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dmcfsstory · 3 years

Text

Also available on Ao3: [link]

Full Proofreaded by Hotspot-the-626th(@ deviantart)

Partner Artist: @wikimb

Word count: 14552

Trigger Warning: Violence/Gore description, Depression/PTSD cases

Back to September 13th - Hell

At the most obscure depths of Hell, loud fight noises could be heard. Many lesser demons and even strong demons were trying to hide from the fight range.

Mundus, the former Demon King, who still carried scars from his fight against Dante and Trish, was getting an ass-kicking from an unknown creature. The being had three pairs of wings, a snake-ish body, and two pairs of arms holding two silver swords within one set and a longbow with the other. Its body was covered in snow-white feathers with golden details so finely detailed that it seemed to be hand-draw. It had a female humanoid face, with an owl beak in the middle of the lips, and very long blood-red feathers came from its head, looking like hair. Finally, it had a bone formation over the head that looked like an angel's halo.

The being wasn't having trouble fighting Mundus. It was having fun. It threw him really hard on the ground, making some scars open and showing a bit of Mundus' true form under it.

"What… What are you doing here?" Mundus asked, out of breath and terrified.

The creature took their top left hand to cover their mouth while it was laughing out loud. "Hahaha, isn't it simple? you still own me!"

"No! I-!" Mundus barely could reply before having his face buried into the ground by the creature's hands, which were only half his size.

The smile on the creature's face vanished, and now it was a furious look as if someone clicked a button on its mind.

"Listen here! You piece of shit!" it shouted, "You had one job! ONE FUCKING JOB! And not even with two powerful weapons on your side could you make it work!"

Mundus couldn't respond. His shame for losing to a Sparda ascendant was more significant than his courage to face the white creature.

"This is a two-part deal, remember?! You got the coolest part! Mine was so fucking boring!" It continued to scream at him.

"What… do you want…?" Mundus asked, very ashamed.

The creature gave a very questionable smile and then said, getting closer to Mundus' face, "let's remake our deal…"

??? - ??:??

It was a humid, dark, and cold forest. There was a rain scent in the air. The treetops were dense that the grayish sky above could be barely seen, and just a dim light illuminated a few spots around. Through the dark paths between the tall trees, a loud and desperate crying of a human child could be heard.

Vergil found himself in this odd place. He looked around confused; what happened? Wasn't he just at the Qliphoth base among Dante?

But he felt like the child's crying was calling him; that sound gave him an odd urge to follow it.

In a sprint, he began to run the fastest he could. The more he ran inside the forest, the more the man felt he was being watched by not just one, but countless presences as if he was in the middle of a big city.

Still running, he looked to his sides and behind himself, but he couldn't see anything else aside from the deep darkness within the forest.

That didn't stop him from following the child's crying.

He continued to run the fastest he could, but he started to abnormally get tired quickly. Once he began to lose his breath, the scenery around him began to look different. The trees assumed a distorted shape, the bark turned white with screaming faces carved on them, and the branches looked like arms and legs. There were no leaves anymore. He could now see blood veins connecting the trees, and it was getting dimmer and dimmer. The place was getting hotter and the air heavier.

It was getting difficult for him to breathe properly and his legs burning tired as if he was climbing a mountain. He had to stop to catch a breath, or his body would do so by itself.

When he tried to stop, he nearly stumbled on his feet. The man had to hang his hands on his knees, and he was sweating and breathing heavily.

"Just a quick pause, I need… air," he thought.

*Crack*

The sound of crackling wood came from much closer than the child's cry.

*Crack crack* again.

When he noticed, the trees' arms and legs moved, trying to stretch and reach him out. The faces started to move, and blood began to come out of them. The trees also began to make loud noises as if they were screaming, muffing a bit the child's cry from Vergil's hearing.

He didn't have time to watch that grotesque scene; he had to find the crying child. He didn't catch enough breath, but he started to run all over again.

The heavy and hot air wasn't letting him run at the same efficiency as before. But as he continued on his path, the trees were shaking more aggressively. More blood dripped out of it until he was stepping in large pools of blood, making running much more difficult for him.

The lack of oxygen started to make him dizzy. His vision blurred, not letting him see a white crystal-shaped stone in the ground that he stumbled over.

He fell flat on the blood-soaked ground. His body was weakened, and he could barely move. But even between the screams of the trees, he could still hear the child crying, this time much closer.

With all the strength he had, he directed it to his arms. It was like a heavy stone was over him. He did everything in his power to get up. He eventually started doing so but slowly.

Suddenly, he felt his body being dragged down; he looked back in a hurry to see what it was. Human-shaped forms were coming from below the blood pool. To be precise, the figures were the humans from Redgrave City that the Qliphoth had turned into - empty and dried, dark bloody red carcasses.

He tried to Devil Trigger in a desperate move, but none of his demonic magic responded, and then all of his legs were taken under the blood. He wasn't sinking fast, but very slowly, fuelling his panic.

He didn't have Yamato with himself either, and neither could summon it.

Looking around, in front of him, he could spot many black and white crystal-like formations. He extended his left hand, reaching a white crystal, but it was fragile and shattered the moment he'd put his hands on it.

More of the Qliphoth's victims emerged from the blood, this time coming entirely out of the pool. They walked towards Vergil and began to step on him, making him sink faster.

He tried to fight them, but his body was weak. He had zero strength to even break the thin material of the moving carcasses.

One of the carcasses above the blood raised their feet and straight-up stepped on Vergil's head, sending him ultimately down the blood.

More of the victims started to appear under the blood and began to drag him down faster. He could do nothing except to drown in the freezing cold blood.

When everything seemed to be lost, a child's hand came from above the pool, grabbing Vergil's left hand.

The child easily brought him up.

Once his face met the air, he took a deep breath and regained all his strength.

"You okay, Sir?" the child asked.

Vergil quickly took off the liquid from his eyes. It wasn't blood anymore, just normal cold water.

The first thing he saw was the kid: a little boy, around six years old with peach skin and silver hair like his, as well as sky-blue eyes. He was wearing worn-out clothes, something he probably found in the trash or something.

He concluded that he was in a fountain with a statue that resembled Sparda in the middle after looking around. The water wasn't so deep; it was around his belly as he was in a sitting position. The buildings around were very familiar, a Victorian style of construction, much like how he remembered Fortuna. It was night time; the only illumination was from the lamp posts.

"Sir?" the little boy called Vergil's attention.

Vergil took a better look at the kid; he felt his heart being stung by the boy's eyes. Something about him appeared to be different from all the other kids he had seen through his time. He got mesmerized by the gleam in the kid's eyes, it had so much life in it, but the rest of his body was so messed up and dirty.

The kid looked at him, confused. He was totally lost in what Vergil was doing in that fountain. Why was he staring at him like that?

"Who are you?" the boy asked, snapping Vergil back.

As he got up, he presented himself, "My name's Vergil. And you?"

The kid stepped back as Vergil got out of the fountain; still a bit confused, the kid said low, "Mah… mah name is… Nero."

Vergil took a delay to process the name in his mind.

"Thank you for hel-… Nero?!" he yelled, surprised, looking at the boy.

Nero got a bit scared and stepped further away from Vergil.

Understanding the boy's reaction, Vergil took a breath to calm down. He then kneeled to look at Nero at his eyes' height. He extended his right hand to call him closer and said in a tender voice, "Nero… This may sound sudden… but… I'm your father."

Nero's scared face turned into confusion and skepticism.

"You? My Daddy? That's not funny," He said dryly while he pointed at Vergil with all the sassiness of a legit Sparda.

Vergil didn't expect such a reaction, and he replied a bit embarrassed, "Yes… your biological father… I made you with your mother..."

Nero kept staring at him confused, he didn't want to get closer either. He looked at Vergil as if he was crazy or drunk.

"Nero? Who's him?" another voice, practically the same as Vergil's, came from behind.

Vergil got confused just by the voice, but when he turned back, he got thousand times more confused: There was a man in fancy winter clothes that looked almost like him, just a bit older, with a very short beard and his hair was part silver and part black, brushed backward like Vergil's but just a bit messier. His right eye was blue like his, but his left eye was of a bright caramel color. He also had a freshly cut wound crossing his right cheek, and his face and clothes were all dirty from some sort of a fight.

Vergil could also notice a katana in its scabbard, tied to the man's waist. The guard had an odd moon drawing. The white cord wrapping and handle had black paintings similar to a tiger's stripes. And the pommel had a keychain with a jewel very similar to the Perfect Amulet's golden part Vergil once had.

Vergil had to keep his guard on; that guy probably knew how to sword fight.

"Daddy!" Nero yelled with the purest happiness and ran towards the man.

Vergil got up slowly, staring confused at the man, not understanding what kind of doppelganger shit was happening.

"Hehehe! Hey! My baby!" The man yelled happily.

He got Nero up to his arms, and they hugged very tightly. The man even gave a few kisses on the kid's head, making him giggle happily.

"Who the hell are you?!" Vergil demanded.

The man gave a very suspicious smile at Vergil and responded calmly with a bit of sass in the tone, "Haven't you heard? I'm Nero's dad… but you can call me 'Shooting Star Man.'"

"What the…?" Vergil blurted. "I am Nero's father! Who the hell are you, again?!" he yelled out of patience.

"Are you tho?" Shooting Star Man replied with a mocking smile on the face.

"I don't like him... He's scary," Nero said low, hiding his face on Shooting Star Man's shoulder.

That was like a headshot from a bazooka. Vergil barely interacted with the child and already gave him a bad impression.

"Nero…" Vergil whispered disappointedly.

"Are you really his father?" Shooting Star Man asked.

Vergil answered without thinking twice, "Yes! I am!"

The man started to walk around Vergil's right side slowly, giggling in a mocking tone. Vergil didn't dare engage in combat; the man began to release a very intimidating aura, pretty much like Vergil's but many times more potent. His eyes also turned bright green, and his scleras assumed a four-pointed star shape. He had not just demonic magic, but another Vergil couldn't identify what it was, except that it wasn't demonic at all. He already looked like a formidable opponent just by that.

"So…" the man began, now sounding rather serious. "You seriously call yourself this child's father… when you had ripped off his arm?!"

The man turned so Vergil could see Nero's right arm; he didn't have his arm from the elbow below anymore. The amputated area was all covered with lots of bandages. The child was now crying in pain, shocking Vergil even more than the apparition of a modified clone of himself.

Vergil couldn't speak, only stutter in shock and confusion.

"How could you?!" The man accused while trying to comfort Nero.

"But…" Vergil didn't know what to say to defend himself. "I didn't know he was my son back then!"

"That's no excuse, and you know that." Shooting Star Man retorted but remained composed.

For a few seconds, the only sound in the place was Nero's sobbing and sniffing.

"You knew you had other options to help you in that situation. Why did you choose the Qliphoth one?"

Even with the man threatening Vergil, he couldn't stop looking at Nero. The kid was really in pain about the lost arm, and Vergil never felt so guilty about something he did before.

"Stop…just... give Nero to me...please," Vergil begged.

"Just for power? To fill an empty space inside you?!" Shooting Star Man continued.

"Stop!" Vergil yelled.

"You allowed your fears to blind you! You were looking for something you always had!" The man shouted with confidence

"STOOOOOOP!" Vergil screamed at least and, blinded by rage, he sprinted to attack the man.

He was able to summon Yamato midway, and he swung his sword with all the strength he got when he was aiming precisely at the man's right arm.

At the last second, the man parried the attack with his sword. Vergil didn't even see the movement of his arm to get the weapon.

Shooting Star Man's katana's blade seemed to be made out of diamond. Apparently, blue and golden magic energy was flowing inside of it, resembling a space nebula.

Tsukuyomi

Category: unknown

Type: unknown

User(s): Shooting Star Man

Description: A beautiful sword that shines like the clearest night sky filled with stars and galaxies till where the eye can see.

Vergil didn't have time to admire the opponent's weapon. He was too focused on getting Nero back. The man continued to swing his sword in many attempts to wound Shooting Star Man. Still, he was able to entirely deflect and parry every single attack.

Over the head, to the waist, knees, feet, it didn't matter; Vergil couldn't make a single scratch. And the man was using only one hand to swing his sword, while the other was holding Nero - that was watching everything.

In one last attempt to cut the man in half, Vergil put all his strength in one swing. Unfortunately, he was parried once more, and this time the man threw him and his sword backward, almost making him stay down on his knees.

One thing Vergil only noticed after the last attack was the diamond sword's blade form: the blade was smaller, the length of a dagger by now, the rest disappeared.

As he paid more attention to his surroundings, he could see countless little diamond pieces floating in the air around him.

Shooting Star Man turned to Nero and whispered tenderly, "Don't look at it now, my baby."

Nero gently covered his eyes with his left hand and hid his face on the man's shoulder.

Vergil was out of action. He couldn't channel his magic for what he wanted to use it for - he could only use Yamato as an ordinary sword… if he had it in his hands.

"You have made your choices…" the man said.

"...now let the stars judge you..." he said, pointing the broken sword at Vergil.

Everything happened in a matter of half a second or less. The diamond pieces glowed in bright white light, and faster as lighting, they slashed and pierced Vergil through every part of his body.

He felt like he received his own finishing move - Judgment Cut End - many times but as smaller cuts.

He fell to the ground, bathed in his blood. He didn't have any more part of his skin and clothes in one piece, and his internal organs were like swiss cheese. Luckily, only his head didn't receive such severe damage. And since his brain was intact, he was still conscious.

The Man got slowly closer to him and didn't let Nero watch that horrific scene. The small pieces of the blade quickly returned to the handle and formed the sword again as if it never had shattered.

Vergil's blood began to form a vast pool around him and the same human carcasses from inside the blood from before started to rise, using his blood as material.

There were countless more, probably all the victims from the demonic tree, under and deep down the pool.

"Their blood is your blood now," the man said stoically.

Vergil couldn't move his body, but he could see and listen to what was happening.

"What are you gonna do about that?" The man asked.

When the man's presence got closer, Vergil saw Urizen, and he was now V - wearing Vergil's clothes.

They were both now at the dead and dry place inside Vergil's mind.

Urizen kept staring at V's bleak picture in the bloody ground.

"How long will you insist on this?" Urizen asked, his voice sounded sad instead of the usual confidence.

V could do nothing except stare at the demon. He barely could keep his eyes open.

"All of your ideas only brought pain and sorrow to this place. You know we don't deserve friends… a family…" Urizen said with grief.

-a pause-

"Love…"

Urizen got very close to V and raised his right foot over V's body.

"Enough of your human fantasies," he said slowly...

...And went to step on V with all his strength.

Hell - Next day - Day time… probably…

Vergil woke up in a blast. His heart was racing insanely; his arms and legs were shaking like thin branches in a storm. He was so nervous he had difficulty catching a breath; he was breathing heavily, and his body was stiff.

That dream was so vivid that it looked like it was real.

He didn't even pay attention to what was covering him. He just dragged the supposed blanket over his shoulder, cuddling himself tightly in an attempt to find some comfort and calm down.

Until a robust putrid scent snapped him back to his senses: he was covered by Dante's leather coat.

He may be on alert all time, but something he never stopped to pay attention was his and Dante's scent; his brother hasn't taken a bath in a month… or more. Now him… What was soap like? It's been years since he cleaned himself good enough to call it "bathing."

The smell was twisting his stomach. He had to take in some air, but he noticed a magical barrier when he looked outside. The energy from it seemed to be from Dante, which was also nowhere to be found.

A few minutes later...

Vergil didn't take off Dante's jacket from his back to keep himself warmer. He kept long minutes thinking about that dream: why Nero rejected him like that? The Qliphoth's victims were angry at him… and his… doppelganger? Clone? Shooting Star Man's image and power level were too scary to think about it without losing sanity.

"Hey! You woke up!" Dante's voice came from the other side of the barrier, bringing Vergil's attention back to reality. Surprisingly, he was dragging a dead Riot by the leg with him.

"I brought lunch!" He yelled with a smile, raising his prey's dead body.

Void - next day - 08:37AM - Victor's laboratory

Victor, Kyrie, and Nico took Nero, still unconscious, to Victor's laboratory to examine him better.

The place was located on the city's outskirts, in the middle of the remaining natural forest near the town. The building loosely resembled a Port's shed; made out of concrete, the first floor had a very high ceiling(around ten meters high). The second floor had an average height(nearly three meters high).

The first floor seemed to have come out of an old horror movie about some crazy scientist. The walls were painted dark gray that even with the white LED lights, the place still looked dark - there were only a few small windows at the top of the walls that barely could let some sunlight come in.

A top-notch air conditioning system was keeping the huge place fresh.

There weren't walls to make rooms. It did have countless high shelves and glass cabinets with many demonic samples arranged like a small labyrinth, taking up three-quarters of the place. Many had orbs, stuffed little demons and heads or just a random piece of bigger ones. On the shelves were also bottles that held demon appendages and/or organs in a conventional liquid. There were also countless blocks of papers and books.

Sharing space with the labyrinth, there was a shiny ironed, steampunk-like scientific machinery that created a contrast with the multi-colored demonic things. The equipment didn't look modern aside from the computers and giant screens at the remaining quarter of space left. All that could be used to do experiments with whatever demons it had.

Kyrie was only able to help take Nero to that place thanks to her surprising physical strength. After that, she could only observe Victor and Nico trying to examine and take care of her boyfriend.

For some reason, Victor gave the day off to all his assistants. So he had to take care of Nero alone with Nico only.

Nero was sleeping like a rock, and Victor was very thankful for that. He could use the energy readers on his chest and head to better examine his magic without worrying about some sort of rebellion. Visually, the readers were precisely like a Holter Monitor's electrodes.

Nero's physical health was worrisome as Victor suspected: he was underweight, his ribcage was clearly visible, but fortunately, he wasn't anorexic… yet. It was impressive for Victor how Nero could still fight demons. However, Nico pointed out that his efficiency in battles dropped significantly.

Victor theorized that it was because of his desync problem. It is incredibly stressful on the body. But Nico also thought that Nero's mental state could also be its cause because, since the Orphanage Incident, Nero's behavior changed drastically.

Unfortunately, nothing could be pointed as the real reason until the exams are concluded.

While Victor was waiting for some programs to do their job, he turned at Kyrie using his office chair. He looked at her earnestly and then asked, "Please, be honest… Are you a demon? Or a hybrid?"

Kyrie stared at him, confused and at the same time worried. She honestly didn't know how to answer anymore. The last time she checked, she was human, but she wasn't sure anymore after the previous night's events.

Nico was closer to Victor, who was apprehensive, but she decided to let Kyrie tell the story.

Having noticed Kyrie and Nico's apprehensiveness, Victor asked calmly, "so… you don't know?"

Surprised by the doctor's sharp eyes, she couldn't do much except stare at him with eyes wide open. She knew lying wouldn't help; the only option was to tell the truth. "Yes… I don't know anymore," she said in a confused yet sad tone.

Victor took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. "Well… let's go slower then... -ahem- how did you get your demonic magic?"

Now that question was more challenging than the previous, making Kyrie more nervous. She started to stutter and scratch her head as she looked away, trying to come up with answers. Nico wanted to respond, but she was able to contain herself for now.

"I guess… it was right after I woke up from the coma a few weeks ago..." she responded with a bit of confusion.

Victor's eyes filled with curiosity; a human turning into a hybrid or even a complete demon without dying a short time after was quite rare.

"Why were you in a coma?" he asked.

"Demons… some kind of 'smart demons' attacked the people of the orphanage I used to work… They severely wounded me when I tried to protect the children." she tried to explain.

"What do you mean by 'smart demons'?" Victor asked curiously.

But Nico had to interfere this time, "That was me that called them like that, Uncle. They were very different from anything I ever saw or studied. They worked like a human team would, and they were even willing to make sacrifices for whatever it was their objective or to protect each other…"

Victor was indeed surprised by Nico's statement. Such description about demons wasn't standard, but that was a discussion for another moment; Kyrie was the focus.

"That's really odd, but let's talk about that after this…" he said calmly. "So, they used some magic on you?" he then asked Kyrie.

"No… only their claws and chains," she replied with a bit of unease to remember that event.

She was thoughtful and quiet for a few seconds. Then gently, she took off the feather from Nero's wing off her hairpin, undoing her look. "But… I can feel my magic acting strange, and sometimes it's even a bit painful when I stay away from Nero's magic for too long."

That last statement made some gears start to work on Victor's brain. However, on the other side, Nico was getting nervous knowing how her uncle would react after getting the knowledge about a particular fact.

"Wait… what?" Victor blurted with confusion. "So… your magic has some relation with Nero's? He did something with you magically?" he asked, worried about the incoming answer.

"No…" Kyrie said with a bit of confusion. "Well… aside the Orbs he tried to use on me while I was in a coma."

Victor massaged his nose bridge nervously, raising up his glasses a bit to do so while making some grumbling noises. After that, he said between pauses, but keeping his composure, "Only demons… can use orbs… it was before that then…"

Nico had enough of holding her anxiety. She couldn't wait anymore for the scold she knew she would get. Slowly, she tried to get into the conversation, but speaking very apprehensively, "She… she received blood transfusion.. from...Nero a-after the attack on the or-rphanage, Uncle V-Vic..."

He kept in dead silence for a moment. Nico was already squinting her eyes and clenching her jaw nervously; her body was stiff while she waited for his reaction. Seeing Nico's behavior, Kyrie started to get nervous too. Still, in her case, without knowing why she just felt like something terrible was coming.

If Victor was a computer, a sound of dial-up internet loading could be heard coming from him. He was thoughtful yet scared; he was staring at the void, trying to process that information.

Nico felt Victor's pressure over her soul already without looking face-to-face yet, the man was quiet and immovable.

By only moving his feet, he made his chair turn in Nico's direction. The more he turned, the more the girl was cold, sweating nervously. Victor's reaction wasn't a surprise, she was already waiting for that, but she didn't want to see it.

He was staring at her intensively, looking straight at her eyes.

"Did you let them do a blood transfusion from a hybrid to a vo-void? And blo-blood from a-a Sparda?" He hadn't yelled but spoke in such a severe tone that it made it seem Nico had killed someone.

"Do you know the consequences?" Victor asked, keeping his posture.

Nico moved her head slightly to the sides with a bit of reluctance, denying her uncle's question.

"S-So do I!" He finally yelled; tension and confusion were clearly noticeable in his voice. "Who knows w-w-what can happ-pen as a consequence of a blood tran-transfusion! And from such a strong being! A Sparda's ascendant! They can't e-even breed with a Void! for bein a-a H-Hybrid!"

Kyrie's world stopped during the last lines from the scientist; it was true then? She and Nero can't have their own children because of what they are? Unfortunately, most of what happened during her so short pregnancy was starting to make sense, the pain and uneasy out of time... the miscarriage…

"They can't what?" Nico interrupted Kyrie's desperate thoughts with a blurted question to her uncle.

"You didn't know?" he asked back, a bit confused but not so surprised.

"That's why… we can't have children?" Kyrie said without looking at the doctor; she already had red-ish teary eyes. Her hands were sweating cold as her heart was racing just to remember the painful day of the miscarriage.

"Oh no..." Victor whispered when he saw Kyrie's depressive image. "Have you two already tried?"

"Th-they tried once…" Nico said a bit awkwardly, holding her stuttering.

Victor felt sorry, but he couldn't do much to help Kyrie in that situation, aside from trying to explain why such an unfortunate event happened. "I'm sorry, but that's how nature works… hybrids can only breed with other hybrids. The same goes for 'pures,' they can only breed with other pures. If something happens outside of this rule, it's because it had some interference… like…ritual spells, scientific experiments, etc."

Kyrie didn't respond, just continued to stare at the void. Her face was the perfect description of sadness and despair. As some tears started to form in her eyes, she quickly took them off using the sleeve's end of her jacket. That information was quite hurtful, she and Nero were planning to have a child of their own for nearly a year, and suddenly their dream was shattered into small pieces. They had names planned, bedroom designs, how they would do when Nero had to leave to work, lots of money saved, and so on… but nothing of that mattered anymore.

A freezing chill suddenly rose up on Nico's spine. She remembered her talk with Nero before the incident, making her very worried about the boy more than she already was. Nero was already in a terrible mental state. If he discovers that his suspicion was correct, he definitely will drop dead in despair. That left her in doubt if they really should tell him that after he wakes up.

But what nobody expected was that Nero was listening to all of that final part of the conversation. He just hadn't spoken or moved because of the heavy fatigue over his body and mind.

Nero let go a cracking snort out, loud enough for the others to hear it when they stopped talking. They all turned at him at the same moment, everyone staring with eyes wide open. Nico even jaw dropped scared; she barely thought of the possible incoming problem, and here it was, kicking the door with both feet.

Nero could feel all of his muscles very stiff as he slowly tried to sit up. His body was in total stress because of his unstable magic. It was like he hadn't moved in a month. He couldn't even imagine doing stretches. If he tried so, probably his muscles would break out of their strings. He could snap a joint or two; his neck and shoulders made loud noises as if they actually had broken. During those cracking sounds, he'd let go very tired and annoyed grumbles.

It took a significant delay, for he had noticed the electrodes all over his chest and head. He looked at them with confusion; his face clearly said, "what the fuck is this?" and with zero caution, he took them off, nearly invalidating the apparatus. Loud error beeps came from Victor's computer screens at the same moment. Nico rushed to shut down the program and stop the ear-hurting noises.

Victor couldn't contain his annoyance and blurted out loud, angry words, "What are you doing?! I was doing critical exams on you! Get back in there!"

Nero turned his tired gaze at him, his eyes squinting of so much fatigue. He didn't say a thing, he only slightly moved his right hand up, and with shaking fingers, he raised the middle finger to Victor. He let go a subtle, muffled giggle with a mischievous smile, mocking the man for no reason.

The doctor didn't get offended; instead, he stared at the ill boy with confusion. He wanted to ask him what was wrong, but he knew he wouldn't get an answer. Nero's mind obviously wasn't where it should be right now.

For a brief moment, Nero stood quiet in place, head down, his upper body was -visibly- softly swinging back and front with his own breath. At the same time, his arms were thrown down like a plush doll's and his back arched forwards. He barely could keep his eyes open. They were dry, blood-red, and empty. He honestly looked like he was having a hangover and could throw up or faint again at any moment.

He was indeed in a lethargic mood.

"Nero…?" Kyrie said in a grievous whispering.

Nero began to giggle again in response to Kyrie's call, low and drunk-ish giggling, slightly choking with his own saliva between a few pauses to breathe.

"I had...a dream…" he began to speak in pauses, his voice fading weak. "My dad… was beating… Vergil's ass… hehe..." he finished with a broken smile, without taking his eyes out of the void.

"What?" both Nico and Victor said together.

"Shooting Star Man?" Kyrie let go without thinking twice.

"Yeah…" Nero said with a smile on his mouth, but his eyes were clearly showing sadness.

"Nero… Shooting Star Man was-" before Kyrie could even finish her phrase, Nero quickly interrupted, aiming an angry gaze at her.

"Shooting Star Man was not a dream!" he yelled with a trembling, almost crying, voice. "He exists! And he's my real dad! Not…the fucking… Vergil…" and a tear rolled down on his cheek.

"Foolishness…" he mumbled, returning his eyes to nothingness.

Hell - Daytime apparently - "same moment"

The twins were still at the same place, inside of a made-up cavern on a huge dying root of the Qliphoth. Dante's magical barrier was still up. A simple but very effective spell he learned with Trish, closing the entrance for other demons don't come to annoy them while they eat their lunch.

They weren't talking with each other. They were quietly eating the meat from the demon Dante had hunted down. Each of them had roasted their parts the way they like it using fire magic.

At every bite Dante did, he made a face of total disgust, squinting his entire face as if eating a pure lemon. The meat tasted awful; it was definitely the worst food he ever ate. He was swallowing every bite almost wholly because he couldn't stand the taste.

On the other hand, Vergil was eating like a savage. Using his teeth from his (standard)Devil Trigger form to eat, he looked like he was barely chewing his food and more like swallowing it whole. The man had barely cooked the Riot meat; there was demon blood dripping down his chin and hands. It looked like he hadn't eaten in days, if not weeks. He was almost done with his part his share, while Dante wasn't even at half of his yet.

Dante couldn't believe in his eyes; never in his head passed the idea of his brother, a person so collected and disciplined, to be acting like a wild beast.

Although, he had folded his coat's arms until the elbow and had taken off the gloves to avoid dirty them while he eats. But there was a detail that gained Dante's attention: Vergil's lower arms looked too skinny, very likely how he remembered V's arms. That made him think that his brother wasn't in good physical health, but he wouldn't ask his brother to just simply take his shirt out to confirm that.

He decided to talk about that another moment, having in mind what happened last night.

"How… how can you eat this food like this?" he asked instead, still dumbfounded while staring somewhat scared at Vergil.

Vergil suddenly stopped eating and looked at Dante with a surprised face. His mouth was so full that his cheeks were puffed up, lots of blood around his mouth and dripping down his chin and hands. He had a quick look at Dante's food. He wasn't paying attention to it and was surprised that his brother hadn't eaten, not even half of it.

Dante couldn't help but stare, scared at that odd and savage image of his older brother.

Vergil gave a big swallow to put everything in his mouth down. He then said stoically, looking at the big piece of meat in his hands he was holding by the bone. "You get used to the taste of it… there will be a moment your tongue will start ignoring it," and he took another bite.

That was a bit unexpected, but at the same time, it wasn't. After last night's story, Dante was more aware that Vergil had a though life trying to survive the consequences of his own acts. But still… used to eat raw meat? Vergil was so focused on his demon side like that? Or was it something else?

"I'm starting to envy you, to be honest," Vergil suddenly broke Dante's thoughts.

Dante turned his gaze from his piece of awful food to his older brother. Vergil had left his ordinarily stoic face and was staring emotionless at his piece of meat half-eaten.

The younger brother's silence made it clear he didn't understand what his older brother just said.

"You have friends… a cool job... -a pause- you didn't have to worry about… surviving all the time…" Vergil said with a bit of sadness in his voice. "You had a family by your side…"

Dante takes a moment to realize what he meant by that last line, "You mean Nero?" he asked just to confirm.

"Yes… I envy you for that… I don't think I ever will experience such moments…" Vergil said with grief as he recalled the dream he had earlier.

Such a statement did sting Dante with suspicion. He really didn't like how that sounded. He started to look for words to describe his feelings towards that, but he was too confused to make up something at that moment.

He couldn't speak, only look at random directions as if searching for some inspiration.

Unfortunately, he couldn't think of anything, and they spent the following minutes of their lunch in silence.

After finishing his share, Vergil licked his fingers and hands, not because the food was good, it was just to clean them out before wearing his gloves again. To clean his face from the demon blood, he did very like how a cat would do; by licking the side of his hand and passing thought where he wanted to clean: his cheeks, chin, and mouth.

Meanwhile, Dante couldn't eat all of his shares and just simply tossed, with no difficulty, the leftovers very far to outside their hideout(without vanishing the magical barrier). He cleaned his hands on his coat anyway.

There was dead silence between them once again, that same awkward silence from the previous day.

Dante was finally coming up with something to ask his brother. Still, he was a bit reluctant this time because of how much Vergil scared and worried him talking about his life. He had to find a way to touch the wounds with more caution than before.

He pretended he would start talking a few times, opening his mouth to speak and turning to look at Vergil, but he ended up giving up.

Vergil only stared at him with suspicion and waiting for a conversation to start, but it never came.

Finally, when Dante moved to start a conversation for real, something called the attention of both at the same time:

"Dante…!"

"Vergil…!"

A weak and tired voice of a woman echoed in their heads out of nowhere.

They both stared at each other scared, they didn't need words, only their look exchange told each other that they heard the same thing.

The voice called them again, but this time a bit louder and clearly in a panic:

"Dante! Vergil! I need your help, please…"

They jumped out of their place and stood up. Vergil looked around the area for some demon that was possibly messing up with them, but Dante stared at the void; that voice was somewhat familiar.

"Kyrie?" he asked in the air.

"Nero's girlfriend?" Vergil blurted, remembering that Nero told him her name back when he was V.

"Nero is gonna die… help! Please!" she said in a sobbing and panicking voice.

Void - same day - 09:00 AM - Victor's Laboratory

Among Nico, Victor was trying to put the electrodes back on Nero for the exam to restart. But he didn't want to collaborate. The man was waving his arms towards them to shove them away every time they touched him or just got closer. While he did so, he was groaning like a stubborn child that didn't want to do what the adults were trying to make him do.

Kyrie tried to talk with him many times, but he wasn't listening to her too. He was avoiding eye contact altogether.

They could only put two, out of the eight, electrodes on Nero the moments before he -inexplicably- started to act like that. One in his right temple and the other at the left side of his chest.

Such behavior was quite shocking, especially for Kyrie. Nero was behaving like a sad and scared child. He was curling up in himself, an attempt to look smaller. His arched back let his spine be more visible under the skin of his skinny body, giving him a more decaying image than before. He got his left arm wrapped around his belly and his right arm over his head, trying to hide his face from the others. He was sitting over his left leg, and the right one was bent up for the knee to help hide his face. He was breathing heavily and pacing fast between groans of a supposed crying being held with all of his mental strength left. He was shivering entirely, almost like he was feeling super cold.

Victor took a step closer to the boy with an electrode in hand. Nero could see him through a small opening between his arm and knee.

"Stay away! Stay away!" he begged in a crumbling voice, curling up even more.

Victor said nothing and stepped back cautiously, only to look at the girls and face anxious looks. After all… they saw a loved one in front of them in a terrible mental and physical situation. Kyrie was on the edge of a panicked crying.

Feeling defeated, Victor asked the ill boy, "okay… what do you want for you to cooperate with us?"

Without leaving his fetal position, Nero's breath accelerated a bit, cold and big tears went down his cheeks. "I want… I want my… dad… my dad… the… Shooting Star Man..." and he started sobbing.

Victor let out a long sigh. He shook his head and took off his glasses. He pressed his nose bridge between his eyes and closed them hard, trying to contain himself for not responding to Nero as if he was sane.

Both Kyrie and Nico couldn't move their eyes away from that decaying person they always knew as a tough and prideful man. Such a situation made them think, "he has been hiding those feelings all this time?", "that's how he truly feels inside?" and "why did he never tell us about that?"

Kyrie let a tear escape thinking about it, but she cleared it quickly. She must be strong; otherwise, she wouldn't be able to help Nero.

Victor put his hands on his waist. Sounding a bit impatient, he asked the girls, "Well then… this totally looks like it is a serious PTSD case, is there something I don't know yet? I have a friend that's a renowned therapist. She can help him out too."

The girls exchanged thoughtful looks, thinking about something they could reveal so the doctor can have a better north about what to do next.

Meanwhile, he walked towards a shelf near the computers. Nico accompanied him with her head only and saw him taking off a sedative glass bottle out of an aluminum box.

She gasped silently and walked to him quickly. "Are you sure this is necessary?" she almost whispered, astonished by her uncle's decision.

"Do you know a better option?" he whispered in a nervous yet worried voice. "He's definitely not in the mental state for this, but I need to finish those exams so I can know how to aid him until Vergil and Dante come back."

Nero could hear them talking with his demonic super hearing, and once he heard "Vergil," his heart raced insanely.

Kyrie could hear them too, but not so clear like Nero. She couldn't understand what was going on, but it wasn't good.

Without leaving his position, Nero began to look in front of him for a way to escape: he'd spot his coat in a hanger and his boots under it near some kind of automatic double door. But how would he run away quickly? Victor surely would know how to stop him.

Only if he could touch him, he realized. He then had an idea that would make them all probably mad, but he *had* to get it out of there in his mind.

He heard their steps on the cold concrete floor getting closer. One thing he couldn't see was the syringe in Victor's hands.

He couldn't wait any longer.

In a second, his hair and all of his body hair turned black. Everyone noticed that an instant before the computer began to make very loud emergency warnings, taking the attention off him for his luck.

Sounds of crackling flames called out the others' attention back. They could see a large red flame passing through a small gap in the middle of the exit door for just a few seconds.

Both Nero and his coat and his boots had disappeared; only the electrodes were left in the chair.

"OH SHIT! NO!" Victor yelled, presuming the flames he saw were Nero.

Nico had stopped the machine's loud noises in a hurry, just to finally read the message on the screen that said: "MAGIC SIGNAL LOST."

The living red flames flew through the woods behind the laboratory, going in the direction of the city. After a minute or two, the fire gained a precise shape, and Nero materialized himself out of it, with his coat and boots in hands.

Not only his hair and body hair were with a different color, but his eyes also changed. They went from the typical sky blue to a bright emerald green color.

He was breathing hard and out of energy, his eyes swollen and red, eyebags dark like Vergil's, and his face tired like never before. He couldn't stand up and threw his body over his knees, but his arms faltered, and he kissed the grassy ground.

He cursed in a whisper and slowly got up, squinting his face at every move because of the pain. His body was so weakened, so exhausted, he wished he just could lay there and cease to exist.

At a slow pace, he wore his jacket, zipping it to feel a bit warmer and then wore his boots. Then his hair and eyes' color returned to the usual silver and sky blue, respectively. Thanks to upgrades on his weapons made by Nico, he summoned Devil Queen and Carnage Rose from the van to his hands as if they were Devil Arms.

He heard his name being called by Kyrie far away in the woods, he couldn't let her find him, or she would bring him back to Victor; he opened his spectral wings in a rush and flew away with a single flap.

Kyrie could spot him flying in the sky as soon he got very high. She became much more apprehensive, realizing she would need to take more drastic measures to contain Nero. Unfortunately, she was the only one around that could do that.

She called her staff like Nero called his weapons and activated the flying mode. She rose to the sky very fast, trying to reach the altitude that probably Nero was. That was her first time going so high, but she calmly stabilized.

By wearing a headphone in her left ear- connected to her phone- she could call Victor. "I've found him! But I will have to chase him!" she told the doctor.

Victor instructed in a hurry: "Oh shit! Well… get Nero and stick that thing I gave to you on his skin. Anywhere is good! But give preference to his chest and head. This is a prototype of a remote magic reader! It's not as efficient as those ones I have here, but it will help a lot already!"

"Okay!" she yelled confidently.

She then looked at a small device Victor gave to her, a gray and round button, smaller than the palm of her hand, with a little red LED light in the middle. She put it back in her pocket and accelerated to catch up with Nero; she couldn't waste more time.

Getting closer to the city, she noticed that she was high in the sky as the megacity's tall buildings. The growth was quite remarkable; the vast gray ocean of buildings till the eye can see. The people and the vehicles' noisy sound in the streets and large avenues, the dark line on the horizon due to the heavy pollution created a total contrast with the shining blue sky with fluffy white clouds above.

She wanted to stop and admire such human creation. She thought she would never leave Fortuna and witness that kind of thing, much less that way.

But that wasn't the time for that; she had to find Nero.

The loud sounds from the city were an annoying buzzing in her ears due to her new demonic hearing and the terrible pollution scents in her nose.

She was flying the fastest she could, turning her head to the sides looking for Nero in a hurry, but how would she find him in such a gigantic place?

She had to think, think! She knew Nero better than anyone else… At least she thought she did. The bitter feeling of Nero never having told her about his grieves made her quite sad, but also, on the other hand, she could understand why he did that...

"Got something?" Victor called her in the phone call, giving her a little jumpscare. For a moment, she forgot she was on a call.

"Not yet… he blended with the city…" she said, worried.

She heard some thoughtful hummings coming from the other side of the call for a moment and then Nico's voice from the background.

"Yeah, that may work," she heard Victor talking with Nico.

"You know the feather you must wear?" He now asked her. "Focus on it. It's still connected to Nero. Spectral objects stay magically connected to their creators until it's vanished by them or when they die."

"Okay, I will try that!"

Kyrie stopped in the air and closed her eyes. She laid her hand over the feather in her hair clip for better focusing. She began to use some meditating techniques she knew, giving her complete focus to the feather's emanating energy.

Slowly, she could feel a magic string leaving the feather. The more she focused, the more she could see the line in her mind.

The line grew… and grew… and grew…

Until she saw Nero at the end. His energy was a mess and aggressive, like a vast hurricane moving out of control and ready to destroy everything in its path.

"I think I found him!" She yelled confidently.

"Amazing!" Victor shouted with relief. "Hurry! Every second, his condition gets worse!"

She left her place in a blast, going full speed. Following the energy path, she didn't know she had that sixth sense now.

Swinging between the buildings quickly and precisely, she noticed the enormous windows of them; there was a problem if she flew so close to ordinary humans? Humans may know that demons and devil hunters exist, but it was okay they see a human doing demon magic like that?

She started to have flashbacks back to the orphanage's attack and felt better fly above the city.

The altitude was very frightening. Death was certain if she fell off - as if the previous height wasn't already - she was a bit demon now but not demon enough to survive such fall like Nero would. Still, she kept herself under control, not looking down, only in front.

Nero's energy was starting to descend towards the city's asphalt. He was probably going to land. The closer she was getting to Nero, the more turbulent the signal was getting.

Now she had to follow the signal in the middle of the giant mass of people; only in an intersection of avenues looked like it had more people than Fortuna's population. That gave her goosebumps, but bringing back Nero to safety kept her motivated.

There were dozens of scents and different energies from the large mass, so filtering Nero's magic out of it would need more concentration than before.

Inside Nero (figuratively)

Much like Vergil's mind, the place was nearly dead, dry soil, and a small pool of water in the middle, but the difference was the tree. Nero's tree was frail at the bottom, and it got a bit stronger at the top, making it look like it was upside down. Devil Queen and Carnage Rose were by the side of the tree.

There were three entities there:

N (Nero's human self), a boy visually the same age as Nero with a face similar to V's, long hair like Nero's Devil Trigger itself - but it was part black and part white -, and yellow eyes. He was also wearing the same clothes Nero was in reality.

Hintkurt (Nero's demon self) was a demon visually similar to Urizen but half its size with a rigid scaled body. It had a few extra eyes through its chest and a large one where it would be his forehead. His shoulders had big mouths with sharp teeth each.

Then there was Hintchack (Nero's unknown self), a sleek and snake-ish creature with four arms and four wings, a humanoid owl face with long feathers that resembled hair in his head, and a third eye like Hintkurt. His body was all white with some red paintings so detailed that it looked hand-painted. He wasn't big like his magical partner; he was the same size as a human.

The three of them were fighting against each other, but the two monsters mostly focused on the human. There were countless markings around the place; scorched areas by fire and other magics, big crackings and holes, claw markings, and so on.

Hintchack used his long tail to slap N on his back, sending him a few steps away. The hit was so strong that N couldn't react to get back on his feet, and his face was slammed against the ground.

"You stupid shit! When you'll learn that's a fucked up idea?!" Hintchack shouted harshly, his voice high pitched and cracked.

N, already wounded from previous hits from the bird-snake-ish creature, tried to get a bit of strength to rise up, but he was out of breath already. He was struggling to lift his head up, "What if...I'm right? Stop judging the others -cough cough- by the cover!"

"Are you serious?!" Hintchack shouted furiously. "No jackshit, Vergil can't have a good side! AND HE'S NOT MONSTER! MONSTER IS DEAD!"

Entirely the opposite from the screaming avian, Hintkurt, with his deep demonic voice, spoken calmly, "The parrot is right. Let go of this stupid idea that Nero will have parents. That's illogical. We're all grown-ups! Adults do not even adopt pre-teens, much less other adults!"

"But… what if…" N stuttered, the sadness on his face was evident, but he wasn't going to give up.

Hintkurt let go a long and annoying breath while Hintchak was close to plucking the feathers of his head out of anger.

"'If I beat Nero… I won't lose next time!'" Hintchack mimicked Vergil. "You really think that's how a father would sound? You idiot!"

"He was even going to kill Dante!" Hintkurt added.

"Another scum…" The bird blurted angrily.

"Dante is not bad!" The demon retorted.

"Oh really?! What… 'uncle' hides the truth about your bloodline for five fucking years?! He was willing to keep it secret if I haven't pressured him!"

Hintkurt didn't know how to respond; deep down, he agreed with that point.

"He… must have… a good reason.." N said between exhausted breaths.

"ARGH! Spare me of this family-care bullshit! He didn't want to have official responsibilities!" The avian shouted, flying closer to N.

"Only visiting to have lunch, making calls just to ask for money or pass a demon hunting job!"

"Help with sword fight training, helped create a devil hunting branch… he even sold some devil arms to gave Nero money for the van's fixes… and…" Before the demon could continue, Hintchack attacked him, cutting his chest using his wings' long sharp feathers.

"ENOUGH!" He shouted, pissed.

"What is wrong with you?!" The demon yelled, confused, stepping back.

"We all know Nero won't be able to have a happy family! Can't we all agree it's a lost case?!" Hintchack shouted out loud.

"We… are not… a lost case…" N said, his voice still weak, but he could stand on his feet now. "You are just paranoid!"

"ME?! PARANOID?! HAHAHA!" and he flew towards N, sending him back to the ground using his four hands.

Holding him still, he shouted in his face, "Who keeps crying and killing Nero's image is not me! You! YOU are the big kid here waiting for irrational wishes to come true! GET LOST! Nero will never have a daddy or a mommy!"

"We always knew this…" Hintkurt added. "Since we lost Monster… the last person that…"

"But! Shooting Star Man!" N interrupted.

"That motherfucker isn't real!" The bird yelled, a vein almost popping in his forehead.

"HE IS! He just won't come back!" The demon shouted, quickly taking the bird off of N, holding him by the tail.

"HOW DARE YOU?!" He shouted and again used his feathers to hurt the demon that released him at the same moment because of the pain from the severe wound.

"YOU PIECE OF SHIT!" The demon shouted, very pissed off with the stubbornness of the avian fellow.

They both started to fight using their magics, a fight so aggressive they were beginning to destroy the place again, heavy dust began to rise due to the dry soil.

"Stop! STOP! You're hurting Nero!" N shouted with all his strength left, but the magical beings didn't listen. They continued their fight without caring about him or the place.

The human could do nothing but whimper in grief. He continued to stay down on the ground and put his head between his crossed arms. There's nothing he could do… he needed help, and he knew that.

"Vergil… Dante… help me… please…" he whispered in agony.

But the two creatures could -surprising- hear his praying and stopped the fight almost immediately.

"YOU SAID WHAT?!" They shouted in synchrony, looking at the helpless human on the ground.

Back to reality…

Nero was sitting in the shadow of a small alley, hidden from the noisy and agitated crowd. He was in a fetal position, holding his head in pain. His two magics were fighting inside of him, and he barely could keep them under control. He was being hurt from the inside out. It was like small ghostly daggers were stabbing him. He was bleeding a little through his nose and mouth. In his eyes, the blood was mixing with his tears of agony. His skin, however, was starting to show up signals of a crackling similar to dry soil.

His mind was in complete chaos. At the same time, he wanted to call help...he didn't. He didn't know what to do; he just wanted to stay there, quiet, letting his internal struggle consume him.

But then, Kyrie found him. At first, she just observed him from far away, figuring out what was going on. When she got closer, she soon could feel his two magics fighting.

He was immobile.

She slowly walked to the middle of the alley, stepping softly so as not to make a noise. But her focus on the man was so intense that she didn't see the broken glass on the ground.

The soft cracking noise called Nero's attention, and he immediately looked at her.

Noticing who it was behind his foggy and red-ish vision, he quickly got up, using his leftover strength. When he attempted to sprint, Kyrie called him desperately, "NERO, NO! Please! Don't go! I just want to talk!" almost deafening, Victor was still in the call.

He stopped with her calling, but he didn't turn to look at her.

"Nero… please… tell me what is going on… I just want to help you..." she begged.

"HELP?! There's nothing you can help with!" Hintchack yelled furiously.

"Stay away, it will be better like this…" Hintkurt said with a bit of sadness.

"Kyrie… help…" N then cried in a helpless whisper.

"SHUT UP!" Hintchack yelled at him.

With a weak and sad voice, Nero almost whispered, "Just… leave me… please… I don't want to hurt you again..."

"Hurt me? When have you done that?!" She said quite incredulously.

"Lost memory or something?" Hintchack blurted.

"If you're thinking my coma and the exil-" before she could finish her sentence, Nero turned to her. His expression was an incomprehensible mix of sadness, anger, and pain. His face was all dirty with his own blood and tears.

"OF COURSE THEY'RE MY FAULT!" He shouted, his voice fading and muffled due to the fatigue of so much crying.

"All of the shit that happened to us… to your family… it's all my fault! I...I'm cursed…" he said with an ashamed and defeated voice.

Kyrie made a quick connection to what he was talking about. Fortuna's people never liked him because his demon magic attracted demons to him. People used to call him a "demon-magnet" and bully him as hell because of it.

She took a deep breath before continuing to speak. She didn't want to make the man run away again and slowly, she was trying to get closer, they were meters apart.

"Nero… You're not cursed… you're not like everyone always told you…" She tried with the softest voice she could do.

"How could she never notice?" Hintkurt said low and sad, holding N with one hand to make sure he couldn't say anything.

"Yes… Yes, I am!" he yelled between sobbings. "I honestly always envied you and Credo, you always had a family, had loving parents… you were -sob- respected..."- pause to take a breath - "but… but it was just me get in your life… and everything went down the hill -sniff- your parents died… Cre-Credo…" And he once again began to hold back a desperate crying. He did not want to in front of Kyrie.

"Stop, Nero! You can't blame yourself for that!" she tried to call him a little back to his senses.

"Please… let's go back to Victor so he can help you clear your mind and body… please," she begged.

"ENOUGH OF THIS!" Hintchack screamed with rage.

"HOLD UP! We must not hurt her!" Hintkurt interfered quickly.

"You seriously think I would hurt her, dumbass?!" the bird yelled incredulously.

"I don't trust you." the demon responded harshly.

Nero shut down his eyes and put his hands on his head. He was in panic and pain at the same time. The man began to hurt his scalp with his nails, and the bleeding from his eyes, nose, and mouth started to get worse. He had to cough out the blood from his throat.

Kyrie was panicking, but she was able to keep her composure. Still, when she tried to open her mouth to talk again… an eruption of desperate and panicking human screamings echoed around them.

Kyrie gave a quick look behind her just to see what was going on. Countless people were running in a panicked hurry from something, very likely to be demons.

Unfortunately, when she turned to look back at Nero, he had disappeared. Her heart raced in panic; she had no idea from where he could have gone. Once again, she would have to follow his energy track, but the more she saw people running, she began to feel the presence of other demons. It was hard for a newbie Devil-Magic user to concentrate on Nero's magic with all the nearby monsters' interference.

In a sprint, she ran outside the alley just to meet face to face with a demon, but it wasn't any demon: it was the same wolf-skull head ones from yesterday's morning.

Instinctively, using her right hand, she casts a lightning spell that blew up the demon's wolf-skull helmet, revealing a human mummy-like head that was under it.

The demon fell backward, wholly stunned, while she kneeled, holding her right hand in pain. She could feel her magic pulsing like an insane heartbeat in her hand; she thought her hand would literally explode.

'You idiot! You must use the staff… always!' she told herself madly.

"Kyrie? Kyrie?! What happened?!" Victor asked because of the loud, bomb thunder noise he heard on the other side.

"I'm fine… I just… didn't use my staff.." Kyrie said in a tense voice.

"KYRIE!" Nico yelled, a bit incredulous.

"I know… I know!" Kyrie yelled too, but impatient.

“Thunder Rose”

Category: Human-made

Type: Magic Catalyst

User(s): Kyrie

Description: A magical staff made by Nico. It helps Kyrie learn how to control her recently owned demonic magic and since it’s made of a very resistant material, she can also use it as a blunt weapon.

She got back on her feet quickly, and when she stopped to look at the avenue, she almost lost her breath. Jaw dropped; she couldn't count how many demons were there; they came this time in a massive hoard. They were attacking humans and killing them.

But when she paid attention to one that had already killed its prey, she saw that it wasn't eating the human's flesh. Instead, it was taking it away, running against the direction of the attacking ones.

She couldn't handle them by herself alone. It was too many for her.

"What's with all these people screaming?! Where is Nero?!" Victor yelled, his voice very worried.

"There's a bunch of demons here! And Nero ran away from me…

"What?! You MUST find him!" Victor said almost in a demanding tone.

"Take! Take it! Take to the Sin!" one demon that passed close to her caught her attention.

"The Sin needs flesh!"

"The great Sin will revive!" Many of them were shouting in a demonic language she could understand.

Until one of them yelled, "Dragon! Dragon!"

It called her attention that one wasn't attacking humans. It was utterly ignoring them all.

"Get the Dragon!" others yelled.

Some were strangely blabbing, a similar thing the ones from yesterday were.

Dragon? Could they be talking about Nero?

Those demons certainly could tell the difference between demon-magics better than she, and she decided to follow them. She rose up to way up over the panicking crowd riding her winged staff.

She could observe all of those "dragon-seekers" going into the same point. She accelerated to go ahead of them. The more she advanced, the better she could feel Nero's magic apart from the other demons'.

Not even half a minute of flight, she spotted Nero in the middle of the avenue. He was fighting against the same demons, but his condition wasn't letting him fight like he used to. He had to rely on his spectral arms and gun.

Those demons weren't ordinary; they were using teamwork to get close to Nero.

They were all around him, shooting their arrows with chains close to him, trapping him, but Nero knew the only way to leave was flying IF all of them missed their chains. But Nero didn't have the strength -physical, mental, and magical - to fly away so perfectly, they would get him.

Kyrie quickly dived towards the demon horde; in a swift move, she took her staff from her feet, and the wings rolled together to form a ball shape. With all the strength she got, she slammed the demons using her staff as a giant hammer, killing and stunning a few that were in front of Nero.

The wolf-skull-helm demons even dismantled their formation for a brief moment because they didn't see her getting close.

Nero felt some relief in seeing Kyrie again, but at the same time, he got scared, he wanted to leave as fast as possible, but that was a distant wish by that point.

"Kyrie… you…" he mumbled between painful groanings.

"Quiet!" She yelled, mad at him. "Just focus on getting out of this. We talk about that another moment."

Nero got briefly stunned. Never had Kyrie raised her voice towards him like that. He got quiet and decided to listen to her for now.

His legs weakened, and he kneels on the ground. His magics were starting to fight inside him again. Kyrie didn't think twice when she saw him like that. She slapped Victor's device on his nape in one swift move.

"What the hell?!" Nero yelled, confused.

"Don't even think about taking that off! I dare you!" she threaded him.

"YES!" Victor yelled victorious at the other side of the call. "Those readings aren't perfect but will help a little already!"

The demons got furious with her interference. The ones in front of her raised their body quickly and shot their arrows at her.

She swung her staff and blasted an electric discharge at the arrows, sending them away. More demons started to do the same from different directions right after.

She kept blasting energy to send the arrows away. From behind, her left, right, she was circling around and sometimes even jumping over Nero. The man still was kneeling on the ground, trying to catch a breath while blood was dripping from his eyes, nose, and mouth.

During the middle of that situation, she and the demons took a quick pause to breathe, and she could blurt something: "If only… Dante and Vergil…"

"We… -cough cough- don't need… them," Nero said with his trembling voice.

Kyrie's blood boiled that moment; she couldn't stand Nero's stubbornness anymore. He was passing the limit of irrationality.

"SHUT UP!" she shouted, scaring him and the demons around. "Listen here! You're not in the condition to make decisions yourself! So, stay quiet and listen to what I say! Okay?!"

"Oh wow… that was hot", Hintkurt blurted.

"Is that what you're thinking about in this situation?!" N yelled incredulously at him.

"She's… scaring me…" Hintchack said, hiding his head under his wings.

Nero didn't know what to respond to. He just kept quiet, staring at her, his eyes wide open of both surprise and scare.

"Good!" She yelled, returning her gaze to the demons. She couldn't believe she had to raise her voice at Nero like that. She didn't want to, but that was a matter of life and death. He had to cooperate.

Quickly, all the demons coordinated to shoot their arrows at them at the same time. It didn't have how to avoid that attack if not flying.

Kyrie didn't know an area spell to help in that situation either.

Suddenly, the programs on Victor's computer started to give emergency warnings of "magical signal lost" again.

"What the?!" he yelled. "Kyrie?! What happened?!"

No response.

"Kyrie!" He shouted, but she was stunned in place, staring at the small protective red bubble around her and Nero.

Nero had his arms extended, his hair was black, and his eyes green once again. He quickly cast that shield to protect them, sending the arrows away.

He couldn't stand it much longer and dropped tired to the ground. Then, the protective bubble exploded, sending the demons not so far away from them and stunning them in the process.

"KYRIE!" Both Victor and Nico shouted, trying to call her attention. They made it but almost gave her a heart attack.

"I'm here! I'm here!" She replied, scared.

"What happened to Nero?!" Victor asked, quite worried.

"Did he switch magics?!" Nico asked right after.

"He what?!" Victor blurted, now confused.

"Yes, he did," Kyrie replied. Simultaneously, she quickly kneeled to check on him: he was heavily breathing, sweating like crazy, and, unfortunately, but fortunately, he was unconscious.

Still staring at the monitor, Nico explained, "That's the other thing we came to ask you, Uncle Vic. Nero recently discovered he has a second magic type. I couldn't get readings with any device I had… and apparently, yours can't read it too…? Oh shit…"

Victor stayed silent, trying to process why that other magic of Nero couldn't be read by their devices and why he had another type within him?

He then gave a quick gaze to a specific painting he had on the same computer station wall. Noticing the peculiar look, Nico turned to look at the picture too, but she couldn't understand much: it was an image half white in the top and half black in the bottom. She couldn't clearly see the details because the painting was a bit far and wasn't that big.

Victor returned in silence to his computer and started to do something on his programs. Nico saw that something snapped in his mind, and she would not question him about it now.

"Kyrie! Is Nero okay?" Nico asked instead.

"He… he just dropped... unconscious… urgh," her voice sounding as if she was doing a lot of strength.

"What are you doing?" Nico said, worried with her tone.

Kyrie was trying to take Nero to an alley while the demons were stunned, using her staff's magical wings. She pulled the staff with all her strength while the wings formed a basket shape under Nero.

"Trying to… find a safe place…" she replied, breathing heavily.

The demons were starting to snap back to their consciousness when Kyrie entered an alley and could hide her and Nero between large trash containers.

Nero's magic was dim by now, but the demons could still sense it; they barely woke up and already started to flow his weak signal.

Kyrie fiercely stood nearby the place she left Nero. The demons couldn't enter all at once in the area.

They began to menacingly enter the alley, ambling with their four members. The path was dark, cold, and stinky. Only their shiny orange eyes were visible among the shadowy shape they had in the dark.

That vision sent a chill down Kyrie's spine. Her hands were sweating cold inside her gloves, she wanted to take Nero and run away, but that wouldn't be easy to achieve. She had to fight, fight not just for Nero's safety but also hers.

Unfortunately, that was the first time she didn't have Nero's aid to help her when something went wrong. She was alone, entirely by herself only, giving her the same sensation Nero always had when she was in danger.

She positioned herself ready with her staff. There wasn't space for the scythe blade to swing by. The only option was to use brute force and her smaller electric spells.

"Give… the...DRAGON!" the one front-most yelled and jumped towards her.

She could smack the demon's head against the ground, killing it in one quick swing before it could touch her with its scrawny fingers.

Another one fired its arrow to pierce her body, but she spun her staff really quick and rolled the chain on the top side of it. In a decisive move, she pulled the demon at her, and, using the staff's bottom end, she pierced against the demon's head.

She then sent it away against the other ones in an air kick with all her right leg's strength, breaking its chain. Only one got hit by the flying body and sent out of the alley.

Another two climbed the walls in a sprint and jumped over her. With the staff free, she turned the engine on with her magic and blasted the demons away.

But another one was already in a jump towards her right after and threw her against the ground. She held the creature's hands with her staff, as well as its neck.

She was fighting with everything she got. The demon was trying to push her staff against her throat. But her strength wasn't enough, the demon was slowly winning, and she could see its sadistic smile on its mummy face.

KABOOM

The demon was blasted away in a loud and robust light blast.

Kyrie got blind and deaf for a moment; she could only hear a lousy beep. Her head was inexplicable, spinning and hurting from the light blast.

Victor and Nico had a heart test when they heard the loud blast through the call.

While trying to recover her senses, she used her staff to help get support to get up. A bit dizzy and deaf, the first thing she looked after with her partially white vision was Nero. Fortunately, he was in the same place and position she had left him; she could support his back in one of the big trash containers, but his body was stiff. His arms and legs sometimes jumped with little spasms. He wasn't desyncing yet, but his magic definitely wasn't okay.

Looking outside the alley, some demons were killed, and others were just lying down unconscious. They simply vanished away. The ground was temporarily covered with electrostatic energy, making Kyrie a bit reluctant to move out of the place.

"Hey! Those are no demons for noob'ing around!" a strange young voice came from far outside the alley.

Kyrie tried to see who it was; her vision was almost recovered by now. She could only identify a tall human figure, in a scarlet red coat, white hair with a single hair clump of a different darker color. They were holding a tall and shining Spear, probably a weapon for fighting demons; strangely, she could also feel demonic magic coming from them.

"Get out of here!" the person shouted and ran away.

"NO! Wait!" But the person was already far.

"What's up?!" Nico asked right after.

"There was… another… Devil Hunter, I guess…" she replied with confusion, not so sure of what she saw just now.

"Anyway!" she regained all her senses back again. "I need your help, please! I can't take Nero like this by myself. There's too many demons here too."

"No need to worry, pal! We were already getting out stuff together here!" Nico yelled confidently, but deep in her tone, Kyrie felt her worry.

"Thank you!" She said with a bit of relief.

But that wasn't the moment to relax. The demons were still there. Kyrie used this opening to kill the closest demons and to collect some green and red orbs. It was easy to kill them standing still, just blasting their chest and cutting their heads off with no effort at all.

It took her less than 5 minutes to do so, but for a brief moment, she contemplated how much she changed in such a short time. In the end, she shook her head to regain focus. It wasn't the moment for that.

She quickly absorbed the red orbs around and held onto as many green orbs as she could. In a hurry, she brought them to Nero, who absorbed them in his sleep.

The muscular spasms stopped, but he didn't wake up.

The only thing she could do was wait for Nico.

"Dante… Vergil… Where are you? Nero needs your help…" she begged in her thoughts.

The ground began to shake inexplicably, and the demons that she didn't give the final blow began to wake up. It was time for her to fight again? She barely had caught a breath from the previous fight.

The small earthquakes began to get stronger and paced, like quick steps, giving her a chill down her spine. Flashes of Lightning also started to roar in the sky. That wasn't normal; it surely was some demonic thing.

Suddenly, around fifty meters high, a colossal creature falls down in the avenue corner, a few meters ahead of the alley she was.

The demons that woke up ignored her and ran away, but she heard them yelling, "IT'S THE GREAT SIN!", "THE SIN LIVES!"

So, that was the Sin they were talking about earlier? That boss-looking demon?

The colossal creature got up the faster it could. It was incredibly visually similar to the small demons. It had a wolf skull as a helmet, a skinny body with animal legs and human arms. The few differences were it had a black mist-like tail. The one coming from the head was also covering its torso, neck, and, probably, face ultimately.

A person comes jumping from where the demon came. It was that one that told Kyrie to run away. They were surrounded by electricity, and it went straight to the enormous beast, pointing the spear at its chest.

But the beast dodge rolled to the side, and the hunter carved the spear in the ground. But the electricity exploded and got the arms of the best.

The enormous creature howled in pain. An instant after, it tried to swing its claws towards the hunter, who easily avoided it by jumping away using an energy blast.

"Leave me be, you monster!" The creature shouted, not in demon language; it was in human language.

"Me?! The monster?! Look who's talking!" The hunter replied angrily but with a sassy tone under it.

The creature suddenly stopped; his eyes totally showed surprise, and it looked straight at Kyrie.

Witnessing that tremendous stare, Kyrie froze in a cold sweat; her hands got stiff in her staff.

"Dragon? The Dragon?!" The monster said low and surprised.

That was it. Kyrie was dead now. No way she could face that thing. Nero could, but not in the state he was. Her arms and legs got weak of so much scare, and she kneed in despair, but she could feel her inner magic starting to storm inside her like a defense response.

"Dante… Vergil…" she whispered in panic, tears forming in her eyes.

"Wait… THE dragon is here?" the hunter whispered astonishedly, looking at Kyrie too.

"Dante! Vergil! I need your help, please…" she yelled in her thoughts.

"Nero is gonna die… help! Please!" She closed her eyes and held on tight to the staff while the monster was getting up. It had its eyes on her.

Time stopped.

The only thing that she had in mind now was Dante and an assumption of how Vergil would be. They were twins, right? And they should be together in Hell by now.

"Kyrie?!" She heard Dante's voice in her head.

"Nero's girlfriend?" she heard another voice, an unfamiliar voice, but she assumed to be Vergil's.

She thought it was her imagination for a moment, but she could feel her magic inside her acting quite differently. The wish to have the twins there was provoking something on it.

"PLEASE! I need you two here! Nero is sick and can't fight! There's a huge demon looking for him!" she thought in an instant.

"How?! We are here, and you are there!" Dante said, worried.

"Can we trust this voice?" Vergil said quite distrustfully.

"Yes, man! I know this energy! It's definitely Kyrie!"

All that happened in a fraction of a second.

An inexplicable feeling dominated Kyrie that moment; her magic was acting differently like never before. A new instinct awakened in her. She assumed a fierce and intimidating expression.

She strongly hit the ground with her staff's end, carving on it, scaring the giant demon and the hunter.

She embraced that new feeling and let her magic follow it; she could feel it growing stronger inside her. Still, it wasn't out of control. All that seemed quite natural already.

She began to charge the staff at its limits. It looked like the metal plates from the gear would fly away. A large jolt of energy blew up out of it and formed the pink spectral wings.

The staff would be able to hold all the magic she was channeling. She made the terrible decision to conduct her magic by herself.

That was a deadly move.

Barely a second after summoning, the wings disappeared from the staff and quickly reappeared in her back, but this time double in size. Both of her eyes were glowing white, and the sclera turned black. The small white hair clump she had in her fringe hair quickly grew out to have more strands.

The demon began to step back, afraid of what was coming. But the hunter didn't move out of his place.

"DANTE! VERGIL! HEAR ME OUT! FOLLOW MY VOICE!" she shouted in her thoughts while she began to scream out loud due to the heavy magic channeling.

At the end of her wings, two large demonic magical circles formed an azure blue and a crimson red.

"Fuck! She's summoning something!" The hunter yelled.

"DANTE AND VERGIL! I SUMMON YOU!" she shouted with all her lungs' strength.

Vast flames from their respective circle's colors began to blast out from them, and human shapes started to form.

Dante then jumped out of the red circle, and Vergil jumped out of the blue one.

Kyrie's wings immediately dissipated, and the staff did an emergency stop. She had to kneel on the ground; she had never been so tired before. She had to take many deep breaths, she was sweating profusely, and she looked like her heart would jump out of her mouth.

"WE ARE BACK, BITCHES!" Dante shouted as soon as he stepped on the ground.

But Vergil quickly noticed a problem with them, which shocked him for a brief moment.

To be continued...

#forgotten sins story #devil may cry #devil may cry 5 #dmc5 vergil #vergil #dante #dmc5 dante #dmc5 nero #original character #dmc5 kyrie #nero

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rosesnvines · 4 years

Photo

Hi @niazelki!! I’m your Secret Santa!! I did not do this lovely piece of art, I commissioned it from the ever so talented @Nyastyle from DeviantArt, and wrote this short story to go with it. I did post it on DeviantArt as well. Hope you enjoy!! @idyllchatter-plance-and-kallura

Pidge let out a sigh. Beezer came rushing to her and a worried expression appeared on his screen. The two were in Pidge’s room and Pidge was curled up on her bed.

“Hey Beezer, I’m . . .” She paused. Should she say exactly what was going through her mind or lie? She sighed, Beezer was a robot, but it would be nice to talk to someone. “Beezer, are you recording?”

Beezer shook his head.

“Ok, do not record this, I just want to get it off my chest.” Beezer watched her as she took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Lance . . . I like Lance, a lot. I think, I think maybe even love him.”

Beezer let out an understanding beep.

“Wait, you knew?”

Beezer nodded.

“Really? I didn't think I ever showed an interest in Lance.” She smiled. “But you do know me pretty well. Then you'll understand that I, I wanted . . . I wanted to . . .”. Tears began filling in her eyes. “I wanted to be the girl Lance asked out, not Allura!” The tears fell. “I-I mean, Allura’s great, don't get me wrong, and, everyone should like her, but, but I wanted it to be me!” She placed her head in her lap and sobbed. “I wanted it to be me! But I should have known, I really should have, Lance only notices the pretty girls. I'm just not that pretty.” She chuckled as the tears continued to fall. “I mean, he didn't even know I was a girl until I told him! He can be so dense!” She paused as the tears slowed. She wiped her eyes, sniffled, and then wiped her nose. “Yeah, yeah, he can be really dense, and an idiot, and a show off, but, but he's fun to be around. He’s nice, and caring, a great listener. And he is cute.” She giggled as she blushed. “Those blue eyes of his . . . I always feel like I'm flying, or swimming. I just, I just feel so free when I look into them.” She picked up a mermaid plushie and fiddled with the arms. She looked up at a picture of a sunset. “I just wish he would look at me the way he looks at her.”

Beezer let out a sad beep.

Pidge patted his head. “It’s Ok, this is only a relationship. Hey, he could still look at me that way, I just . . . I just need to give him time.” She rubbed her chin. “Hey Beezer, could you go take a picture of them on their date?

Beezer gave her a surprised beep.

She chuckled. “I know, I know, I just poured out my whole heart to you, that I want to be the girl going with him to his special place, but, I also want him to be happy. I want them both to be happy. And, I want them to commemorate it. Will you do that for me, please?”

Beezer gave an affirmative beep as he saluted her.

“Thank you.” Pidge watched him go before turning back to the picture of the sunset. “Sure, technology’s no sunset, but it has its purpose. It can capture that sunset and give you something to remember it by.”

...

It had been a few years since they had defeated Honerva, since Voltron was last needed to defeat a great evil, since Lance and Allura broke up. They had spent a good deal of that time trying to bring peace back to the galaxy and help rebuild what had been previously destroyed. Pidge was surprised to see more and more of Lance during that time, but didn’t think much about it outside of enjoying his company. She did note that Hunk and Shay went around doing stuff, so were Keith and Allura, and Shiro was going around with that guy whose name she couldn’t remember. Romelle was helping Coran with the Alteans, the three former generals of Lotor were working with the Galra, and her own brother Matt was off traveling with Rolo and Nyma. Pidge enjoyed every minute that they spent together, but didn’t want to push her luck. Besides, there were other things on her mind. So when Lance suggested a return to Earth for a quick vacation, she jumped at it. A vacation sounded like a good idea.

After going through the usual check-ins, check-ups, and catch-ups, Lance pulled her to the side.

“Hey, I, I was wondering if you could come with me somewhere?”

“Uh, sure, I guess,” Pidge replied with a shrug.

“Tonight, meet me at Red.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow. “Uh, Ok . . .”

“Great!! See you tonight!” He gave her a quick hug before dashing away. She watched him leave, blinking in confusion. Where exactly did he want to go? She shrugged and went about other things before getting ready to go.

Later that night, Green landed near Red. Lance was lounging against his lion, watching the sun set. He was wearing his old blue and white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, but the way the lighting was, Pidge thought he was the most handsome she had ever seen him. She blushed as butterflies filled her stomach, but quickly got rid of the feeling by the time she exited her lion to meet up with him.

He smiled at her, and the butterflies returned. “Great, you made it!”

Pidge scoffed. “I told you I would come.”

Lance ran his fingers through his hair as he chuckled. “Yeah, you did. Now, um, do you want to follow me, or just come with me in Red?”

Pidge’s eyebrow went up as she blinked. “Uh, does it matter?”

Lance shrugged. “No, not really, but, I would prefer it if we just took one Lion, doesn’t make sense to have both.”

Pidge shrugged. “I mean, you have a point, if anything were to go wrong, we can get back here pretty quick, and I can call on Green.”

It was Lance’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Is there really anything wrong going on at the moment?”

Pidge chuckled. “True, but you never know.”

He laughed. “Good point. So, what shall it be . . .”

Pidge blinked at the cutting off mid sentence, but when he didn’t say anything else, she shrugged again. “I guess we can go in Red.”

He grinned. “Great, come on!” He grabbed her hand and the two dashed into the Lion’s mouth. Lance sat down at the controls and they took off. Pidge let out a soft giggle. Sure, they had done things together while no one else was around before, but this felt different, and she was liking it.

“So, where are we going?” she asked.

He smirked. “You’ll see. Just wait.”

“What? Why can’t you tell me now?”

“Because it’s a surprise,” was his reply. She pestered him some more, but couldn’t get any more than that out of him. The more she got more grumpy, the more excited he seemed to get.

Finally, they landed, though it had only been a couple of minutes away from the garrison. Lance grabbed Pidge’s hand and walked like he was on cloud nine.

“Ok, seriously, where are we going?” asked Pidge with a laugh as she allowed herself to be led around a park.

He glanced back long enough to shoot her a grin. “You’ll see, just wait!” They walked through a grove of trees before lance came to a stop at the base of the largest one. Pidge raised her eyebrow. This tree looked rather familiar. Where had she seen it before? Lance let out a sigh and pulled out a picture. Then it hit Pidge, this was the same place Lance took Allura out on their first date! The picture was of that moment, Lance and Allura standing in front of the tree. Pidge’s heart went into her throat. Lance sighed. “Yeah, I miss her, and I really wanted her to be the one, but . . . well, as you could tell it didn’t work out.” He looked at Pidge, a sad smile on his face. “I’m really happy for them.”

Pidge chuckled nervously. “Right. Who knew a TV show caught on that they were best for each other?”

Lance chuckled. “Yeah, I really should have paid more attention . . . to a lot of things.” His hand went through his hair. Pidge followed it with her eyes, wishing that could have been her hand. “And well, now I realize that she wasn’t the one for me, because there’s this girl who is.”

Pidge’s heart just about stopped. Who was this girl? “Y-yeah? What’s she like?”

Lance glanced up at the tree, a soft smile on his face. “She’s really smart, kind, and is very passionate about her work. She puts the needs of others first, and, well, she’s just awesome! And pretty too. I should have noticed before, but I think I let my starry eyed crush get the best of me instead of allowing myself to actually fall in love. Though, in a way, I did fall in love while I had that crush on the Princess, without knowing it.”

Pidge turned her head to hide her tears. “Then why didn’t you invite her here?”

“But I did.” Pidge’s head snapped back to Lance, eyes widening. She barely dared to hope, but he was looking at her earnestly. “That’s why I asked you here, Pidge, I, uh, I wanted to ask you out. I mean, sure, this isn’t the same way that I asked Allura out, but, this just felt right, because you’re the right one for me.” He looked back down at the picture. “And, well, to let you know that I have finally let go of Allura.” He stuffed the picture back in his pocket and scratched his head. “Ok, that didn’t quite come out the way I wanted it to, but it also wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.” He grinned sheepishly. “That must have sounded stupid.”

Pidge laughed as the tears came down. “That’s because you are stupid.”

“Hey!”

Pidge ran into his arms and wrapped her arms around his neck. “But you’re my idiot, and I love you!”

“I don't know if I should be happy or insulted,” said Lance.

“Don't be insulted, you just try too hard. You're really not that stupid.”

Lance scoffed. “Oh, good to know.” But then he chuckled and returned the hug. “But right now, I’m the happiest man alive!” He kissed her.

#Plance #plancekallurawinterevent #niazelki

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nvzblgrrl · 4 years

Text

On the subject of old fics 1

Allegedly, A Gentleman’s Tale (published 1-6-2012) was my first fanfic ever (again, allegedly - will explain after a bit). It only exists now as a private copy at least one person has saved and a capture on the WayBackMachine (which thankfully covered the whole ten chapters of it), because I have a habit of... deleting stories that embarrass me after the fact. It’s something I’m trying to break myself of, mostly because there are a number of people who do enjoy my work even if most of what I see in it are the flaws and I would feel bad about taking away something they enjoyed.

The ‘allegedly’ part comes in in that, based on my memories of my One Piece OCs and stories (along with more concrete evidence from my tumblr), I had a few OCs with snippets of story (with one who had at least a few chapters worth of story that I have memorized in broad strokes) attached that preceded that by at least one or two years, even though the description of ‘my first fic’ was in the synopsis of the fic as it was posted. Unfortunately, it’s hard to trace that information thanks to the ‘destroy all the evidence of me embarrassing myself’ habit (I completely deactivated my deviantart account on account of ‘cringe’, that’s how bad it got) and the passage of time making it unclear which mutuals might have been around at that time or if they even remember those things.

Now, I still have the computers that I typed up those stories on (they’re hanging out in my basement), but - they haven’t worked in quite a while. I’m not sure if they’re completely bricked or not, but I haven’t had anything to do with them for a while and I know that at least one of them was replaced because it refused to turn on anymore. Someday, I might get the chance to pull out their hard-drives and get a look at the data there, but that’s not a ‘now’ solution so...

Anyway - got a bit distracted there -, thanks to the power of the WayBackMachine, I was able to reread this specific fic in its entirety.

‘A Gentleman’s Tale’ was a little thing that was pretty much Brook backstory wrapped up in the framing device of Luffy wanting a story to help him get to sleep. I was 18, had maybe a year or two of creative writing experience/interest under my belt, and a whole lot of Soul King Stan energy to spend on my favorite character despite being at the tail end of my high school career.

Surprisingly, it was not entirely awful for an alleged ‘first attempt’. The formatting was a little eh, the pacing was borked, and a lot of characters were fairly flat (and a few leaned too hard on certain stereotypes while a lot had Western order names for some reason), but other than that, it was actually palatable. Ten chapters, about 8000 words, not a whole lot to write home about or find objectionable outside of the odd grammatical error and the fact that alcohol is mentioned in almost. every. single. chapter.

Seriously, I have no idea why that was a thing for me 2012-2013ish (it ended up in Witt and Witticism a little bit - more heavily on the rewrites that never took off back in the day but a little present in the original too). I was 18-19. I’d never had alcohol. I still haven’t had alcohol. I’d never really been around drinking at that age, socially or not, beyond like, enjoying brew fries and eating chicken tenders at a bar one time because my shit father wanted to have lunch there for some reason. I just guess that I woke up at the start of 2012 and thought Drink Mixing and Booze were interesting things.

The story wasn’t much to write home about, but the characters are the real area of interest here, so let’s cover them and a few of my plans for handling them in the rewrite.

Brook - Starts out his backstory being seasick, gets to have five decent minutes when he meets Yorki, and then is immediately shoved into the wall-to-wall shitshow that’s his life as the battle convoy captain and resident responsible adult, despite 70% of the convoy being at least ten to fifteen years older than him. Somehow that makes his interest in getting black out drunk almost every single night sound reasonable. Seriously, that’s what he was doing in that story, according to what happened almost every other chapter of the fic (because pacing is for writers on their third or fourth story). That’s one reason why the timeline is being stretched out in the rewrite plans - so we don’t kill the main character through alcohol poisoning (though with the kind of stress he was under in that original cut, I can’t blame him for trying - he got saddled with three weird + constantly fighting teenagers and a dying military organization, snubbed by the king, publicly embarrassed in front of 90% of the kingdom’s nobility, and so on in the course of two to three days max). Honestly, in retrospect, I’m not sure how well this plays with the framing device of Brook relating his backstory 62 years later, because he should have lost so many brain cells to this nonsense.

Yorki - Starts his introduction by saying ‘hey, my name’s Yorki, i’m close, bi, and willing to take you on a whirlwind adventure literally two seconds after meeting you’ which Brook immediately responds to as the best thing that’s happened to him in the last (and probably next) month. Probably the only person in Brook’s life as of the fic not stressing him out or enabling his self-destructive coping habits, though that doesn’t stop him from being one of the better things Brook woke up to after one of his blackout drinking nights. Also got an incredibly shitty nickname thanks to me not knowing how that sort of thing works from his mom. In the rewrite, he’s from Ohio (because I and my Middle-Ground lingering Self-Insert are from Michigan and the opportunity for a struggle between ‘hey we’ve both being isekai’d into this weird place and have similar backgrounds/music tastes so we’re going to hang together based on that’ and ‘200 year old inter-state hatred turned into over the top sports rivalry and disliking the other state on principle’ was too good to pass up).

Luchere Gregg (Gregg being her surname) - junior member of the battle convoy. Incredibly thorny and violent personality, with very little respect for authority (outside of her father, probably) and a generally superior attitude towards literally everyone except her father, especially when she perceived someone as being weak and ‘uppity’ at the same time - Maysure was the main target of this (as was intended at the time of the writing), but considering that Luchere was taking a similar tone with Brook (which was probably intended to be for different reasons, but honestly reads very similarly almost ten years on, given that Brook’s everything is very much not in line with her ideal anything) but not Hana (who was ‘weak’ but definitely not trying to mess with Luchere’s preferred social order), I think I can get more development out of her in that dimension. Her everything was probably was cool and badass back when I was 18, but now she just strikes me as petulant and unpleasant brat.

Minalee Hana - Generic smart guy of the junior team, complete with ‘shy’ personality and ‘harmless cute’ look... which, in retrospect, makes it really confusing why she’d join a military force in the first place and just raises suspicions on the fact that she did. Honestly she could be a Government plant and I wouldn’t be surprised. Another ‘problem’ with Hana is that she was based on someone I was friends with at the time I wrote the fic, which kinda ended up helping me dislike her a lot on more recent rereads, just because of the nature of that real world ‘friendship’ and the way it blew up in the end (with a whole lot of ugly reveals along the way that went back to pretty much when I first met that person).

Maysure Semenov Tara Su-all Evony Taebory Celeste - was originally a parody of the Mary Sue archetype, as you may have guessed from the name. Flashy, overeager, desperate for acknowledgement, and not quite managing to act in ways appropriate to her age (15, directly stated in text), either being too cutesy with her speech pattern and body language or dressing in ways that would be suited for a very different profession than soldier. I ended up liking her the most out of the junior trio out on my most recent rereads, just because she’s the only member of the group that’s actually making an effort at anything (well, beyond Luchere being hostile + trying to make Brook leave), doesn’t go out of her way to be hostile or destructive, and isn’t vaguely there in a way that makes me suspicious. Apparently was the only one of the junior trio ever stated to have weapons training (with Luchere being an unarmed fighter and Hana... just being there) and was apparently dedicated enough to it to have the schedule for the different training drills memorized.

Captain Gregg - the former captain of the battle convoy. He was never seen, only ever referenced in the fic. Based on the content, he was pretty much Luchere 1.0 - crass, unpleasant, violent, and without a lot of tolerance for those that couldn’t deal with or keep up with the unfortunate matter of his everything. The notes on rewrite so far have him becoming a lot more pleasant and lot less generally awful person, though still a bit of a roughneck and unpleasant to be around if you aren’t cut from the same cloth or a similar weave. Was not inspired by Captain Clegg until I started imbibing pop culture in preparation for the various parts of the project.

Jeevenine - quartermaster of the battle convoy, bartender, and carrier of heavy butler vibes, which feels like it might have been intentional. Said to be a master of ‘improvisation combat’ but honestly seems to be the person most likely to have taught Brook his style of fencing (based on his speed and precision being noted as something Brook had difficulty keeping up with in text) and his gentlemanly ways, considering every other character I wrote into the convoy is some flavor of hot mess and either a bruiser or a gunman. Still loses points for enabling Brook’s blackout drinking habits and being passive-aggressive instead of properly helpful.

Jack Rackum and John Delacroix - sniper-spotter pair, as indicated by their nicknames of ‘Windward’ and ‘Leeward’ respectively. Highly implied to be in a long-standing romantic relationship with each other or at least in a long-term holding pattern of pining. Delacroix’s tendency to sleep in the nude is used as half of a ‘my eyes’ joke that Brook is the victim of (the other half is Maysure’s chosen nightclothes being both stereotypical of a ‘Mary Sue’ and vastly age inappropriate, which is a running gag with her). Rackum gets the most description out of the set, with his brown leather hat and green-grey hair being mentioned, along with his taste for fruity cocktails (he might also be an alcoholic, which isn’t really all that remarkable in this fic).

Kurotora Ren - Big Guy McHugeBeef. Also the guy responsible for keeping the battle convoy awash in homebrew booze. Almost kills Brook by accident during his introduction by clapping him on the back at the exact wrong moment. Doesn’t have a lot more detail than that, mostly because he slides into the background after that brief focus moment, but I like him for being genuinely sorry about the near-death thing on top of being friendly for real and not being duplicitous about his wants + thoughts.

Zest - noble. Stupid. Probably the closest thing that Brook has to a friend in his actual age range at the start of the story, which is really fucking sad considering Zest’s everything and the fact that Brook doesn’t enjoy his company at all. Somehow when I was 18, the idea of a guy who spent most of his time in some state of wasted and trying to get his ‘friend’ (who doesn’t even like him that much but seems to tolerate him more than literally everyone else Zest ever interacted with who wasn’t being paid) into a similar condition because of unrequited love or something was tragi-cute-slash-funny instead of pathetic and faintly disturbing (though I guess I might end up writing him as tragic again anyway just because it probably takes Some Shit to make a person like that). Spent 90% of his screen time in the old story making Brook’s life inconvenient and the remaining 10% fully aware that his own life is going nowhere. His personality is oddly similar to Maysure’s, which is... interesting, implications-wise. Holy Shit, is this guy going to be a trip to work with as an adult.

#the big fat one piece fic project #talking about old fic #a gentleman's tale #my writing #if you have any questions about this or other fic i've done feel free to fire away

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mooncyder · 5 years

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I ain't posted in ages, cos I wanted to make sure this character was perfect but uh yeah,

This is Malmoppet

She is a twin of another warder I'm doing as part of a collab, she is a puppeteer, and she can masterfully manipulate stuffed animals, several at a time. she can do this to pretty much any stuffed animal, but the ones she brings from home, Jackie, Ace&Tooth and Moe provide more than enough utility and aces up the sleeve for it to be necessary. If she does need to get her hands dirty for whatever reason she has basically a mixture of a skipping rope, some puppet Crosses and a hag stone for a potent flail.

They're pretty broody, especially after being separated from their sister, and are incredibly secluded, quite litterally letting her puppets talk for her with ventriloquism. She can also see through their Dark, beady eyes.

Jackie in particular often comes off so differently and nothing like them , that people believe they're entirely separate from moppet and sentient. Jackie is also often the most people will see of her, doing most things in her place with a snarky attitude to boot.

Originally this was a design for a collab warder, but they said nah because the idea for it would be repeating something they already had. And I have a real habit of not letting a nice design go to waste, so they got a rename and get to stay with me, this is why one of the images has Annette instead of Malmoppet

Inspiration for Malmoppet is a variety of gothic vibes, some bunraku puppeteer vibes and general broodiness, and I always think misery from Ruby Gloom, but can't see much of a connection myself

For their puppetry it's a mix of Kankuro, the rope snake from mother 3, and an old picture of a stuffed bear with a sword and shield protecting a kiddo, by a fella on deviantart (begemott) that plus I really enjoyed designing them some unique puppets to go with it, and I could design loads of em without breaking the character too much

That being said for rollcall

We have Jackie-Lope, a stuffed rabbit that goes anywhere that Malmoppet goes, and often where she doesn't. A mixture of a protector, assistant and fashion accessory, a lot of their inspiration was originally just based off one of those backpacks you can get that look like a rabbit. For fighting the ears unzip and fold back, like a lop eared rabbit, and reveal a pair of silver pronghorns underneath, they also have retractable claws, and a potent mixture of warding herb extracts in a chest cavity to be broken in special occasions

Unlike the others Jackie appears to have some real personality, they're very much inspired personality and concept wise by a mix of Max the rabbit, Conkey from trailer park Boys and angel bunny. It's Malmoppet playing a character and it's pretty much 90% of any socialising she gets, it's a lot less anxiety filled when you're not there in person. Jackie appears to do much of the legwork on behalf of moppet, along with general mischief and occasionally returning back smelling faintly of whiskey (apparently it was a belief that jackalopes could be caught easier by leaving them whiskey to drink, thought it fit the character)

Next up are Tooth and Ace, a two headed serpent.

One head (ace) spits warding herb oils, preferably into the eyes of hags, the other head (tooth) removes aforementioned eyes. Together they constrict and incapacitate hags, it's a pretty rough way to go. No real inspirations for these fellas, apart from the constricting extending being like those water houses that fold up, despite being more like a vacuum hose. Obviously the pun is two face, and the two on the rare occasions they're actually seen about (only Jackie is really seen wandering about usually) they'll give an angel devil on the shoulder sorta interaction

Finally rounding it out is Moe-Honk

Moe is basically just a nightmare creature

A mixture of the intimidating wingspan and assholeishness of geese, and the brutally tough build of a Cassowary, dagger talons included.

Their weaponry includes a large dagger like claw on each foot, I ain't sure if you can disembowel a hag but at this point it's just a matter of time. They also have an axe like Casque atop their head, likely why their name is a pun on Mohawk, but with more asshole geese.

Finally their ace in the sleeve, their large wingspan contains a couple of large shear like blades on each wing, snapping together to sever whatever is between them.

It's a pretty tough piece of poultry. While the obvious first assumption would be hurr goose game, it wouldve likely turned out the same regardless. Geese are assholes, and any opportunity to weaponise them is a great idea. Cassowarys are just fucking brutal aswell, and having a bird would fill the cast out quite well, plus neither Jackie or two face are really suited for an extended physical engagement, whereas the brick shithouse that is Moe revels in it

Moe doesn't speak, only honks, and generally somethings going awfully wrong if they're seen outside of a fight.

This post is already huge, and it doesn't even explain a bunch of things, like how does she do the ventriloquism and puppetry (anything with one of those spiral lollipops stuck to its fur can be easily puppeted and seen through, and be communicated through while Malmoppet has one in her mouth, though she can't communicate herself during), her rank (she should definitely be a bishop, but the puppets don't answer the question and most warders are content to give moppet the comfort of not pestering) and the collab warder (its a surprise, I hope) but I've already been writing this for like an hour, so I'm done for now unless anyone has any questions lmao

Thanks for attending my ramble, I'm super grateful

#Hagwarders #Malmoppet #Puppeteer #Jackalope #Puppets #New warder #Giant text box #im super proud of it #Pls no bulli

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armaina · 6 years

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I've been on the internet for about 22 years, and in that time I've used an absurd amount of art galleries. In light of this, I thought it might be of interest to myself and also others, that I list all these services I've used and write up a little blurb about the service and/or my experiences with it. It won't be any kind of structured review just blurbs, a little bit history, a little bit opinion piece. The sites are listed in (mostly) chronological order, ones that are still around will be linked and all sites with a ø symbol are dead. I'll be updating this page over time as I use more sites so that I can have a quick reference to everything I've used at any time.

øElfwood: The first ever art gallery I ever had and very likely the first gallery for others, I'd go as far as to say it is what made the concept of the social online art gallery a thing at all. It was a form of Juried site though, at the time it was the first and only of it's kind. All submissions had to be reviewed by a person, and while that meant it was easier to prevent stealing, it also made keeping a gallery up to date, very frustrating and it also prevented several subjects from appearing on the site at all. I uploaded fantasy art and started my presence as an online illustrator, sharing with other artists. While the site managed to last long past its relevance, the interface hardly changed and its attempts to make a new layout came far too late in its life cycle and the much complained about art screening never really got addressed making it slowly more irrelevant as more options started to appear. I tried to stay with this site for as long as it persisted until it's final days if nothing else because it was the one that started it all.

VCL: It's amazing that this site still persists, to this day. The site is simple, offers no engagement features at all. It looks like a lot of the users that haven't used the site in some time have been purged, but you could still use it if you really wanted. Illustrative works only, no photography, though I think you can upload text files.

øMediaMiner: The first real 'general art site' I encountered in late 1999. I used this pretty extensively at the time, as it was easier to use than both Elfwood and VCL, and also didn't have restrictions on the subject matter I could have.

DeviantArt: Joined in 2002, it's continued to be a mainstay in my work. Like media-miner, it aimed to be a big catch-all art website, not only that it also permitted written works, design, skins, crafts, just about any kind of art and design that had been neglected by anything available (and is often still neglected in many as you'll see). Due to its ability to house all many different types of creative works, easy to use interface, the ability to discover and engage in ways no other place I had used at the time, it grew very quickly. It set the standard for what was expected from art gallery options from then on out and continues to do so. RSS feeds for all galleries and favorites, the ability to watch favorites, drag and drop organization, folders and nested folders for organization, comment management, dedicated critique commenting, groups, easy thumbnail use in comments, this is just a fraction of the type of features DeviantArt has pioneered and influenced other art sites after it. It is the largest gallery archive of mine apart from my personal archive and will remain to be one of my first choices in what I decide to keep up to date and I'll probably keep it going until it no longer exists. About the only type of file it doesn't out-right support is audio, it remains one of the only sites to cover the most bases. (this is due to a sister site dmusic being prevalent at the time of Deviantart's development)

øSheezyArt: DA made some change and people were upset so they made Sheezy Art. It had this reputation for being the more.. drama filled version of deviant art. It permitted mature content in the beginning but then banned it 2 years later (this lead to the creation of FurAffinity) It had all the features DeviantArt did due to it being pretty much a code fork of DA's old code base, and its only real selling point was that you could customize all the colors on your page. But it's lack of management, updates and features just made people go back to DeviantArt and it eventually folded after empty promises of a rebuild.

Newgrounds: Most people had known this place for its flash games, as did I, but I discovered it had a very nice and genuinely helpful artist community on the forums. Only recently has the site expanded to permit more than 4 tags an image, but the upload system, in general, is awkward. It also has a rating system if that's something someone might be interested in. Illustrative works only, no photography, no literary works. Porn allowed.

øStorm-Artists: Also started as a sort of DeviantArt alternative, I honestly don't even know their angle or what made them feel like they could have their own place on the internet and others I think felt the same as it languished with no real updates and eventually died.

FurAffinity: So I've effectively used this site, twice. The first time in its first iteration before it had a huge major security issue that brought it down, making the original owner give it up. And then again years later I tried it one more time only for another security problem to happen. The site is old and archaic, lacking in features and its only benefit is that it's consistently trafficked. I'll never touch the site again until certain key players in FA are replaced. Many forms of Photography are restricted, not really a good place for design work, no video support. Porn allowed.

øFurry Art Pile: Genuinely liked this site, A lot of people did. In 2006 was the first tag heavy oriented art gallery of it's kind and not only did it use tags it was the first one I remember that had tag filtering. It was easy to upload and manage, so between those features, it became incredibly popular and still gets regarded as a site people wish had stuck around, even now. It's sad to say that it took about 10 years for the concept of tag filtering at all to catch on just about anywhere. To this day only Weasyl and a paid Pixiv account have functional, multi-tag filtering.

øJaxPad/ArtSpots: Started out as 2 sites, merged into one. One site was supposed to be one anyone could use, while the other was intended to be Juried like the old Yerf gallery. They had even imported all the old Yerf art with the original creators blessing. But volunteer support faded and it died due to being unable to not having the people to keep up with adding features and changes to the site.

øArt Piles: A revival of the Furry Art Pile code, it had the features people wanted but also ultimately tanked due to just the singular coder.

øPortalGraphics Network: This was a fairly niche gallery, as it was intended for users to post their openCanvas proprietary event files. The cool thing about it was that it would convert the files into a video format that would allow users to see the full progress of the work being done. You could even download those event files yourself to see them within openCanvas for personal study.

øFurocity: Another one of those 'more social media site than art gallery' sites. I used it for a time, gave a lot of direct feedback to the owner, but the site eventually was closed and merged with FurAffinity.

Paper Demon: Most people haven't heard of this site before, and for good reason - it's pretty unremarkable. One of the interesting features is that it has a strong distinction between its adult and clean sections of the site but otherwise there isn't much more going for it. It still exists and I've hardly touched it. Illustration and Literary focused, no photography, no audio or video support. Porn allowed.

Weasyl: It's actual inception came about by a person that was just looking to get rich off of providing 'a better FurAffinity'. Later on, the person who started the site left, and the administration staff that did any of the real work, remained. It had a strong few years where it kept on top of its updates and features but it has since languished, with hardly any real updates at all and no new features and a lead developer that doesn't seem to trust the artist base, it's difficult to say how long the site will last. It's the only other site apart from Nabyn at this time with a Character Profile feature and the only other site apart from Pixiv to have tag filtering. Restrictions on photography, no video support. Porn allowed.

øNabyn: Nabyn's effect and impact felt very similar to Furry Art Pile and it exploded in popularity quite quickly despite requiring a key to make an account. It had a robust character system that seemed to be the inspiration for many others after it. It also boasted a weird separate scrapbook feature that functioned more like blog/forum posts than an individual gallery. The site barely lasted a year before the owner shut it down due to being unable to keep up with the development of the site.

Wysp: An extremely easy-to-use site, doesn't require much for a new submission and has a Kudos feature that is a separate feature from likes, similar to AO3's Kudos feature. Its aim is to try to drive people to be motivated to draw and gives daily challenges and encouragement along with a critique feature. It also has the ability to thank people for comments, a sort of 'hey I read this' recognition which is nice for those short comments you don't know what to do about. However, it's only geared toward illustrative types of art. Illustrative works only, no photography, no audio, no video no literary works.

Pixel Joint: It does one thing and does it very well - host pixel art. It also provides a lot of resources and tools on techniques for making pixel art. However the community itself is not kind, it's elitist and gate-keeping. Which is a shame because it's platform allows you to zoom in on pixel art without requiring the artist to upload pre-upscaled images. It's the best site there is for showcasing pixel art, and that's about it.

Furry Network: I made an account, saw it was owned by Bad-Dragon, then simply filled in a few info bits in my profile and haven't touched it since, don't plan to. Whatever features it has I don't know, because I have no desire to use it.

ArtStation: the answer to the loss of CGHub, except it's better managed than CG hub and has a better interface. It features image stacks - multiple images posted in a single page, and a huge amount of resources and tools for employers to find work and artists to look for work themselves. Though it reads like a site that's only for 'professionals' the truth is, it has no restrictions on the skill level of a person to participate on the site. I think more people should use it, and just get over the fear that it's a 'professional' site. They offer a lot of good resources and the image stacks feature is so dang nice. Visual art and design only, restrictions of photography, no audio, no video, no literary works.

Pixiv: A completely viable gallery, I simply have not used it for myself. It has an English interface but most of its users do not speak English and it is a Japanese run website. Its organization is largely tag focused and it boasts an incredibly robust tag explanation and directory and is a feature I hope some English site adopts one day as this helps keeps tags organized and accurate. It also has an image stack upload feature, and as I'm aware was the first site to implement such a feature, it also now has manga submission support for an e-reader like features on the site. Other fun features are Image Responses, where you can make a submission a direct response to another submission, and reaction images you can use similar to emotes. You can follow people privately and it keeps likes and bookmarks separate from each other, rather than the same thing. Illustrative works only, no photography, no audio, no video no literary works. Porn allowed.

New Sites:

Furrylife Online: This is only just barely starting out, I don't have a lot of feelings on it yet but I'm talking to some of the people involved in its creation. It's a sort of Social Network Art Gallery hybrid much like Furry Network, except run by better people and already has a nicer interface. Also added a new character feature, making it the second only existing art community to have a dedicated character feature section apart from Weasyl. While it does not have tag filtering at this time, there are plans to add it. Only types of formats not supported at this time seem to be possibly photography, unsure about design work. Porn allowed.

ArtRise: The site isn't even completed yet, not even in beta.

Honorable Mentions:

øHumbleVoice: It was kinda like a social networking art site? I used it for a time, it was kinda mellow and nice. Kinda miss the chill introspective feel.

øzeros2heroes: This started as some strange social media promotion to promote the comic and eventual reboot of Reboot. It tried to find talent for the new works on the site and ultimately flopped. It now remains as a front end site for a production team.

I do not include sites like Instagram and Tumblr in my assessment as they are not dedicated art galleries.

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frankly-art · 6 years

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Frankly-Art’s Top 10 Video Games of 2018

Also available to read on my deviantArt!

With every New Year comes another year’s worth of video games to look forward to, and 2019 promise to be a good one in that regard: the release of Kingdom Hearts III is only days away, Piranha Plant and Joker are certain to be innovative and entertaining additions to the Smash Ultimate roster, Animal Crossing is coming to the Switch… and those mark only a small fraction of the many things 2019 has in store for us in terms of gaming. Amid all of this hype, I got to thinking about the varied gameplay experiences I had over the past year; so, I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any for me to reflect on them with a bit of a critical eye and definitively rank each of the video games I managed to get to during 2018!

Keep in mind while reading that, even though this is a list featuring games I played in 2018, many of these games were ones released in years past that I never got around to until last year—so, if you were expecting a list of the top 10 games that were released in 2018, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere (but not until after you read my oh-so-important list first! I crave validation!); expect a healthy mix of new and old titles in the list below. Additionally, this list will rank downloadable content (DLC) separately from standalone titles, as I don’t find it fair to compare a DLC add-on to a fully-fledged game. I’ll be weighing the score of each DLC depending on how well it improves and expands upon the narrative and gameplay of its original game.

Without further ado (and with no better means of transitioning from this introduction to the list itself than to use a somewhat tired expression in the realm of video games), let’s-a go! (Please forgive me.)

-SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT-

Favorite Characters: Revali, Urbosa, Kass Favorite Tracks: Monk Maz Koshia (all phases)

It might come as somewhat of a shock that a game with “Breath of the Wild” in its title would rank lowest on my list, but hear me out: no matter how much fun it was to be able to return to Hyrule in this DLC expansion, in my opinion, Champions’ Ballad just felt like more of the same of what we got in the main game.

Despite the nigh perfection that was Breath of the Wild, I have to agree with critics who said that the lack of aesthetic variation between segments of dungeon crawling and puzzle solving was a monotonous bore when compared to the varied themes and aesthetics of the dungeons in Zelda games past, and Champions’ Ballad did nothing to vary the atmosphere in its new shrines and dungeon from those of the main game. This disappointment was compounded with the fact that Champions’ Ballad added no new weapons to your arsenal (aside from a risky-to-use fork that functioned virtually like every other sword in the game) to allow for new types of puzzle solving or exploration. The unicorn motorcycle was certainly a cool reward for completing the DLC (the fact that I got to write the words “unicorn” and “motorcycle” next to each other is reward enough), but I had very little use for it since I’d already combed through the entirety of Hyrule during my first playthrough of the game. I simply believe it would have been nice for Champions’ Ballad to have given players something a little fresher to explore, even if it were just an aesthetic change of scenery.

I had also hoped that Champions’ Ballad might have expanded on the lore sprinkled throughout Hyrule and, even though we learned more about the four champions, I was a little let down that they didn’t really expand on anything else (Why can’t I climb to the top of Mount Agaat? Why does the entirety of the Akkala region fill me with a confusing sense of serene dread?? What the hell happened at the Typhlo Ruins???) I appreciate that, by not explaining everything, Nintendo give players the chance to interpret these things for themselves, but, when compared to the lore provided in previous Zelda games, I feel as though Champions’ Ballad fell short in fleshing out the history of this ruined Hyrule.

Favorite Characters: Prompto, Ignis Favorite Tracks: A Retainer’s Resolve, Apocalypsis Magnatus

Given how much of a beautiful mess Final Fantasy XV was upon its initial release, it’s certainly a consolation to the main game to see how well Square Enix supplemented its (rather disjointed) story and expanded upon its (frankly, lacking) gameplay through its various DLC expansion chapters featuring Noctis’ loyal Chocobros. And while I may not love Ignis quite as much as other chocobros like Prompto or Noctis, Episode Ignis was definitely an engaging and welcome addition to the enigma that is the Final Fantasy XV.

Particular highlights of Episode Ignis include its soundtrack, which features a heroic leitmotif for Ignis that really underscores the dire circumstances he and his teammates find themselves in during this segment of the story, and its addition of gameplay modes (Motorboat Simulator 2018 being one of them) are a welcome change of pace to the somewhat rudimentary battle and exploration systems found in the main game. However, a point of contention I have with Episode Ignis is with its narrative: while I appreciate that this DLC chapter finally explains how Ignis becomes blind, its multiple endings completely undermine the storyline of the main game itself. Does Ignis’ sacrifice save Noctis from having to make a sacrifice of his own in order to save the world? Does Ignis regain his sight after Noctis defeats Ardyn? Do Noctis and Luna finally realize that they’d be better off with other people (as it’s obvious that Noctis is already too preoccupied with his three boyfriends to make room for anyone else)? I need answers, Square!

Favorite Characters: Elizabeth, Atlas/Frank Fontaine Favorite Tracks: Patsy Cline – She’s Got You, Johnny Mathis – Wonderful! Wonderful!

I claimed to be a fan of the BioShock series for so long, even though I’d only ever played the first game in the series until the summer of 2017 when I finally bought a PS4 and, with it, the BioShock Collection. Now, I can call myself a fan of the series without reservation, having explored and discovered all that Rapture and Columbia have to offer. To me, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episodes 1 & 2 are a love letter to the entire series itself, featuring elements from the three main-series games and tying together each of their narratives (save for maybe BioShock 2, which is absolutely criminal, considering 2 is my favorite game in the series) in a way that, while forced in some aspects, felt like Ken Levine actually cared about clearing up some of the more confusing questions that remained at the end of BioShock: Infinite.

Burial at Sea really came into itself during Episode 2, where gameplay was switched up to feature more fleshed-out stealth mechanics that made sneaking around Rapture and Columbia both exhilarating and terrifying. It was also refreshing to be able to finally take control of Elizabeth, one of the most iconic characters of the series after the Big Daddies of BioShocks 1 and 2, and learn more of her own personal motivations and desires as she maneuvers through hostile environments. As I already mentioned briefly, I know some took issue with the way Burial at Sea wove the first two BioShock games together with the third, but, considering the mess that was made when BioShock Infinite introduced multiverse science into its mythos (and the narrative mess that Infinite was in general—I took great issue with the way they framed the oppressed populations of Columbia as “just as bad” as the ruling populations simply because they used violence to, you know, try and liberate themselves from their oppression), I feel that Burial at Sea did the best job it could considering that the setting of Infinite differed so greatly from that of the first two games.

Also, fun fact: I studied this game as a part of my Master’s Project and played it through a total of three times: once in English and twice in French! Isn’t academia weird?

Favorite Characters: Rando, Buddy, Vega Van Dam Favorite Tracks: 666 Kill Chop Deluxe, He’s My Dad, Brokentooth March

Anyone who reads TV Tropes is likely familiar with the trope “Gameplay and Story Segregation” and its less-frequent counterpart, “Gameplay and Story Integration”. In the case of LISA: The Joyful, this DLC game (which could practically be its own standalone title if it weren’t for the fact Steam labels it as “DLC” and won’t let you play it without first purchasing LISA: The Painful) absolutely excels in the latter and completely subverts the gameplay mechanics and narrative structure of the base game, and this can all be attributed to the way both games focus on your use of the cure-all drug that makes you feel nothing: Joy.

Indeed, where LISA: The Painful makes you question your use of the drug Joy, LISA: The Joyful (Joyful) is nigh impossible to complete without taking it in nearly every battle after you’re left to your own devices when the muscle of your party abandons you. As anyone who’s played the LISA trilogy will know, Joy is a dangerous substance, mutating its addicts and twisting the minds of anyone who uses it, and that Joy is an integral piece of the trilogy’s social and philosophical commentary on the freedom and restriction of choice, the commitment and devotion one carries for a person or cause, and the inherent, inevitable grey area of any and all actions one may take. Despite these themes, LISA: The Joyful is far from a demoralizing experience: if anything, the way the game simulates the feeling of being backed into a corner and the refusal to give up despite the odds only affirms whatever moral code by which you may already live, or is at least an opportunity to feel relief that you yourself aren’t forced to make such drastic decisions for your own survivability and freedom.

That’s it for the DLC games I played in 2018; now, the real fun begins! Brace yourself for my list of the top standalone titles I played last year!

Favorite Characters: Katie

This game was recommended to me by a friend, and, as much as I wanted to enjoy it, this game wound up being my lowlight of 2018, with its simplistic, seemingly rudimentary gameplay and conspicuous lack of any compelling narrative. Put bluntly, this game was like a forgettable rendition of Animal Crossing, only without any cute animal neighbors to run errands for. The game’s environment threatened absolutely no danger to your player character, yet still didn’t offer any engaging or challenging puzzles to solve to make up for this lack of danger (most “puzzles” involved figuring out how to get to a particular point on the map… and that was it). Despite this being an open-world game that offered endless opportunities for customization, I found myself hurrying to complete the game’s main (5-hour) campaign so I could feel justified to move on to other gaming experiences. The most unfortunate part of this to me is that I know there’s still more to the game’s world for me to explore, but I’m in no way compelled to do so.

In all fairness, though, I think that I’m a little older than the target demographic this game was aiming for. This game was never meant to be challenging or stressful, it was made to be a relaxing escape for anyone looking to pass the time exploring and discovering a beautifully modeled and brightly colored world. This game also wins serious points for inclusivity, especially considering the age group this game was most likely made for; my fondest memory of this game is of a quest where a woman requests that you find her the ingredients to make a potion that stimulates beard growth because she wants to grow a beard of her own, and not once during this campaign is she ridiculed or belittled for wanting one. Since Yonder seems to be a game for kids, I believe quests such as this are an excellent step to socializing them into a world that’s less judgmental and more receptive to other people. So, despite my earlier critiques of this game, Yonder would be a great game to consider if you’re looking for a low-key and off-beat (and all-human) alternative to Animal Crossing.

Favorite Veteran Fighters: Peach, Zelda, Zero Suit Samus Favorite Newcomers: Daisy, Ridley, Richter Favorite Stages: Fountain of Dreams, Fourside, Hyrule Temple Favorite Tracks: All-Star Rest Area (Melee), Destroyed Skyworld, Athletic (Yoshi’s Island)

We all knew another installment in the Smash series was coming ever since the Switch was first announced back in March of 2017. In fact, you might even say that the quality of each console’s iteration of Smash reflects the quality of the console itself, with Melee demonstrating the power and potential of the GameCube, Brawl being a gimmicky romp on an equally gimmicky console, and Wii U/3DS (what a title, right?) completely failing to capture player interest for longer than a few rounds of Smash (the Wii U era feels like a fever dream to me at this point). It’s a letdown, then, that with the Switch being such a commercial and technical success, Smash Ultimate seems somewhat of a disappointment when weighed against the hype that surrounded it up until its release back in early December.

It’s true that Smash Ultimate really delivers in regard to the character roster (everyone is here!) and stage selection (almost everything is here!), but the cuts that were made to series staples like trophies, event matches, and the like, detract from Smash Ultimate becoming the be-all end-all title in the series that it could have been. Trophy mode was where I learned much about video game history and was introduced to obscure series I would have never discovered otherwise, and their replacement with spirits feels a bit cheap, especially since spirits don’t come with any kind of information to contextualize them. Event Matches were hybridized with Melee’s Adventure mode and Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, creating the “World of Light”; while the World of Light has grown on me the more that I play it, it’s somewhat discouraging to me that, by combining so many modes of Smash games past into one, there will be nothing left for me to do with the game once I reach its end.

Still, Smash Ultimate offers plenty to look forward to. I’m more-than-hyped about the additions of Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 to the character roster, and I can’t wait to see who might be announced next (unless it’s another Fire Emblem character… please God [Sakurai] don’t let it be another Fire Emblem character).

Favorite Tracks: The Bridge, Touching the Stars, Up to the Nest

I could never have prepared myself for the beautiful-yet-heart-wrenching experience this game would put me through, but I’m oh-so-glad that it did. On the surface, RiME is a relaxing exploration and puzzle game that takes place in a beautifully rendered in-game world, with a brilliantly orchestrated soundtrack and a plethora of diverse landscapes to get lost in. And yet, every moment of your adventure is permeated by an inescapable sense of isolation and dread, making you ask questions like “Where is everyone?”, “Just who is that man in the red cloak?,” and, “Is he stalking me, or are I stalking him?”.

Indeed, RiME’s narrative unfolds wordlessly as you explore and leaves you to discover and interpret on your own exactly what tragedies transpired before the events of the game, tragedies of which are far more poignant and moving if you were to discover them yourself. I know I’ve put a spoiler warning in effect, but I highly recommend you play this game on your own (or at least watch a decent Let’s Play of it) if you’re curious to know what unfolds during the game’s narrative. RiME is a relatively short game, too, lasting only between 5-10 hours, so it would be an easy one to fit into your queue if you’re looking for a fun gameplay experience with a story that will haunt you for weeks and months on end after completing it.

Favorite Characters: Terry Hintz, Buzzo, Wally Favorite Tracks: Men’s Hair Club, The End is Nigh, Summer Love

Having already talked about this game’s DLC expansion of LISA: The Joyful, you’re already aware that I hold the LISA trilogy in high regard—it also means I can make this entry somewhat brief, since a lot of what I said about Joyful can also be applied to its parent title, LISA: The Painful. You see, it’s in LISA: The Painful where the conflict in Joyful begins, and where we learn more of how the world came to be so depraved after the White Flash, an extinction event that inexplicably killed all women on the planet (at least, as far as the characters in the game know). The game considers what the repercussions of such an event would be on our society (aside from dooming humanity to die off within a generation) and really explores the darkest depths of toxic masculinity to call into question the detrimental effects it has on our self-esteem, our relationships, and our will to survive. Gameplay-wise, it’s a fairly traditional JRPG, though as I mentioned with Joyful, LISA: The Painful integrates its story with its gameplay by permanently increasing (but mainly decreasing) your stats depending on whatever injuries you escape or sustain throughout your journey. All in all, LISA: The Painful is a truly harrowing experience from beginning to end, but a must-play for anyone with an interest in the more macabre aspects of human nature.

Favorite Characters: Aloy, Erend, Vanasha Favorite Tracks: Louder

You know a game’s going to be good when its title screen holds you in awe before even pressing start. Imagine a sunlit vignette over purple mountains and a glistening river, a haunting and triumphant melody underscoring it all, as the title slowly fades into view in white in the center of the screen: Horizon Zero Dawn. O.K., I’m in. This game just did so many things right as an open-world game during an era where the genre was oversaturated by mediocre games that rehashed the same tired tropes and mechanics in its gameplay and world building. Horizon Zero Dawn truly set itself apart from the crowd for a variety of reasons: its beautifully detailed setting (being a microcosmic interpretation of Western North America), its intricate combat system with a graciously forgiving learning curve, and its compelling and socially-conscious narrative all worked together to distinguish this game within the open-world genre.

What really sets this game apart most of all, though, is the game’s protagonist, Aloy: a rare female protagonist who is a breath of fresh air in a sea of male heroes, whose capabilities and intellect don’t come at the cost of her physical appearance and femininity. Aloy set an example for other game developers that female protagonists are more than viable (and are in fact, overdue) in the video games of today, and her status as a female character never felt gratuitous or shoehorned (e.g. Battlefield V’s inclusion of a female protagonist as an enlisted soldier in the British Army and serving in the line of duty during World War II). It’s difficult (read: impossible) to play Horizon Zero Dawn and not fall in love with Aloy for her wit, her strength, and her general stick-to-itiveness in the face of adversity (not to mention, she’s just really cute and knows how to work a belly shirt). With Aloy as the protagonist, you’ll never tire of adventuring through Horizon Zero Dawn’s 70-hours+ worth of gameplay as you explore the in-game world to learn just what happened to “The Old Ones” and their society all those millennia ago.

Favorite Party Members: Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, Makoto Niijima Favorite Confidants: Hifumi Togo, Sadayo Kawakami, Sae Niijima, Toranosuke Yoshida, Chihaya Mifune Favorite Targets/Boss Battles: Ichiryusai Madarame, Kunikazu Okumura, Leviathan, Yaldabaoth Favorite Tracks: Blooming Villain, Rivers in the Desert, A Woman, Aria of the Soul

I’ll bet no one saw this one coming! Just kidding—anyone who’s exchanged more than a few words with me since the fall of 2018 knows how much this game absolutely consumed my life over the span of, I don’t know, I think it was four months? Indeed, I wound up sinking a total of 123 hours into this game, and there’s still a loud part of me that wants to return to it to begin a New Game+ (you’ll even notice that it was too difficult for me to contain my favorite characters into one category, instead having to split them up in order to represent all of my favorites because of how much I love them all). I’m already a fan of JRPGs, so it didn’t take much for Persona 5 to win me over with its turn-based combat, but the addition of certain gameplay mechanics—like earning an extra turn for exploiting enemy weaknesses or improving your relationship with your friends outside of battle to unlock gameplay bonuses—prevent battles and exploration in Persona 5 from ever becoming stale. Indeed, Persona 5 was truly a masterpiece from start to finish and an experience that I never wanted to end.

Frankly, any drawbacks I could mention about this game feel almost nitpicky, like the way the status ailment “Envy” is represented during the final boss fight by the color indigo instead of green, or how Kawakami can only manage to make me one cup of very useful, SP-restoring coffee over the course of an entire evening. Still, Persona 5 isn’t without its faults: for one, Persona 5 loses significant points for its questionable representation of LGBT groups (the camp gay men who openly harass Ryuji on multiple occasions being the most glaring example), and this isn’t helped by the queerbaiting that’s prevalent in a lot of character dialogue and relationships. Additionally, the fact that you can’t romance any of your male confidants comes across as erasive at best and homophobic at worst, especially considering that 1) all but one of your female confidants are eligible girlfriends, 2) you can two-time all of them at once if you so desire (which isn’t just disrespectful, it’s also flippantly misogynistic), and, most importantly, 3) one of this game’s main themes includes rebelling against oppressive societal norms (a theme that will resonate deeply with any LGBT+ player). Female representation in Persona 5 is also somewhat of a mixed bag: while the game features a large cast of diverse female characters, its constant and blatant objectification of Ann is not only creepy, it’s incredibly obtuse considering the sexual harassment and abuse she suffers by one of her teachers during the game’s first story arc. Fortunately, each of these drawbacks is easy enough to ignore when discussing the game as a whole, but I hope Atlus improves upon them in future installments: considering how incredible an experience Persona 5 was, imagine how much more incredible Persona 6 could be if these issues were fixed!

So that’s it for my top 10 games of 2018. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of my commentary? What were some favorite games you played during 2018? I’d love to hear your responses and start a discussion, so please, leave your comments in the notes!

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greed-the-dorkalicious · 7 years

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A diehard Mangahood fan’s opinion on why YOU- YES, YOU- should watch FMA 2003

(Yes, those are his actual lines in this scene. These are the Netflix captions.)

2018 is off to a great start, with both FMA anime being back on Netflix! But ever since Brotherhood overtook 03 in popularity years ago, the FMA fandom has been so deeply divided on the subject of the two anime that even today, a lot of FMA fans who have never seen 03 vehemently refuse to watch it, simply because they heard from someone else that it’s bad.

As someone who’s been in the FMA fandom for about 9 years, could easily go on for hours about the endless problems with 03, and firmly believes the manga is better than both anime anyway, I think that this attitude is bullshit. While I understand that 03 is not everyone’s cup of tea for sure, I think refusing to even try it is a very narrow-minded approach that will only make you miss out. So, from one Mangahood fan to another, here’s my take on why YOU should give 03 a try now that it’s back on Netflix!

A whole 51 episodes + 1 movie worth of FMA content you haven’t seen yet! Come on, what better reason do you need? For those of you who are always craving more of those good good Elric boys and their merry band of friends, here’s a perfect opportunity to see them in all sorts of new situations, in all their fully animated and voiced glory! More fight scenes! More banter! More brotherly love! More Riza Hawkeye shooting things! More alchemy! It’s a deal you can’t miss.

Learn about the FMA fandom’s history! Ever wonder why Hohenheim seems to get so much more hate than he deserves, or why that one Ishvalan kid who got like 3 lines is sometimes called Rick? Have you ever found yourself in the deep reaches of DeviantArt or Google Images and found strange images of armor Al with tattoos, Rose with dark skin and pink bangs, an edgy-looking kid with similar clothes to Envy, or a low quality gif of Havoc crying and aggressively writing in a journal captioned with “I have all these feels”? Confused about the phrase “In those days, we believed that to be the world’s one, and only, truth”? Do you occasionally see content of the “Tringham brothers” or “Alfons Heiderich” and not understand who they are? Have you seen the “tiny miniskirts” clip on YouTube, but never been able to find it in context? Just where did the titular tumbleweed of International FMA Tumbleweed Appreciation Day come from, anyway?! All these questions and more can be answered by watching 03!

Beautiful music! A lot of great music came out of the 03 era, such as silly OST pieces like Pint-Size Alchemist or Favorite Daughter; Beautiful pieces like Equivalent Exchange or Memories; Haunting choruses like Ishbal or Dante; Fun and memorable theme songs FMA’s oldest banger, Melissa, or the Resembool Trio anthem, Hagane no Kokoro; And of course, the unforgettable masterpiece of a duet that spawned a legacy transcending years and languages, Bratja aka Brothers.

Talented voice actors! 03 had a slightly different voice cast from Brotherhood. For the dub, we’ve got the loveable and unforgettable Aaron Dismuke as Al- You might know him for his triumphant return in Brotherhood as young Hohenheim, but he was the original Alphonse Elric, when he was just 12 years old! Aside from that, we’ve got Chris Patton as Greed, Dameon Clarke as Scar, Monica Rial as Dante, and “sexy Greed” Troy Baker as Robocop himself, Frank Archer! And for the original Japanese version, there’s Nana Mizuki (Lan Fan in Brotherhood) as Wrath, Tooru Okawa as Roy, Megumi Toyoguchi as Winry, and Junichi Suwabe (perhaps best known as Victor Nikiforov and Aizawa Shouta) as Greed. And more!

Bonus content from the manga that wasn’t in Brotherhood! While Brotherhood initially rushed through the beginning of the plot under the assumption that we’ve all seen it 500 times already so let’s get to the new stuff, 03 actually took its time and included episodes based off the early stories, such as Youswell or the battle on the train. Not only that, but 03 also includes episodes based off some of the bonus chapters (Dog of the Military, the military festival, the one where Havoc went on a date with Catherine) and even some content from the light novels (The Tringham brothers, the haunted warehouse).

An interesting reimagining of FMA, with new perspectives explored, and new characters! It’s true that 03 has a very different plot and overall tone from Mangahood, and maybe it’s not for everyone, but why is the mere concept of being different seen as a bad thing? Think of it like a fanfiction, an interesting AU with its own distinct flavor. Who knows, maybe you’ll enjoy 03′s style! It features interesting (not always good, not always bad, but certainly interesting) new characters, such as Dante, the Tringham brothers, Wrath, Sloth, Frank Archer, Lujon and Lydia, and Rick and Leo. It also explores new possibilities and new directions that the manga didn’t. Ever wish Nina, Sheska, Lust, Rose, Martel, or Mason got more character development? Do you wonder what the state alchemist exam might be like? Do you think the homunculi simply being created by Father is too boring an origin story? Are your favorite superhero comic storylines the ones that involve alternate universes crossing over with each other? Ever wanted to see a cyborg shoot bullets out of his mouth? Are AMVs featuring Scar set to early 2000s emo music your niche but passionate hobby? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, 03 is the anime for you!

Also ngl, some of the fight scenes are really cool. Ed vs. Greed in particular... now THAT was some animation, woah. I love it.

In conclusion, if you’re a FMA fan and you haven’t seen 03 before, I highly recommend you check it out! After all, it can’t hurt- Either you’ll enjoy it and have a fun time with more FMA content, or you’ll learn for yourself that you don’t like it, and can simply stop watching. But you’ll never know until you try! Please, don’t listen to bitter, negative fans who only want to drive you away from something you might enjoy. (Ngl, most of them probably weren’t even around before Brotherhood came out anyway; I can tell you from experience that before Brotherhood got really popular, 03 was actually considered to be a really good anime, and had it not been so successful Brotherhood would never have even been created.) Open up to new possibilities, and give 03 a try!

#FMA #Fullmetal Alchemist #I'm just really excited 03 is back on Netflix because every time a big FMA fan tells me they've never seen 03 I get so sad #They're missing out on so much! And all because some people are nasty enough to tell others not to watch something they might like #The FMA fandom as a whole owes a lot to 03. It was what really drove the fandom back in the days before Brotherhood #And whether newer fans are aware of it or not it still does influence the fandom to some extent #The FMA fandom is over 15 years old and is a product of osmosis between both anime and the manga #I truly deeply believe that it's not possible to get the full FMA (fandom) experience without all 3 or at least both the anime #Sometimes I forget that not everyone's seen both #I got into it at a time when everyone had already seen 03 and now everyone was starting to watch Brotherhood as well #So pretty much nobody in the fandom hadn't seen 03 unless they were REALLY new #And had only seen the like... 15 or so episodes of Brotherhood that existed at the time #So sometimes big FMA fans will say they've never seen 03 and I'm just. ??? ??????? but... but how can you... what #But hasn't everyone seen 03??????? Don't you know the memes. THE MEMES. HOW CAN YOU LIKE... BE HERE AND NOT HAVE SEEN 03 #Idk it just completely blindsides me sometimes #I want people to have the chance to Understand #And they can't do that if some fuckos who haven't even read the manga tell everyone not to watch 03 bc it's terrible #I mean yeah it kind of is terrible but also it is good #Because it's FMA #Anyway in conclusion the Mustang squad comedy filler eps shaped who I am as a person and also you can pry Aaron Dismuke from my dead hands

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book-o-scams · 7 years

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How did you come up with Bro Show? How long have your been drawing/animating for? What is your favorite piece that you have drawn?

SORRY ABOUT THIS LONG ANSWER, I guess asking me three questions at once is a good way to get 6 paragraphs from me, haha.

Before BPS came out, the release date kept getting pushed back due to the production difficulties, and this made me very anxious about whether or not the show would be able to end properly. ‘Take This Ed and Shove It’ had been a depressing series finale to the show’s original depressing final season, while ‘A Fistful of Ed’ closed out the final episodes with an interesting arc that made me worried the movie would undo the good news. Most stressful of all was that Bro would be added to the cast, and since I had already deduced that he was violent with baby Eddy, I was worried they would disprove my understanding of the character, and that would surely ruin the whole movie for me. I caught wind of which fans had already managed to get spoilers out of AKA, and got Bro’s design and personality spoiled for myself months ahead of time, and was relieved that my predictions were coming true. With that monkey off my back, I began realizing how perfect Bro’s position is for being key to the kids’ backstories! Bro represents the previous generation of Peach Creek kids, and the toxicity he injected into the neighborhood is important because it trickled down through the people outside the Eds’ perspective, until it led to the hyper-aggressive children of the present-day cul-de-sac.

With how little information there was beyond the basic timeline of who seems to have already met Bro before BPS, my first Bro-centric origin story ideas were focused on Ed and Sarah, Nazz, and Jonny. Then, getting dressed one morning near the end of high school, suddenly a bunch of thoughts clicked into place and formed the headcanon that would become the Bro Show pilot. Most of it was just from thinking a LOT about ‘A Town Called Ed’, I realized that it can’t JUST be Bro, there’s also got to be some toxic influence from the Eddy family in general, as well as the Kanker family, so I started thinking about it as a show about the families that made Eddy and Lee. I had also been trying to think of another unseen character as important to any of the characters as Bro and realized Mama Kanker plays a similar role to the Kankers as Bro does to the Eds. And then Edd’s line about Eddy being a pedigree seeped in and I realized what an amazingly horrible twist it would be for Bro to be one of the Kankers’ fathers and then I couldn’t ignore the similarity between Bro and Lee’s chins. It’s a lot more risqué than my usual ideas, but I ultimately couldn’t let that idea pass because the Kankers’ fathers are also the only parents with first names, and while I don’t necessarily think his name is Butch, Bubba or Rod, I would still get a hoot out of having a secret hint to his real name like that.

Once the movie came out, I used the new info to hone a better sense of the timeline of the characters’ lives, but my Bro Show ideas mostly focused on what Bro’s old crew would be like and how his relationships could be MORE corrupt than Eddy’s, leading to the creation of my only real OCs, Bone and Dickie (Dickie doesn’t appear in the pilot, he would have been the Edd of the group only in that they leave him out as much as possible because he butts heads with Bro more than Bone does). I continued to bounce around some ideas for the other characters meeting Bro, scraping ideas out of my college courses (like the Kevin origin story was going to be based on ‘The Bicycle Thief’ which I saw in a film class), but most of the ideas for origin story episodes didn’t come into fruition until I was chatting daily with a friend in 2010 who also was obsessed with Bro and enjoyed the foundation my headcanons had laid out. Together we came up with a lot of episode ideas that will never see the light of day!

At some point, I came up with enough designs to post concept art of the idea on deviantART (see below) without the intention of really making it. But I got a lot of messages from fans who really loved the idea, so with a bunch of encouragement, I dove into it and worked on it on-and-off for two years. It got a lot of negative feedback and it’s honestly a pretty tainted memory for me now… In retrospect, I agree with a lot of the negative criticism, it’s a very different cartoon than I would normally make, but I’m still proud of the show concept even if the pilot wasn’t perfect. I just really wanted to make fun of people who are as manipulative and self-centered as Bro, but its main Youtube fanbase seems to be people who actually are like him, so… my bad, haha. I get rude messages CONSTANTLY from Bro Show fans, insulting me for not giving them more episodes and for daring to animate anything other EEnE and for posting on websites other than Youtube, which are a lot of strict expectations to place on me, a total stranger. Oh well, at least my followers here seemed to get it. C’est la vie!

https://animated.deviantart.com/art/Eddy-s-Family-145866561

I’ve been drawing as long as I can remember! It started with doodles of my old schnauzer Charlie and I remember making a concentrated effort to memorize Daffy Duck’s beak shape. I started drawing the Eds around when I got CN for my 10th birthday (about 2 years into the show’s run) and my parents would see and actually be impressed how close I’d get to the style. I remember it used to switch off whether I was worse at Edd or Eddy but I found Ed comparatively easy—now it’s the opposite and I struggle to draw Ed but can more or less draw Edd and Eddy blindfolded, lmao. My early Eddys looked like Dexter from Dexter’s Lab. When I was 11, I found out my toy digital camcorder could do stop motion, so I dabbled in Claymation for a while and started familiarizing myself with the concept of timing motion to a framerate. I got Flash as a gift when I was 12 and have used that same horrendously outdated version of the program ever since! At this point I’ve been animating approximately 14 years, I think.

I am very proud of my EEnE art over the past few years, I think my younger self would be quite pleased! My favorite thing I ever did for the fandom is the Superbad parody I never finished or released, hahaha, but I think my EEnE animated music videos will always be very nostalgic for me too. My favorite animation I’ve done, truthfully, would probably be one of my Steven Universe animations, that’s the point where I really started feeling confident that I know how to animate even though I have little professional experience. I hope someday I make it out there to the industry, I want to flood the world with cartoons as well-animated as EEnE!

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oreopata · 6 years

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‘Had a lovely day on the town with my neighbour, just went around the shops and visited the local gallery. I would have updated this post yesterday, but I was so exhausted from such an exciting outing...

While the main goal of the day was him teaching me how to use the buses, so I can move about more freely without relying on friends or family for a lift - we just had a great time just going with the flow of the day. Popping in and out of a few shops and picking up some things along the way. He got a few items he needed and I gained a successful bounty. I was surprised to see the art supplies that are now in WHSmiths (I’d initially gone in there to look at the Graphic Novels); got myself a small packet of charcoal pencils. I recon they’ll come in nicely for the current charcoal miner piece I’m working on.

I also had the chance to visit the charmingly haphazard book shop and got this book on cartooning for only £7. While it could be argued that it’s a book for beginners, I’m finding it rather varied in its content: ranging from simple cartooning, to caricature and even some sequential art like comics and animation. Granted, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at a couple of select advice, such as one saying that some comic artist might use action figures as reference poses - Which isn’t a good idea, because it always look stiff when you rely too much on a toy reference and I can always tell when someone does it, including on this illustrator’s demonstration. It’s just one of a couple nitpicks I have for this large book that I can’t help but find rather appealing. Reminds me of a much smaller book I read in my old school’s library on making comics. Sometimes going back to the basics can prove helpful. It can feel nostalgic and remind you of why you started drawing or you may find a little nugget of good advice. (Unless you’re reading anything by Christopher Hart, seriously, do not buy any of his drawing books)

Now that I’ve committed to memory how to use the bus and getting a better sense of what’s going on in my local area, hopefully I’ll get more used to it. I think the fact that, say for twice a week, I’m always in my house alone everyday can be a hinderance to me. Whenever I step outside, I’m always overwhelmed by how vast and large the sky and everything around me is, having being used to much smaller four walls. Much to my embarrassment, it did show on the day. Such as when we stopped to grab a bite at a little burger stop, I accidentally froze when asking for the order and asked to go look again at the menu on the other side of he hut (not realising there was another menu inside) I can imagine my slight social cluelessness, skin colour and received-pronunciation accent make me look like a tourist. I’ve been asked a couple times recently if I’m from London. But luckily that was the only minor hiccup I had that day. #IntrovertProblems

The best parts of the day were when we had a look into the No.42 gallery and I got the chance to revisit the Mining Art Gallery again. Having gone there before with my art class.Visiting the No.42 allowed me to see the local talent. Hoping to get some inspiration, get a better idea of local tastes and see how other artist’s work. I even managed to enquire how I could possibly apply to exhibit my work. So who knows? Maybe once I’ve done some more pieces and I’m open for business, I’ll apply.

Walking through the Mining Art Gallery was just what I needed to get me inspired again. Since I’ve been feeling down since Easter and I was still nervous the previous Thursday while sketching some stuffed birds. I suppose I was just feeling too agitated due to recent events to relax and enjoy drawing. But I am hoping to see a councillor again soon. With this visit, I got to take my time a little more, got to hang around my favourite painting a bit more and do some gesture sketching based on it. The painting in question being The Hartley Disaster by H.H. Emmerson.

Sadly that low quality picture doesn't do it justice. If you’re ever in the area, I encourage you to see the painting for yourself. It's so clear, massive and beautiful in real life. I love the contrasting colours. The expression on the people are especially astounding to me: The woman grieving with the baby, the rescuers in the back as they look on; and I am head over heels in love with the two figures at the front - The woman with the scarf over her head and the rescuer with the lamp. Now excuse me for a second while I gush over them:

I noticed how her face was so beautiful, strong and yet caring, intimate and melancholic. The way she looks at the rescuer with such a strong expression in her eyes and eyebrows. She looks him dead in the eye while her hand rests on his arm. Whose hand, in return, tucked in his coat. The way his face looks directly back at her, yet his gaze is directed downwards in way that shows disappointment and forlornness - as does the careful look on his face says so much as well. Just so much emotion and chaste intimacy with these two! I LOVE IT!!!

At first, I tried to draw both of their faces in detail, but this proved unsuccessful. My arm was aching for a lot of the day due to the heavy bags and from trying to hold my sketchbook and draw while in front of the painting. Luckily, one of the security guards recognised me from my previous visit and offered to leave my handbag behind the desk while I explored the gallery - a literally weight off my neck and shoulders. I was flattered that he complimented my sketches.

I was reduced to just getting the basic gestures and sketches done as quickly as possible, along with taking some notes based on the facts. I’m honestly glad I did that. I’m learning one massive problem I have is getting nervous about details way too early on. So in ding these messy roughs, I could at least get something done and still create and impression of something. I don’t need to create a masterpiece every time. I can use this to get started on pictures quicker. That said, I would like to do a more detailed study at some point if I could find a better reference. I still wish they had a little print of it to sell amongst all the others. Just my luck that my favourite piece wouldn't be amongst them.

Speaking of which, I was excited to revisit as they had some new work in based around Bevin Boys, so I just had to pick up these two books on them. I love seeing these sketches and I can add it to the growing inspiration I got that day.

After the gallery, we stopped for another bite at the cafe opposite. The same one my Gran and I used to visit every Saturday we went shopping together. I even had my old, usual order of a slice of their chocolate cake and a glass of orange juice. I’ve been in desperate need of a good day, so I’m glad I’ve finally got one. Now I’m more inspired and reminded of why I love drawing and I can’t wait to get started on more.

MY FACEBOOK | MY DEVIANTART | MY YOUTUBE | MY TWITTER

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snowpeawritings · 7 years

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1. Start Of A New Fool: P4G X Reader

From my old deviantart account that I’ve abandoned some years ago, I had a series going on about my take on what it would be if there was a female protagonist in P4G. With @mikami03 saying that they’re excited to read it so I decided to continue this series!

TAKE NOTE that this is very old and i was very young and i didnt know how to write fanfics that good, so fair warning

insp.

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A subtle piano and an amazing soprano was the only thing (Name) heard.

She was in a limousine. That she knew of. It was comfy-looking with a cabinet of expensive champagne and brandy together with wine glasses. Blue light illuminated the room as the same color accented the furniture. Everything seemed like a mass of blue to (Name) except for one particular person...

"Welcome to the Velvet Room." He said. He wore a black tux with white gloves and a little napkin folded in his breast pocket. The only weird thing about him is his face.

His nose was long. Freakishly long almost the length of a ruler. His eyes were bulging out of his skull with red veins showing. He was bald on the dome with silver hair cascading down his shoulders. His smile was the one that stood out to (Name).

His smile was ghastly wide with miraculously white chompers. (Name) wondered if he smiled so hard that it made his cheeks so numb, he won't feel a thing when it was punched.

"This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matter." His voice was mysterious, full of uncharted zones that made (Name) shiver. "It could be, that such a fate awaits in the near future." He chuckled.

"Now then, tell me what is your name?" Her voice suddenly worked.

"(Last name)(First name)."

Then suddenly the whole room blackened.

(Name) awoke inside a train. It rattled noisily through the rails as she looked through the window. She saw the blue sky and many trees overlooking a rural town.

That must be where I'm staying. She thought. The intercom suddenly spoke,

"We will be arriving in Yasoinaba in three minutes. Those will be dropping off, please exit to the left." The intercom ended as (Name) grabbed her duffel bag on the shelf. The train soon came to a screeching halt as she scanned her ticket and went outside the station. It looked like it stopped raining just a few minutes ago due to the puddles. She looked around for her relatives who were supposed to pick her up. 'I'll meet you at Yasoinaba station' is what was written in the text message.

"Hey! Over here." A voice called. She turned to the direction where a man in his mid-forties waved together with presumably his daughter clutching his leg. (Name) walked over to them.

"Wow, you look more beautiful than in the photos." (Name) flushed slightly. "Thank you."

"I'm Ryotaro Dojima and I'll be taking care of you. You probably don't remember but I changed your diapers when you were little." He chuckled slightly. "And this is my daughter, Nanako." He gestured to his daughter who clung on his leg tighter and blushed when (Name) looked at her.

She muttered a small, "'lo."

Dojima laughed. "What are you so shy for?" Nanako blushed more and slapped his butt. "Ow! What was that for?" (Name) chuckled as she walked behind them towards her uncle's car.

"Hey." She turned towards the voice and saw a girl with black hair and green eyes. She held out a piece of paper. "You dropped this." (Name) took it and realized it was the address for the Dojima Residence.

"Thank you." The girl shook her head.

“Whatever. All I did was pick it up. Well, see ya." She turned and walked away, making (Name) go to the car when Dojima was hollering.

"The bathroom is on the left. You do know what your left is right? The one you don't hold the chopsticks?" The gas attendant said as he talked to Nanako.

"I know. Geez." She ran to the bathroom as Dojima went by the car to gas up.

"Are you in high school?" The attendant asked (Name).

"Um, yeah."

"Well there's not much to do around here. I'd say take a part-time job or make some new friends."

'Yeah, friends.' (Name) thought. So far through all of the schools she had to transfer, only one of them actually implanted a few memories in her mind. It was tough to transfer schools so fast due to a parents' business trip.

"Well if you're looking for a part-time job," He held out his hand. "we'll always be open for new applicants." (Name) smiled a little for politeness as she shook his hand. When the car was fueled up, (Name) was about to enter the car until pain shot through her head. She hung onto the car until the pain ebbed away.

"Are you okay? Are you car sick?" Nanako asked, concerned.

"I'm just a bit lightheaded." (Name) muttered.

Dojima noticed his niece's behavior. "You must be tired. After all, it was a long trip." He quickly ushered her into the car as they drove to their home. (Name)'s new home.

After the long drive, the three sat on the table with sushi neatly laid out. (Name) and Nanako had orange juice while Dojima stuck to beer. Dojima had told (Name)'s parents had an overseas trip so that's why she will be staying with them until spring.

"As long as you're hear, you're part of the family, so make yourself at home." He concluded.

"Thank you for your kindness." (Name) replied with a small smile.

"No need to be so formal." He chuckled. "Now lets dig in." Just when they were about to use their chopsticks, Dojima's phone rang through his shirt pocket. Muttering to himself, he answered the call. Nanako grew uneasy which didn't went unnoticed by (Name).

"Looks like I made the right choice to skip the booze." He muttered. "Sorry. I have to go... I don't know when I'll be back... Nanako, help her out, okay?"

"Okay." Nanako said softly. After he left the house he hollered outside.

"I put them inside." She loudly replied. Soon the car engine sounded as it drove off, leaving (Name) and Nanako alone.

“Lets eat." Nanako said. They both picked their food as the pitter-patter of the raindrops tapped the window. It was beginning to be awkward for (Name) so she decided to start a conversation.

"What does your dad do?" She asked.

“He's a detective. He solves crimes and stuff." (Name) nodded as she payed her attention to the news.

“This is boring." Nanako puffed her cheeks as she switched to another channel. A catchy tune was on and Nanako seemed to perk up instantly.

"At Junes everyday is Customer Appreciation Day. Everyday's great at your Junes!" Nanako happily sang to the commercial.

"Everyday's great at your Junes!" (Name) smiled at her singing. Nanako looked at her suddenly. "Aren't you gonna eat?" (Name) quickly stuffed her mouth with food. After dinner Nanako said she'll be taking a shower, leaving (Name) to unpack her things. After a while almost a quarter of the boxes were unpacked and (Name) was already tired. She laid down her futon and fell asleep instantly.

You find yourself in a dense fog. Only red squares seem to be the flooring. You got up and walked towards the seemingly endless void.

"Do you wish to seek the truth?" A voice rang. You brushed that off as you continued your journey ahead. Ignoring the voice's words based on some 'truth'.

A red square door with black squares blocked your view. You knew that there's a presence behind it when you open it and somehow, the voice that had been calling out throughout the whole thing is resonating through there. So without hesitation, you gently placed a hand on the door, making the red and black squares move in patterns and finally permitting entrance.

Suddenly you felt like you were holding something. It scraped the ground so you guessed it was long. The hilt was leather and the whole thing wasn't too heavy. You had taken sword-fighting before and you were quite the gifted dueler.

"If its the truth you desire, then come and face me." You could hardly make out who's talking. Nonetheless, you slashed at the silhouette, hoping it did some damage.

“So you can see little despite the fog. Interesting..." Suddenly more fog engulfed the area as you fought your way to the mysterious person. You could feel it from the tip of your sword that you're not making any damage.

"If what you seek is the 'truth', then your search will be even harder..." It said before the fog started to cloud your vision...

#persona 4 x reader #p4g #start of a new fool #snowpea writes #persona

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darknesslioness · 8 years

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Ice Melts Fire: Part 2

All my fanfics about Bechnokid’s versions of the characters take place in the universe of Wartime by StellarIce and Bechnokid found on Deviantart, but are not official fandom canon. That is Bechnokid’s call and my fanfics are simply my fanfics, my hopes and dreams.

This one also takes bits and pieces from Bloom by FableWing and Shurara Steampunk by BFG11, also on Deviantart, to help with backstory.

Characters belong to Bechnokid and by extension, Keroro Gunsu (Sgt. Frog).

Part 2: One Month After

Help . . . please help me . . .

Unbearable heat. Blinding light. Someone yelling over the roar.

A burning scarf in her hands, quickly disintegrating.

No . . . no he can’t be.

The scarf slipped through her fingers as ash, flames pouncing on her.

No. NNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!

She screamed as she bolted upright. She nearly sprang to her feet, ready to bolt through the fire to escape, but something held her arms and torso in a vice grip. She struggled against it in terror for several seconds, until the flames faded from her vision and the concerned whispers next to her ear finally registered.

She blinked her eyes, taking in the peaceful, warm setting of the mansion’s sitting room. Instead of a chaotic inferno, the room was lit only by a single lamp next to her, the embers of a once roaring fire nestled in the giant fireplace, and the hundreds of twinkling, color lights woven into a giant tree in the corner of the room.

Garland and candles decorated the fireplace mantle. Reefs and homemade décor adorned the walls and snow could be seen falling gently in the night outside the glass wall, long icicles hanging with strings of white lights high above against the glass outside.

The cheerful surroundings pushed the nightmare back and brought forth the memories of the day before her accidental slumber.

It was Christmas Day and the day had been very joyous . . . and very tiring. Hanana had gotten little sleep that night, but was determined to wake up early for her friends despite her tired mind. Everyone had woken up, spent most of the morning opening gifts, messing around with each other, and eaten a brief breakfast before journeying into town to attend celebrations held by some local businesses. The corps, along with Samama, Kabobo, and Pururu and excluding Robobo (snow didn’t mix well from him), spent the early afternoon admiring the decorative sights and holiday music festivals.

Already in high spirits from unwrapping gifts, it wasn’t long into the festivities before the younger members of the corps joined a snowball fight with some local kids. And from there, in one way or another, nearly the whole group was dragged into a massive snowball fight, its intensity forcing the town’s children to run for their lives and leave the strange people to it. The game started as team-based with teams of two: Putata and Mekeke, Nuii and Gyororo, Samama and Kabobo, Pururu and Kagege, Giruru and Dokuku (by members taking turns being possessed for him), and, by accident, Yukiki and Hanana. Yukiki and Giruru took some convincing to join in, or in this case some ‘accidental’ snowballs to the face, but once they were in, the others soon found themselves in trouble. The two proved to be very aggressive players, especially when looking for revenge.

At first, the competition was mainly between Putata and Mekeke, and Giruru and Yukiki, but soon it turned into a free-for-all. Hanana had never laughed so hard in her life, witnessing throughout the game the near constant looks of surprise and overdramatic reactions to snowball bullseyes. In the end, no one really proved to be the victor, although no one could deny that Yukiki was dominating by the time they picked themselves out of the snow laughing and began the journey back home.

Upon the return, most of them began the process of preparing dinner, with Hanana becoming head of baking the cakes, cookies, and other desserts. After a few hours, they all were sitting in the dining room eating from platters of delicious food and laughing with each other. For an organization of assassins and just as deadly allies, they sure did look like one, big family. At this time of year, even the grumpiest members of the corps tried being more tolerant of others. A lot had changed in just a few years and Hanana hoped it would stay this way, happy and friendly.

After dinner, they had all relaxed in front of the fire in the sitting room, trying out their gifts, telling stories, listening to Christmas music from the stereo, or simply watching the snow fall outside. Hanana had ended up sitting next to Yukiki on one of the couches. She had become quite shy around him since her realization of her feelings towards him. So much so that she panicked when she nearly got caught under the mistletoe with him, but made a quick escape before anyone could notice. Not that she didn’t want to kiss him. She had caught herself daydreaming about such several times since that night. Just . . . not like that. Not being forced and teased into it.

Despite her nervousness around him, she took a seat next to him and soon found herself rather comfortable, listening to the others and telling her own stories here and there. Before long, the little sleep she had gotten the night before caught up with her and she vaguely remembered leaning against Yukiki’s shoulder exhausted . . . before opening her eyes to smoke and tragedy.

Now the room was empty of the lively company and the contained fire was slowly dying, the sound of Christmas carols in the background clearly lowered. She shivered, trying to slow her breathing, and confirmed to herself that what was trapping her to her seat was a pair of cold arms. Knowing what that meant, she went limp against his chest and turned her head to look at the comforting presence.

As usual, the snowman was dressed in his dark blue top hat and coat, gloves and all. The only differences from his usual attire were the inclusion of a sprig of holly on his hat, a tradition he checked constantly for a spontaneous transformation into mistletoe as of last year’s incident . . . and a new scarf, gifted from her. It was a richer shade than his previous scarf, a deep royal blue, and along the entire length were silver, glittering patterns of windy swirls and intricate snowflakes.

She had bought the materials for it the day after she was released from the hospital, when Putata and Mekeke dragged her out shopping. She had worked on the scarf for weeks, carefully designing and sewing the patterns of reflective, silver thread onto the silky scarf. She had been so thrilled when he replaced his old scarf with it after unwrapping it . . . and spending a few moments staring between the gift and her.

So there it was, wrapped around his neck, its silver snowflakes and wind patterns sparkling in the dim light. Seeing her gift to him warmed her deaccelerating heart and reminded her of his own gift to her. Her hand rose to touch it. He had given her a beautiful necklace of blue crystal petals with a pink rose centerpiece. At her question of where he had found it, he had made a quick comment of the gems being highly concentrated perma-ice he had created from dyed water, all put together by a local jeweler.

He had put it on her at her request and her heart leapt when it fell into place against her chest, going well with her current sky blue dress. She would always cherish the beautiful treasure.

Clenching the ice rose, she gathered comfort from its chilled touch and raised her eyes higher to look him in the eyes. And as she expected, Yukiki had a worried look on his face and upon meeting his eyes, he relaxed his arms and lightly cupped a hand to her cheek.

“You are having nightmares again?” At his question, she lowered her head shamefully, feeling as if it was her fault the nightmares had come back. Her hand dropped from her necklace to clench his coat sleeve.

“I thought they were gone, but . . . I guess not.” She thought Kagege’s therapy and Pururu’s homemade ‘remedy for nightmares’ had vanquished the dreams, having been nightmare-free for nearly two weeks. Maybe it had been foolish to think she was over the fire.

She looked back up at Yukiki, remembering all the times he had been there for her since the loss of her home. He had listened at every nightmare she had to describe, helped her try to overcome them and now . . . he had become part of the nightmare. The thought made her flinch and tighten the grip her hands had on his sleeve. Of course, Yukiki caught it.

“What was this one like?” He knew her nightmares were always about the fire and that talking about her dreams helped in her recovery. It had become routine by now for him to ask after a nightmare. And like every other time, she answered.

“It was the same as the last one.” It was the truth, but she withheld the addition to this dream, an addition that made her heart ache when she looked at him. She shut her eyes in frustration at the feeling.

“Why are they back? I was so happy today. I didn’t even think about . . .” She sighed when her mouth refused the words, not wanting to remind herself of the fire anymore then she had to. She opened her eyes and looked around the room, noting the absence of the lively crowd and the dimmed atmosphere of the room.

“Where is everyone? How long was I asleep?” Yukiki was the next to sigh as Hanana leaned away from him and released his sleeve. She watched as his arms released her and he reached for the thick, leatherback book Kagege had given him, open on the arm of the couch. As he marked the page and closed it, he answered her.

“After you fell asleep, everyone else started getting tired as well. They all went off to their rooms and Samama, Kabobo, and Pururu went home. They told me to tell you Merry Christmas by the way. They left around three hours ago. It’s about 11:20 now.” Hanana’s eyes widened at how long it had been and was quick to apologize.

“Oh! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to, um, fell asleep on you and keep you here!” He was shaking his head the moment she said ‘sorry.’

“Don’t be. I noticed this morning that you were tired and today’s activities likely did not help. You needed the rest and I wasn’t going to deny you that. Besides, I’ve made good progress.” He lazily shook the book in emphasis before placing it beside his old scarf, folded on the side table. He turned back to her.

“But I am sorry that your sleep was not as peaceful as I had hoped. I don’t know why you are having these dreams again, but they will eventually fade away. Give it time. I do.” Hanana had lowered her head, nodding slowly to his advice, before jerking up in realization. She looked at him extraordinarily.

“Do . . . do you mean you have nightmares too? I-I mean . . . I just thought . . . well, um . . . that nothing really scared you? I mean, you never really seemed . . . ah . . .” She blushed in embarrassment at her childish belief that he wasn’t afraid of anything. Everyone had fears. She even believed in the old saying, ‘If you’re not scared, you’re not alive.’ True, she couldn’t remember ever seeing Yukiki afraid before. Nervous, but never afraid. She felt absolutely foolish. That was happening a lot around him lately.

It didn’t help that Yukiki froze at her question and his expression began to darken. She sat stiffly beside him, nervously awaiting his answer. All was silent for a full minute and she jumped slightly when he spoke up.

“I had several in the first few months of my employment with Shurara. I never could remember much of them after awakening, so they didn’t cause me much trouble. They stopped after a while and I have not had nightmares since. At least . . . until recently.” At the mention of recent dreams, Hanana quickly became the one concerned, forgetting her troubles to tend to his. She moved back closer to him and gently grasped his upper arm.

“What are your nightmares about?” They both noticed the obvious role reversal and Yukiki couldn’t stop the bittersweet chuckle escaping his throat.

“I don’t think hearing about my dreams would be very helpful for either of us. They don’t bother me much anyway. And besides . . .” His eyes seemed to darken and a deep frown replaced his gentle smile before he turned his head away. “. . . my fears should not be a concern of yours. Fear is but a cautionary instinct. Useful, but can become a liability.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, a stern but gentle warning in his gaze. “. . . like yours.”

Hanana felt hurt, but not from his warning. It hurt her that he did not trust her with his night terrors when she always told him hers. He had played off his fears, yet took hers seriously. No nightmare was a good thing and a reappearance of them was not something to be ignored. If he was having nightmares, why couldn’t he let her help him like he had done for her?

Maybe . . . maybe he just wasn’t ready. Maybe he didn’t trust her enough yet or he didn’t want to burden her with his problems. She knew she had felt that way at times.

She moved a bit closer and gently encircled her scarred arms around him in a hug. He stiffened, but she had grown to expect the reaction by now.

“I . . . I think you’re right. But I just want you to know that I care about you. I’ll always be willing to listen if you have anything to say. I want to help you and I can keep a secret if need be.” She gave him a small squeeze and waited, hoping he would open up to her.

He remained silent, staring blankly off to the side. The only sound was the low melody of ‘White Christmas’ from the speakers.

Disheartened, she sighed and slowly removed her arms to stand up. His eyes snapped up to her as she stepped away from the couch. She turned to him with a reassuring smile, her eyes avoiding his.

“Anyway, thanks for staying up for me. It was very kind of you. Well . . . good night.” She turned away and walked towards the archway leading to the lobby. She had gotten only a few feet when her ears caught his faint response over the light music, a nearly sad sounding whisper.

“I was scared that night.” She stopped, half in disbelief and half in relief. She turned back to him and found him bent forward with his weigh on his elbows, eyes trained straight down at his feet. He looked exhausted, but she wasn’t sure it was physical.

Seeing his conflicted expression, she walked back to the couch, approaching slowly as if not to startle him.

“The night . . . of the fire?” He give a single, small nod. She slowly sat back down beside him, intent on encouraging him to talk.

“Why?” She had a good idea of the answer, but she had to confirm it.

He huffed at her question, barely a laugh.

“Why? Because . . . because . . . I thought . . . I . . . I was going to lose you.” Despite it being expected, hearing his response still sent a shock through her, but heartbreak quickly replaced her surprise. Even more so when her brain connected the dots. It confirmed her fears. She asked her question again.

“W-What are your nightmares about, Yuki?” He remained silent for a moment, but the time for silence seemed to be over. He took in a breath.

“They’re . . . they are about you. But . . . also about me. And . . . things going wrong and . . . *sigh*” He couldn’t seem to continue, but Hanana could fill in the blanks. She wrapped her arms around his torso, holding on tightly as she tried to keep her tears at bay.

“Oh Yuki, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I . . .” She didn’t know what to say. He was worried about her and didn’t want to lose his friend. He nearly had that night.

She understood how he felt. She understood him completely. Her nightmare was proof of that. She shivered at the memory of the dream. He had been there, trying to protect her. But the flames had been invincible. The inferno engulfed him before her eyes and he disappeared, leaving nothing but his charred scarf. A scarf emblazoned with sliver flicks.

The memory was the final straw for her tears and they flowed freely done her cheeks as a hollow sense of grief filled her.

“I know.” She whispered brokenheartedly amongst the low cheery music. “I know.”

He didn’t seem to hear her whispers, trapping in his own inner turmoil.

“Sorry? No. I’m the one who should be sorry. Hanana . . .” He lifted his head and pushed away her arms, holding her shoulders at length to move away a bit. But despite the distance he put between them, he looked her in the eyes as he confessed.

“It’s . . . it’s my fault you were nearly killed. It’s my fault you lost your home.” She stared at him, confused. Tears continued their trails as she sat gawking at him.

“The man I killed. He was a high value target whose contract was my responsibility, given to me a few months before you came along. I made a crucial mistake on my mission and he got away. He made a fool of me while he was at it, too. He was the flaw in my perfect record and it infuriated me. I . . . I let my pride get the best of me. I hunted him for over a year, snuffing out his subordinates and sabotaging his operations. I was under no orders and during that time I had plenty of opportunities to take him out.” Yukiki tightened his grip on her shoulders and bared his teeth.

“But I wanted to destroy everything he had before I ended his life, wanted to make him squirm as everything crumble around him! I wanted him to wish he had not made a fool of me that day. And so, I became his most hated enemy. He began hunting for me. But not just to kill me. He wanted to make me suffer as well. So he started searching for my weaknesses. His search must not have been successful, because he quickly abandoned stealth and started sending goons after me and the others a few times.” His hands had released Hanana’s shoulders during the tale and were currently being clenched in his lap, his body and eyes now turned away from her to face forward.

“They were always dispatched. After a while, he disappeared and I lost interest in my vendetta against him. I had thought him dead or having fled the land. However, he resurfaced over a year later. He had . . .” His expression was torn, half angry and half ashamed as he told her all this. And then, she saw it change into a pained frustration.

“He had found you.” He closed his eyes, unable to look at her even in his peripheral vision.

“Somehow, he found out that you were . . . a close friend of mine . . . and used you to get to me. He had found the weakness he was looking for. And he tried to burn you alive, purposely using fire to mock me.” His eyes opened to glare into the coffee table in front of them, giving a look as if it was he was mentally interrogating it.

“I don’t know why, but I was so restless that night. I couldn’t stay still. So I went out for a walk, hoping to tire myself out. And when I saw your house in flames . . . I . . . I was . . .” She saw his body shook in a shiver and she reached forward to place a hand on his shoulder.

“The entire house was engulfed in flames. For a moment I thought . . .” He exhaled sharply, then turned his head back to her for his eyes met hers again, a spark of determination in their soft glow.

“But I had to try. You . . . you are too important to me . . . uh, to all of us.” A barely noticeable blush appeared on his face and his eyes darted away from hers nervously before returning.

“If there was a chance that you were still alive, I had to take it.” He went silent, the rest of the story already known. There was only the music as she stared at his prone form, taking in all he had said.

He was clearly nervous and mentally exhausted from revealing his burden. There was a barely restrained fidget to his hands and a faint blush was painted below his narrowed eyes, now staring into her lap.

Hanana squeezed his shoulder as she wiped away her tears, hoping to comfort him while giving him space. She smiled softly at him as she used her empty hand to gently pull his face back up to make eye contact.

“And here I am. Alive and safe, because of my hero.” Yukiki was still for a moment, studying her. His eyes drifted down to her arms, catching sight of the scars still left behind by the fire. Some would likely never fade, forever staining her once flawless skin. Forever a reminder of her pain . . . and his influence on her life. If she wasn’t burned by his enemies, his very nature would sap the life from this flower with an icy cold.

He clenched his teeth at the wave of self-hate that invaded his body. He nearly spat out his reply.

“Your hero? That’s a joke. It is more accurate to say that I am your doom.” He pulled her hand away from his face and placed it firmly in her lap and released it. He tried to pull away, but Hanana’s hand was latched onto his shoulder. He tried shrugging her off as he continued.

“You were nearly killed because of my compulsion to play with my catch, to even a ridiculous score. You were, and are, in danger because you ally yourself with ASSASSINS!”

He was getting angry and his eyes were glowing with the frustration building from her determination to not let go of him, both literally and figuratively. His conflicting desires for her to leave or to stay had been eating at him since the fire and it was starting to enrage him how stubborn she was being with the choice. Anyone else would be quickly retreating from his growing rage. But no matter how much he argued, no matter the evidence, she refused to remove herself from his life, from the Corps. And here she was, at his side, unafraid with a gentle smile. Her other hand reached up to grab an iron hold of his arm and Yukiki weakly snarled at the added shackle.

“I’ve known the dangers of your lives since the day I first stepped foot in this place; for yourselves and anyone any of you get close to. But I made my choice then and it remains the same now. All of you are my friends, my family. There are some things are just worth the risks.” She leaned closer as he glared at the floor, completely missing the loving look she was giving him.

“Trust me Yuki. You are more than worth it. That night was not your fault. That night, you truly were my hero. And you always will be.” Yukiki continued burning a hole in the floor, but his anger was slowly dying. Soon, he sighed in defeat and lifted his gaze back to her. She felt her smile fall at his sad expression.

“Hanana. I appreciate your compassion, but I cannot see how any of us could be worth your life. How I could be worth your life.” Without looking away, he began to gently remove her hands from his arm.

“Yuki . . .”

“I am physically harmful to you, Hanana.” He interrupted her, expression become more serious and sad.

“I could kill you with one, accidental wave of my hand. You cannot even hug me long before you risk becoming sick. The very purpose of my creation and form is to end lives.” Finally prying her hands off, he released her and prepared to remove himself from the couch, turning away to retrieve his book and scarf.

“But Yuki, I’ve told you before that I don’t mind that you’re a snowman! And I know you would never hurt me!” She stood up as he did, determined to reason with him.

“You may not be able to help what you are, but YOU decide WHO you are! It’s who you are that I really care about! You’re more than a killer, Yuki! You chose that! You chose to be a better person!” She lunged forward and captured himself in a fierce hug.

“A true killer kills whoever they please, with no remorse or compassion. A true killer doesn’t care about the weak or the old, friends or family! A true killer LIVES for the kill and suffering.” Hanana lifted her head from his chest to give him a half-hearted smirk.

“You don’t. None of you do! I’ve seen it. You protect the young and respect the old. You never touch the innocent. The streets are safer because your efforts, despite what the police say. This town, with all its families, is under your protection and they know it. Have you ever noticed that no one here has ever given up information on this mansion or anyone associated with it? Or that no one bats an eye at our strange group? And if there’s a stranger asking around, you all are the first to know.”

His blank expression lifted into slight surprise. He had noticed, but had never put much thought to it. He didn’t spend much time with civilians after all. But there had been more than a few instances in the last few years where random people would spark a friendly conversation or trade with him. Putata and Mekeke had once proved a list of homes that had been offered to them as safe houses if they ever got in a tight spot. Yukiki, ever suspicious, had never used them however.

Children were also very approaching, ever curious of him. They would follow him around, watching what he did and asking him questions. As uncomfortable as it made him, there was something gratifying about their awe-filled expressions and the fact that their caretakers didn’t hide them away in fear, like they once did.

“It’s because they trust you. And they know there are good people here, despite the gruesome career. They feel safe living with assassins. And so do I. Safe and incredibly happy with the family I’m blessed with . . . with you.” Her warm smile and kind words were gradually dragging Yukiki out of dark thoughts, a small smile itching the corners of his mouth.

“That’s why I chose to be an ally to assassins. And nothing will ever change that.” She waited patiently as he absorbed her speech, slight changes to his facial expression hinting at the thoughts waging war on each other.

When Hanana makes a decision, she sticks to it like it’s an unbreakable vow. And as sweet as she was, this stubborn nature made sure that she was never one to be refused. It’s what gave her the ability to make friends with an entire group of mostly hardened assassins and soften them up while she was at it. So with just one little speech, she had made it clear to Yukiki that there was no chance of her leaving them behind. And she was happy with that.

Unable to refuse her argument, a smile broke on his downtrodden appearance, small and tired it may have been. A small chuckle left his lips, submissive and accepting, as he allowed the part of him that didn’t want her to leave to rejoice.

“No . . . no, I suppose nothing will.” He sighed. His arms slowly lifted to gently hug her back, keeping eye contact. After a brief moment of hesitation, Yukiki leaned forward until their foreheads touched, careful of his nose. His eyes closed and he breathed out, smile still present.

“Thank you, Hanana.”

His voice was warm and somewhat relieved. Hanana’s body froze the moment his head touched hers. She stared at Yukiki in surprise, not expecting such a form of affection from him.

Looking up at him, she studied his face. He looked tired, as if his few minutes of dreary thoughts had taken several nights from him. And yet . . . that small smile was very slowly leading his body to relax. To her, it gave the impression that he was coming to terms with something that had long haunted him. He was trying to give himself some peace.

She gazed at him with awe as he completely relaxed, that smile still there. She felt her own smile grow as her lovesickness made an appearance at his affection, rustling the butterflies in her stomach. She loved when he was happy and that smile was starting to tug at her heartstrings. She could feel the blush invading her cheeks as he opened his eyes.

That look he gave her. She could barely describe it, but it sent those butterflies into overdrive and started melting any coherent thoughts.

As he began lifting his head away, her body reacted and she dove forward.

A shock shot through them as their lips met.

Her eyes closed, Hanana concentrated on just feeling. Such as the odd but pleasant chill of his lips on hers or the butterflies leaving her stomach to spread through her veins.

She was sure she would have been lost in her affection, if she hadn’t noticed how still he had gone. At the realization, her eyes snapped open and she ripped herself away.

She stared at him wide-eyed, taking in his reaction with growing embarrassment and fear.

He was entirely frozen in place, not even breathing. His face was beet red and his pupils had shrunk into pinpricks. She was shocked to see ice rapidly forming on her gifted scarf, the cuffs of his coat, and gloves. His book and scarf were now abandoned on the floor. To Hanana, he looked mortified. And now so was she, her previous calm shattered.

Yet another humiliating moment where she had let her emotions get the better of her.

She leaped away out of his frozen arms, more than ready to make a run for it. Her face was completely red as she covered it with her hands.

“I-I’m . . . I’m sorry. I—!” With no favorable excuse, she turned away, heading once again for the exit at a fast pace. She could feel tears forming behind her eyes, thinking it truly was another Giruru incident. Only worse.

She reached a hand out to grip the frame of the archway to steady her uneven stride when a large hand grabbed her arm and spun her around.

When her eyes met the fierce glow of his irises, she immediately lowered hers, submissive in her fear and shame. His ice-free hands latched onto her shoulders and held her in a steel trap.

“Hanana.”

She flinched at her name in such a serious tone. Did she cross a line? Could those stories about love confessions and impulsive kisses ruining friendships really be true? She didn’t think she could handle it if it was true for this. She was certain she couldn’t.

His gloved hand came up and grabbed a hold of her chin, pulling her face to his. His eyes’ shine had died down, but still possessed an unwavering luminance. His countenance was still serious, but his gaze had softened, picking up on her fear quickly.

“Why did you kiss me, Hanana?” It was a question, but to Hanana it could easily have been an accusation. She tried her hardest to not respond, to somehow silently convince him to let her go.

Yukiki wasn’t one to give up. His stubbornness could rival her own and it had given him both triumphs and ramifications in his career and small social life.

But mostly triumphs.

His unrelenting character worked to his advantage here. It was seconds before she crumbled under his gaze, leaning a bit against him as she gave up.

“B-Because . . . I . . . I think I . . .” She swallowed nervously, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to see him and his calculating eyes. A bit of courage was the reward of her cowardice. Enough to begin a confession. If the stories were true and he didn’t return any feelings, the kiss had already thrown a wrench into their friendship. Might as well give him the reason behind the throw, an excuse for forgiveness.

“No, I know . . . that I . . .” She took a deep breath. She tried to collect her previous confidence and calm.

“. . . that I’m in love . . . with you.” The near painful spike of strength to his grip on her shoulder broke the dam holding back the flood and what little confidence she had disappeared. She began confessing to the point of begging, like her very life was being threatened. And she couldn’t stop.

“I-I only figured it out that night after the hospital, but I-I-I think I’ve felt this way for a while. You’re just . . . you’re practically my best friend and you’ve always been there for me ever since the first time you ate cake with me. You’ve always protected me and I’ve always felt safe with you.” She screwed her eyes tighter, unable to control the rabble she was fast sinking into.

“Y-You’re strong, you’re brave, you’re smart, and you’re sweet even though you refuse to admit it. You protect your friends. You watch out for them. You play with Nuii and Dokuku!” Tears had started to run down her cheeks, the uncertainty of how this would end driving her emotions higher.

“I enjoy our walks and talks. I love baking cakes just to see your reaction! I adore your smile, your voice, your eyes . . . And-and I-I always thought a living, breathing snowman was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen!” She laughed though her tears to her next train of her most inner thoughts.

“I think your magic is beautiful!” A small hiccup escaped her as she started to tremble.

“You don’t want to lose me, but I’m terrified of losing you! I don’t know what I would do if . . . I . . . I just can’t.” Her rabbling nearly stopped at the grim thoughts, tears streaming faster with the thought of never seeing him again. Just like in the dream. But her thoughts continued to force their way out.

“B-But . . . I will never regret meeting you, meeting any of you! The last few years have been some of the best of my life! I don’t care how dangerous your lives are! You guys are my family . . . ever since my parents died, I . . .” Her voice started to shut down, small hiccups infecting her voice.

“I-I-I-I . . . I w-wouldn’t trade you all for the world. But you will al-always be . . . the o-one I am most grateful for. You’ve done so-so much for me and shown me things I never thought possible! You taught me how to ice-skate. H-how to make the perfect snowball. I-I know now that the wind really does have colors! That ice can create and save, not just d-d-destroy! Because of you, the cold doesn’t bother me much anymore!” Hanana’s forehead gently settled on Yukiki’s chest, her words physically exhausting her.

“Y-You showed me beauty and wonder where I once saw dullness and lifelessness.” She swallowed, breathless and afraid as she gave her last confession as a whisper.

“You made me love Winter.”

She went completely still, eyes still closed, and her mind going blank after the tidal wave of thoughts that had left through her mouth. All she could hear now was the low Christmas music and her heavy breathing.

Yukiki had become a statue, still and silent, and his silence killing her inside. The seconds built up as his hold did not waver, denying her the escape she was becoming desperate for.

What was he going to do?

“To care that much for someone like me, you must be completely and utterly insane.”

Her eyes shot open in dismay, but he quickly made his move. She yelped when his hand quickly pulled her face up to his as he tilted his head, nearly smashing their lips back together.

A shiver ran up and down her spine. She stared wide-eyed at him, his eyes closed and eyebrows down in determined concentration with a clear blush on his cheeks. His cold lips moved slightly against hers and that was all it took to snap her out of her shock.

She closed her eyes and flung her arms around his neck as she returned the kiss, nearly knocking him back. He was quick to recover from the sudden jump, bracing his feet and moving his arms to her waist and back to hold her securely against him. From there, both tried their best to pull the other as close as possible, finding a desperation they didn’t know they had for each other. The thought of losing the other was still fresh in both their minds.

When they finally pulled away, Hanana’s heart was racing a thousand miles a minute on the warm and happy feeling coursing through it, destroying the earlier fear and despair. A bright blush adorned her face and her breathing was slowly steadying. A smile was starting to grow quickly on her chilled lips as she opened her eyes to the man of her affections.

Yukiki’s reaction to the kiss wasn’t much different from hers. His icy heart also raced beneath her palms now on his chest, seemingly overheating at the unfamiliar overload of emotions. A blush was prominent on his face, a now common feature, and his eyes opened to hers in a clash of shining blue and burning pink.

He returned her smile and brought his hand at her cheeks to wipe the remaining tears away, widening his smile as she leaned into his touch.

“You truly are a strange one, Hanana.” She giggled at his statement, eyeing him playfully.

“What is that supposed to mean?” His smile somehow became even softer and his eyes held his own laughter with no uncertainty or guilt left. She felt herself fall a little bit more.

“It truly is remarkable that you think so highly of me.” His thumb stroke her cheek. Her hands gripped his coat tightly at the feeling.

“It’s really not that hard! I can teach you, if you want.” She winked at him as his blush deepened briefly, his hand leaving her face. She laughed and took the chance to bury her face in his new scarf, hugging him tightly as her ear caught the sound of his galloping heartbeat. He chuckled and hugged her back, his cheek resting against her head.

“Well, perhaps it is because of your stubborn form of kindness that I may be worthy of any of your praise. Many things have changed since you arrived.” They stood that way for a while, listening to the light music of ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You.’

Hanana hummed to the song happily, nearly laughing at the perfect timing of it. Yukiki noticed and, to her surprise, hummed along with her. She pulled her head away to look up at him, delighted. He ducked his head a bit, suddenly bashful. She laughed, overjoyed to see such a brighter side of him.

Was it truly because of her? At the thought, now she was getting bashful.

Trying to shake it off, she decided to play around with him. Fighting back her rising blush, she quickly dove in and kissed his jaw. As expected, he froze and she nearly did too, but she forced herself out of his embrace . . . and took his hat along with her.

He stood there, dazed and confused, as she pranced away from him towards the door way, placing the top hat on her own head and twirling her dress around with a laugh. The hat barely fit, but she don’t care as she played with the scarf flaps. She turned back to face him . . . and squealed when she found him right in front of her, his approach lightning quick and completely undetected. She cursed his hunter traits before he swooped her up bridal style and carried her back to the couch, herself struggling playfully as she squealed for him to let her go.

He obliged, abruptly but carefully, dropping her onto the cushions. She lay there stunned, then glared at him from under his hat after a quick recovery. He quickly snatched said hat off her head before she could grab a defensive hold of it. She sat up to retaliate, but he cut her off with a quick kiss. Her heart barely had time to flutter by the time he pulled back. He smirked at her, still lightly blushing, and walked away to retrieve his fallen items. He was still smirking when he returned, book, scarf, and hat in hand.

“You, Hanana, were never meant to be a thief.” She pouted as he sat down beside her, crossing her arms as she faked another glare. Another blush had made an appearance, steadily growing with her current thought path.

“I could too if I tried!” The snowman raised an eyebrow at her sudden childish behavior, items safely placed on his opposite side.

“Oh? And of what purpose is this sudden compulsion to become a petty criminal?” On cue, her blush deepen and her eyes darted nervously before looking him straight on.

“So I can be a master at stealing kisses from you. . .” To say he was stunned by her boldness on this kind of subject was an understatement. His mind finally short-circuited at the comment, after all that had happened. He mouth hung open, a response nonexistent in his head.

Hanana fell backwards on the couch, rolling with laughter at his expression. His stiff form gradually thawed, but he still gawked at her. This whole evening was unknown territory for him, completely confusing and unexpectedly pleasant. But that did describe the basic experience of whenever he was around her. All the strange emotions she gave him, from the very start, had been such: confusing and frustratingly enjoyable. He didn’t understand them then and he barely understood them now.

But he’d be damned if he wasn’t incredibly happy right now. A few years ago he would have scuffed at the idea of being happy to have a female laugh at him. He would have completely ignored, or maybe frozen, the person to tell him he would one day care enough for said woman to have a need to protect her with his life; a concept he had long found illogical, unnecessary, and just plain stupid.

Puzzled by the idea, he had been sure he would never succumb to the idiocy of putting his life on the line for another.

Well . . . now he had done it time and time again, for her and their friends. Was he an idiot now? Maybe. Her gasping laughter and his dumbstruck position in this situation was good proof of that.

But she was worth it. He had learned some time ago that she was. He now understood the reason behind the idiocy.

He was in way over his head, but nothing could be done against it. Especially not now. Despite his fears. She had seen to that.

By the time his train of thought was back from its detour, Hanana’s laughter had died down into heavy breathing with the occasional snicker. She wiped tears from her eyes, glancing up at him happily.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Your–your face was just so--!” He lunged at her and she squeaked as he pulled her upright and against him, his face inches from hers. His confidence had returned in force, a sudden, but familiar, dominant air surrounding him.

“I must say, your mission shouldn’t be too difficult. Novice even. But as a precaution, would you like to practice?” Now it was his turn to be bold. He wore a smirk at Hanana’s blushing, but the grin vanished under her lips as she surprised him with an abrupt kiss. He hadn’t expected her to respond so quickly.

Her lips were gone before he could return the favor and she smirked back at him. Yukiki blinked, then smirked as well, both of them still blushing.

“Well done.” She giggled merrily at his praise. She had never imagined he could be the flirting type, but she couldn’t deny that she was starting to live for his teasing. A new feature to love him for.

She scooted closer to him, pressing against his side. He wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. She sighed blissfully, relaxing after such an emotional rollercoaster of a night.

“You know . . . today being Christmas . . . shouldn’t kissing happen under mistletoe?” She pointed out absent mindedly. She leaned forward to look past Yukiki to his hat.

“Did Putata and Mekeke give you any?” Seeing the object of her attention, the man grunted, eyes turning a bit steely.

“I haven’t let those two anywhere near me today. ESPECIALLY near my hat.” The girl covered her mouth to smother more oncoming giggles. She then moved her hands to his coat sleeve, gaining back his attention.

“It’s fine. It was just a thought. No need to get riled up. Besides, there’s no reason to avoid mistletoe on your hat anymore.” She smiled sweetly at him, then snuggled back comfortably into his side. She felt the rumble as he chuckled.

“I suppose not. Their so-called ‘encouragement’ prank is rendered useless if their victim is already courting their trap piece.” He paused and looked down at her, his nervousness returning to annoy him once again.

“That is . . . if you will have me.” She looked up at him, eyes soft and loving. The snowman could have sworn his insides were melting. And not at all in a painful way. Exact opposite.

“Yes, Yuki.” His heart raced at her reply, but his doubts still persisted. He had to make sure.

“Are you absolutely certain? There are many things I can never do for you. I cannot keep you warm. I cannot easily go anywhere with you where it is above a certain temperature. I am not even sure if I can--”

“Yukiki.”

A finger placed firmly on his mouth shut him up very quickly.

“I already know all of this and yes, I’m sure. There is nothing I would want more.” He stared at her, taking in her answer. Then he smiled. And Hanana was in awe at the adoration in his eyes. All for her.

He leaned his head down and she reached up, meeting in a soft and lingering kiss. They parted to breathe and quickly lost themselves in each other’s eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Yuki.”

The snowman held the flower girl tighter, laughing breathlessly at how merry his Christmas had indeed become. He watched as she laid a hand on his scarf, tracing the patterns she had crafted herself. He glanced at her necklace in return, even now feeling the pieces of his power he had forced into the delicate shapes. As he would treasure the scarf, he would treasure even more so the Christmas gift he had so longed for in his arms.

“Merry Christmas, Hanana.”

They sat there for the rest of the night, watching the snow and asking each other questions they could never ask before, enjoying each other’s company. Sleep pulled at them both, but they resisted it to revel in the moment of peace and affection.

They quietly laughed at the occasional silly question, or melted at a heartfelt answer.

“You truly think my power is . . . beautiful?”

“When you’re happy, it’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”

The action was clearly over. Now they were just talking, not as interesting anymore.

Calling it quits, a cloaked figure quickly snuck out, not wanting to be caught now that Yukiki wasn’t as distracted. Experience had taught him that the snowy assassin had a knack for sensing a presence. And there would be hell to pay if Yukiki had paid attention to anything but Hanana.

Once at a safe distance, the figure took out the pictures he had snapped, sorting through them for the juicy ones. He had arrived just in time to see Yukiki pull the girl by the chin into a kiss and had been quick to hide and document their every move from there. Smiling devilishly, he made his way to his room. He couldn’t wait to tell everyone that the wait was over.

But how to tell them? Definitely tomorrow and definitely loud and proud. Let the love birds have their peace tonight before the explosion.

For his plan, he would need the whole night anyway.

One last pull over the iceman’s head.

Then, if Yukiki was good and didn’t use his body for ice sculpture target practice, he would leave the two to their lovey-dovey business from now on.

Maybe . . .

#bechnokid #fanfic #yukiki #darknesslioness #hanana #romance #yukihana #sgt frog #keroro gunso #gijinka #kerojinka #ice melts fire #part 2 #fanfics #lioness writes

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