. It was evident where the vivid green of Jori’s eyes had come from, for those same eyes glared back at him. The red in his pelt, however, had clearly come from his mother as his father was coated in a noble inky black that caught the light in odd ways, leading to traces of gold on the brightest surfaces.

Haxion laid the plank upon his side table, then rose and strode over to Jori, a swagger in his step that made the youth bristle. 

“I still don’t understand why you put so much store in those.” Jori said, trying not to look intimidated as Haxion stood before him.

“One day perhaps you may understand the depths of the heathen powers that govern our bloodline, if you manage to survive that long. Clearly there are numerous other things that you also do not understand. Civility, for one.”

Jori stood his ground, despite the shaking in his knees. He was so tired. 

“Well?” That familiar voice, smooth and dangerous, prompted him, its owner's arms crossed. “Care to explain yourself?”

Jori held his eyes stubbornly. At this age his father was still slightly taller than him, but that was of little consequence to his attitude.

“Even if I did, you would still brush it off.”

The scowl he got in return made him shudder, but he had grown accustomed to hiding it. Jori's body hurt, and he did not have the patience for this. Not tonight, and likely not ever. He turned away.

Haxion growled at his back. “Stay yourself, boy. You have not been dismissed.”

Jori did not even try to hide the fact that the fur all down his spine was on end. Reluctantly he turned back.

“If it is your intention to sit the throne in a time of war, you are certainly succeeding.” Haxion growled. “Naydra is furious.”

“Good.”

The wrath in his father’s snarl, however, made Jori bite his tongue, painfully.

“I don’t care for her or her ilk any more than you do, but we cannot let our personal sentiments endanger the lives and livelihoods of those who look to us for leadership. I would have thought you would be aware of that by now.” He scanned his son up and down. “No, you are aware. You just don’t care.”

Jori sighed, unable to decide if he was angry or hurt by the scrutiny. 

“You’re right, I don’t care. She and her high and mighty kin have gone out of their way for too long to discredit us just because we deal in magic she doesn’t understand.”

Haxion’s expression softened a moment, then slipped from frustration to firmness.

“That said, boy, the tribes need not understand each other to show respect for each other’s territory and property. What you did tonight… I cannot begin to comprehend what was going through your head." Haxion angrily poked his own forehead with two fingers as he said it. “You speak out against Naydra’s mistrust of us but then in the same night give her justification for that mistrust. The way of the shadows is subtle. Calculated. And there was nothing subtle or calculated about what you did tonight. And to make it worse, you dragged Rauru into your trouble. Don’t you think he has struggled enough since the loss of his family?”

Jori finally wavered, and let his gaze fall. 

“The floor is not going to solve your problems.”

Jori sighed and made eye contact again. 

“I want to have faith in you, Jori, have faith that you are simply young and wild and will grow into a refined leader by the time my burdens become yours.” Haxion sighed and circled the youth, as if to help himself gather his thoughts. “But yet every time I give you a bit of freedom you do something that's just.. Just… So stupid that I cannot fathom where in your upbringing that I’ve gone so wrong.” The king lifted his arms in frustration and let them fall to his sides again. He sighed, and Jori remained silent as he sought solace from the floor again.

Haxion shook his head, looking at his son with helplessness. He put a hand on his shoulder, then stepped away and returned to the throne. He pulled a large workbook with cracked leather on its covers from the side table. From it he produced a document scrawled in elegant, sharp curves with a vivid sapphire blue ink. “Naydra has demanded compensation for the damage to the construct; enough for repairs and to pay her soldiers for leave while their training grounds are refreshed. Additionally, she has asked for part of that sum from Rauru and his family, which you and I both know will crush them.”

Jori pinned his ears back. Since the death of their parents on the surface, Mineru had been forced to raise her brother. He knew just how much of a struggle it had been for them. He opened his mouth to speak, but stumbled over the words.

“Is there… There has to be something we can do to stop that.”

Haxion studied the prince, and nodded. “Now you are thinking like a leader. What do you propose we do?”

Jori ran his bruised hand through his long dark hair, which shimmered in the same gold reflections as his sire’s coat. “...Is it possible to cover their portion of it? Somehow?”

Haxion, then, actually smiled and nodded approvingly. “I came to the same conclusion.” 

He produced another letter, this one in his own violet ink, that looked to be half finished.

“I have already sent the payment to Naydra. Still, I would not expect her favor anytime soon.”

Not that Jori wanted it, but he nodded. “But?”

“Again, you’re finally thinking like a leader should. As you can imagine the cost of this disaster has cut deeply into the pay for everyone else. Health cannot be generated from nothing else it would be worthless. But you know that.”

Jori braced himself, none too fond of the change in Haxion’s tone to one of mocking. 

His father continued, “Nor is it fair to demand of our miners on the surface to increase their output to compensate for the loss. The work is difficult enough. So, I am sending them some help.”

Jori’s blood ran cold.

“So, two days hence you will be taken down to the surface and put to work in the mines. Perhaps some hard, honest labor will work some sense into that sharp and stubborn mind of yours. At least, I can hope. You will work until you have provided an equal share of output to this loss, and then you will work further until you have provided an equal share of the profit you have cost your tribe. It may take months, or it may take years, depending on how hard you are willing to work.”

Every ache in his body was amplified by each word. The mines… There were so many tragedies that had happened there. The Depths were said to rot away a person’s sanity until nothing but cruelty and hatred remained. But, that was where the zonaite was, and without zonaite the entire zonai nation would fall.

“I…” Jori began, then went silent. As much as the proposition horrified him, there was no way he could justify avoiding it. Not if Rauru and his diminishing tribe were to suffer for his own mistakes.

“Alright.” he said through gritted teeth. Haxion nodded.

“There is one more thing. I have a question.”

And what could that possibly be? “...Yes?”

“...You are gifted in the power of our people. Why didn’t you use it in the fight?”

Jori tilted his head in confusion, but for the life of him he could not find an answer. 

“I don’t know. I guess I just… Didn’t think about it.”

Haxion frowned. “Perhaps that is because you have been slacking in your studies. You are Skyborn. A zonai. Magic should be your first solution to any life threatening situation.”

Jori scowled. “Is that what you would tell someone who doesn’t have magic?”

“No. But you do. And as such you should never forget it. Your life could, and likely will, depend on it. Perhaps in the Depths, surrounded by the darkness, you will learn to better attune yourself to it.”

Jori took his leave then, head down as he processed his fate. Haxion watched him, a pang of guilt in his breast. Maybe he had been too harsh.

“Jori.”

The prince ignored him, slinking away down the hall.

“Jori.” he said more firmly. His son ignored him still, almost out of sight now.

“Majora!”

Jori finally stopped, his fur on end. Then, slowly, he turned. “You know, I just realized something.”

Haxion glared at him in silence, any guilt he had been feeling long gone. “And that is?”

“...The only time I ever hate that name,” Jori continued.  “...is when it's on your tongue.”

The king narrowed his eyes. “Majora—”

“And one day,” the prince cut him off. “I hope you regret that fact.”

***************

Prev | Next | All

@ok-seventhsage

[edenjohansson]

Chapter 2

fifty shades of Red

Natasha's pov :

"Nat wake up. Tony wants everyone down in 10 minutes"

When I heard Clint I groaned in my pillow. I turned my head to look at my clock. 7am. Seriously Tony?

I sit up on the edge of my bed. I grab an elastic and make a bun with my hair. I stand up and walk through the campus to the kitchen. Everyone is already here.

Afficher davantage

"Hi Natasha. Coffee?" ask Steve when I sit on a chair around the table.

"Yes. Thank"

Wanda is sitting next to me, Vision with her. Steve came with my black coffee and sat in front of me. I started drinking when Tony came and sat with us.

"So? Why are we up so early?" Steve ask.

"Two things. One good one less good. Which one first?"

"Bad first" Bruce says with his eyes on the digital board.

"Ok. We have a mission. We find corpses drained of their blood. I know it's like a scary movie with mythical creatures but I have to examine the body"

Mythical creatures? Likes vampire, werewolf, witch?

"Seriously? And how do we know how we killed these types of monsters?" I ask sarcastically "I mean, we never faced these types of enemies before so what? We have to read Twilight to understand who they are?"

Tony laughed at my intervention. I smiled as well with Steve and Sam.

"No, no need to read Twilight. Today we're just going to inspect the body" Tony adds "After the results of DNA we can start to learn about them maybe"

"Well what about the good news then?"

"We are having a party tonight. Our new inverter is gonna be there so "good behavior" everyone"

Tony looked at Thor who had already started to dance and at Sam and Steve who talked about drinking. It's 8 in the morning and they already plan on getting drunk.

"So get ready in one hour if you want to come " Tony finally said.

I stood up and started walking back to my room. I chose simple clothes, it's not like we are going to fight today, it's just an examination. I change my hair and do a simple ponytail.

I take my phone with me and a sweater in case I'm cold outside.

I already have my dress for tonight. A white one. Simple but elegant.

***

We arrived at the crime scene. It's in the middle of a park. There are 3 corpses on the ground. They look so pale like they were dead a long time ago.

"You can touch but not move the body for now" says a medical examiner.

Tony, Bruce, Steve and I walked towards them.

"Look. There is a mark on their neck. Two tiny holes" I say to the boys.

"What the actual hell is that?" Tony asks as he removes the shirt of the men in front of us. A mark on his sternum. Two swords. Like a small tattoo but made with blood.

Bruce starts to collect DNA on the neck of the victims.

"It's like a symbol. A clan symbol maybe?" I say to Tony confused.

"I have never seen this before. Look"

Bruce starts cutting the arm of the body. Nothing happen.

"Yes and?" Steve asks, raising an eyebrow.

"And see, there is no blood. The creature who did that drinks every drop of blood"

"Maybe there were more than one" I tried as I pushed the hair away from the neck of the only girl's body. She seems to be pretty with her blonde hair but right now she looks like a ghost.

It was the first time that we have to deal with these kind of murderers. We are gonna need the help of experts because right now we don't even know where to begin.

"I finish my collect. We can go now"

It was 3p.m by now when we arrived at the campus again. Bruce and Tony walked directly in the lab, Steve and I decided to go trained a little before the party.

I changed into sports shorts and a simple top. Steve was running when I arrived. I decided to only do cardio today.

After 2 hours of intense training we stopped and took a break. I turned back for one second to grab my bottle of water when I heard Steve say one thing.

"Let's see if you can win a fight against me"

"Seriously? Right now?"

"What? Afraid?"

"Oh never against you ! But I had one thing"

Steve looked at me confused. This is going to be fun.

"If I win, you have to date someone tonight"

Steve started smiling at me.

"Ok well If I win..." He looked at me with this look in his eyes. You know which one. "You have to date our new investor tonight"

Wait. What?

No he's joking right?

"What? No no, I don't even know if it's a boy or a girl!"

"Does it matter?"

Well. No actually but still, I mean, if they are 60 years old ?! Tony said that they invested over a billion in the company so how is it possible to be young with this amount of money in their bank account?

"Don't think too much Nat, it's just one night and if you win you don't even have to think about it at all"

"Okay"

We placed ourselves in the ring. I have to win. Steve attacked me so fast that I had to throw myself on the ground to avoid his punch. Ok he's really not joking. He wants to win.

He attacked me a second time and I avoided it too but I start to feel the 2 hours of entertainment weaken me quickly.

"You can't avoid every move Nat"

He doesn't even breathe loudly. For him it means nothing.

"I know I know"

I convinced myself that I can move faster than him because he's taller than me. My strategy is simple : don't. loose.

I start walking around him, I want him to concentrate less on my movement, he has to be focused only on my feet and where I'm gonna move. In one second his eyes are on the ground and I attack. Fast and precise. Shock and surprise appears on his face. I was about to push him right in the face when Tony walked into the training place. I stopped as I walked away from Steve, a smirk on my face.

"Hopefully for you, Tony saved you Cap" I say to Steve walking back to my stuff.

"It's almost 6p.m. You have to be ready within 2 hours of the party. Don't forget"

Tony walked away and I was ready to do the same when I turned myself to Steve.

"Who wins?"

"We can say that we lose together so we have to date together tonight"

Oh dear God

"As you wish Cap but no obligation. If it's too complicated or something we don't, ok?"

"Deal"

I smiled at him and joined my room to shower first. I sweat a lot so I washed my hair too.

The evening's gonna be fun.

[natedogx15]

Miraculous Descendent Chapter 24: Making an Article

Previous Chapter

At the same time as when Adrien and Marinette were looking for a place to transform, Lady Wifi looked at the inside of Chloe's locker in shock. However, Hawkmoth's communication outline appears over her face, and he tells her.

"Search for the earrings in there, Lady Wifi. If the real Ladybug Miraculous is in her locker, you'll be proven right and get the recognition you deserve." Hawkmoth tells her.

"Right, Hawkmoth." Lady Wifi nods before she rifles through Chloe's locker to find anything that would prove Chloe is Ladybug.

"Ugh, ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. I should have just taken my chances with daddy finding out about this." Chloe groans in her hands as she sees Lady Wifi go through her locker.

"You're embarrassed about liking the superheroes protecting us?" Nate asks Chloe with a raised eyebrow as he tries to help her free her leg from the pause button with Sabrina.

"Of course not. Why would I be embarrassed about that? I'm more embarrassed about how much of my allowance I've spent on it. Daddy may think I have a problem since I usually spend it all on my material." Chloe tells him in annoyance.

"Well, you have quite a bit of merchandise, Chloe," Sabrina tells her as she, Nate, and Chloe try pulling on the leg again.

Chloe scoffs at her words and says.

"Please, it's no different from those losers that collect cards, coins, or even lint. At least the items I collect are merchandise about people saving Paris from a psycho with a sad villain motif. I mean, butterflies, really?" Chloe asks no one in particular as she rolls her eyes.

"I mean, it seems pretty effective so far. Also, haven't you been attacked twice in the last two weeks? I don't think you should be insulting the guy and risking him sending more after you." Nate tells Chloe as he continues to tap the pause icon to see if it would vanish.

"Please, as if the guy will care about what we say about him. He'd be revealing himself more often if he cared about his image so much, but he's hiding behind his minions instead." Chloe rolls her eyes at Nate's comment before glaring at him.

"Now, will you stop pressing on my leg? It's not unpausing my leg when you hit the pause icon." Chloe tells him in annoyance, and Nate stops tapping the icon.

"Sorry, also, wow. You figured all of that out on your own?" He asks Chloe with wide eyes.

Chloe scoffs again and glares at him.

"Please, I'm more than just a school-smart bully. I actually have enough brains to figure other things out." Chloe tells him with crossed arms.

It is a somewhat comedic sight for those watching since her leg was still in the same outstretched running position before Lady Wifi froze it with her power, meaning that it was trailing behind the rest of her body.

"Well, you learn something new every day." Alix quips with a smug grin as she sees Chloe's predicament.

Chloe glares at Alix when she hears that before everyone hears a frustrated scream.

"Where are they? They have to be here!" Lady Wifi shouts in frustration as she glares at the locker.

"Finally, she's learning I'm not Ladybug," Chloe mutters in a satisfied tone as she sees Lady Wifi's frustrations.

Sabrina looks at Chloe with a raised eyebrow before asking.

"And you're sure that's a good thing?"

After she says that, Ladybug and Cat Noir appear on the screen and surround Lady Wifi with their weapons drawn. Chloe gains a confident smirk and says.

"Yes, it is now."

Lady Wifi looks at Ladybug with a glare before the camera's view inverts to show the courtyard instead of her. She looks at Chloe standing there through the screen in shock.

"What, but you're supposed to be Chloe Bourgeois!" Lady Wifi shouts in anger and surprise when she sees the two.

"I guess you need to check your facts." Ladybug quips with a playful smirk, and Cat Noir gives her a thumbs up.

"Oh, that was a good one." Cat Noir compliments her.

Ladybug blushes lightly at the praise and smiles at him.

"Oh, thanks. It just popped into my head." Ladybug tells him in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

Lady Wifi looked angry at Ladybug's words and the heroes' somewhat relaxed behavior towards her. However, Hawkmoth's communication outline appears over her face.

"It's fine, Lady Wifi. You may have been wrong about Chloe Bourgeois, but the real Ladybug is in front of you with Cat Noir. You can still reveal her identity and give me their jewels." Hawkmoth tells her, and that causes Lady Wifi to grin in agreement.

"You're right, Hawkmoth." Lady Wifi says as she quickly aims her phone at the two heroes.

Lady Wifi fires her pause icons, and the two heroes take defensive measures. Ladybug chooses to dodge any incoming icons, while Cat Noir attempts to block them by rapidly spinning his staff in front of him to shield his body. Unfortunately for Cat Noir, that ended with his weapon frozen in place.

"Uh oh." Cat Noir says in a panic when he realizes he messed up.

"Ha, one down." Lady Wifi says as she aims her phone at Cat Noir and fires one last pause icon at him.

Luckily for Cat Noir, he finds out that his hands aren't sealed in place and manages to let go to dive out of the way.

"Oh, that was too close." Cat Noir sighs in relief as he quickly stands back up.

"Are you okay?" Ladybug shouts in worry for her partner.

"Yeah, I'm okay, but don't try to block her attacks!" Cat Noir shouts at Ladybug as they both come under fire again.

It didn't look great for the heroes, but Lady Wifi looked ecstatic at how the battle was going for her.

"Come on, you two, why don't you save everyone the trouble and take off those masks? That way, I can even get an interview with you." Lady Wifi tells them as she continues to fire.

"Superhero 101, never reveal your identity." Cat Noir tells her as he hides behind a locker to avoid the icons.

"Oh please, plenty of heroes have revealed their identities and come out fine. That rule is old news." Lady Wifi scoffs at Cat Noir's answer.

"I'd still rather not take any chances." Ladybug tells Lady Wifi.

Hawkmoth's communication outline appears in front of her face again.

"Lady Wifi, I want you to try and focus on Ladybug. Make her use her Lucky Charm and then freeze it so she can't use it or her yo-yo." Hawkmoth instructs Lady Wifi.

"Oh, good idea, Hawkmoth." Lady Wifi tells him before focusing more on Ladybug.

She fires her icons at Ladybug, who's barely managing to avoid the onslaught via ducking, dodging, and rolling out of the way. Cat Noir sees his partner in trouble and tries to think of something.

"What do I do? What can I do? My power would only be able to destroy one icon." Cat Noir asks himself as Ladybug begins to panic.

"We need to get away from here." Ladybug thought before she started to retreat out of the hallway.

"Cat Noir come on, we can't beat her in this small hallway!" Ladybug yells at him as she retreats.

"Right." Cat Noir nods as they both start to run while avoiding any of the icons Lady Wifi tries to shoot at their backs.

"Hey, get back here!" Lady Wifi shouts at them when they manage to duck behind a corner.

Hawkmoth's communication appears over her face again before she can chase after them.

"Lady Wifi, don't let them control the battle by leading you somewhere." Hawkmoth orders her.

"But they're getting away!" Lady Wifi shouts at him.

"Yes, and they're going to lead you somewhere more open, so they have a better chance of getting close to you," Hawkmoth sternly warns her.

"Then what am I supposed to do? How can I keep them in place?" Lady Wifi asks Hawkmoth in annoyance.

"Simple, you come up with a strategy to make them come to you and need to keep doing that," Hawkmoth explains to her.

Lady Wifi frowns while thinking about what to do for a few seconds before coming up with an idea. However, some part deep inside her was reluctant to go through with the idea. That part felt like it was trying to pull itself to the surface. However, that feeling vanishes as quickly as it appears.

On the other side of the corner where Ladybug and Cat Noir disappeared, the two are hugging the wall and waiting for Lady Wifi to turn the corner.

"Why isn't she coming?" Cat Noir whispers to Ladybug as they wait.

"I don't know. Watch our backs while I check." Ladybug orders.

Cat Noir nods, and Ladybug moves to peek past the corner. She sees Lady Wifi turn into digital particles and vanish when she does.

"That's not good." She mutters in a slight panic as her eyes widen.

"What? What happened?" Cat Noir asks in worry.

"She vanished. I just saw her vanish." Ladybug tells him, and Cat Noir becomes more worried when he hears that.

"What could she be planning to do?" Cat Noir asks Ladybug.

"I don't know." Ladybug tells him before they all hear a panicked yell.

"Oh cra-/Alya, stop thi-" A male and female voice shout before abruptly stopping in the middle of what they're saying.

The heroes' eyes widen when they hear that. But before they can do anything, another voice shouts.

"How dare you? Let me go, Paparazzi!" Chloe shouts in both anger and panic.

That woke the heroes up from their panic. They both look at each other before shouting.

"Chloe!"

They then run towards the courtyard.

"I don't understand. We've already proved that Chloe isn't Ladybug. So, why is she still going after her?" Cat Noir asks Ladybug.

"I don't know." Ladybug tells him.

They arrive at the courtyard to see Lady Wifi holding Chloe by the arm and Sabrina and Nate frozen like Mr. Damocles.

"Nate, Sabrina!" Marinette had to fight the urge to shout her friend and cousin's names out in worry when she saw them frozen.

Lady Wifi sees the heroes and smirks at them.

"What are you going to do now, heroes? Are you going to keep running, or will you actually fight me now that I have her?" Lady Wifi asks them.

"Alya, please, this isn't you. You don't want to take hostages." Ladybug tells Lady Wifi, trying to appeal to her humanity and wake her from Hawkmoth's spell.

Lady Wifi feels something trying to push itself to the front of her mind again. However, Hawkmoth could also sense this happening.

"Sorry, Ladybug, but it will take more than that to wake her up from my power. I have plenty of willpower to keep her locked away even if I don't agree with these actions." Hawkmoth thought as he focused on suppressing Alya's attempts to control her body again with his will.

Lady Wifi felt that feeling vanish again and grinned at Ladybug.

"Sorry, Ladybug, but there is no Alya anymore. There is only Lady Wifi. And she'll do whatever it takes to get the scoop of her dreams." Lady Wifi tells Ladybug in an ambitious and somewhat crazy tone.

Ladybug and Cat Noir look sad that Ladybug's attempt to wake Alya up didn't work. Then they look worried when they see Lady Wifi and Chloe begin to turn into digital particles.

"No!" Ladybug shouts as she throws her yo-yo to try and grab one of them.

Unfortunately, they vanished before Ladybug's yo-yo could grab one of them. Ladybug retracts her weapon and runs toward the two frozen people.

"Are they okay?" Cat Noir asks as he inspects Nate with Ladybug.

"I'm not sure." Ladybug tells him as she stares worriedly at her friends.

The two were unsure what to do before the screen above the courtyard changed views to Lady Wifi and Chloe. Lady Wifi was grinning at the screen next to Chloe. Chloe was stuck on a chair with her hands paused behind it.

"Did she unpause Chloe's leg just to pause her to a chair?" Rose wonders in confusion once she sees Chloe in her current state.

"I guess so," Juleka replies with a shrug as she and Rose watch the situation play out.

Everyone at school then notices a news copter begin to fly over the school.

"This is Nadja Chamack reporting at Françoise Dupont, where the new Akuma, known as Lady Wifi, is fighting the heroes. It appears the Akuma has taken a student hostage." Nadja explains from the news copter as her camera zooms in on the screen above the courtyard.

Ladybug and Cat Noir look up to see the news copter, and Cat Noir blinks in confusion.

"Why are they here? Isn't Lady Wifi broadcasting this on all of the phones in Paris?" Cat Noir asks in confusion.

"They probably want to get some live coverage." Ladybug states before focusing her attention back on the holographic screen.

"Ladybug and Cat Noir, since you wanted to try and run from your interview, I decided to schedule another interview with someone else." Lady Wifi explains on the screen.

"Seriously, this is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous." Chloe groans in annoyance as she looks at the ceiling in exasperation.

"What'll you two do now? Are you going to try and run away again? Or are you going to come to me?" Lady Wifi asks.

Suddenly, the screen shows a school map with an x mark at the end of a school hallway.

"Here's my location, heroes. Come and get me." Lady Wifi taunts them.

"Well, that's not good. There's only one way to get to her, and that's by going through the hallway." Cat Noir tells Ladybug.

Ladybug puts a hand to her chin and glares at the screen in concentration while coming up with a plan.

"Not quite. We can still use the classrooms to get closer than if we just tried to charge down the hallway." Ladybug tells him while looking at the classrooms surrounding that corridor.

"But we'd have to break the windows to get into those classrooms from the outside. Wouldn't that let Lady Wifi know where we are?" Cat Noir asks her.

"Good point." Ladybug mutters, not changing her expression or posture at all.

"What about your powers? You still have them ready to go." Cat Noir suggests.

"Good point." Ladybug nods as she pulls out her yo-yo.

"Lucky Charm!" She shouts as she throws her yo-yo in the air.

It spins and releases magic particles before returning with a red and black polka-dotted magnet. Cat Noir's eyes widen when he sees the item and excitedly tells Ladybug.

"Yes, yes, yes. I know what it means this time. It is one of my all-time favorite powers and an overpowered ability in the modern age." Cat Noir tells Ladybug, practically jumping in excitement.

Ladybug was surprised by her partner's reaction to this Lucky Charm. She blinked once, then twice, and finally a third time before asking Cat Noir.

"What does this mean?" Ladybug asks Cat Noir while slightly backing away from her ecstatic partner.

"Magnetism. What it means is magnetism." Cat Noir tells Ladybug excitedly.

Ladybug raises an eyebrow at her partner.

"Sorry, I'm not into superheroes or science that much. So, I don't know how this is supposed to help us." Ladybug tells him.

Cat Noir abruptly stops his excitement and thinks about that as well.

"I actually don't know either. Maybe you need to use magnetism to take the phone from Lady Wifi." Cat Noir suggests with a light laugh as he rubs the back of his head in embarrassment.

"If I may cut in." A new voice cuts into the heroes' conversation.

The two heroes turn their heads to see Max looking at them nervously while smiling.

"Sorry to get in the way of your work, but I may have an idea of how you can defeat Lady Wifi with magnetism that's about 67% guaranteed to work," Max tells the two heroes.

The heroes raise their eyebrows at Max's words, mostly the calculation part, before Cat Noir says.

"Uh, sure, go ahead." He says while making a motion with his hand for Max to continue.

"Well, a strong electromagnetic pulse can shut off all electronics in its blast radius. You'll likely be able to create one to turn off Lady Wifi's phone." Max explains to the heroes.

The heroes blink in surprise at Max's plan. Then, Ladybug smiles at him.

"That's a great idea, Max." Ladybug compliments the boy.

Max's eyes widen, and he asks.

"Wait, you know my name?"

Ladybug's own eyes widen at her slip-up, and she panics

"W-well, uh, I m-might have done some research a-after a few students here were turned into villains by Hawkmoth. Y-you know, to see i-if there's a connection." Ladybug stammers out an excuse while nervously rubbing the back of her head.

Max's eyes widen when she says that, and he nods in acknowledgment.

"That makes a lot of sense. We have had plenty of students here turn into powerful villains. It's only logical to research us to prepare for others. Amazing work, Miss. Ladybug." Max tells Ladybug with a smile.

"I can not believe that worked." Ladybug thought to herself as she stared at Max with a closed eyes smile.

"Thank you, Max. I'm glad you approve." Ladybug tells him, trying to keep her tone even.

Cat Noir looks at his partner in astonishment.

"She's sure on top of things. On the other hand, I haven't done much." Cat Noir thought to himself.

"Anyway, thank you again for the advice, Max. Now please get somewhere safe in case things get crazy. You and everyone else aren't safe." Ladybug orders both him and everyone else in the courtyard.

The students quickly head for the classrooms when Ladybug says that, but it looks like a couple of students are fighting with others.

"Come on, Juleka. Ladybug said we should go and hide." Rose says as she grabs Juleka's hand and tries to drag her into one of the classrooms.

"Do we have to, Rose? We're going to miss such an awesome event." Juleka complains to her friend slightly. Though her face turns a little red as she stares at the hand Rose is holding while trying to drag her off.

"Yes, we have to. Now let's go." Rose tells her as she drags Juleka into a classroom with other students.

The heroes stare at the retreating students before Cat Noir looks at Ladybug.

"So, do you have a design in mind?" Cat Noir asks Ladybug.

Ladybug smiles at Cat Noir and says.

"I may have one. Let's see if it works."

Ladybug then closes her eyes and shouts.

"Seamstress!"

Magic covers Ladybug's form. After the light dissipates, it reveals Ladybug's new costume to Cat Noir.

Ladybug's new costume loses her shoulder-length poncho cape for a red polyester jacket with black cuffs and a yellow line going down the right side in a lightning-like fashion, along with a pair of insulated red and black gloves to replace her old ones. Over her face were a pair of yellow-tinted red goggles instead of her usual domino mask, causing her red eyes to look almost orange behind them. Finishing off her new look is the red tint in her shortened hair turning yellow.

Cat Noir blinks at Ladybug's new look as Ladybug looks at him with a smile.

"So, what do you think of this one?" Ladybug asks him curiously.

"Uh, seven out of ten." Cat Noir tells her with a grin.

"Really? Only a seven?" Ladybug questions him.

"Sorry, I've seen better." He tells her.

Ladybug shrugs in acceptance, and Cat Noir notices something.

"Wait, how do your powers work with insulated gloves?" Cat Noir asks her after noticing the insulation from a few projects his father has done and showed him in the past.

Ladybug inspects her gloves and jacket before looking at him and shrugging.

"I guess I can emit electricity and magnetics somehow while having clothes capable of withstanding them." Ladybug tells Cat Noir in an uncertain tone before deciding to test her powers.

She aims her palm at one of the tables, and red magnetic waves emit from her palm. The waves hit the table, and she lifts it in the air by the metal parts of it. She then sets the table down before looking at her hand again. Now yellow electricity emits from her hand. After testing her powers, she turns towards Cat Noir with a shrug.

"Magic is weird." Ladybug tells him as she rubs the back of her head, uncertain about what to make of this suit.

"We should have figured that out a while ago when a giant golem started destroying the city." Cat Noir jokes with a smile on his face.

Ladybug couldn't help but let out a laugh at that. That made Cat Noir feel better, and he grins at her reaction.

"Alright, we should get this done, partner." Ladybug tells him, and he nods.

"Right, it's time to end this interview." Cat Noir quips.

The heroes run in Lady Wifi's direction to finally capture the villain and free Alya from Hawkmoth's control.

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