#laser launcher

[autisticfoxgirl333]

Balan Wonderworld Chapter 4!

[nervousalpacahologram]

NEW PARTS LEAKERD IN A FUTUREPRESS GUIDE????

[ketchuplaser]

I was a little surprised that this didn't rate higher.

Oh well, still fun to draw!

And this series is closed!

[desnayy]

Tubbo is a meister in the Soul Eater au and probably steps in to be Fit's partner at some point. And when Mike goes missing later on, Tubbo (and Fit sometimes) takes over as meister occasionally.

[cyborg-hydra-girl-thing]

been playing so much armored core i’ve two blisters on my left hand from driving the tartarus

on the other hand i’ve S ranked everything through chapter 3 for NG, NG+, and NG++

only 4 & 5 left :3

[communist-hatsunemiku]

i pulled off the most clutch shit with my tank ac against the two guys in the Attack the Old Spaceport mission, god i wish i had that recorded

[tlaquetzqui]

Realized something: lasers would be a lot heavier than guns. See, most of a small-arms gun is empty space, namely the barrel and chamber. That whole length on a laser the same size is a cylinder of fucking rock: the crystal of the gain medium, and the lens (which is likely to be something like sapphire instead of just glass). Also a laser has a much thicker “barrel”, since if you want to hit anything further than a DVD is from the reader in the player, your laser has to have a “caliber” measured in centimeters, not millimeters.

[sw5w]

High-Energy Shell

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:56:58

[deadsetobsessions]

“I ate paint once,” Danny nonchalantly threw out in the middle of game night.

The entire table stopped. Heads whipped towards Danny.

“Yeah, me too. Cardamom yellow was my favorite. Ugly as hell but the chemicals just tasted right.” Tim replied, using the distraction to nab some of Bruce’s money. Monopoly money, that is. Everyone’s heads snapped towards Tim, only Cass and Danny (who was part of the scheme) caught him cheating.

“Really? I think mine was those spray can blue cosmos paint. But that might have been more my thing for space than the actual taste.”

“WHY WERE YOU EATING PAINT?!” Dick asked, looking like he wanted to lunge over the table and shake Danny until he puked out paint. Bruce looked like he was about to have a heart attack.

“Yeah, what the fuck, Tim?” Jason snickered.

“In my defense,” Danny grinned. “I was left unsupervised. Also, Steph, you owe me $24 in rent.”

“Ugh! I’m almost out of money! Can’t you loan me some, Alfred?”

“I am sorry, Miss Stephanie, you are not qualified for another loan. In fact, one of your properties is about to be confiscated as per the collateral agreement.”

“Noooo!” Stephanie made dramatic dying noises.

“What was your excuse, Timothy?” Damian asked, eyes glued to the board and determined to win the game.

“Hey, I was probably less supervised than Danny was.”

“Yeah,” Danny perked up. “My parents brought us down to their lab all of the time. Taught us a lot of stuff.”

“Really? Like what?” Duke asked, casually slapping away Tim’s sneaky hands.

“Oh, like what a rocket launcher sounded like up close! And how to build a laser gun! Oh! And what human organs looked like when they’re fresh!” Danny chirped, collecting his money from a stunned Stephanie’s hands. He looked up.

“Oh, don’t worry! I at least learned what not to do when it comes to lab safety. And we wore hazmat suits to protect ourselves from the radiation.” Danny smiled in a ditzy fashion as the table fell silent in a horrified manner. Cass tapped his arm amusedly, but allowed his bullshit to stand. After all, it’s not like he lied.

“Radiation?” Duck’s voice raised a couple of octaves. Oh yeah, Danny’s going to laugh about that pitch for a long while.

“Organs?!” Jason’s hands closed around the plastic house he was holding rather forcefully.

“Do you even know what basic lab safety practices are, Danny?” Damian demanded, finally looking up with brows furrowed. He rolled the dice and grabbed a mystery card. He gets $100 from Alfred.

“How old were you??” Duke asked.

“Like… 8, when they first brought me in?”

“Eight.” Bruce rumbled, slipping into a more Batman like persona. When Danny sent him a confused look, Bruce straightened back into his Bruce persona. “Wow, they must have trusted you a lot!”

“Sure?”

“What were their names again?” Stephanie asked sweetly, Cass nodding at him.

“Jack and Maddie Fenton.” Not that they’ll find them here, considering his parents are dead and in another universe.

“Cool, cool, cool!” Stephanie blinked, beaming as her hands formed lethal fists underneath the table.

Danny blinked and tilted his head in an unassuming way, pretending like he had no idea what Stephanie was thinking of. He sneakily handed over $600 to Cass in order to complete his monopoly on his side of the board.

Danny stood up and spread his hands out, one hand clutching his new found victory.

"Well, lady and gents, you've all been floundering against the inevitable tide of capitalism. I am here, as a reminder that you can never win against the hopelessness that will be your financial ruin! I, Danny Fenton, have obtained a quarter of the board and therefore have won against even your best efforts!" He cackled, holding up his fan of properties triumphantly. He shot a mischievous grin at Cass, who held up a solemn thumbs up in support for his monetary takeover.

"... Danny, are you... planning on a career in villainy?" Bruce asked, after a brief and total wave of shocked silence. Damian looked like he was having a conniption at having been bested, unknowingly. Yeah, Danny was disarming like that.

"Yeah, that was concerning." Tim piped up, nabbing a ten from a shell-shocked Damian.

"Hey! The Riddler gives surprisingly good monologues! And he's really loud, so it's hard not to pick up on things. Duke, your turn." Danny sat back down, pouting. The villainy comment was a little too close to his fears.

"Damn it." Duke, who had rolled, landed smack middle of Danny's territory. He handed over a sheaf of bills to a grinning Danny.

"Wait a minute! You have cheated!" Damian bolted upwards from his seat, finally done running through the purchases he remembered Danny making. "You acquired that property not within the games' rules!"

"Okay, first of all, the rule book is a suggestion, like lab safety rules," Danny saw the others open their mouths to protest, but he quickly shut it down. "Second, there's totally no rules about selling and buying places from a private owner so suck on it. And thirdly? Cass sold it to me, so you all can take it up with her."

"Diabolical!" Damian muttered indignantly.

"... Dammit." Dick sighed, falling back into the chair and balancing on its two legs. He couldn't say anything, considering his current of bankruptcy.

"Danny. Danny, I'll buy a property from you." Jason said, eyeing one of Danny's other properties near his own cluster.

"What do you have that would interest me?" Danny asked, falling back into his Vlad-like imitation.

"Ew, don't do that," Steph reached over to jab him in the arm.

"Yeah, Jason, what do you have?" Duke said, the lovely subtle instigator that he is.

"Red Hood's signature."

The others blue-screen, gaping at the actual audacity Jason had to offer up something that would take him no effort. Danny, prepared with a poker face that came with lying straight to Jazz's ever perceptive eyes about whether he nabbed the last of her ice cream or not, was prepared.

"Red Hood? The condom guy working out of the... um. Upper East Side?" Danny asked, pretending to hesitate. He knows where Jason operated. That doesn't mean he couldn't simply pretend otherwise. For science, of course.

...

...

...

The table howled with laughter, Jason's indignant spluttering unable to say anything against Danny's wide eyed look of innocence. Cass leaned against the table, chuckles falling out of her mouth and eyes crinkled in mirth. Dick had fallen out of his chair, helplessly wheezing on the floor. Duke is hiding his face in his hands, mirroring Bruce's pose as they both shake from silent laughter. Damian is smirking, wicked and sharp as he smugly stared at Jason. Stephanie and Tim are leaning against each other, repeating "the CONDOM GUY" in alternating and increasingly louder voices. Alfred had a smile on his face and a tight grip on the bills in front of him that betrayed his amusement.

"He's a crime lord!" Jason exclaimed, indignant.

"Uh, okay. Well, I mean, why would I want a crime lord's signature? I don't want to be on his radar. Or echolocation or whatever. He's... a Bat, right? That's what you guys call that group, yeah?"

"How do you know the Rogues better than the vigilantes?!" Jason glared at his unhelpful family. Those assholes better prepare for a load of rubber bullets the next time they're on patrol near Crime Alley.

"Hey, it's not my fault the vigilantes here are unsociable. Maybe if they monologued more, I'd know who they are."

"Wouldn't- wouldn't that make them more villain like?" Tim asked, stuttering from his laughter.

"I dunno?" Danny replied, enjoying his the family's unabashed joy. "I mean, they're pretty legit and they help people already so I guess they don't need to be sociable... but still I swear I haven't heard anything about Batman other than that he grunts and is mean towards criminals."

Is mean towards criminals, Duke mouthed at a recovering Dick who was in the process of heaving himself back up. It sent him careening back down to the floor with restrained giggles. Cass tapped Danny, reminding him to eat some food.

"Tt. Of course not. They're efficient at their jobs and have no need to be seen as welcoming to criminals." Damian puffed up.

"Yeah, but they've gotta feel safe, right?" Danny shrugged as he plucked a cookie from the cookie platter. "The... one with the sword, what was it?"

"Robin." Damian supplied, eyes narrowed and trained on him.

"Yeah, the baby bird. The kids think his swords are cool so they trust him. But like, the others? The flippy blue one? Not so much."

"Wait," Dick said from the floor. "They don't trust Nightwing?"

"Nah, they trust him to protect them, but he has a history of bringing the kids to the police, you know?"

"What's wrong with that?"

Danny shrugged. "ACAB. But also because everybody knows that half the guys in the GCPD and CPS are child traffickers."

"Wait, what?" Jason and Tim straightened.

Bruce piped in, the emotional whiplash of amusement to concern to amusement to concern visibly making itself known on the man's baffled face. "I thought Batman and Commissioner Gordon took care of that?"

"Sure, the obvious ones." Danny hesitated. Well, he's pretty sure they think he's a meta so... "There's... a meta trafficking ring that they're a part of. That's. That's kind of what I was running from."

Danny looked up pleadingly. Cass placed a hand on his arm in comfort, not knowing that he was fibbing about running from them.

Danny was on the streets helping his own Alley metas to run from them.

Danny is as feral as she was, and that meant he could hide just as much as she could read off of him. Cass was the best and he felt kind of bad about lying to her, successfully or not.

"Uh. Some people said you know Batman, Bruce. I know- uh, that might not be the case but if you do, could you ask him to look into it?" Danny made his eyes tear up. "And maybe he wouldn't care about me much, I mean, I know he doesn't really like metas but if he helps out, I could totally like, leave the city once the kids are safe, promise."

Ooh, Danny put a little too much sincerity into that. He could practically hear the hearts breaking in the game room as everyone glared at Bruce.

"You won't have to leave."

"... Promise?" And Danny's voice was a little too desperate, too hopeful, because Bruce's eyes tugged down in sadness.

"Promise." He rumbled, all Bruce Wayne and all Batman. Danny's core warmed. Danny also saw the rest of the family's faces darken in pure agreement. And partial wrath.

"Yeah! We'll kick Batman's ass if he even thought about kicking you out!" Stephanie proclaimed.

"He's far more proficient in combat than you are, Brown." Damian immediately leapt to Batman's defense and that was that.

Well, later, as Danny was "sleeping" and Phantom was hovering in the cave, invisible and intangible, he got confirmation that his Alley meta kids were going to be safe, soon.

After all, the entire Batclan was suiting up and baying for blood, with Oracle's all encompassing presence behind them, fingers reaching for their enemies' weak points.

[tarmac-rat]

Funny things that I think probably happen with cyberware more often than Pondsmith and CDPR would write in the text but I just think they're neat if only from a wordbuilding perspective:

Hair getting caught in your deep dive port when you try to plug the link in.

Your sleeves getting stuck in the seams of your arm cyberware when the mechanisms retract back in.

Mantis blades accidentally shredding your long sleeves when you flex them.

A ripperdoc not having your exact shade of skintone on your new limb, and telling you to wait to get it replaced while it's on backorder.

Blue Screen of Death on netrunner 'ware.

Needing to register the new fingerprints on your hand if you get it replaced with a cybernetic, and the complications of having two hands that might not match up printwise.

People 'tattooing' the chromed parts of their body via laser engraving.

Metal plating getting so hot during the summer that you accidentally burn yourself trying to scratch your nose.

Forgetting to deslot shards and accidentally carrying them around in your head for a week.

Needing to clean the gunk out of your mantis blades or projectile launcher at home, so you flex it open and scrub at it with a bunch of paper towels or a bristle brush for an hour.

Rust and tarnish cleaner being a staple in home cyberware maintenance.

Actually buying projectile launcher rounds.

Someone starting a Mythbusters/Jackass style TV show about cyberware ("Hey gang! Today we're asking 'Is it possible to punch through a 3-foot cinderblock wall using only seven-gen Gorilla Fists?'")

Just generally playing with your personal link. Strumming it. Spinning it. Thwacking people with it. Built in fidget toy.

[potatoes-of-wrath]

In honor of pride month, I’m reviving and revamping an old post:

The LGBTQ+ armory :)

- L: Laser

- G: Grenade Launcher

- B: Bazooka

- T: Tank

- Q: Quarterstaff

- I: ICBM

- A: Anthrax

Tag yourself, I’m anthrax

[oshlet]

Wasn't *quite* happy with the initial fairy design so I've been iterating on it a little, this is what I've settled with at the moment, making the Choke launchers and arm lasers more clearly visible, and adding a little asymmetry with the IRST on the nose.

Choke is an abbreviation of Chaff-smoke, and is a vital tool on the battlefield. Normally released via high pressure grenades, Choke is made up of superheated smoke - which baffles visual and infrared sensors - and highly reflective crystal fragments, which do double duty of confusing radar and diffracting most energy beams which pass through. Inside Choke, short-range focused lasers and ballistics are king, but even then, they must be fired with little to no guidance.

[mapledkanata]

Ka-Ka-KaBOOM!

"Resigned" hunter Dr. Rockso puts on a light show..

His weapon is definitely inspired by old war box rocket launchers. It's a laser cannon/plasma gun. These big laser/plasma guns are what a good handful of hunters (most likely in the hands of wealthy or powerful families) have. Nathan has one of the newest, larger versions of this weapon.

The one Dr. Rockso's got is actually a prototype used by earlier hunters. They're very volatile and there have been accounts of the prototypes exploding on usage. They're extremely powerful but the weapon cant control or handle it.

so theyve been since decommissioned but Dr. Rockso still carries his around still muahaha

AU made in part with my friend, @sneakydevilship ; AU not related to the Monster Hunter Franchise!

[alexanderwales]

I started writing a Factorio/Worm fanfic, then decided that I don't remember enough about Worm. I know that this hasn't stopped many people in the past, but I guess I'm just built different.

The idea was that the Factorio engineer is a terrifying Tinker by the standards of Worm, and also either hates bugs or is callously indifferent to genocide when they interfere with the growth of the factory. And Earth doesn't have open deposits of coal, iron, and copper just sitting around, but it does have giant mounds of them sitting at transit depots, like the docks where Skitter's dad works. Plus the Factorio engineer canonically violates one of the most important rules in Worm: don't use guns. I think that's interesting/funny, because it means mowing down all those heroes who die to machine gun fire.

But as soon as I started thinking about who the PRT was going to send to deal with this, my enthusiasm immediately dropped. The thought of going to look on the wiki or reread Worm made me close the project entirely before it was even really started.

(The Factorio engineer, with a fully operational endgame factory, has shields powerful enough to stop a hit from a nuclear-powered locomotive, a swarm of construction robots that can slap down hundreds of gun turrets, laser turrets, flamethrowers, and mines, has long-distance artillery, cluster grenades, poison capsules, slow-down capsules, rocket launchers ... I don't remember Worm well enough to know which capes can no-sell him, but I can't imagine that it's all that many, depending on whether it's at properly constructed factory walls or out during an expedition. Plus if the engineer dies, he can just respawn, but I don't think I would take that to be a canonical power unless it was funny.)

[plainclothesdisaster]

Red Knight Chapter 5 - Curses & Couches

DP x DC | Dead on Main

Jason Todd encounters one Danny Fenton in the streets of Gotham and suddenly he's thrown into a world of ghosts and monsters. Will he embrace this life? Or will it just end up with him dead again?

Read on AO3 | Beginning | < Prev | Next >

——

The night after the brawl in Danny’s apartment Jason was out as Red Hood scouting a possible arms deal when he spotted it— a Curse Ghost, vaguely beastly and oozing black goo, just as ugly and unsettling as the one from Danny’s place. Jason texted him.

Found one.

So you didnʼt lose my number after all. Iʼll be right there.

Jason sent him the location- a rusted sewer grate at the edge of crime alley that he’d seen a curse ghost vanish into. Danny arrived minutes later in jeans and a jacket, same as always. Not like Jason had been expecting any different, but he had gotten used to working with the Bat. Capes and masks came standard. Danny was anything but standard.

“You bring the gear?” Danny asked as he stepped up toward the sewer gate Jason stood beside.

Jason opened his jacket to reveal he had strapped all kinds of whips and tasers and lasers and launchers to his holsters. He even wore the invisibility cuffs. And the sword.

Danny grinned. “I also brought something extra I think youʼll like.” He reached into his own jacket and pulled out, with great panache, a pair of plain white gym socks.

Jason scowled. “A selection from your laundry pile?” Still, he took them as Danny handed them over.

“If by laundry pile you mean my pile of genius inventions, then yes.”

“Iʼll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” Danny shrugged. “If getting sewer water in your shoes is your thing I won’t stop you.”

Jason frowned.

And then he found himself wearing Dannyʼs socks (back in his boots, mind you), hunting the curse down the drain tunnel, hovering inches above the water instead of sludging through it.

“Real flight just wasnʼt doable with the tech, but these still have their uses.” Danny commented from ahead, his voice echoing down the tunnel completely careless of stealth. He also hovered, simple as if gravity had just turned off for him, none of the wobbles or wavers in balance that Jason was currently trying to hide. Forty feet into the darkness of the sewer and Jason was relying on the night vision in his helmet. Meanwhile Danny seemed just fine.

As they approached a junction in the pipe, Danny slowed. “Its here,” he whispered. Jason sensed it too, somehow. The air was colder and more alive somehow, the colors more warped and saturated.

They peeked silently around the corner and there it was, lounging half submerged like an overstuffed crocodile. Black ooze seeped into the water all around it, making it hard to tell where the beast itself began.

Danny threw him a look, anticipation dancing in his Lazarus green eyes. And then without further warning he pounced.

Hopes of keeping their socks dry vanished. Danny was quickly sopping, no thanks to his outfit choice. Still he fought like a terror, ducking out of the way of massive dripping jaws that threatened to halve him as he returned blows and blasts in kind. Jason watched with trained curiosity. Heʼd been so preoccupied with not dying last time he hadnʼt learned much. This time he bit down his fear enough to make sense of how the curse ghost moved- like water and like a rockslide- and how Danny countered- like mist and lightning.

The curse ghost turned toward Jason and like a firecracker hid anger ignited and lost any inclination he had to stay on the sidelines. He instinctively reached for his guns but then thought better of it in close quarters. Instead he pulled the sword off his back. He swung with stiff determination, slicing through black crocodile hide. He felt a grim thrill as the beast roared.

Jason fought with less caution this time. More rhythm. In the end they overpowered it, beating it down deeper into the sludge until Danny sucked it up with the thermos, neat and tidy.

Danny smiled at him. “Nice work.”

Jason kneeled where it had fallen. Traces of black goo remained on the walls. He ran his fingers through it and it stuck to his gloves like slimy tar. “What the hell are these guys made of?”

Danny kneeled next to him, also inspecting the sludge remains. He pursed his lips. “It’s corrupted ectoplasm.”

Like Jason’s, Danny didn’t say. Didn’t need to.

“These guys are more solid than regular ghosts. It didn’t just phase out of here. It splashed in the water.” Danny rubbed the goo between his fingers before shaking it off.

“You said they’re Gotham’s curse, right? Makes sense that they’d be solid here, more than the regular ghosts.”

Danny looked at him, studying his face as if his mask wasn’t there. “Yeah. I think you’re right.”

Why did he feel such a surge of glowing pride at Danny’s acknowledgement? Like passing another test. Earning his way into this world.

He caught himself. What the hell did he need to prove? He knew he was a great detective- and he could do it all without all the fancy tools and access that Bruce and his flock had.

But solving the curse ghosts was one thing. Solving Danny was what he really cared about. And to do that he needed Danny to trust him.

//

During the days that followed he tried to tend to his other cases, and he thought about Danny.

Mid stakeout of an upstart drug trafficker his mind wandered. Danny, going to class like some normal college kid. Eating lunch. Making friends. Did he have friends? Jason considered tailing him again to find out, but he thought better of it. If Danny caught him snooping now it wouldn’t be easy to explain it away, and he’d lose the burgeoning trust between them. Or burgeoning friendship. Were they friends?

Jason had made allies for less before, but with Danny he couldn’t let his guard down, not completely. Jason remembered how he took down four thugs like it was nothing. He remembered how Danny looked at him with icy eyes right before he’d dropped him off a building. Every instinct reminded him Danny was dangerous.

The back alley door he’d been watching opened and it took him two seconds longer than it should have for him to react. The men nearly saw him as he ducked his head behind the corner and out of sight.

He eavesdropped on the drug deal, mentally filing away details on where the money was going. He watched as the men got in a black car, noted the license plate. It all felt a bit pedestrian compared to the Lovecraftian beasts he now knew to be lurking in the shadows.

He’d dealt with his fate share of meta weirdness and science experiments gone wrong in Gotham. But he wondered if this was how Bruce felt after coming back from dealing with Justice Leage level business. How was he supposed to focus on small time drug trade when a supernatural threat loomed large over his city?

Amity Park continued to yield no answers, even when he deepened his search. Going out of his way to delve into Gotham library archives wielded no new leads. Newspapers, business reports, even government documents- all missing or, more worrisome, heavily redacted.

When he looked again for the scientific paper by the Drs. Fenton, it had also disappeared from the net. Good thing he’d made a backup when he first discovered it, but it meant someone wasn’t taking too kindly to him poking around.

None of what he found explained what Danny was. Or, maybe more importantly, what kind of person he was.

He remembered something Alfred had once told Bruce after long nights of fruitless research. Some things you can’t solve while holed up in your cave. Some you have to do personally.

He didnʼt remember agreeing to it but he found himself meeting up with Danny nearly every night. Even if he tried to work on his other cases, inevitably a curse ghost would show up and derail his evening plans.

Danny speculated that they sought out Jason more now because he’d proved himself a threat, the same way they came after Danny. “Now that they know your ecto signature-“ whatever the hell that was- they’ll come looking. Territorial bastards.”

“Easier than hunting them down I guess.”

“I like the positive attitude.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

They established a meeting place on the roof old hotel that sat in the heart of crime alley. There had been texts exchanged at first but as the weeks went on they became unnecessary. Jason knew that when he swung up on to the roof each night that Danny would be there waiting for him.

That particular night he landed on the roof with barely a sound. Dannyʼs eyes still flicked over immediately. He sat where he typically did on the roofs edge, and his lips turned up in a half smile as soon as he saw Jason. Excitement buzzed in Jasonʼs skin like neon. Adrenaline. Just the anticipation for the upcoming hunt, he told himself. Certainly nothing else.

They weren’t waiting long before sirens and burglar alarms rang like beacons a few streets over.

“Shall we?” Jason cracked his knuckles.

“After you.”

Jason tipped himself forward off the building, diving in a short free fall. As he neared the street he didn’t reach for his grapple gun, instead he pulled on that energy under his heart, focused on his socks and hovered the last few feet to the ground. Danny followed behind in lazy twists and curls like a leaf in the wind.

They caught up with the curse ghost on the next block over. It ran through the street, a mangy goopy dog, as tall as a truck with too-sharp teeth. As it passed lights in doorways flickered and went dark, cars honked in the streets as drivers cut each other off, the cops on the corner stopped a group of teens with hands itching at their hips.

Jason felt it too, the way that whisky burns down your throat, riling you at your core.

“Ooh it’s a real nasty one,” Danny quipped. Was it Jason’s imagination or were his teeth even sharper than usual?

So far Jason had only encountered the beasts in places already filled with death and fear and aggression. It made his skin crawl to see the effect work the other way. The beast crashed through the street like an invisible wave, spreading misfortune, inciting aggression. He tasted acid at the back of his throat.

Danny had told him the curse caused suffering and then fed on it, a cycle that perpetuated ending with it getting stronger and stronger. All at the expense of Gotham. It struck Jason as blunt as a crowbar to the side. No matter what he did as Red Hood, no matter what any of the bats did— peace in Gotham had less than a snowball’s chance in hell. Not with these beasts running wild.

He ran after it wordlessly, Danny by his side. They followed the trail of misfortune through the streets of crime alley and then into downtown proper. Jason had half a though about truces and territories made with Batman in where he could and could not operate, but any qualms blew past him as his vision tunneled on the beast.

Heat churned under his skin and he felt a swell of rage despite the fact that Danny still kept pace beside him. This rage wasn’t sharp and bright like the rage he intimately knew, instead it burned oily and black.

They rounded a corner and real heat smacked him in the face. Ahead of them a building burned vigorously, flames eating their way out windows on every floor. He watched as the curse ghost dove through the open front door into the inferno.

“Shit,” Danny hissed beside him. “I’m going in.”

Without further warning Danny disappeared, presumably diving in after the beast.

The rage still burning in his gut egged Jason on to follow. Then, a cry from above. In the window, two kids framed by an orange inferno. Below on the street other people covered in soot pointed up, desperation in their voices.

Sense snapped back to him like an ice bath, priorities set. He strode toward the building and launched a grapple line, zipping up to the window.

“Grab on tight.” He hoisted two little girls off the windowsill and they followed his instruction, clinging to his midsection. He lowered them all down just as a loud crack came from the building above as the beams began to burst.

As he set the girls on the ground the older one spoke up, her voice barely a squeak. “Our brother-“

Fuck. Jason looked back up. The window frame was nearly devoured in flame. Fuck.

The wail of sirens echoed steadily closer, but not fast enough. He couldn’t just rush in unscathed like Danny had, he wasn’t wearing the jacket that made him intangible (supposedly, he hadn’t yet made it work all the way). But he still had to do something. He gripped his grapple gun and steeled himself.

And then Danny shot out of the second story window like a comet, landing haphazardly beside Jason. Around his neck, wrapped safely within his arms, was a little boy.

The sisters cried out with joy and Danny passed the boy to them, dazed and soot covered but still breathing. Danny smiled up at Jason, ashes tangled in the mess of his black hair.

“Red Hood?”

Shit. He would recognize that voice even if he were still dead.

“Batman.” Jason turned and saw his former mentor illuminated in firelight.

Fire trucks and EMTs arrived moments later, tending to the civilians and doing what they could against the blaze. Out of the corner of his eye Jason saw a flash of the iconic red and yellow on the roof. Robin was deploying some kind of fire extinguishing smoke bombs from above.

“What happened here?” Batman was never one to mince words. Still, Jason didn’t appreciate the accusatory undertone.

“Isn’t a guy allowed to save a few kids from a burning building once in a while?” He retorted.

“You’re outside of Crime Alley. Any particular reason?”

“W—“ he glanced over his shoulder. Danny was nowhere to be seen. Good. “I was just passing through. Helped how I could. But now it seems like you and Gotham’s finest have got it handled so I’ll be on my way.”

“Wait—“

Jason in fact did not wait. He shouldered his way past running firemen and slipped deeper into the shadows behind the crowd. He remembered the invisibility cuffs and with a bit of focus he made extra certain Batman couldn’t follow.

He waited till he was safely back inside the streets of crime alley (he chuckled to himself that anyone could think of these streets as safe) before he dropped the invisibility.

He found Danny waiting for him on top of their hotel.

“You okay?” Danny asked as Jason sat next to him on the edge of the roof.

“Fine.”

“Sorry I bailed so quickly, I-“

“Batman can not find out about you,” Jason interrupted. Meta or not, Batman wouldn’t be pleased if anyone as powerful as Danny was roaming around Gotham unchecked. If Bruce saw him, if he got any sense of his capabilities, he’d certainly confront him, or worse.

“Yeah, exactly, way ahead of you,” Danny breathed. “The Dark Knight is not on the list of heroes I’d like to meet.”

Jason hummed in the affirmative, satisfied.

“You get the curse ghost?”

“What? Oh, no. Forgot about him as soon as I saw there were still people. in the building. I think I got them all out before the B man showed up.”

“You’re a hero then. Or vigilante.”

“Was. I’m retired.”

“You don’t seem retired to me.”

“It’s complicated.”

In truth Jason had been relieved when Danny flew out of the building with that kid. Relieved for the kid of course, but equally relieved that Danny had chosen the civilians over the curse ghost. It meant that maybe he was just as altruistic as he claimed to be.

“So are these ghosts better or worse than the ones in Amity Park?” Jason ventured, pushing what trust he’d built.

Danny stiffened at the mention of Amity Park.

“I never mentioned Amity.” A hint of dangerous green glinted behind his eyes. Jason swallowed.

“I know. I was curious.” He replied, as breezy as possible. Like he hadn’t spent hours scouring through old records and obscure blogs to even get this scrap of information.

Danny pressed his lips together. “I haven’t been back in a long time.”

“Not even to see your parents?” Jason was getting reckless now.

“No.” Hard and cold as stone. “They’re not there anymore.”

Noted. Fenton parents were a subject to avoid with Danny. And a subject he would need to redouble his research on.

“And yeah. All ghosts are similar everywhere. Aside from the Curse Ghosts.” Danny offered, the chill fading from the air.

Getting info off of him was easy if Jason asked the right questions. Figuring out the questions was the hard part.

“How did they even get here then? The Curse Ghosts.” Jason asked. “Is there a portal close by?” Portal like the one the Fentons may or may not have created, like the one that supposedly killed Danny.

“No, they’re special. They form here in Gotham, no portal necessary,” came Danny’s unguarded reply. His gaze was far off, down into the streets like he could see them there.

“Actually,” Danny got that conspiratorial look as he turned to Jason, “Come with me.”

//

“Iʼve been trying to find a pattern for where the curse ghosts show up.” Danny sat at the messy desk in his apartment. Jason leaned over his shoulder as he pointed to a map on an outdated monitor.

It was Gotham, with red points dotting various locations. Jason recognized a few as locations theyʼd fought Curse Ghosts together but there were dozens more spots that Jason hadnʼt been at.

“Crime Alley is one obvious hot spot. Plenty of misery here to feed off of. But also— here by the docks, in the business district, by city hall, at Arkham.”

“So, anywhere.” Jason deadpanned.

Danny shot him a look. He clicked a key and another layer of dots showed up on the map.

“News stories of note- strange deaths, corruption, theft. Thereʼs always a surge after a beast shows up.”

“Seems obvious. And unhelpful.”

Danny huffed. “Yeah, well, usually one of your seventeen resident vigilantes shows up and restores order before things get too bad. Starves ‘em out a bit, unlike the big fish we were after tonight. But this is still helpful to get a bead on those to avoid real disasters.”

Jason studied the map layered with articles. “There has to be a way to predict where they’ll form.”

Danny hit a few keys and tossed him a thumb drive. “Knock yourself out.”

Danny leaned back in his chair. He looked tired.

Jason changed the subject. “So what do you study?”

“Huh?”

He gestured to the GU hoodie and various homework-esque bits around the room.

“Oh. Mechanical Engineering,” Danny replied with limited enthusiasm. “What about you? You go to school?”

“Not since I died.” Jason replied. Danny winced. “But itʼs okay. Not really my scene.”

“Oh cmon. There must be something youʼd want to study.”

“Maybe- no. Itʼs stupid.” Jason sat down on the arm of the sofa- the one that was still mostly intact.

“They have all sorts of weird degrees you can do now. You could do Crimonogy. Physicology. Extreme weightlifting with a minor in anthropology.”

“Or Literature.”

“What?” The corners of Danny’s mouth quirked up as he turned toward Jason.

“You know- the classics. Novels. The poets. That kind of stuff.”

Dannyʼs face curled into a smile. “Didnʼt peg you for the type.”

“You donʼt know me.” Jason was thankful the helmet hid the heat rising to his face.

“Touché.”

“Why mechanical engineering?” Jason countered.

“My grades were so shit in high school it was kind of a fall back.” Jason raised a doubting eyebrow.

“No really,” Danny continued, “I grew up around my parents tinkering. I couldnʼt help but pick it up. Much easier than studying Literature.”

“But do you actually like it?”

He shrugged. “Iʼm good at it. Isn’t that basically the same thing?”

Jason snorted. “Not at all. You still get to choose.”

Danny turned away, hiding his face. The silence stretched on for a long moment. Then, “So why are you a crime lord instead of a literature professor?”

Jason considered the question. Truthfully it hadn’t considered doing anything but what he did. This life he lived felt a bit inevitable. On his worst days maybe he’d considered giving up, but then his anger would always come snarling back. Anger at Bruce, anger at the Joker, anger at Gotham itself. Fighting was his only reprieve.

Or so he thought, before he met Danny. Before the irrationality of his rage had been doused completely for the first time since his death. For the first time it felt like he had room to consider. Room to choose.

“Gotham needs someone like me. As soon as it doesn’t you can catch me in the lecture hall teaching Jane Eyre.”

Danny considered him with a hint of a smile. “I’ll be sure to register for that credit when you do.”

//

“Gargoyles,” Danny proclaimed one night after theyʼd successfully captured a curse ghost.

Jason replied with an eloquent, “Huh?”

“Thatʼs what they kinda remind me of,” Danny spun the thermos in his hands. “The curse ghosts. They're like really messed up gargoyles.”

Jason thought about it and he was right. The curse ghosts were like if the gargoyles on Gothamʼs buildings had 20% more limbs and teeth and were made of goo instead of stone. Fitting really, for the embodiment of a curse on Gotham.

They perched on the roof of a building not far from an old tire shop where the curse ghost had reared its ugly head. A few gargoyles perched with them, thankfully all stone and completely motionless and definitely not cursed. Shadows crawled across them as occasional car headlights passed in the street below.

“The real question is if they're less nasty or more nasty than other curses you've fought?” Jason didnʼt know if Danny even had fought curse ghosts specifically before, but it seemed likely all things considered.

Danny paused, contemplating. “Every city has ghosts that haunt it. But none as bad as this, at least that I’ve seen. None that have such a distinct form. And none that have had such a strong effect on the living.”

“Arenʼt we special,” Jason grumbled.

Danny chuckled. “Very.”

“Good thing you came here to stop them.”

Danny frowned. “Well. Not exactly. If Stanford had accepted me Iʼd be bumping heads with the ghoulies under Alcatraz, but GU was my next choice.”

Jason’s train of thought came to a skittering halt. Danny wasn’t here to fight these ghosts specifically? He made it seem like taming the curse was the only way to keep Gotham from eating itself inside out. And it was clear that he was the only one actually trying to do something about it. Maybe the only one that could.

“Wait. Fixing the worst curse ever is just what you do in your free time between lectures?” Jason folded his arms.

Danny sighed. “Iʼm not a hero, remember? And I’m trying not to do ghost stuff full time. To do that I need to do human things. Like get a degree.”

“Who says you need a degree?” Jason’s voice pitched up, betraying his incredulity.

“NASA, definitely.” Danny wasn’t looking at him anymore. Instead he tilted his head up to the sky, toward the few stars that dared to poke through the fog.

Jason bit back a laugh. He couldn’t be serious. Crime fighting- ghost hunting- whatever, it wasn’t something that you just did on the side. If there’s one thing Bruce taught him it was that civilian life was an afterthought, a persona that they had to play. Their real life, the life that mattered, was what happened once they donned their masks. And after Jason died he’d been freed from the responsibility of being a civilian at all.

Yet looking at the melancholy on Danny’s face he knew he was being sincere. It struck Jason that Danny had dreams, like real dreams, ones that didn’t involve stopping crime and saving cities and meting out justice.

It twisted something in his stomach. Dreams were a luxury Jason hadnʼt ever been able to afford. Not when he was young and fighting and stealing his way through the streets of Crime Alley. Not when he was fighting beside Bruce, desperately eager to fill the mantle of Robin. Not now, especially not now, when there was only the work of purging the rot from this city. The work that sent him back to the gutters and the alleys night after night, always looking down.

And there Danny was beside him, just as capable of fixing Gotham (or even more capable, he did begrudgingly admit), and it hadnʼt completely consumed him. He was still selfish enough to dream.

He was still looking up at the sky.

A pang of something like hatred smacked at the back of Jason’s teeth, ugly and hot. He couldn’t believe Danny’s selfishness. His naivety. Both incredibly stupid things to have in this line of work. And still Jason felt something else– a rumbling and an ache from the place under his heart. A pulling that tried to stretch across the space between them. He bit his tongue and shoved that feeling down.

//

Later that night when Jason couldn’t sleep he scoured the net for any more hits on Danny. He knew it would be easier if he just asked Tim for help. He bet that little creep could have the full dossier delivered within an hour, everything he wanted to know about Danny Fenton, but that would open Jason up to way more questions than he wanted to deal with. He still needed to keep this as far away from Bruce as possible for as long as possible.

His less than ideal search methods still yielded him a yearbook photo he hadn’t seen yet. The sister Danny mentioned– Jasmine Fenton. Turns out she was attending Stanford, psychology major. Stanford, where Danny could have been instead of Gotham. Fighting some other city’s ghosts. And Jason would have continued to be unaware of and unable to do anything about Gotham’s curse. Or his own.

He turned his attention to digging up anything he could on the Fenton parents. No real estate records, no taxes, not even driver’s licenses. But no death certificates either. Jason didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. What he did know is that they were equally as erased as their son.

He found himself drifting away from Fenton research and on to the question that nagged at him in a different way– how to predict where the curse ghosts would show up. The data from Danny’s thumb drive was already on his computer and he dutifully logged the coordinates and relevant details from that night’s encounter, another dot among hundreds on the map of Gotham.

Jason had already whittled through all the possible easy connections. Haunted places, typical goon hide outs, historic sites, even fucking ley lines– none of them had enough correlation to be a valuable predictor. Or even a decent lead.

As much as he had practiced taming his frustration, another fruitless night with no answers had him sulking. He felt certain that figuring out the curse ghosts would also help him figure out Danny. And figure out himself. He couldn’t deny that he hadn’t felt even a hint of the Pit’s clawing rage since his nightly escapades with Danny became more frequent. He considered Danny’s offer– to make the fix permanent. And Jason believed him now, that he actually did want to help.

But he couldn’t accept that offer. He wouldn’t. Not until he was sure what it really meant. Maybe if and when they solved the curse problem for good, maybe then he would accept Danny’s help.

But not yet.

//

“Try something for me.”

Danny stopped mid patrol loop of known curse hotspots. Jason followed his gaze and saw a curse ghost rummaging through a demolition site where a condemned apartment once stood.

“Blast it-” Jason pulled a gun, finger ready at the trigger- “Wait!” Danny held up his hands to stop him. “First, see if you can hold the energy back before you release it.”

Danny held his palms out over one another and a ball of familiar green energy formed between them in demonstration. “Let it build up and grow.”

He focused for a moment and the ball grew larger, spun faster. He widened his palms as the ball grew, crackling with potential energy. He let it linger just a moment before— a twist of his wrist and it dissipated.

“I don’t think it works like that for me.”

“Just try it,” Danny cajoled. “I’d be a bad ghost mentor if I didn’t try to teach you how these powers work.”

Jason rolled his eyes. This felt like some kind of test, and the way Danny looked at him with rapt attention all but confirmed that. Did he truly want to help? Or Did he want to gauge how much Jason could push the limits of this power? Still, Jason’s own curiosity won out in the end.

He began by focusing on the feeling he got when he shot his usual energy bullets, allowing it to prickle through his chest and underneath his skin. Rather than let it out immediately, as he’d always done, he did as Danny instructed and held it back. He focused on his pistol. As he did, a small green sphere formed at the end of the gun.

Slowly he fed more energy to it. It grew, just as Danny’s had, spinning faster. His heart accelerated at the same pace, straining against the pull of the power. He gritted his teeth. His head felt hot, like it did when he let his rage get the better of him. Danny’s eyes glinted, reflecting the green glow with impish delight.

The sphere grew to baseball size, then basketball. Then it grew larger than that, so large he couldn’t even see the beast he was aiming at anymore. Danny said simply, “Now.”

Jason pulled the trigger. A massive green fireball exploded out of the end of his pistol, burning across the pile of wreckage. The ghost finally looked up just in time to take the blast directly to its side. It wailed in terrible unearthly tones as the green fire swallowed it.

Danny whooped in triumph. Meanwhile, Jason’s knees wobbled and he fell to all fours in the dirt. He felt suddenly cold, in that terrible clammy way right after a fever breaks.

Danny looked over as if to share the celebration but his face fell as he saw Jason.

“Shit,” he said, kneeling next to him. “You okay?”

“Yeah I— yeah.” Jason panted, swallowing a few dry breaths.

Every time he’d used this power before, he’d let it out instantly, through his guns or his gadgets. He’d never actually let it sit or take the time to feel it properly. Now he wished he hadn’t.

Using that power felt like his worst memories of the Pit, unnatural and cloying like he could still feel the waters dripping off of him. It tasted like grave dirt in his mouth.

But as he raised his head he saw the damage he’d done. There was a fucking crater the size of his living room blasted through the remains of a concrete foundation. No sign of the curse ghost. He did that.

He laughed, all shaky breath. Maybe he could get used to it. He’d have to. He didn’t have a choice but to use it against the curse ghosts. He’d be useless in fights against them otherwise.

“Let’s head back,” Danny offered.

“Yeah.” Jason ignored the small tremor in his hand as he holstered his pistol and started to get his feet back underneath himself.

Jason was halfway to standing when out of nowhere he took a hit. A force crashed into his gut from behind like a cannonball and he barely registered a curse ghost underneath him- it looked like a rhino with way way too many horns- before it flung him ten feet across the demo site and sent him careening into the rubble. He tumbled over broken concrete and snarled rebar, hard-trained muscle memory kicking in to relax his muscles enough to not take the worst of it anywhere he didn’t want to.

He blinked the dizziness from his eyes as he settled. Fuck that hurt. He felt a trickle of blood running down his face. The helmet was padded just enough to protect him from concussions. Didn’t help much with the biological nightmare that was the human nose though. He took the helmet off to keep the blood from pooling in his mouth, leaving him in just his domino mask.

“Jason?” He heard Danny shout.

“Mmfine,” was what he managed to reply as he pushed himself up. It took him a few tries to find his legs. They were still wobbly from the expenditure of power before.

Across the demo field Danny fought the new curse ghost with his usual evasive style. His mouth a hard set line as he ducked beneath swipes from many-angled horns and he responded with blasts of his own, cornering the ghost handily.

Then his gaze landed on Jason and he paused, eyes wide.

His stance went rigid. He snapped around unnaturally fast to face the curse ghost, a total shift from his flighty movements from a moment before. His gaze was sharp, cast in stark shadows from the streetlights, and impossibly, dangerously green. He raised a palm toward the ghost, slowly. And then a nuclear blast went off.

Or at least thatʼs what it felt like. Jason lifted an elbow to shield his eyes from the blinding green light. Surprisingly it wasn’t hot. Instead it felt like the air pressure had been turned up, as if the whole atmosphere was somehow heavier around them, pressing in from all sides, making it harder to breathe.

It lasted only a moment. When Jason lowered his shielding arm there was no sign of the curse ghost. No other damage from the blast either. Just scraps of shadow floating on the wind, dissipating as they rose up.

Danny lowered his hand. A bit of a glow still lingered around him like a halo, a silver outline that shimmered on top of his skin. Jason’s heart raced drunkenly as he stayed rooted to his spot. He wasn’t sure he trusted his legs to move. Danny still looked at the empty space where the ghost had been, his gaze still burning with an overwhelming power. One that Jason was very thankful to not have directed at him. Still, something stirred in his chest like a tug on a wire. The sweet sharp tang of adrenaline saturated his fear. He wasn’t sure if he could stomach that oppressive attention, but a reckless part of him craved it.

Then Danny shifted his stance again. He seemed to shrink back into himself, the glow dimming to a level that passed as human. He turned to Jason with something like guilt on his face, no hint of the commanding presence he held a moment earlier.

“Are you okay?” Danny spoke gently, but his fists were still clenched.

“Yeah. Yeah Iʼm fine,” Jason replied before he even really took stock of his injuries, but as he did he saw he hadn’t lied. The bleeding from his nose had mostly stopped. It hadnʼt been that bad in the first place.

“I think thatʼs enough for tonight.” Danny breathed, finally, releasing the last of his tension. He wouldnʼt meet Jasonʼs eyes.

It had been a while since anyone had saved him. He didn’t have anyone who watched his back, hadn’t for a long time. Strictly speaking, tonight he would have been fine even without the save. Probably.

While he was thankful that Danny covered his ass, it also annoyed him that he thought he had to.

“Thanks,” he grumbled, and then finally Danny looked at him with soft attention.

“You’re sure you’re okay? If it’s a concussion-“

“I’m fine,” Jason said, using his thumb to brush away the drying blood under his nose.

Danny just looked at him with naked concern, his fingers twitching like he didn’t know what to do with them, mouth pressed in a firm line. He took a breath as if to voice another worry but Jason cut him off with a resigned sigh.

“Look, if you're so worried why donʼt you come back to mine.” If it got Danny to stop nagging he didn’t mind burning a safehouse.

Danny nodded, mutely accepting the invite.

Jason led him back to his latest safehouse, a corner loft of an abandoned building, only accessible by rooftop. The walk there had proved that Jason wasn’t hurt bad, though Danny’s eyes kept going back to the blood on his face.

Once inside, Danny sat down on the couch. It was the only real piece of furniture in the house besides his half-broken bed. Jason felt less like a shitty host because truly it was equally as dingy as the one in Danny’s own apartment.

“Want a beer?” Jason asked from the kitchen, as he finished up rummaging his way through some makeshift first aid. The slapdash brace on his nose wasn’t his finest work, but eh. It would heal fine. It always did.

“You drink?” Danny seemed suspiciously surprised. “For me the accelerated healing makes any normal alcohol consumption pretty pointless.”

Jason froze with his hand on the fridge. “Oh. Huh.” That would explain why he had to down a whole handle and a half to feel anything. “No shit.”

Zombie-like he pulled a six pack out of the fridge. He set it down on the coffee table in front of Danny as he fell onto the couch next to him.

A part of him had still not fully believed the whole half ghost thing. Fighting ghosts was one thing. Being one was another. The tech helped maintain the illusion quite well- he had ghost power cuffs that made him invisible and ghost power socks that let him float. That explanation was easy to swallow.

But no gadget could explain why wounds that should take weeks to recover from only took him days. Couldn’t explain why he didn’t get drunk.

But there was a good explanation. A simple one too.

He wasnʼt fully human.

Shit.

Jason grabbed a beer from the coffee table, popped it with his thumb, and downed it in one long pull.

“Batman doesnʼt like metas in Gotham.” He didn’t look at Danny. He wasn’t really even talking to him. He tossed the beer bottle to the floor.

“Weʼre not metas,” Danny said, a gentle echo of what he’d said the first night they met.

“It doesn’t matter. Meta, supernatural, itʼs all the same. All are a dangerous liability in this city. You- we- count.” Jason opened another beer. Downed it. Waited to feel any hint of the alcohol hitting him. Nothing.

He could, however, feel Danny looking at him. “Iʼm not afraid of Batman.”

Jason didnʼt look back. He fiddled with the empty beer bottle, tossed it on the floor with the other one. Of course Danny wasnʼt afraid of Batman. Jason had no doubts which way that fight would go if it ever came to it.

That was an awful image to consider– Batman getting his ass handed to him by some nobody punk in jeans– and all the more reason that Bruce should never know about any of this. The curse ghosts, Danny, Jason’s own burgeoning ghost powers- more secrets he had to keep. More reasons to keep all the Bats at arm's length.

And if they ever did find out? No way their shaky truce could weather that. It’d be another war.

“Heʼs- well, they all are I guess- kind of my family. All Iʼve got left of one, anyway.” The words spilled out. He didn’t want a war with them. He never had.

Danny let out a long breath. “Oh. Family.” He laughed a sad laugh. “My parents tried to kill me. Multiple times actually. I donʼt blame them– theyʼre ghost hunters and well, they looked at me and saw a ghost.”

Danny reached for a beer. He pulled out two and handed one to Jason. He took it. “So at least it canʼt be as bad as that with yours?”

Jason grumbled. “Judging by how it went the first time I came back from the dead? It will be an absolute shitshow.”

Danny clinked his beer against Jasonʼs and took a long swig. “I dunno. I think Bruce might come around if you give him a chance.”

Jason straightened his spine, suddenly alert, alarm bells ringing in his head. “Bruce?”

Danny deflated, suddenly sheepish. “Ah. Whoops.”

That all but confirmed it. Jason groaned. Just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, Danny somehow knew one of Gotham’s most dangerous secrets. “How did you find out?”

“You can probably guess.” Danny rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasnʼt hard with a little ghostly snooping. It was one of the first things I did when I got to Gotham. I wanted to know just to double avoid him, honest.”

It wasnʼt hard to imagine any number of ways Danny could have uncovered Batman’s identity. Heʼd recognized Jason with and without his mask, but he figured that was because Danny had a sense for ghosts and, well, whatever he was. He hadnʼt considered how easy unmasking the Batman would be for him even without that trick.

“If he finds out you know, you’re dead.”

“I already am. Besides, I thought Batman had a strict no-kill policy?”

Ultimately this changed very little. Just another nail in the coffin of the strict Batman avoidance protocol. Still, he wished Danny would be a little less blase about the whole thing.

Fuck it. In for a penny, he couldn’t un-learn all the ghost shit that had turned his life upside down. He downed the beer. Danny was right the first time. It didnʼt matter what Bruce thought. He couldnʼt stop them from fighting curse ghosts. And it was truly none of his business. Danny sipped his beer with a grimace. Jasonʼs heart twisted.

“How do you stand the taste of this stuff?” Danny asked, a hint of a smile.

“It’s not about the taste. It's about the feeling.” Or lack of one. Jason thought maybe he felt the slightest tingle of tipsiness, but it could just be placebo.

Danny looked at him with that same casual intensity. He could tell his eyes lingered on his half-broken nose. Still worrying over him. Why? Why did he care if Jason got hurt? Jason stared back, trying to get a read on any of the real thoughts behind Danny’s eyes.

The silence stretched out, wide open.

Danny broke it first. “Sorry, uh. I guess I should get going.”

Jason took a beat and remembered how to breathe. “You good? Donʼt drink and fly.”

“I donʼt feel a thing,” Danny smirked. “Still, Iʼll walk.”

“You sure? You could always just crash here tonight.” The words spilled out of him before he could think better of it. He and Danny both froze, like the air has been sucked from the room. He stared at the empty six pack on the coffee table, swatting away any thoughts that dared surface, fighting the rising heat in his cheeks and desperately trying to keep his face blank.

“Itʼs okay,” Danny said finally, quietly releasing Jason from his turmoil. “Iʼll see you tomorrow?” Jason dared a look at Danny then. Warmth in his half smile like a sweater, a glint in his eye that made him feel lightheaded.

Danny stood and left, closing the door gently behind himself. Jason breathed out into the empty apartment. It felt suddenly cavernous and dead without Danny in it.

It shouldn’t mean anything but it did. Friends crashed on each other’s couches regularly, didn’t they? Jason didn’t have much experience with friends, if that’s what he and Danny were. This invitation certainly crossed that threshold. But he’d been careless. All the unknowns were still dangerous. He couldn’t let this be more than a working relationship. A partnership of convenience.

He pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Pain, tender and sharp, sprung up beneath them. He sighed at the comforting familiarity of it. Then he flopped face first onto his bed, alone.

Next >

[boinkingbattlemechs]

Valkyrie

The Valkyrie was originally planned for use by the Star League Defense Force, but production of the BattleMech did not begin until 2787, after the fall of the Star League and the start of the First Succession War. This was mainly due to legal entanglement with Harvard Company, Inc. who claimed the VLK-QA was a "nearly wholesale" copy of the WSP-100A Wasp LAM. Because of this odd twist of fate, and because the only factory to produce the Valkyrie was located on New Avalon, the only nation to possess a large number of Valkyries was the Federated Suns. During the Succession Wars the Valkyrie became the standard light 'Mech of the Armed Forces of the Federated Suns, often replacing the lighter Wasp and Stinger 'Mechs in many units and given to experienced MechWarriors to pilot. While not as fast as either design, the Valkyrie has an almost comparable jumping distance, heavier armor, and longer-range weaponry. Capable of maintaining a high rate-of-fire while jumping as often as it liked, the Valkyrie gained a reputation for tenacity, and once on the attack "it stays with you until either you drop or it does."

The Valkyrie has as its primary armament a Devastator Series-07 LRM-10 launcher with one ton of reloads mounted in the left torso. While an unusual weapon on a light 'Mech, and carrying only enough missiles for two minutes of continuous fire, it gives the Valkyrie a long reach and respectable damage, especially against other light 'Mech hunters. As a backup weapon the Valkyrie carries a Sutel IX medium laser in its right arm. This mix of long and short-range weapons allows the Valkyrie to soften up other 'Mechs from long range then move in for a kill.

11 single heat sinks allow the Valkyrie to fire its weapons and use its five jump jets, two each in the legs and the fifth in the rear torso, to jump up to 150 meters at a time without worrying about heat buildup. It also carries six tons of armor to absorb a decent amount of punishment. While only boasting a cruising speed of 54 km/h, it is capable of outmaneuvering and, when working as a team, taking down heavier opponents.

Corean Enterprises was able to maintain a steady production rate of 130 Valkyries per year during the Succession Wars, reaching almost 200 per year during the desperation of the First Succession War. With its location in the heart of the Davion realm, that rate was rarely under threat, although the possibility of the automated factories breaking down for good remained a growing concern during the technological decline of the Third Succession War. Every regiment, and nearly every battalion, had at least one Valkyrie 'Mech under its command, with some recon companies equipped with entire lances of Valkyries. The Davions were also willing to sell the 'Mech to mercenary outfits contracted to serve them, while relatively few found their way into the hands of the other realms through battlefield salvage. Valkyrie production made a major expansion around this time, as Katrina Steiner helped Defiance Industries strike a licensing deal with Corean, a deal which would persist at least until the end of the Jihad. One major setback in Valkyrie production did occur during the Fourth Succession War, when the Draconis Combine captured Marduk, site of Norse BattleMech Works and producers of the 'Mech's Norse Industries 3S jump jets. Production fell behind for the next few years as Corean tried several other jump jet models without success, until finally settling on HildCo Interplanetary's HildCo Model 12 line of jump jets.

Following the formation of the Federated Commonwealth, its nascent military force was faced with the problem of combining two entirely separate militaries into one unified whole. Part of the solution was commonality of equipment, and the Valkyrie was chosen to be a standard light 'Mech of the AFFC. Following the discovery of the Helm Memory Core, the New Avalon Institute of Science was able to restore the Valkyrie industrial complex to its full Star League era production rate, while Corean was able to utilize lostech components to construct the new VLK-QD model starting in 3049.

The FedCom Civil War took a particularly heavy toll on light 'Mechs, and the Commonwealth was in desperate need of replacements; unfortunately Valkyrie production had halted when the St. Ives Compact was conquered by the Capellan Confederation, and HildCo was no longer willing to supply Corean with jump jets. At the time the company was in negotiations with Vicore Industries about reviving the Valkyrie design with two new variants, the VLK-QD1 and VLK-QD3, and Vicore just happened to have the solution to their problems. The company had secretly negotiated to build HildCo jump jets under the Vicore name, and was willing to sell these components to Corean in exchange for the right to build both variants. Corean agreed, and Valkyrie production restarted on New Avalon and Demeter, with new units reaching Davion forces by July 3067.