#like what did you think i got at the train station. a place entirely desolate safe for when the trains pass. thats my fucking train pass.

[transgaysex]

my mom can be so frustrating sometimes

[llogllady99]

Crimson Red : Chapter 1

Scholar’s Mate

CHARACTERS | Levi, Erwin, Petra, Hange, Moblit, Mike, Nanaba, Eld, Oluo, Gunther, Kenny, Erwin’s Father, Kuchel, Frieda Reiss, Nile Dok, Yelena, Marie RELATIONSHIPS | Levi x Erwin GENRE | Mystery, Thriller, Romance, Dark Academia IV | Blood and gore, Blood and violence, Alternate universe - modern setting/high school/ boarding school, angst and fluff and smut, knife kink, knife play, drama & romance, eventual romance, eventual smut, emotional manipulation, cults, rituals SUMMARY | Sina Academy of Excellence and Inquiry is the best boarding school in all of England, producing over time leaders of Nations and outstanding personalities in society as well as being the perfect environment for your child to flourish in, spending his time with specially trained staff to support his need and wonderful, well behaved peers like him. We only have two rules: don't go in the woods and do not try to go through locked doors. From the statement above one would have assumed that Sina was the perfect school and that the rules that were imposed were just for their children's safety, but as Levi joins the school at the beginning of his senior year, he uncovers a secret so putrid and morbid that will leave him scared for life. That is...if he manages to make it out alive.

Chapter song: Devil’s trill sonata

August 23rd 1996, London

Deformed, lazy, pungent smelling circles rose above her head, as Kuchel exhaled the smoke the cigarette she was currently holding between her long, bony, alabaster fingers provided her with. She did not smoke that often, only when she was under a rather stressful situation. Today, her son would be departing from home in order to attend a boarding school across country. It wasn’t that she did not trust him or have enough faith in him, but since his brother announced Levi’s immediate enrolment, a feeling of distress had started to grow in the pit of her stomach, becoming larger and larger everyday, until it finally managed to take upon her entire being. Thence, the obnoxious amount of cigarette butts lying around carelessly and forgotten on the balcony of her victorian terraced house. Taking one last drag out of the device, which would inevitably bring upon her death someday, she dropped it to the tiled floor and not sparing a second glance its way, stomped it until the electric orange that lined its edge turned a dark ashy brown. Further covering up herself with her long brown coat and shivering slightly from the chill morning, Kuchel made her way back inside the house where the sound of piano keys being pressed consistently in formation of a slow and disturbing song grew louder and louder as she approached her son’s room.

The door was opened and inside a large piano could be spotted by the large and covered with white and blue curtains window. Sited at the instrument was Levi, pressing the keys with precision, his brows furrowed in concentration.

“Devil’s trill sonata?” Kuchel asked, sitting down on the small sofa in front of a coffee table where an unfinished game of chess laid, its pieces shining with the bright light seeping in from the windows. If she didn’t know any better she might’ve said that this was a new chess set, but with her son’s obsession with keeping everything clean and organised, something rarely got in poor condition.

“Indeed, mother. Took me a while to learn it. Care to share your opinion?” Levi replied not taking his eyes off the keyboard.

“It’s exquisite, like every sound your hands ever produced on that piano.” She answered, leaning further into the soft cushions of the couch. As if to prove her wrong, Levi pressed the wrong key and unbalanced the whole song, losing his concentration and ultimately his rhythm. Sighing in frustration, he got up and joined his mother on the couch.

“And just when I think I’ve got it, I mess it up.” Levi fretted, then glanced at the unfinished game of chess. “Humour me mother and grant me the honour of one last game of chess before we depart.”

“Certainly,” she replied then helped her son rearrange the pieces on the board. She chose white so she could dictate the conduct of the game: a simple scholar’s mate from her son as they were already late to the station. ‘E4 e5, Qh7 Nc6, Bc4 Nf6, Qxf7’ , Levi checkmated her, stood up and sought her hand, also bring her to her feet shortly after.

“I think it would have been better if we postponed the game, winning in such a desolate manner almost has me furious. However, I am well aware that we are already late to the station. Please lead the way mother.” Kuchel smiled at her boy, of course it would infuriate him, this game was nothing like the hour long matches they used to share, her being the first that introduced the game to Levi.

“Levi dear, you never did tell me why you quit competition, you would have become a master by now.” Kuchel said from the driver’s seat, looking shortly in Levi’s way. She personally offered to drive her son to the station as she wanted to spent every last moment with him before he was gone. She was sure to miss him dearly, and he would miss her too, though he won’t show it because he would be too embarrassed to do so.

“I’m quite confident you know, but I will tell you one final time: Isabell enjoyed the game and it feels wrong competing, something that she never got to experience as the rug was pulled from beneath her feet before she even had a chance.” Levi turned away and looked out the window, slightly fidgeting with his hands. “What do you think the school will be like? You attended a boarding school yourself, so please tell me.”

“That was a long time sweetie, a lot has changed since then, but I will tell you this: the bond you will form with your soon to be friends will last a life time.” Kuchel replied, not taking her eyes off the road. After a few more turns they arrived at the train station. It was finally time to say goodbye. Levi regarded her with one of his warmest smiles and wrapped her in a tight hug. “I will see you soon, mother. Take care.” And just like that he was gone, his small form disappearing behind the high arched red pillars of the station, the small black suitcase with the last of his belongings trailing behind him. His other luggage had been sent before hand. Kuchel wiped a tear from her cheek and got back in the car, heading in the direction of the closest high class bar.

-

To say the train was packed would be an understatement, every wagon was agglomerated by students just like him chatting animatedly about their summers, their high pitched voices ringing through the train, worsening his already present headache. He decided to try another wagon, so pushing past the intermediate hall’s door, he entered the isle of one with cabins. Every single one of them was packed with the same loud and obnoxious students, except the one from the very end. A cabin whose occupant was a girl with messy brown hair, tied up carelessly into a ponytail, square glasses sitting gently on the tip of her slightly down turned nose. She was mindlessly eating from a bag of chips as she pondered over whatever it was that she was looking at through the compartment’s window. Levi slid the door open and cleared his throat to get the girl’s attention. The girl shook her head, startled a bit by his presence then cocked an eyebrow his way, urging him to say something.

“Do you mind?”

“Mind what?” The brunette replied, her voice melodic and with just the right amount of deepness to it.

“Me sitting here.” Levi replied awkwardly, faking indifference and adopting a bored looking expression. He was never good with people and interactions like this distressed him immensely.

“Not at all, please take a sit.” The girl smiled and gestured for the sit in front of him.

“Thanks.” Levi hoisted his luggage up and dumped it on the support space above their heads, before proceeding to sit across from her. For a few minutes none of them spoke a word, instead switching their gaze between the landscape present beyond the window and themselves when they thought the other wasn’t looking.

“Hange.” The girl suddenly muttered.

“Excuse me?” Levi switched his gaze towards her, tilting his head to the side bewildered.

“Name’s Hange.” The girl, Hange, rapidly spoke, seemingly experiencing the same overwhelming emotions that came with meeting new people as him.

“Nice meeting you Hange, my name is Levi.” He extended her hand out to her and after a moment’s hesitation the brunette shook his hand.

"You headin’ to Sina?”

“Indeed, I am. I assume you do too?” He said, his eyes fixing her uniform: a white and freshly starched button up with a navy blue skirt, tailored to sit just above the knee, and a purple tie.

“Yeah.” Hange replied awkwardly then started fidgeting with her hands a bit more.

“The students screaming like they own the place do too?” He tried to ask, to further stir the conversation.

“Yeah, they are. My friends were also supposed to be here but one of them will be coming tomorrow and the rest are already at the academy.”

“So soon? Wow, I barely came today because it was required and because of the orientation day tomorrow.” Levi was being unusually vocal. Maybe he was just trying to soothe the other girl’s nerves, but he also felt that he could trust her, weirdly enough. At his affirmation, Hange’s face lighted up, and all traces of embarrassment seemed to have fled from her face as she now began talking earnestly. Orientation day was an opportunity for the students to mingle with other houses, or factions as she like to call them, and meet their professors, explore the school, and if they weren’t already be sorted into a house. Hange also made sure to enumerate all the teachers present, emphasising on someone with the name of Frieda Reiss, the math teacher and Nile Dok, the history teacher that apparently made very good jokes and his lessons were always pleasant for the students, being one of the few moments of relaxation throughout their day.

“What house are you in Levi?”

“That I certainly don’t know, I suppose I am to be sorted.”

“Yeah, well the housing system is pretty fucked up if you ask me. They organise us based on our personality type.”

“Is that a bad thing? It doesn’t seem to be, I would be quite content with being placed in a house with personalities similar to mine, makes the whole socialising thing so much easier.”

“Sure, but you wouldn’t be stepping outside your comfort zone,” retorted Hange. “Not to mention the discrimination against those who are considered “less special” are made.”

“I believe that if we were all to be the same, the world would surely become quite insipid.”

“If everyone shared your opinion, the school would be a much more better place.”

“Please explain the housing system to me, Hange.” Her gaze settling once again on him from where it was directed out the window, she began explaining. The housing system was based on the personality types of people and the roles which they played in society, making it easier for the staff to each of their individual needs. There were four houses. The first was Boethiah house, where architects, logicians, commanders, and debaters would reside. Its signature colour was purple, symbolising the high intellect its students possessed. The second house was Antheia, where advocates, mediators, protagonists, and campaigners found their place. Represented by the colour green, the house was known for its social and communicative students. The third was Martell house, which gave place to the logisticians, defenders, executives, and consuls, the indigo blue colour signifying their nurturing and loyal nature. The last of the houses was Lannister, housing the virtuosus, adventurers, entrepreneurs, and entertainers. The people in this house were fun and full of humour, the colour yellow revealing their outgoing nature. The houses were named by the four founders of the school, respectively Phoibe Boethiah, Panacea Martell, Caelum Antheia, Kestrel Lannister.

“Hange I’m sorry to interrupt you but this whole thing seems very Harry Potter to me, and don’t let me get started on the names, they sound right out of a fantasy novel.” Levi snorted, amused by his new school.

“Yeah, but the school was founded in 1000 AD, imagine the names they had then.” Hange replied, huffing out a laugh.

“I assume you’re from Boethiah?” He said, jerking his chin in the direction of her purple tie.

“Yeah, we are the smallest house as our personalities are so rare. I wonder what house they’ll place you in. Did you take the test?”

“Yeah, when I took my entrance exam a few months ago, something about a psychological evaluation.” And with that their conversation ended, instead each of them turning their attention to their forever changing surroundings, vibrant green meadows and flowery fields slowly turning into dull, grey moors as the sun above then started to set, orange, red, yellow, and orange blending with the dark blue the night brought along.

-

At the academy, in the encrimsoned light of the headmaster’s office, Erwin Smith stood proudly  with his hands behind his back watching from the giant circular window over the school’s gates in anticipation of the students’ arrival for the new trimester.

“You did quite a good job last year, Erwin. I expect the same this year.” Arcturus Smith, Erwin’s father and also the headmaster, spoke from his dark oak desk in the middle of the room, breaking the silence that had settled over the office. The blonde turned his attention to his father and bowed his head in appreciation and assurance. Arcturus bent slightly over the desk, his chin now resting in the palm of his hands.

“Please come take a seat. Let me introduce you to this year’s targets.”

“I was actually questioning myself when you were going to introduce them to me.” Erwin said, as he made to take a sit across his father. The man pushed two files in his direction, both of them stamped with red ink that spelled “CLASSIFIED”. Carefully, he picked up the first one and opened it. The picture of a redheaded girl with short hair stood in front of him.

“Nifa Thompson,” he read out loud. He eyed his father expectingly.

“She’s a sophomore and you have until September 21st, think you can handle it?” Arcturus cocked his eyebrow. “The girl isn’t very sociable and I’m sure some undeserved attention from the school’s head boy and number one bachelor will send her flying over the moon.” Erwin sighed and shook his head, then after a moment’s reconsideration looked up at his father and approved. The next file was about a new boy by the name of Levi Ackerman, he had short raven hair styled in an undercut, piercing blue-silver eyes, and a bored, impassive expression. He doubted he would be an easy target but he was up for a challenge. Looking up at his father, Erwin smirked.

“This one is perfect father. Blood type O and INTJ Personality type. He’s a gem. His mother is an alcoholic, his uncle is nowhere to be found, and he has no other close relatives. No one's going to miss him when he's gone. ” Now he laughed. Arcturus eyes shone with satisfaction.

“Just perfect for this winter’s sacrifice. And guess what? It’s also going to be a full moon, just like you always wanted. Maybe this year I’ll let you do the honourifics. That is, if everything goes as planned.” Then the headmaster leaned down in his chair and adopting again his usual cold demeanour, he said, “You are dismissed, son. Please go and welcome our students. I wish you a good year, full of achievements and perfect scores.

Erwin bowed and left the office.

-

As Levi walked through the massive iron gates of the school, he immediately gawked. Sina was like nothing he had seen. To put it simply: the school was spectacular. Touched by gothic architecture, the building displayed pointed arches lighted by golden yellow lamps from below, flying buttresses, and embellished colonnades. One feature that particularly stood out to Levi were the large lion statuettes that stood firmly place on each side of the enormous front staircase that started from the yard in which they were currently walking in, and that had a beautiful lotus pooled white marble fountain, and ended right beneath two high arched oak doors. At the gate they were met with a teacher, a women in her thirties that had piercing blue-purple eyes and ebony black hair that fell flawlessly on her navy blue Tudor coat, who escorted them inside the school.

The entry gave way to a long and wide hallway with vaulted ceiling and intermittently placed pillars. A few feet from each other hung golden chandeliers lightning their way as they headed in the direction the teacher was leading them in. High up in the ceiling there was stained glass through which the moon’s light slipped in, almost unnoticeably.

In the dining room there were four long tables each placed parallel to each other, the ceiling was painted with frescoes, beautiful biblical images. The professors’ dinning table was in an adjacent room, being separated by one of those pointed arches Levi had seen outside. Similar to the hallway, the dinning room also had stained glass, one particular piece stood out to Levi as it was the image of Jesus himself painted on red and blue glass, slightly highlighted by the moon’s light, whose outline could be made through the blue glass that composed Jesus’s robe. Truly spectacular. Even though he was just as rich as everyone attending here, he had never seen such a school. His last school was also private, but instead had modern architecture with the sparing of a few buildings such as the chapel or assembly hall.

“Please leave your luggage by the entrance and go take a seat at the table assigned to your house specifically. Those of you who have not been assigned a house yet please go and stand by the teachers’ table as the headmaster and the other staff will join us shortly and place you where they think fits you best. I’m Frieda Reiss and I will be your math teacher this trimester.”

Shortly after, the staff made their way to their table and as everyone was seated and quieted down, Arcturus, the headmaster delivered his annual welcoming speech and turned to the fresh meat waiting patiently and awkwardly into a corner.

“Ah I suppose I am to assign each of you your house, very well then come on here don’t be shy.” The group made their way once more in the middle of the dinning room. All of the eyes were on them, the other students waiting just as nervously as them to see who they would be welcoming in their house next. The headmaster rummaged through his black Tudor coat and pulled out a piece of yellow, coffee stained paper and started reading aloud:

“Emma Williams goes to Lannister.” A blonde petite freshman girl made her way to the table on the far off right of the room and proceeded to sit down at the table with the other students, who were cheering and clapping exasperatingly, excited for their new member.

“Jane Walker to Martell,” again, a freckled redheaded girl made her way to one of the middle tables on the left, also welcomed by the cheering of the other members and quietly sat down with a smile on her face, clearly satisfied with the choice.

“Hmm, Levi Ackermann, an interesting name for someone British. Your assignment has been a hard one as the test refused to reveal anything concrete, but after a long dispute among all members of the faculty, we decided to assign you to Boethiah as an architect!” Arcturus beamed, extending his hands and widening his eyes as he bore Levi with his predatory gaze. The boy smiled then made his way to the table in the far off left end of the dinning room. His eyes searched involuntary for Hange, who was seated at the middle already on her feet and waving him over ecstatically.

“Oh my god Levi! I can’t believe you���re an architect!! I never would have guessed! Come have a sit don’t just stand there.” Levi took a sit beside her as the brunette shuffled to the side to make him space. Everyone was looking at him, throwing glances and misplaced whispers to their colleagues. Levi only smiled in their direction and looked around the table, his eyes stopping on a fiery strawberry blonde girl in front of him that was burning holes in him with her gaze. They stared at each other, none making a step towards the other. Hange was talking about something in the background but he didn’t turn to pay attention, refusing to break eye contact with the girl. Eventually, with a puff the girl relinquished and extended her hand over the table,

“Petra,” she said. Levi took her hand and with a smirk told her his name. And just like that Levi made two friends at the Academy already, chatting animatedly with them over dinner. At some point, someone placed a hand over his shoulder. Somewhat startled, the raven flinched then turn to look for the hand’s owner, a blonde and well built boy with a cold stare was fixing him with his sapphire eyes, a lop sided grin present on his face.

“Erwin Smith, I came here to give you an official greeting to our school,” pulling Levi to his feet, he forcefully shook his hand and with a forced grin continued, “I am the head boy here and I am in charge of the students, if you have any concern or question about anything by all means come to me and I will do my best to support you and grant the answers you seek. Welcome to Sina Academy of Excellence and Inquiry, Levi Ackerman.” And with that Erwin dropped his hand and after placing a hand on his shoulder, walked away retaking his seat at the head of their obscenely long table, disappearing out of his sight as he took a sit back down. A rather interesting start to what he reckoned would be an equally interesting year.

Notes:

I do not own Attack on titan or any of the characters in the show or related to it!!

I really hoped you like it, if you did please stick around as there will be more where that came from!

[mdelpin]

AO3 | FF.Net

Chapter 1

"I can't believe you're getting married before I am," Lucy said looking at the two of us wistfully.

"I can't believe the two of you are getting married," Erza shook her head, her smile warm and proud. She'd already smashed us against her armor when she'd heard the news.

Happy snickered and let out one of his favorite phrases to say whenever he was around us. "They're in loooooooooooooove!." He smiled at us as he munched on his fish. He had been the first we had told and that had made him feel secure in his place. He couldn't be happier.

Natsu grunted at him and held on to me for dear life as the train started moving, and his motion sickness began to affect him.

"Shh love, I've got you." I kissed the top of his head and placed my hand on the back of his neck letting the cold relax him and cool him down enough to overpower his nausea. He molded himself against me with a small grunt of thanks. I smiled into his head as I kissed it again."I'll always have your back."

I still couldn't believe that he had agreed so readily. I looked down at the rings that were on both our fingers. Neither one of us had wanted to come on this job, but Lucy needed rent money, and we couldn't just abandon her, not even to celebrate our engagement. We were going to have a party at the guild when we returned though.

We arrived at our destination. There was nothing out of the ordinary at first. We had been walking hand in hand, laughing at each others' stupid jokes, still too drunk on the events of the previous night to bicker about anything.

The girls were walking ahead of us to give us some privacy. We were just headed to the hotel before we started looking for the members of the dark guild we were supposed to take down. But Natsu, he's always alert with those damn senses of his, and he must have heard something because next thing I knew he was running as fast as he could towards Lucy.

I chased after him, ready for a fight the moment I noticed he was focused on something, but I was left behind as he propelled himself using his flame jets. He was just in time to position himself in front of Lucy, arms crossed in a blocking stance.

It all happened so fast.

The rest of us stood there, ready to fight, but not knowing what we were up against. The first attack came, seemingly out of nowhere. It was a tremendous burst of magic, black in color and carrying an overwhelming smell, like rotting meat. It was like no magic we'd ever encountered before, and it went right through Natsu's block and straight through his chest.

He wobbled briefly, shaking his head as if to clear it before going on a full out assault on the five men that had managed to surround us as we'd watched the initial attack on Natsu. They were all wearing the same style of black cloak, the mark of their guild emblazoned on it. It was the men we had been looking for, they had somehow found us first.

We were all a bit shaken at how quickly the attack had pierced Natsu's block, but we fought hard, our years of training moving our bodies in familiar patterns. Natsu took out the mage that had attacked him while the rest of us went after the others. The Rune Knights arrived quickly probably alerted by the sound of fighting.

We'd managed to complete our job before we even checked in to a hotel. We'd all started talking excitedly about the party that would begin as soon as we returned to the guild when we first noticed that Natsu wasn't alright.

He'd stopped in the middle of the road, his hand going up to his chest, covering the spot where he'd been hit. I moved it out of the way and saw a black emblem disappear, seemingly absorbed into his skin.

His breathing was ragged, but he smiled at me and told me he was fine. He grabbed my hand and squeezed, pulling me towards the train station, I should have known then. Natsu Dragneel did not willingly head towards transportation unless something was very wrong.

I felt him slow down, but he played it off as waiting for the girls. Happy and I shared a look. By the time we got back to the station, his skin was clammy, and I was helping him walk. I looked at the schedule desperately, the town we were in was tiny. It had no hospital that could deal with magical injuries, but Magnolia was only an hour away by train. It was only when I realized that I couldn't read the words in front of me that I realized I was crying.

Lucy stood in front of me and looked at the schedule. I felt Erza put her hand on my shoulder as she hovered over Natsu, like the older sister she had always been. I saw the concern in her eyes and that cemented it more for me than anything else.

My insides felt colder than anything I'd ever experienced before, I'd always heard of fear leaving you cold, but I'd never felt how true that was until that moment.

Lucy told us there would not be a train departing for another hour. We all huddled together, watching as Natsu deteriorated more and more. An old woman had seen us and ushered us towards the bench she had been sitting on. We laid Natsu on it. Soon after he began to bleed out of his eyes, nose, and ears but he would not let go of my hand.

Happy and I looked at each other in desperation, both of us desolate and unused to doing nothing.

"I'm going to fly him back to Fairy Tail." Happy cried. "Wendy can help him, I just know it!'

"Happy, I know you want to help, but it's a long distance. I don't think you can make it carrying Natsu." Erza told him as she petted him gently. She was holding on to Natsu's other hand. I could have sworn that hers looked paler than mine as if Natsu was sharing with her what he wouldn't with me.

"I don't care, I have to try!" Happy sobbed. "We have to do something, or it'll be too late. Gray, please!"

"Take him, Happy." I knew Erza was right, but I was selfish. I needed Natsu to be ok, even if it was at Happy's expense.

Lucy stood off to the side, her hands in a constant wringing movement and her eyes fixed on the ground. I knew one of us should talk to her, tell her that we didn't blame her. That Natsu would have done the same for any of us, but I couldn't worry about her now. She could wait, I wasn't sure Natsu could.

"I'll always love you, Ice Princess." The words sounded strange, almost gurgly as we helped him sit up. Blood was dripping out of his mouth, but I kissed him anyway. Kissed him like I've never kissed anyone before as if my entire existence was dependent on it. He must have felt the same because he kissed me back the same way. Like we needed to imprint the kiss into our souls, or we might never know each other again.

I hugged him as tightly as I could without making his condition worse, then I lied to him for the first time. "Everything's going to be ok, Flame Brain." I'm sure he knew, I never could use his name if I didn't mean it.

"I'll see you at the party," he told me with his smile, the one that my world revolved around and I wanted to believe him so badly. I wished I could possess his unshakeable optimism, but life had never been particularly kind to me and I was in the middle of reliving my biggest heartache.

Happy gave me his most determined look. "I'll get him there in time, I promise."

I watched him fly away with my heart, and I begged every deity I knew to watch over him, but when I got back to the guild, I learned that gods no longer exist. Neither Wendy nor Porlyusica had been able to help him. Natsu had been hit with a Death Curse, and he was going to die at any moment.

"Is that what you wanted?" Gray snarled at the creature that was standing by Natsu's bed. He wiped at his eyes uselessly, his tears refusing to retreat.

If gods wouldn't help him, he'd had no problem asking the competition for help. It hadn't been hard, a stolen book from the guild library, a name, a few ingredients.

The first thing that had surprised Gray when his summons of the devil called Nergal had been answered was how nondescript the devil looked. He had the outward appearance of a human male. Average height, average weight, shoulder-length dark brown hair. In fact, the only thing that even hinted that he was anything other than human was his eyes. They were black, a thick black devoid of any reflecting light. The second had been how quickly the creature had agreed to help.

He should've known it had been all too easy, but he didn't care as long as he could find a way to save Natsu. He would deal with the repercussions later.

"Oh yes! That will do nicely." Nergal said as he licked his lips in anticipation. Gray shuddered at the implication but he couldn't back out now, not if he had the ability to cure Natsu.

"Such strong feelings! I think we have a lot to work with here, oh my yes!" The devil grinned giving the ice mage a rather good view of his very sharp teeth. "I'm so thrilled you summoned me."

Nergal was in front of him, moving faster than the human eye could track, and Gray found himself suddenly surrounded by the sickening smell of sulfur mixed with bubble gum. He had but a second to think about the fact that Natsu would surely have vomited at the stench before a clawed hand was pressed to his forehead.

Gray had but an instant to startle at the devil's sudden appearance before he found himself screaming in agony as the memory was torn from his brain. His head throbbed long after the disgusting hand and smell were removed, and he felt shaky, but what he felt most of all was a loss. A part of him had been taken, never to return. What had he given up? He had no way of knowing.

"You've done your part, time for me to do mine." Nergal made his way over to Natsu slowly enough to get on Gray's nerves. He fought against every instinct he possessed that was screaming at him to keep the devil away from his love.

Gray looked over at his fiance, lying in the infirmary bed. He was still slowly hemorrhaging, his body occasionally shaking. Natsu had not said anything since his final words at the..where had they been?

Gray didn't even know how much of Natsu was still in there, but he had to try to get him back. There was no way he would ever give up on him. They were going to share the rest of their lives dammit, they'd planned it, and no fucking disease was going to take that away from them. So he kept himself under control while watching to make sure the devil was not trying to make things worse.

"I didn't realize how bad off he was." Nergal immediately said as he looked down at Natsu's body. "This is a rather nasty curse."

Curse, what's he talking about, Natsu was just sick wasn't he?

"Don't you dare back out of our deal, you bastard," Gray growled, immediately getting into his battle stance, hands at the ready.

"Relax, I didn't say I couldn't do it, did I? It's just going to take longer than I thought." Nergal looked at Gray with black, dead eyes that still managed to look greedy. "And of course, I will need more payment."

"You sonofabitch!" Gray hissed, "That wasn't our deal!"

"Let me show you what I'm capable of." Gray saw a flash of teeth that were meant to look like a smile but made the devil look bestial.

Nergal placed both of his hands, claws no longer visible, over Natsu's body. They began to glow, and Gray observed, with ever-growing hope, as some of the black sickness came out of his lover's body and became absorbed by the devil's hands. The bleeding appeared to stop, and the once deathly pale body regained some color.

"Would you want me to keep treating him, or should I stop?" Nergal looked at him, his head tilted to the side as he waited for an answer. "After all, memories are such little things."

Gray couldn't argue with the results. He thought about it, how much longer could it take? Gray had plenty of memories. He and Natsu had known each other most of their lives after all.

"Not all memories are equal, wizard. The more emotions associated with a memory, the more power I get to help your love."

Nergal winked at him as if he knew what Gray had been thinking. Gray supposed it wasn't an uncommon ploy in the devil's line of business.

"Alright." Gray agreed, his heart already mourning the imminent loss while he still could. There was no other choice to be made, no price too steep at this point. He was all in.

"No games, either you keep your end of the deal, or I will make it my mission to end you." Gray threatened, letting his arms become covered in the marks of his Devil-Slayer magic to bring home his point.

"No need for violence wizard, I am bound by my word." the creature bowed to Gray.

"Now that I know what I'm dealing with, I need to prepare appropriately. I shall return tomorrow night. Make sure we are not disturbed."

Gray wondered what he had gotten himself into, he was betting on Natsu's Dragon Slayer regenerative abilities to help the healing along. That was his ace in the hole. He had a bad feeling Nergal was going to try to milk him for as much as he could get.

His head was still throbbing, and he was exhausted. Gray changed Natsu's bandages and stripped down to his underwear, climbing into the bed and holding Natsu close.

"I know you'd hate this, but you look so much better already. Please don't be mad."

Gray liked talking to Natsu, it made it feel like the Dragon Slayer was there with him, even if he couldn't answer, yet. He kissed Natsu as he had done every night for the last few years and whispered his secret before falling asleep.

"Please come back to me, I need you."

To Be Continued...

A/N: This fic was originally a part the ftlgbtales When We Take Different Paths last year. I am updating it for Gratsu Bingo so I wanted to go ahead and have a Tumblr post for it as well. The next chapter should be up in a few minutes.

[doverly]

Monster in the Night

Hey guys! So just finished with this one, and I am so excited to share it. I’m literally starting school tomorrow so expect this to be my last post for a couple of weeks.

This short story is about 6k words, I know, very long. But I love the premise and the story and I hope you will too. It’s about a newly turned vampire, Kiera, who is trying to survive in the city on her own while holding up her morales.

I braced myself as the butcher threw me out of the shop by the tattered collar of my grimy shirt. I wanted to turn around and deck him, just punch him in his big bearded face, but I knew better than to cause a scene. I couldn’t afford to get banned from another butcher shop. 

I clenched my teeth as my skull collided with the cold pavement. I could feel the slimy residue of the storm the previous night coat my hair and I could smell the moldy scent of mildew. I winced as I got up shaking from the bottom up and trying not to think about the state that my clothes must have been in. I looked at the scratches on my cold grey hands and noticed how badly I was shaking. I cursed as I stumbled into the dark alleyway to collect myself. I sat down on the dryest pile of boxes I could find clutching my backpack to my chest and trying to hold back my tears. Head in hands I felt a migraine coming on. I tried to stifle my pain as I ignored the squeaks of mice and the scattering of roaches. I knew that if I was going to make it to the end of the week if I needed to focus, but hunger was making my mind cloudy. Inhale, exhale, I took a deep breath and tried to focus my churning brain. Right now the only thing that I needed to focus on was how to get more money. Not on my ever-increasing bloodlust, not on my continued homelessness, not on the fact that I had lost everything in my life a few short months ago. The only thing I needed then and there was more blood, and the money I would use to buy it. 

When I finally got up off my butt and started walking it was around noon. Clouds blanketed the entire sky but I knew by the smell of the air and the calls of pigeons that it was about midday. I stalked silently down the busy streets, the people there giving me a wide berth. At the time I wasn’t sure if it was because my clothes were filthy or if they somehow knew that I was a vampire, but I didn’t mind the space all that much. I liked being alone, and being left alone so I encouraged the extra room. I walked down the stairs to the subway platform and smiled before it would have been impossible for me to get a seat, but now things were different. As the subway train pulled into the station I used the people’s repulsion toward me to push my way to the front and board the car fairly easily. As the car pulled out I closed my eyes and relaxed for what seemed like the first time all that week. I was a city native so the loud car blaring, low murmur of people in the streets, and the faint mellow sounds of pigeons cooing in the distance formed a sort of lullaby in my mind and lulled me into sleeplike calm. The train lurched to a stop and I reluctantly opened my eyes. I walked out of the underground and into the world above.

I was staring at a green oasis in the sea of rigid concrete. Union Park was my favorite place to go to escape everything. That was true before and after I was turned, and is still true to this day.I stepped out of the subway station and smiled for the first time all that week. My tattered sneakers carried me through the lush grass and I practically beamed as saw bright leaves dancing through the wind. The only thing that was missing was a bright sun in a blue autumn sky, but I knew that seeing sunlight was far too much to ask for anymore. I walked slowly through the park and embraced the quiet nature of the place. I sat down at a stiff wooden bench and did my best to lay down. I stared at the canopy and tried to think of how I could make money. I didn’t have time to do any odd jobs, and begging would take too long. I sighed and admitted to myself that my speculations were pointless. There was only one sure-fire way for me to make my money fast, and I already knew what it was.

I needed it to get darker before I could set my plan into motion so I gave in to my fatigue and laid my head down on the bench. It took a while for me to finally fall asleep. I tossed and turned trying fruitlessly to find a softer piece of wood for my head to rest on, before I finally gave up and realized that I would never truly be comfortable, not anymore. Defeated, I laid on the bench and tried to pretend that I was back home in my own bed, with the fan on, and my dog Dune resting peacefully by my head.

When I finally woke up it was later in the day and I felt at least somewhat rested. Even though my fatigue had ebbed, as I got up off the bench I heard my joints pop and crack. I sighed as I realized that sleeping on park benches was probably not the best thing for my back. I walked through the park once again and was relieved to see that it was still empty. I got to the public bathroom without any fuss and went into the women’s stall, making sure to lock the door behind me. Thankfully the park was never that popular so the bathroom was just regular dirty instead of a complete mess. Still, I got my change of clothes out my backpack and put them on as quickly as possible. Touching the sink gingerly I turned on the water and washed my face, making sure to rinse any gunk out of my hair as well. Even though I had heard that vampires were more resistant to disease than humans I still didn’t want to spend more time in that bathroom than I needed to. 

I stepped out of the stall and into the park once again. Pulling out my phone I typed in the password quickly and opened the camera app. I raised it above my head and looked into the screen. I didn’t know if it was just the lighting or the angle but my skin looked really gray. My shoulders slumped when I realized that it had something to do with my transformation or the fact that I hadn’t seen sunlight in months, probably a combination of both. Either way, I didn’t open the camera to look at the state of my skin, I opened it to see if my new outfit looked fancy enough. The eggshell white cotton sweater and green skirt combo wouldn’t fool anyone into thinking that I lived in a penthouse, but it did make me look solidly middle class, and that was what I was aiming for. I closed my phone with a smile and picked up my backpack. I walked confidently out of the park, and toward the subway station, the next part of my plan could begin.

As the subway train pulled into the station, I took a deep breath and plastered a serene smile on my face. For this plan to work, I needed to get into character. The moment I walked up the stairs and onto the streets it would be like I was on a stage. Even though I had quit theater a month before my transportation, I still liked to consider myself a good actress. And a good actress always prepares herself before she goes up on stage. I needed to look like I had no care in the world like I was just there to help.  I needed to really feel like I didn’t belong there like this was just a visit, nothing more. I closed my eyes one last time and walked up the stairs into what seemed like a different world entirely.

Instead of the close confines of throngs of people going about their lives, and the busy atmosphere of midtown where I got off seemed broken and desolate. There were cafes with boarded up windows and not a skyscraper in sight. I walked on a sidewalk that was cracked and in desperate need of a repair. I regarded buildings that were mostly old, corroding brick and weathered wood. Even if it was my first time there (and it wasn’t) I would have known that it was a bad part of town. More than the boarded-up windows and the cracked sidewalks what really told was the demeanor of the people. There were three to four people leaning against the walls of what seemed like each ally way, who eyed all of the passersby hungrily. Sitting on the streets were people wearing filthy dollar store clothes, and ratty jackets peeking out of their cheap tents, eyes empty. I walked around the town for a bit, regarding the homeless folk with a special interest. For me to properly act out the scene I couldn’t just choose anybody, I needed to be selective. I found one that looked right, and it didn’t take me long. There were so many people like him that I pretty much had my pick. 

“Excuse me, Sir?” I asked in a high voice as I bent down to talk with the old guy.

He looked up at me with searching brown eyes and sighed a long sad sigh, “What is it, Miss?”

I smiled sweet and fake as I pulled out a crisp twenty-dollar bill from my backpack and handed to the man, “I want you to have this!”

The old man shook his head and blocked my hand, saying that he couldn’t possibly take it. Externally I frowned, though on the inside I was beaming. Good, I thought, he had refused. From the cut of his hair to the smoldering embers in his brown eyes, I had been able to see right away that he was the proud type. The proud type was exactly what I needed for everything to go smoothly. He had played his part, albeit unknowingly, and now if I just stuck to the script everything would go as planned.

I thrust the twenty dollars into his face and did my best to convince the man to take it,“ It’s alright Sir, you need it more than me. And besides my mom says that giving back is the duty of the more fortunate among us. So please, Sir, take it.”

The man shook his head again, “No can do. It wouldn’t be right for me to take money from a kid, no matter how fortunate you are.”

Internally I groaned at the old man. I had already gotten all that I needed from him, I thought, just take the money already. 

I smiled stiffly as I tried to retain my composure as I pleaded with the man, “No please, Sir! Take it you need it more than me, I would hate to see you suffer!”

“Fine,” the man said as he roughly grabbed the twenty dollars out of my hand, “If you hate seeing me suffer so badly, then I’ll just take it.”

I smiled and took a deep breath as I prepared to say my final line. I needed to really sell the fact that I was fortunate and had money and that required some overacting. 

“Are you sure you don’t need more Sir,” I offered loudly, “I have plenty more to give.”

The old man waved me off and I was almost jumping for joy as I turned the corner and walked down a dark alley. The guys who were standing outside the ally had hopefully noticed the entire scene with me and the old man. I just hoped that they were smart enough to peg me as a happy-go-lucky girl with money and follow me down the alley. I had just begun suspecting that they were stupid and that I should try a different street when I heard a loud, false cough behind me.

I turned around and sighed with relief as I saw that the guys were behind me, “Thank god you guys were smart enough to follow me, I thought you guys would never show up.”

They were the usual street thugs, close-cropped hair, black clothes, I could tell from the looks in their eyes and their stances that they thought that they were the toughest people to ever walk the streets. I snickered as they turned to each other with confusion written all over their faces. Finally after a solid few seconds of blank staring the biggest one, obviously the leader stepped forward and roughly grabbed my arm with a gloved hand.

“Cut the small talk,” he growled, “Just give us your all your cash and you won’t get hurt.”

I snickered as I looked at him sideways. Now came the last part of my plan, usually either the hardest or most fun part. I grabbed the guys forearm and took a deep breath. Even with my vampire strength I still needed some concentration. I steadied myself and yanked hard on his forearm, throwing him roughly to the ground. His skull hit the concrete with a thud and blood started seeping out the impact wound. I stared at the scarlet liquid seeping out onto the ground and drooled. It had been so long since I had last drank and human blood had the sweetest aroma. Lost in thought I paid no mind to the guys who were now rushing at me. A fist to the jaw finally broke me out of my trance and my mind was back to the task at hand. I saw that the other three guys had surrounded me, leaving me no chance of escaping. It didn’t matter to me though, escaping wasn’t part of the plan. One of the guys aimed another punch at my jaw, but this time I was ready. I grabbed his hand and pulled his body downwards. This time I wasn’t going for a flip, I aimed the pull carefully so that the guys stomach collided perfectly with my knee making him clutch his stomach and sink to the ground. As I turned around one the guys aimed a kick to my ribs, and I used another grab. This time I grabbed his leg and pushed him forcefully, sending him barreling down to the ground, back first. Another cracked skull on the concrete, another guy down. I turned to face the remaining thief and found nothing but a shadow spiraling away from the alley.

“Tsk, coward,” I scoffed as I watched the guy high tail it away. I knew that it wasn’t worth it chasing him, I had all that I needed right there.

I turned to the collapse thieves on the pavement with a hungry grin. Shakily I bent down to the first guy and tried desperately to ignore the pooling blood. I was a vampire, so it was natural for me to drink blood, even still there was something about taking blood from another person that just seemed wrong to me, morally speaking. The last time I had drained a living being it hadn’t gone so well. Stealing was another issue, though. I justified my thievery by saying that these people would have robbed me if I had let them, though it still left a dark mark on my conscious.

It took all of my concentration to not start licking the blood off the ground as I rummaged through the guys' pockets. I pulled out his wallet and laughed with glee as I opened it, 100 dollars, cash. I rummaged through the other guy’s pockets with similar results. At the end of it, I come out with 400 dollars, all from a single gang. Even though I didn’t like stealing that much, I couldn’t deny the rewards. I thought of pulling the trick again, but the ever-increasing tremor in my spine made me reconsider. Now that I had the money I needed I knew that it was long past time for me to finally buy some blood. 

I got out of that part of town quickly, but not before stopping at a bathroom to change. As much as I loved wearing clean clothes, drinking blood was messy and I didn’t have money to spend on washing my clothes. A place to stay was pricey in the city, and I needed to save all that I could. I got on the subway with a satisfied sigh, knowing that my thirst would soon be quenched. 

I arrived at the butcher shop without any incident. There were a few stares as I lined up but no one tried to throw me out again. I waited in line for an excruciating ten minutes. The bitter metallic smell of animal blood invaded my nostrils and made me hungrier and hungrier. So much so that by the time I reached the counter, I couldn’t stop myself from trembling. 

“Four gallons, f-four gallons of cow blood, please.” I stuttered as I placed two hundred dollars on the counter.

The butcher looked at me strangely, eyebrows raised, eyes looking concerned, but eventually he went to the back to fulfill my request. When he emerged from the back carrying two double gallon container I could barely stop myself from jumping over the counter to get them. My breathing was heavy as he took the two hundred dollars and handed me the jugs. I stepped away from the counter and pressed the jugs to my chest. I felt comforted by their cool weight, they told me that everything would soon be okay. Even though I prefer my blood warm, I would take what I could get. I knew that I needed to ration if I didn’t want to come back next week, but my instincts took over and I couldn’t control myself. As my mind fogged over I tried to tell myself to wait, to at least get out of the shop before I started drinking, but my body wouldn’t listen. I watched as my hands  popped the top off of one of the jugs and brought it to my lips right there and then on the tile of the butcher shop. My body didn’t care about the stares, the looks of horror, or even the shrieks. All it knew was that it was fulfilling it’s bloodlust.

I would be the first one to tell you that the blood didn’t taste good. In fact, it was absolutely horrendous. It was bitter and dirty tasting, like licking iron soil. In fact, consciously I wanted to put the jug down and wash my mouth out with soap. But the vampire part of me craved it, needed it. That was the part of me that was still hungry even when I lowered the jug from my lips and put the cap back on. 

As I looked around the butcher shop I found that the people inside it were even more disgusted with me than usual. I knew that it was because I had just drunk a gallon of blood right in front of them, but it still stung. Next thing I knew I down on the concrete in front of the butcher shop with a badly bruised tailbone.

I stared at a now fuming butcher as he bellowed, “You, girl are banned! Now get out of here you wannabe, vampire, freak!”

I got up from the pavement and chuckled. Wannabe vampire, I thought with a sad grin, I wish I was a wannabe vampire. Every time I would go to sleep I would pray that everything in the past four months was just a bad dream. That I would wake up in my bed to my dog Dune barking and my mom making breakfast. I would give anything to rewrite my history. Pushing back tears I pulled out my phone from my now even more battered backpack and opened the notes app. I added Middle Side Butchers to places I was now banned from with a sigh. They were one of the few butcher shops in the city that sold blood I could actually tolerate drinking. I knew that I needed to find another soon before my blood supply ran out. 

I hopped on the subway and rode it only a short way before getting off. The area wasn’t as crowded as midtown, nor as shady as where I had beaten up those thieves. It was currently going downhill, so people were leaving left and right. That meant that there was enough foot traffic to make it safe, without it being overwhelming. I walked through the mostly deserted sidewalks and glanced around at the decently clean brick buildings. Pulling out my phone once again I used my maps app to find my way back. Along the way, I thought back to an issue that had been bugging me. Even though I hadn’t been home in a few months my mom was still paying my phone bill. I knew that my mom was forgetful, but I still liked to think that she still cared about me, even if she had thrown me out. I arrived at my destination and switched off my phone. It was a four story brick building that by my estimates had been abandoned for years. I went around the side and climbed up the fire escape. On the roof hundled next to a large air duct was my tent, weighed down by some loose bricks I had salvaged from a demolished townhouse. 

I unzipped the flap and went inside. One dollar thrift store blankets covered the yellow plastic floor and two overstuffed pillows joined them. Strewn about the tiny space was a portable charger, two empty jugs that used to contain blood, and a spare jacket. I laid down inside my space and connected my phone to the portable charger. My mind begged for rest, but I knew that I needed to refuse it for as long as possible. I couldn’t keep waiting for cloudy days to go out. If I was going to survive I knew that I needed to finally get a vampire sleep schedule. I groaned as I realized that if I was going to stay up all night I needed something to do, and that meant leaving my cozy tent and going out into the city. I checked the time and realized that I should start looking for butcher shops. It was almost time for places to close and if I wanted to find one before that, I knew I needed to start then. I steeled myself, pulled on my jacket and stepped out into the cloudy twilight. 

I decided to head to old town, I heard that there were a lot of butcher shops open there. I walked briskly one foot in front of the other, head down, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. With my sensitive hearing, my ears picked up the chatter of the crowd and the engine garble. I followed my nose to a particular scent which I assumed to blood, but when I finally looked up I wasn’t where I was expecting to be. 

“Yorkie Harmon Public Library,” the sign proclaimed.

I groaned and realized that I must have been just following my feet all of that time, muscle memory was strong after all. I smiled and I remembered all of the times my mom had dragged me there, saying that I needed a quiet place to study. I chuckled and reminisced about how there was never much studying, but always a lot of fun. As I started walking in the direction of an actual butcher shop I wondered if my mom was doing well. Even though she hadn’t depended on me financially, I knew that my mom must have been having a hard time without me, especially since Dune was gone too. She had always loved talking Dune out on walks.  A part of my mind wanted my mom to be struggling, after all, I didn’t just leave, I had been kicked out, by my own mom no less. Though, I mused, it was pretty much my own fault.

As I followed the smell of blood to the butcher shop, I remembered that my friend had invited me to a party. The old me was so excited, I had been trying desperately to be cool. I quit theater and stopped going to the library as much. Finally, it seemed like my work was paying off. I had spent practically the entire day preparing. Prepping my outfit, practicing my dance moves, rehearsing who I was going to talk to and how I was going to talk to them. My mom had originally been apprehensive but eventually was no match for my supreme powers of persuasion. I giggled and thought about the hour I spent thinking up my argument.  As long as I was back by eleven and didn’t drink any alcohol my mom was allowing me to go. Even though I didn’t know how strictly I was going to follow those rules, I didn’t protest, I knew that it was either go with the rules or stay home. When I got the party it was exactly what I had imagined. Darkroom, rainbow lights, mellow dance music on the speakers, I loved every second of it. Until he came along.

I looked up and found that I had already reached the first stop. Gorgon’s Butchery, I read. Opening the doors carefully I stepped inside and was greeted by a muscular woman wearing a leather apron. I approached her cautiously and asked about the shop’s blood sales. I was a bit deflated when the woman told me that they didn’t sell any animal blood of any kind at that store. Not even pig blood. I left the shop and tried to be hopeful on my way to the next place. 

As I was searching for the next butcher shop my mind wandered back to the night I had been turned. At the party, I was approached by a guy. His face was clean shaven and smooth, his hair pulled up and back into a dark messy bun. I had been fascinated by him and flattered that he decided to talk to me of all of the people who were at that party. He had pulled me upstairs and into a bedroom. At this point warning bells had started flashing in my mind, though there was no way I would have guessed what was about to transpire. I quickly asserted that I wasn’t interested in him that way, and he had laughed. Even then, four months later, the words he said next haunted me.

“You don’t even know what’s comin’” He smiled darkly.

The next thing I knew I was waking up the next morning, limbs sprawled all over the bed. I could barely remember the night before, and my vision was blurry. My body was throbbing all over and there was blood on the sheets. I felt faint and woozy. I had the owner of the house call me a cab back home. As I sat in the back, my exhausted brain tried to think of a good excuse to give my mom. When I returned home at eight o’clock the next morning with no excuse and a feeble apology my mom had grounded me and sentenced me to spend the rest of the day trapped in my bedroom. I hadn’t really minded the rest then, though now I was thankful for it. I hadn’t known it at the time but that was the last time I had slept peacefully in my own bed.

I walked into the next butcher shop and waited for someone I could talk to come out. This time I was elated when I heard that they sold blood, by the gallon. Though my spirits fell severely when I heard that they only sold pig’s blood. I had sampled many varieties of blood in the past several months and one thing that I was certain about was my hatred of pigs' blood. Even though the sun was rapidly setting underneath the cloud cover I knew that if I ran I could get in one last butcher shop before nightfall.

My feet pounded the pavement, and I thought about the sickness. During my grounding after the party, I had barely been able to get out of bed. At first, I had no appetite and even a cup of water was too much for my stomach, then I was ravenous, it seemed like nothing in the world could satisfy my hunger. My mom did her best to try to take care of me, but she had to work so most of the time it was just me and Dune, my dog. I had to slow my pace as I thought of what had happened to Dune. My hunger had been growing worse and even though I was insatiable the thought of eating made me nauseous. The only thing that distracted me from my pain was playing with and petting Dune. 

One night I had been energized and stir crazy, I had taken to pacing around the living room and clutching my roaring stomach. Dune chased after me as I went around and around, knowing in her instinctual dog brain that something was wrong. After hours of pacing and trying to suppress the pain, my mind was clouded and dim. I knew that if I didn't do something that I would go crazy if I hadn’t already become insane. I had regarded Dune with wild eyes and let my instincts and drives taint my thinking. I had called the pup over, looked into her eyes and saw the infinite trust the dog had in me. At that moment I thought nothing of living breathing creature in my arms, and only of my own hunger. Not even stopping to guess what I was doing, I stuck out my now sharp incisors and pierced the pup’s soft flesh. Dune had struggled and wined, but slowly, ever so slowly, her strength began to fade until I was left draining a limp corpse. Consciously I knew that the blood tasted rancid and acidic, but my subconscious couldn’t get enough. That’s how my mom found me, curled up on the living room floor my teeth still deep inside my now dead dog. Next thing I know I was out of the street with nothing but my backpack and a change of clothes, staring at the face of my horrified mom.

I got the final butcher shop just as the owner was standing outside and locking the front door. I asked him about blood and with a firm headshake he told me that they didn’t sell any. I walked away and weighed my options, it was either pig’s blood, or starve. Though, I thought, I did have one option if I was really desperate.

When I had been walking away from my home and trying desperately to think of somewhere to go someone had tapped me on the shoulder. Thinking that it was my mom I turned around gleefully and recoiled in horror as I saw his face. Some subtle had grown on the once bare cheeks but I recognized the guy from the party, the one I now knew had turned me into a vampire.

“Come on, “He gestured as he started walking, “My place isn’t far from here.”

I clutched my backpack and spit in his face, “I’m not going anyway with you, monster!”

He laughed, “Don’t get fussy, Kiera we’re both monsters now. You were just kicked out and you have nowhere to go. If you come now I’ll even teach you how to drink from an actual person. Dog blood is good in a pinch, but tastes hella nasty”

Hot tears pricked my face as I looked into the guys' dark eyes in defiance, “I will never be a monster like you, and I will never drink human blood! Just LEAVE ME ALONE!”

As I stomped away the guy yelled that I would always be welcome and I held myself back from shouting something in return. I remembered the entire incident like it was yesterday. I remembered gazing at the night sky and telling myself firmly that there was no way that I would ever drink human blood. I didn’t want to be like the monster who had made me kill my dog,  I didn’t want to be a monster.

I walked down the shadowy city blocks and regarded the growing moonlight as it seeped through the clouds. I thought about my mom, without me and Dune my mom would be all alone. Every rainy night, every hard bench bed, I had thought about just going back home, but I knew that I couldn’t. I knew my mom well, and I knew that she would never accept me as I am now, she could never accept me as a vampire. 

I got back to my rooftop without incident and was surprised to see the silhouettes of people moving around up there. Thinking that they were city workers or repair people I quickly dashed up the fire escape. When I finally pulled myself onto the roof I gritted my teeth. Six guys, none of them wearing any sort of uniform of any kind were trashing my tent. The yellow plastic was ripped and my blankets were strewn out everywhere. I rushed towards them and geared myself for a fight.

“What are you-” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence before someone came at me from behind and hit the back of my head.

I turned around, floor spinning dizzy and regarded the person who had just hit me. He was tall and muscular, with a cruel smile emblazoned on his tan face. I pushed him down and made sure he was knocked out, but by the time I finished with him the rest of the guys had come over. They started beating on me. Punches and kicks were thrown my way and I did my best to dodge most of them. But five against one was hard and I was losing ground. One landed a heavy roundhouse kick to my stomach and knocked me off balance, sending me stumbling backward. One of the guys got in front of me and I caught the punch that was being thrown my way. I used my signature move and used his arm as leverage to throw him to the ground. As I was leaning forward, making sure my victim was out, disaster struck. One of the guys came up behind me and landed a solid kick on my back. I landed face-first on the concrete and tasted my own dark blood in my mouth. I heard the remaining three guys laugh as one of them place his boot on my head and pushed down. 

I tried to roll over and fight, but I didn’t have the strength. I was tired, I was hungry, I had been living on the streets for months. I blinked back tears as I heard the words “kill her” thrown around. I felt more helpless than I had in months. For months I had tried to live on my own, to survive, but it seemed like that was coming to an end. I sobbed and realized that this was the end to my life as a vampire. 

“These guys are the real monsters,” I thought bitterly.

As this thought crossed my mind it seemed like something in my head finally clicked. No, I told myself firmly, these were just people, these were just humans. The only monster that rooftop was me, and I was allowing myself to be killed. I had been resenting my mom for not being able to accept who I had become, but it seemed like I hadn’t accepted it either. I didn’t want to be like the one who had turned me so much that I had been ignoring crucial parts of my new existence. I was a vampire, and that meant that I needed human blood to survive. As felt my skull being pressed into the concrete I realized that drinking animal blood had been doing but weaken me. I realized that if I wanted to thrive I needed to do what was natural, not what was right. 

In a burst of strength, I turned over and grabbed the boot that had been pressing my face into the concrete. I used it to pull the man onto the ground and I stood up triumphant. I wrenched the guy up by his collar and held him above my head. I looked him in his once cruel, now deeply terrified green eyes as I lowered him down slowly. I breathed on his pasty neck and was reminded of my late dog, Dune. Only this time I remarked, as I drank deep from his arteries. The blood wasn’t rancid, it was sweet.

[callumturncr]

A Different Path [Sirius Black AU] - Part 6

Summary: Post-graduation AU in which the reader, Lily and The Marauders have just joined the Order of the Phoenix. As tensions are at its highest in the First Wizarding War, the reader, who likes Sirius Black more than she would like to admit, is framed for the murder of Marlene McKinnon.

Parts:  1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8

Author’s Note: Sorry for the looonngg wait but here it is, slightly longer than usual :) I had to start this about four times before I got anywhere decent with it so I hope you like it!! Feel free to ask if you want to be added to the taglist.

Gif is not mine. Words: 3.2k

It was a cool Saturday, with the sun running in and out of the clouds and a light breeze floating through the streets. Y/N walked slowly. There was no rush to get home today so she took her time, noticing the little things. How hot of a summer June had brought about, the spidery little cracks in the pavement, King’s Cross station and the bustle of passengers rushing to board the trains, the high pitch of a child’s laughter. Azkaban had made her forget these things; forget what it felt like to be surrounded by life.

On some days though, she was overwhelmed.

It was either too loud that she wanted to shut herself away again or too quiet that she wanted to scream and fill the silence. As much as Y/N had yearned for an escape from Azkaban and its desolate cold, she was dismayed to find that she didn’t completely belong in the world outside of it either, a world that had once been so familiar. She cherished her freedom but at times, the myriads of colour swirling in her vision were such a stark contrast to what she’d grown accustomed to; the greens too lively, yellows too bright and blues too fresh.

Her new apartment was bizarrely, situated in a Muggle street that was usually very busy. Dumbledore had insisted this was safer, in case there were still any lurking Death Eaters waiting to attack. After her release three weeks ago, it had been distributed by the Daily Prophet that Y/N Y/L/N was a key element to Voldemort’s downfall. Only through her information had the Potters been safe and so all of a sudden, everyone regarded her as the hero. Some people even stopped her on the streets, people who had not so long ago been convinced that she was the traitor. Now, they sang her praises.

Y/N wanted none of it.

Over the past three weeks, the visitors had been many – Dedalus Diggle being the first, to Y/N’s surprise. She’d opened her door to find his eyes red and before the shock even registered on her face, he’d pulled her into a hug, not noticing the way she flinched.

Full of apologies, Dedalus had stayed to help her unpack some of her things. After Y/N had assured him that her imprisonment was by no means his fault and that Crouch Jr. was an immensely talented wizard whose Forgetfulness charm would’ve been impossible to deflect, he had told her everything regarding the Ministry after the Dark Lord’s downfall. The last of the Death Eaters had been rounded up although a couple, namely Lucius Malfoy, had gotten away with some plea of being under the influence of the Imperius curse.

Y/N knew it was a lie – Malfoy had been a topic of great discussion in Azkaban, among the first few Death Eaters caught after the fall; Y/N knew many of them despised him for lying and taking the easy way out. It made her uncomfortable that she would be seeing him around the Ministry from now on.

Moody was the second visitor. Never one for small talk, he’d come to check on her, grumble about Crouch and his knack for holding long trials before going on his way. More members from the Order had visited too, some bearing small gifts, intended to be housewarming. Y/N smiled at them politely, accepted their condolences and spoke only when necessary. It was foreign to have to pretend in front of them, wizards and witches she’d known and been friends with once but Y/N didn’t know how else to act.

Today, her visitor was none other than Lily Evans.

Potter, Y/N corrected herself. Spotting the redhead sitting on the steps to her apartment, she stopped in her tracks. Lily wasn’t the only one there either. She had brought a different sort of gift – an infant who was seated in her lap, his head resting against her shoulder. With untidy tufts of black hair, his likeness was his father’s but his eyes, so blue that Y/N could see them from where she stood, were Lily’s entirely.

It was Harry Potter.

Lily sprang up once she noticed Y/N. Walking slowly forward with Harry peering curiously at the newcomer, a small smile broke out on her face.

“Hi.”

Y/N took a moment to respond.

“Hey.”

None of them said anything after that, using the time to take in each other’s appearances. Y/N looked incredibly haggard, thought Lily. While her old friend had spent the first week of her release in St. Mungo’s (she knew this because Moody had told her), Azkaban’s traces were still fresh on her face. There was a slight tremor in her voice too, and her shoulders were stiff with tension. Lily’s face fell a little – this visit was perhaps doing Y/N more harm than good.

On the contrary, Y/N didn’t think she’d ever seen Lily look healthier, happier. Though those two things weren’t out of the ordinary for Lily, she knew that much of her newfound radiance was due to the little boy in her arms, who was now cooing softly at his mother. Dumbledore had informed her that the Potters were safe the minute she’d gotten out of Azkaban but seeing them in person made Y/N feel a little better.

“Do you want to come in?”

Lily looked relieved and nodded eagerly. She was grateful Y/N hadn’t brushed her off; Lily had much to thank her for.

Her new apartment was sparsely decorated. A few plants here and there, Y/N’s favourite coat flung over the nearest sofa, beams of sunlight filtering through the windows. Lily followed Y/N into the kitchen and took a seat on the dining table, opposite her friend. After a few minutes, she broke the silence.

“Oh! I forgot – here,” she rummaged in her bag and pulled out a wand. Y/N froze.

Confiscated ever since she’d gone to Azkaban and now lying in front of her, was the wand that had killed Marlene McKinnon. It was a miserable reminder and Y/N wanted to snap it in half and throw it as far as she could. Instead, she picked it up gingerly and thanked Lily, knowing full well Moody could’ve brought it when he’d come last week.

“Did Dumbledore ask you to bring it?”

“I offered actually,” Lily’s voice was small. “I… I wanted to see you.” After a beat she continued although quite hesitantly. “Sirius wanted to come too.” Stopping once she saw Y/N’s face fall further, Lily cursed softly and rushed to amend herself. “I told him you might not… that you might–”

“Not want to see him?” Y/N finished for her, finally meeting her gaze. Her voice had a stiffness to it like Lily had never heard before. It was so unfamiliar, so unlike the girl she knew that Lily could only nod. Y/N said nothing more, keeping her gaze on Harry. He stared back, the curiosity still lingering on his face.

“How are you?”

The minute she’d said it, Lily wanted to snatch the words back. It was such a stupid question to ask, after everything that she opened her mouth to apologize but Y/N beat her to it.

“Fine,” she replied quickly. The mask she’d donned in front of all her old friends from the Order when they’d come to visit was slipping back on. It pained Y/N to have to pretend in front of even Lily, but there was no other way about it. “Everyone still stares though.”

“Do they say anything to you? Anything rude?” Lily asked. “Because if they do you can tell Dumbledore. He’ll shut Rita Skeeter up.”

“That’s okay. The last thing I need is Rita writing that I’m incapable of handling things myself.”

Lily’s voice was quiet once again. “You’ve gone through more than enough, they would understand.”

“No they wouldn’t,” replied Y/N, her voice equally soft. Lily had always been extraordinarily kind, always seeing the absolute best qualities people had to offer but it still amazed Y/N how she could be so trusting, so understanding after all that had happened.

Harry had grown desperate for some form of entertainment and was reaching eagerly for the flowers in the centre of the table. Without saying anything, Y/N moved a small blossom out of the vase and it floated in the air momentarily before drifting over. Harry, with his eyes alight in excitement and mouth open in awe, happily clapped his hands and let out a tiny shriek as it tickled him on the nose, apparently out of its own accord.

A small shadow of a smile peeked out of Y/N.

“Do you want to hold him?”

Without waiting for a reply, Lily reached over to place him in Y/N’s arms. He was very small and soft, the warmth radiating off him seeping into her too. He wriggled around a bit to make himself more comfortable before turning back to the enchanted flower, still twirling in the air. It slipped out of reach of his tiny fingers as he tried to grab it, making him squeal again.

“I heard you defied Voldemort three times,” Y/N said, changing track. “Did you?”

There was a small spark of triumph in Lily’s eyes as she replied. “Yeah. Only made him more desperate to come after us.”

“Didn’t succeed though, Harry’s still here.”

Her face darkened a little. “Because the Longbottoms paid the price.”

This was news. Lily saw the confusion on Y/N’s face and continued.

“Voldemort knew who the prophecy referred to but he had no hope of getting to us because Sirius was Secret Keeper,” she exhaled slowly and her voice shook when she spoke again. “Dorcas was the Longbottom’s, she was the closest to Alice.”

“She was captured a week before it happened. Voldemort personally killed her after he’d tortured out what she knew. He… he thought even if Harry was the boy in the prophecy, he would eliminate Alice’s son from the equation all together just to be sure and take us later.”

Y/N held her breath, dread sinking into her bones.

“He told Alice she could live if she surrendered her son.” Her eyes were downcast and shrouded with pain as she talked of Alice Longbottom. Lily too, it seemed, had ghosts of her own. “She refused.”

“Granting the son sacrificial protection,” murmured Y/N.

“Yes. The curse rebounded and Voldemort was destroyed.”

Lily watched Y/N’s brow furrow, nonplussed.

“That can’t be.”

“What do you mean? You’re saying he didn’t die?”

“He couldn’t have. Not if Harry is the chosen one like you say. The curse only rebounded because of Alice’s sacrifice, not because of the son.”

“The chosen one,” Lily repeated. She shook her head. “But he still vanished.”

“He was the most powerful Dark wizard, knew all sorts of magic. Probably knew of ways to preserve yourself even if your body was destroyed.” At Lily’s stare, she shrugged. “They talked in their cells a lot, his supporters. Never shut up about how great he was.”

Silence enveloped them for a while.

“What about Frank Longbottom?”

Lily’s face contorted again. “We thought he was safe,” her voice was barely above a whisper. “Then they got him and tortured him until he went insane.”

Y/N knew exactly who Lily was talking about. She remembered all too well the effects of the Torture curse and the blinding agony that accompanied it. She also remembered the day Bellatrix had been brought in to the cell adjacent to hers, face devoid of the triumphant smile she’d worn that day. It haunted Y/N more than she liked to admit, that smile.

“Bellatrix?” Y/N asked. Lily gave her that look again. “Her cell was next to mine after they brought her in.”

“Oh.”

Sirius had told her about what he’d seen in the Pensieve. Chest heaving with sobs, he’d described the night Marlene had died in excruciating detail, as if reliving the experience. Lily had felt sorry for him then but it was nothing compared to how she felt now as she imagined Y/N’s sorrow.

“What of the boy?” asked Y/N.

“Neville lives with his grandmother now. Frank doesn’t remember him,” Lily’s voice was thick. “He doesn’t remember his son.”

There was nothing to say to that. Y/N could sense that Lily had never openly talked of this before, how much it had affected her. This little boy, who could’ve so easily been Harry, would grow up an orphan, grow up alone. Even if Y/N had managed to save the Potters, she’d been of no use to the Longbottoms. She had never known Alice and Frank that well but it was enough to let loose the tears gathering in her eyes.

“You blame yourself,” Y/N said. “I get that. Above everyone else I get that. But it wasn’t your fault.”

Reaching out across the length of the table, Lily clasped Y/N’s hand. It broke her heart to see the girl flinch a little before squeezing back.

“I should be saying that to you. I don’t deserve your sympathy,” she said. “It’s only that I never thought I’d lose all four of them. First Marlene, then you, then Dorcas and Alice.”

“That’s not true,” whispered Y/N. “I’m still here.”

It was more of a reminder to herself than anything else but a relieved gasp escaped Lily. She reached over the table and pulled her old friend into an embrace. It was slightly awkward, with the table and Harry in the way but Y/N appreciated the gesture all the same. Lily knew it wasn’t forgiveness but it was more than she could’ve hoped for. Pulling back, she tried to smile despite her watery eyes.

“I came to thank you. For everything you did. I know you gave up your memory for Harry, to protect him. I can’t ever repay that but just know how grateful and how sorry I am,” she seemed to reconsider and added on. “We should’ve done something sooner. All of us, to get you out.”

Y/N didn’t reply. She wasn’t sure her voice would hold. Lily didn’t push her for one either.

“It’s Harry birthday soon. I wanted to ask if you would come.”

At that, Y/N protested. There was no way she could face a room full of people, people she’d once worked with, all of whom would spend half the time goggling at her. Not to mention she’d have to see Sirius and James too.

“I don’t think that’s–”

“You are the reason my son is alive. The reason I’m alive,” interjected Lily. She was nearly pleading. “Please come. It would make James and I so happy. It would make Harry so happy.”

Y/N looked down at the child in her arms once again, now fast asleep. Lily’s son, who’s existence had made her last days in Azkaban somewhat bearable. She’d dreamt of him sometimes, when Marlene’s dead body didn’t plague her nightmares. This boy, who she had never known then, had been a light at the end of the tunnel, an escape from her cloaked jailers.

Y/N was sure that there was nothing she wouldn’t do for Harry Potter.

“Alright,” she answered. Lily’s smile was as radiant as the sun beams shining through the panes of glass in the kitchen. “Only for a bit though.”

-

By the time Lily had left, the sky was a patchwork of pale pink and violet, the sun long gone. Y/N sat at the dining table still, running her fingers down the length of her wand. In truth, she had avoided using magic at all costs, preferring to walk instead of Apparate and do everything by hand. The Priori Incantatem version of Marlene sprouting from her wand tip was still a fresh reminder and having it back only made the burden heavier. She placed it away and out of sight.

Ready to start working on dinner, Y/N was about to unpack the groceries she’d brought earlier when the doorbell rang. Frowning, she walked to open the door but no sooner than she had done so, felt the overwhelming urge to slam it shut.

The very person Y/N had not wanted to see stood in the hallway. Sirius Black took her in with wide eyes, moving a few steps forward but she was glaring at him with such intensity, he felt as though he would shatter.

“I thought Lily told you not to come.” Y/N’s voice had taken on that cold edge again.

“Lily was here?”

“Just left.”

Sirius opened and closed his mouth, lost for words. She still hadn’t moved from the doorway; it was obvious he wouldn’t be let in.

“Is it fine if we talk?” His voice was shaky, the confidence that Y/N was used to nowhere to be found.

“I have nothing to say to you.”

Her gut should not have wrenched the way it did as his face fell but Y/N ignored it. She owed him nothing.

“Y/N please,” she flinched as her name escaped his mouth. “I’ll just be a few minutes, I swear–”

“I want you to leave.”

“Please listen–”

“Listen?” Y/N hissed. It was his turn to wince. How ironic it was that he was begging her to listen when he’d turned her away when she’d come to him, imploring him to do the same. Sirius gave her a pained glance before continuing, spewing words desperately now.

“You have every right to be angry, I don’t blame you for it at all but I just want you to know that I’m so, so sorry,” he stopped for breath, reaching out a hand. Y/N moved out of his grasp, face set in indifference. “I saw you in the Pensieve.”

“And now you believe me,” she said. “It took you three years and seeing it with your own eyes to believe me because my word wasn’t enough.”

She said it with no particular malice, but Sirius felt the words pierce him. His eyes had glossed over and Y/N, for a fleeting instant, faltered in her stance. Her hesitation disappeared as quickly as it had come.

“He was my friend,” his voice broke. “I didn’t think he was capable–”

“But I was?” It was the smallest slip in her demeanor but Sirius heard the anguish in her voice all the same. He shook his head fiercely but his words had escaped him again – what was there to say? How could he even begin to apologise?

“I was wrong. I made a mistake,” he was pleading now. “Please let me talk to you–”

“I want you to leave,” she repeated. Y/N held his gaze, waiting for him to do so but when he didn’t, she stepped back. Sirius let out a choked sob and moved to follow her but she shut the door with a firm thud.

For the longest time she stood there, rooted to the spot and as unmoving as still water. On the other side, Sirius seemed to be doing the same. She thought she heard him sniff a few times and at last, there was a pop, signaling he’d Apparated away.

Heart heavy and hating the remorse filling her insides, Y/N trudged back to the kitchen. You owe him nothing, she told herself again. She moved about blindly, barely noticing what she was making and all the while, her mind kept wandering back to him and the crestfallen look on his face. Seeing Sirius again had undoubtedly opened a fresh wound that she’d never given a chance to heal in the first place.

It was only halfway through eating her dinner that Y/N realised she too, was crying.

Tag List: @knowledgeisthebomb @siriusement @kendratheweird  @emi-loser @i-think-i-am-adorable @avengersassemblee @movokepwc @blackloveangel13 @misunderstood-sinner @vvytran @all-throughthe-night @ashkuuuu @thepuffyeyedpuff @annino112 @love-dria @five-seconds-of-fab @moremoony @ilovelyai @giddybeater @basically-hayley @misfitinfinity @sjriusblck @megzdoodle @siriuslyimmoony @mikariell95 @nadinissavage @sly-vixen-up2nogood @swim-deep-or-die @whymalu @biatheintrovert @thanos-strikes-back 

[anicegaystory]

Proceed with Caution

What is a good adventure without misadventure? When have you ever heard tales of a journey without its appropriate amount of hurdles? More importantly, when have you ever heard tell of a story about two young girls, at the cusp of their 20s, travelling Europe without AT LEAST one tale of a creepy dude? Zero. Zero times you’ve heard that story.

For my first tale, I wanted to get one of the creepiest out of the way. It’s not meant to spook you from jetting off on your own pilgrimage, but simply to prepare you to be aware of your surroundings and the people in them. Sure, looking back on it, I do laugh a little about it, but that is because we are safe now and oh boy were we small town naive idiots! Truth be told, it was such a surreal, and I guess traumatic experience, I honestly almost completely blocked the whole thing out! Brains are weird like that eh? I had to rely almost entirely on Sam for this one. So buckle up!

After what I can only describe as one of the most memorable 24 hours in Berlin, Sam and I …

… I should probably take a moment here to explain to all of you who may not know who Sam is!

Samantha Vanderaa (Soon to be Samantha Skauge! Woo!), is not only one of my first cousins, but has always been one of my closest friends.

I believe it was late 2010 when she decided that she wanted to travel Europe with me before I flew back home to Canada after having been living in England for the better part of 2 years. I had recently gone through a rough patch/break up/I don’t even fucking know with my first girlfriend, and Sam was going to be my knight in shining armour. We planned almost all of the trip via facebook chat, and although I am sure I will be composing a post entirely about how important that was to me, for now let’s just say it was super fucking important to me.

Alright where were we? Right! Berlin, Germany, July 2011. Packing up our rucksacks and mentally preparing for a 15 hour train journey to Florence, Italy. After having been out the night before on the most eventful pub crawl of my damn life, this was quite daunting. We were tired, we were dirty, and, unfortunately, NOT INTERESTED in some famous German sausage for brekkie.

As far as I remember, the first leg wasn’t too bad. I was pretty dozy, but I do remember flashes of incredible castles nestled in enormous rolling hills between Berlin and Munich. It was after the train switch in Munich where things got a bit dicey.

We were extremely cheap and stretched EVERY dollar for the entirety of this trip, so after purchasing a EuroRail Pass pre-trip, we assumed we shouldn’t need to budget anything for travel costs outside of snacks. This was the second time we were made quite aware that was not the case and after travelling from Amsterdam to Berlin on the floor outside of a bathroom, we decided to shell out a few Euros for this ride! So, we chose the cheapest option, a standard car (very much like what you would see in Harry Potter).

After getting settled, we were pretty pleased with the arrangement, and as the departure time was approaching, it was looking like we were going to have the car to ourselves. No such luck.

Two men joined us in the final moments before leaving the station. This was extremely unfortunate as we, thinking we would have the place to ourselves, were sitting across from each other causing each man to have to sit next to us. This was our first poor decision.

The men did not appear to be travelling together, because they never spoke to each other and one of them sat down next to me and almost immediately appeared to fall asleep which is how he remained for the entirety of the ride. Being as hungover as I was, and the general exhaustion of the first 8 hours of travel, I also started to doze off. The other guy sat next to Sam.

At this point, Sam just popped her headphones in with the hopes that she could just make it to Florence listening only to the sounds of her premade travel playlists. A pipedream apparently, as the man next to her just wanted to talk, and wow did he have a lot of questions for her. He even had the gall to ask if he could listen to her music with her!

At some point, all of this odd exchange had woken me up, and from that point on we were both on high alert. There was just something really “off” about him. He kept asking extremely particular questions about where we were going, what we were doing when we got there and where we were planning to stay. We did our best to play dumb, saying we really weren’t sure yet and that we were just figuring things out as we went. This was all obviously a lie, I mean there were some places that we definitely just flew by the seat of our shorts, but this was not one of those times.

He began to urge us to go with him and stay at his sister’s place for free, telling us that he would sort out a ride when we got to the station and to not worry about anything, just go with him when we stopped.

WELL, as I’m sure you all agree, no fucking thank you, SIR!

At one point he told us that he was going to grab something to eat and asked if we wanted anything. We didn’t. Once he left, we grabbed our shit and BOLTED.

We managed to find a sort of storage car full of bikes and junk, and hunkered down in the far back corner together. We even made a makeshift wall with our packs.

“I remember just being huddled up together watching Alice in Wonderland on the screen of my iPod classic [...] just trying to stay awake and trying to hide from this guy.”

- Sam

We honestly really thought we had escaped him and fully intended on staying right where we were until we hit Florence, but then he randomly showed up in the storage car and just started shouting at us. He kept telling us how disrespectful we were for disappearing, how he was looking everywhere for us and that he was just trying to be a nice guy and show some hospitality and that he bought us Kit Kat bars.

So, at this point, we are properly freaked the hell out and trying to explain to him that we just went for a walk to stretch our legs and that we would be back in a bit. Just doing and saying whatever we could to not be trapped alone with him in the back corner of a fucking storage car!

He warned that if we were not back to our seats, in the standard car that we chose to pay for to experience a little comfort, in fifteen minutes, he would be back to find us because, “there are creeps on this train and it isn’t appropriate for two young girls to be alone.”

What a freaking Saint, am I right?!

Anyways, we spent that fifteen minutes just weighing our options and trying not to have simultaneous panic attacks. Obviously we can’t stay here, alone in a storage car without witnesses, he knows where to find us. We can’t find somewhere else to sit we already glanced in the other cabins to find them all full up. What do we do?!

We landed on jumping off wherever the train stopped, if it made another stop during that fifteen. It didn’t. Maybe y’all have a better idea, but at this time, we decided to gather our shit and go back to our original seats. Where he was. Because we are really just so stupid.

He continued to be really needy/creepy, as expected, but this time we sat side by side, cuddled up together and did our best to ignore him.

When the train FINALLY stopped in Florence, after what felt like a damn eternity, he continued to aggressively urge us to go with him to his sister’s place and would not take No for an answer. He instructed us to stay put while he called her from the payphone. He walked over, popped in his coins and stared at us across the platform.

During this time another train had arrived and the crowd of people disembarking wandered through between us and him and at the same time he seemed somewhat distracted by his phone conversation. We decided that this was our moment to escape whatever the hell he had planned for us, good intentions or not, and we just ran. We ran as fast as we possibly could, even though we hadn’t slept all night, even though we were carrying half of our body weight in bags on our backs, adrenaline powered us all the way to the first bus we could find. We jumped on just as it was about to leave the station. We had literally no idea where it was going and we didn’t care. As the bus rolled out of the station’s lot, we could see our creepy friend searching for us on the platform as we hunched down in our seats leering cautiously out the window.

We only rode for a couple of stops before we decided to jump off and figure out where we were and how to get to our hostel. To our misfortune, we found ourselves in a relatively desolate area and it was mid-July in Italy. Now, I’m not sure if many of you understand what that means to two Canadian girls so let me just lay it out for you. It was STUPID fucking hot!

We spent the next 45 minutes lugging our packs around in the incredible heat before we managed to land a cab to take us to Camping Firenze Hostel (which was fucking incredible by the way).

In conclusion, we definitely could have handled all of that better. But, I don’t regret what we did do because even though we had to endure the most heat either of us had ever experienced (I’m not kidding folks! It was DUMB hot!) while lugging all of our shit around, we made it. We made it safely to Florence. We soaked up it’s beauty, relaxed in it’s slow pace and recharged our batteries for our next great adventure.

I am curious to know though, how do you think you would have handled that situation? How do you think we did?

If you’re a returning reader, Thanks for coming man! I really appreciate it. I laid this out as a project where I would write 1000 words for each photo, but this one ended up a tad winded at almost 2000 words. Sorry about that. I’m sure that will happen from time to time. Anywho, thanks for dropping in again, hope to see you back!

[gigawords]

Working Title : Aspect

(A/N) Trying something new on my writing blog! I will continue posting the raw unedited text on Tumblr, but since Tumblr doesn’t keep the same formatting as I use in google docs, I will post the link for that as well. Clicking the link you can view the story in its regular formatted and edited form and comment on parts you think are necessary if you want to provide feedback. Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uxcoEwqWof8zthw9skzJ9HjtQVNkDYpr-WjHRqi0Ddw/edit?usp=sharing

The last arrival train to Juran pulled into the station right as the sun was setting, and only one man stepped out.

Clad in armor unmarred, Beamer shouldered his pack as he looked around the station. Though there seemed to be lights that were powered by tekkium, only a few wall sconces were lit now. A small crowd of people were further down the train being herded onboard by an official in bright blue stationeer clothes.

He began to walk that way, and as his heavy footsteps echoed throughout the near-empty station, the stationeer turned towards him. With a mixed look of beleaguerment and surprise, he stared at Beamer for a long moment before ushering the last of the passengers onboard.

Finally, as the doors to the train began to shut, he addressed Beamer, “Sorry to say, son, but the city’s closed. In case you haven’t noticed, Juran isn’t exactly the safest place to be right now. Hence the mass exodus.”

Beamer swung his bag around and began shuffling through it, “Yeah, uh, that’s actually why I’m here. Name’s Beamer. Knight of the Dhazul Dominion.” He finally found his badge in his pack and presented it for the stationeer. “Here about a mutation problem?”

The stationeer was not as happy about it as Beamer thought he’d be. His eyes narrowed at the sight of the badge and dismissed himself with a “Bah!”

“You don’t sound too happy ‘bout someone here to help with your situation,” Beamer said, throwing the badge back into the pack before hurriedly catching up with the older man.

“Happy? I would have been happy if you had come weeks ago like we requested! And now they send one knight who looks like he hasn’t even seen a battle to fight three mutations?” the stationeer snarled, entering into a room that appeared to be an office of some sort.

“Three?” Beamer asked, incredulous, as he held open the door in the doorway. “That ain’t what the higher-ups told me.”

The old conductor rolled his eyes as he sat down at a desk to begin writing on what appeared to be a schedule. “Maybe. We don’t know for sure but we sure as sin know it’s more than one of those freaks. That’s what happens when you ignore a problem like this. It festers!” he jabbed a pen in Beamer’s direction. “Now Juran’s desolate and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Beamer scratched at the scar on his nose. Sure is tough being nice to folk like this, he thought. Inside his mind, he heard a girl’s giggle. “Look, mister…?”

“Rasine. Only remaining stationeer and probably the last person in the whole town.”

“Rasine,” Beamer continued, “I know you’re angry, but I’m just the fella they sent to fix this mess. I can’t help with you being angry. What I can do is help you get rid of those things.”

The sound of a pen scratching stopped and was replaced by the whistle of a departing train. The chugging soon followed. “I appreciate your enthusiasm, son, and I apologize for lashing out at you. But… you shouldn’t get involved. There’s nothing worth saving here any longer and you’ll only get yourself killed,” Rasine sighed. “You can stay in the station tonight and I’ll see if I can call you a train tomorrow.”

When he didn’t reply, Rasine finally turned to face him. Beamer was honestly at a loss for words and just shrugged in response. This seemed to exasperate Rasine further. “I don’t want any more deaths in my town.”

“I won’t die.”

Though he replied with “Foolish”, the look on his face melted into something akin of sadness. Regret. “If… if you do go, know that I will be here at the station if you feel like it’s too much.”

“Know where I can find ‘em?” Beamer asked.

Rasine nodded in return. “One of them tends to stick around the southern market square at night. There were sightings of another on the eastern side of town, right near the cliff.”

Beamer made a mental note of that, then began to close the door. “I appreciate that. Pleasure meeting you.”

The sun dipped further behind the barrens behind him and the streets darkened considerably. There didn’t appear to be any kind of light source anywhere in the city, which, in tandem with the lack of sounds, gave the entire area an eerie vibe. Somewhere in there was his mark.

Beamer muttered quietly, “We may have gotten ourselves into a situation we’re gonna regret, eh, Twovi?”

There was another girlish giggle and then a small flash of green light. Twovi materialized, floating in the air. Though she vaguely represented a tiny human with wings, her bright luminescence made it impossible to make out her features. She looked around excitedly, flittering around him as he watched.

“Think I could get some light?” Beamer asked hopefully. She flew up to eye-level with him and cocked her head. Great.

“Light? You know like a lantern or a torch or something?” She cocked her head the other direction.

“‘Bout as well as I expected that to work.”

Suddenly, she started nodding her head vigorously and flew straight towards the sword he had sheathed at his waist. As she collided into it, a wave of color washed over the weapon and it began to glow with a pleasant green reminiscent of the lush forest Beamer once saw.

“No, no,” he sighed. Their entire time together had been like this so far. He knew better to look a gift horse in the mouth, but he wished the higher-ups would have assigned him a more mature Aspect. Well, it’ll have to make do for now… he thought, drawing his sword and holding it aloft. It wasn’t quite as effective as a torch but he could at least see where he was going for now.

He pressed onward, eyeing each building and alleyway as he walked past. Feels like I’m walking into an ambush with nothing but a knife, he thought. Every once in a while, there was the sound of a door or open window swaying in the wind. It was eerie being in an empty city that was thriving just weeks ago. But who can blame the townsfolk for fleeing when a frontier city like this has nothing to defend it from those monsters?

There was something dark on the ground in front of him. He held the glowing sword towards it. A blacksmith’s sign liesay there, torn from wherever it was hanging and flung into the cobblestone street.

Beamer clicked his tongue in annoyance. We’re not getting anywhere like this, he thought impatiently. “Twovi, can you do my legs?” He heard something come from his weapon—a noise from her that he’d starting affiliating with pouting—before she withdrew from the sword. The soft light emanating from the sword dissipated as she did so.

Twovi buzzed around in confusion for a few moments before he held out of his feet and asked her again. She seemed to recognize this gesture, as they had done this one before, and flew straight into his chest. Her tiny body made merged into his the same way one would dive into water, with ripples of green light emanating from her point of entry. These ripples seemed to find their way down his outfit, and gathered near his feet until his legs began glowing from the knee downwards.

He heard her hum with glee inside his mind and looked upwards towards the roof of the tallest building next to him. They were near one of the busier parts of Juran. Taller buildings with three stories were becoming more prominent. He prayed as he approached the base of one of these buildings and crouched down low.

When Twovi empowered him, he could feel the heat radiating from her point of concentration. Now, as he crouched low readying a jump, it was as if pure energy replaced the blood in his veins. He jumped and he jumped far. Much farther than any human should be able to. He easily crested the flat rooftop of the building he was aiming for but miscalculated the direction of his jump and the power Twovi had given him.

He let out a yelp as he lost his balance and began tumbling through the air. He heard Twovi scream inside his mind as he crashed down hard onto the roof.

Beamer’s vision was spinning and his back ached bad, but not as bad as his arm did. He felt waves of… something travel up his body. Suddenly, as if his head was suddenly dunked in water, his mind cleared. He was on his back, he realized, on top of the three-story building. Different parts of his body began glowing as Twovi set to work healing it from the inside. He watched with amazement as waves of green light focused on each area of pain he felt before it magically disappeared. Twovi sniffled like an upset child the entire time.

The whole process took only seconds, and he was able to pick himself up in no time. He whistled, “Man, you Aspects are really something amazin’, you know that?”

Not understanding how, but he got the impression that she nodded in response. But she felt guilty? Or was that his guilt? Everything was mashed together inside him now and he didn’t know who was who.

“Now, then,” he continued, stepping up the ledge, “let’s see if we can find ourselves a freak.” While he could see far more than he could before, it was still dark and there were several buildings further in the city that were taller than the one he was on. Further east, he could see a point where the buildings just stop suddenly, and south of his position he could barely pick out a area where there were no buildings. Bingo.

They took a slower but safer way down from the building but eventually made it to what appeared to be a large outdoor market area. Empty stalls lie everywhere in a disorderly manner and there were display stands with no clear indication of positional planning. Twovi had decided to conjoin with his gauntlet this time, not giving the source of light he wanted but enough to get by yet again.

As he walked around, he noticed a large section of the wooden stalls had been completely destroyed. Smashed, torn apart, and completely obliterated. The sight of it sent chills down his spine. No human did this.

Beamer wasn’t a man easily disturbed, but the flashbacks of his first encounter with a mutation bubbled up in his mind. He could feel sweat starting to form on his brow. I’m supposed to kill three of them? Twovi seemed to sense his hesitation. He didn’t know how, but he felt her grow quieter, more reserved.

A noise echoed from a nearby street or alley. The sound of wood snapping. In a flash, Beamer’s sword was in his hand. “Twovi, sword.” he commanded. Blessedly, she responded immediately and was quick to jump from his gauntlet to his sword.

The blade felt powerful in his hand. He felt a different sensation than before when she was merely just inhabiting the weapon while he used it as a light. It felt… alive somehow, teeming with the same energy that fueled his legs moments ago.

“Alright, Twovi, let's just take things one at a time,” he whispered. He didn’t know if she heard him; he couldn’t seem to sense her reactions and she didn’t make any noise in response. “Remember what they said. Find the heart of corruption, I stick you into it, and you… do your weird thing, and we’re golden. Got that?”

No response. She scared or somethin’? he thought. “Now I know you c-”

One of the houses on the edge of the square exploded in a shrapnel of wood as an enormous creature came through the wall. Beamer quickly rolled behind a stall. He was far enough away that he felt he safely hid, but he could never be too careful. Grip tightening on his weapon, he slowly peeked his head out just enough to where he could see.

Beamer thought he had seen the worst the world could throw at him, but each time he encountered a mutation it seemed to be even more horrible than the previous one. Surprisingly, these things used to be living creatures.

Its sickly purple skin seemed to be constantly moving, twitching, shifting. There were three huge appendages, almost tentacle-like, where the arms and head should have been if it were a human. It towered above the stalls in the marketplace, leaking some kind of liquid as it stalked about. It reminded him of a beast hunting.

Heart thumping, Beamer crouched back down low. It was moving in his direction, and it appeared to not have noticed him yet. But these things were beastial by nature, if it had caught on to his scent or something…

A bead of sweat dripped from his forehead, and the grip on his sword tightened. I always did hate the waiting before a fight, he thought with a hint of chagrin.

The most eerie part is that for a creature that large, it didn’t seem to make any noise other than the scraping of wood as it pushed aside one of the market stalls. No heavy breathing, no sniffing, nothing. So when it stepped right up to Beamer’s stall, he nearly dropped his sword.

It seemed to realize something was in the area, as the mutation had slowed and seemed to be searching for him. He swallowed hard.

With a shout, Beamer rolled out from behind his cover and swiped out with his glowing sword. He could hear Twovi shriek, though it sounded distant. The sword made contact with one of the surprisingly small legs. It bounced off hard instead of sweeping through with the strange sensation Beamer had come to expect.

With the sound of glass shattering, the purple skin around the point of impact fell to pieces, and viscous liquid began to pour out. Beamer jumped to his feet and fell into a battle stance as the mutation collapsed to the ground, unbalanced as it was with the now limp leg.

Though it had no visible mouth, the monster released an incredible roar that nearly deafened Beamer. Quickly moving to action, he chopped at one of the tentacles that he assumed to have once been an arm and it resulted in an effect similar to that of the leg. The skin broke, deep purple liquid began to spill, and it fell limp.

He brought his sword back, but couldn’t get his guard up in time for a different tentacle before it whipped into him. The breath was knocked out of him as he was sent flying, and crashed into the side of a building.

His body was alive with pain as he collapsed to the ground. Vision swimming, he frantically tried to catch his breath. Something was broken for sure, if not several things.

And then suddenly, the pain started to evaporate. Whatever was broken in his chest wasn’t hurting anymore. His breathing grew less erratic. His vision stabilized, and he could see the mutation slowly using its other two tentacles to crawl towards him.

Beamer felt Twovi inside his body, frantically trying to repair him, but he could tell she was quickly getting tired. “Thank you, Twovi,” he said as he forced himself off the ground, grabbing his sword. “You, uh, got enough fight left in you to take him out? Promise I’ll be more careful.”

He received the mental image of her hesitating, but nodding her head. He watched as she jumped from his chest and melded into the sword blade once again. She always does seem a lot more clear-headed in battle, he thought.

With the green aura of his weapon illuminating the slowly approaching mutation, he fell into another battle stance. The immediate threat were the two remaining tentacles, his target could wait until after.

He rushed forward, hoping that his body and mind were still quick enough to react to these unusual battles. He dodged to the left as one of the tentacles crashed down to the ground. Without slowing, he swiped downwards. The sword bounced off, but the sound of glass breaking gave him all the confirmation he needed of a successful strike without looking.

There was another scream from within the creature, and the last tentacle began to move erratically. It jerked around from a new direction, approaching quicker than Beamer could react. “Shi-”

It slammed into his left arm, sending him spiraling into a nearby stall. He could tell his arm was broken, but he didn’t feel nearly as terrible as he did the first time he got hit. Still, with the amount of hits he had been taking-

“Beamer!”

His attentioned returned just as that same tentacle arced back towards him. He held his blade up horizontally in front of him just as the tentacle made contact.

Whatever momentum the grotesque limb carried with it died as soon as it made contact. With a normal sword, that block wouldn’t have saved him. But with Twovi, it felt like anything was possible.

The tentacle’s skin cracked and burst open, drenching Beamer in the gooey liquid that erupted from it's skin. “Disgusting…” he muttered, leather uniform quickly darkening in color.

Through great amount of effort from both the slippery liquid and pain from his arm, Beamer managed to pull himself from the wooden wreckage some time later. The mutation still lived, but it had lost all method of attacking that he could tell. It writhed on the ground, trying to move its body with its one remaining leg. The other leg and tentacles were still attached, just… deflated.

Beamer slowly approached the monster on the ground. There was some kind of low noise coming from it, but what it was supposed to be or represent he couldn’t tell. He tapped its chest with his sword, which he noticed had considerably lost its glow, and it caved in on itself as the liquid inside escaped out of the breaking skin.

Inside was a large, round lump. There it is, that rascal, he thought, The heart of corruption.

He lifted the sword to his face, “You gonna be able to do this?” he asked.

No response. So she’s got a limit to what she can do… Do these Aspects experience exhaustion like a person? He wondered.

In one quick thrust, he pierced the mutation’s heart of corruption. It didn’t die- it kept moving the best it could with its body drained of whatever it was that fueled it. Piercing the heart of corruption would do nothing by itself.

Beamer watched with relief as Twovi’s glow moved from within his blade to inside the creature, entering its heart of corruption. As soon as she made contact, the mutation screamed with a discordant noise.

He held his breath, not daring to move as he watched Twovi work. She had completely left the sword now, and the heart had begun to glow brighter and brighter. The mutation thrashed around more wildly than before, but with only one leg working right it was a pitiful sight.

Just as it got too bright for Beamer to look at directly, the green glow dissipated entirely. The mutation had completely stopped moving. Beamer had seen this only once before, but was just as awestruck when the body started to burn away with tiny flames the same color as Twovi. The cremation, they called it, though no smoke rose and no ash would remain. he stayed until the last of the body burned away, waiting for Twovi to reappear.

She didn’t.

Clutching his arm, he walked back into the train station. The old man was smoking a pipe outside of his office and nearly dropped it when he saw Beamer approach.

“Heavens alive, Son, you’re a mess!” he shouted, rushing towards him.

Beamer grunted, not stopping, “Don’t worry, it feels a lot worse than it looks.”

“I can barely see your uniform under all that… blood? What is that? And the mutation! Did you kill it? Did you get them all?"

“Relax, Rasine, I’ll answer all your questions,” He was so tired, “But first, I’m gonna need your place to rest a bit.”

[saikostories]

MHA - Rhythm of the War Drum pt2

It didn’t matter how many times All Might had visited Tartarus over the years, he’d never gotten used to the place. The maximum security prison sat like a black monolith on a desolate volcanic island off the coast of mainland Japan. The only thing that connected it to the rest of civilization was a bridge guarded on both sides by security guards and high-powered weapons. It was where they locked away the worst of the worst criminals. Once sentenced to Tartarus, those who went inside were never seen again.

Even though All Might had always visited as an agent of Justice, he was not immune to the prison’s oppressive presence. As soon as the gates closed behind him it felt like he was being swallowed into a world completely separate from everything outside Tartarus’s concrete walls. Whoever had designed Tartarus had done an impressive job. Everything about the prison was meant to intimidate, oppress, and rob those incarcerated of hope. To date, no one had ever escaped. It was the ultimate Final Stop on a criminal’s roadmap of Villainy.

But All Might was not there that day to visit a convicted criminal. He was there to see his former student, Izuku Midoriya.

It had felt almost surreal signing his name in the log book of the prison with Midoriya’s name listed in the “inmate” column. Never in a million years would All Might have ever thought his protégé would one day become a guest of Tartarus’s hospitality. In the wake of the train station attack, though, that was the only place considered secure enough to hold the boy until they could figure out what to do with him. The boy was ungodly powerful. He’d proven himself a formidable force not to just heroes in general, but to All Might himself as well. All Might had always held Midoriya in high regards, but after trading blows with him that night he saw without a doubt why the League had targeted Midoriya. If it hadn’t been for Aizawa and his quirk All Might wasn’t sure how that evening would have shaken out.

He had no idea what the League of Villains had done to his former student. But it had to have been thorough to turn him into such a monster.

All Might remembered very little of what happened after he and Aizawa subdued Midoriya. The arrival of police, emergency response teams, and other pro heroes was a complete blur. It had only been when his old friend Naomasa Tsukauchi appeared beside him in the middle of that demolished street that All Might was able to tear his attention away from Midoriya and focus on anything else. They had moved quickly from there: Tsukauchi spiriting him, Aizawa, and Midoriya away into a waiting police van. Almost as soon as the doors had closed behind them All Might finally lost his grip on his remaining store of One For All and withered into his scarecrow-like form. That hadn’t caused him to loosen his hold on his unconscious student, though. If anything, All Might’s grip on Midoriya became even tighter. He’d held the boy the entire way to Tartarus.

It was only when they arrived at the prison gates that All Might finally allowed Midoriya to be taken away from him. He didn’t know exactly where they were taking the boy, but he’d been assured they were going to make sure he couldn’t hurt himself or anyone else. Aizawa had gone with the prison staff and Midoriya. Given his quirk-erasing ability, he was one of the best qualified to remain with Midoriya in case the boy woke up and became violent again.

That had been several hours ago. Calls had to be made, official statements given, specialists called in for help. Those things were all routine for a hero in the aftermath of such a battle. All Might knew the drill and had gone through all of it as if on autopilot. He felt as if he were going through the motions in a daze. All he could think about was Midoriya and the incredible way in which the boy had been returned to them. Everything else beyond that was just background noise. All Might vaguely remembered Tsukauchi urging him to seek medical attention for his injuries at one point, but All Might had only waved his concerns away. There were more important things to think about right now than himself.

All Might currently navigated the inner bowels of Tartarus with Tsukauchi and Principle Nezu by his sides. One of the first calls All Might had made after handing Midoriya off to Tartarus’s staff was to call the school to tell them about their resurrected student’s return. Principle Nezu, as expected, had dropped everything to rush to the prison. For those that didn’t know UA’s principle he was nothing if not dedicated to his students and extremely possessive of them. All Might could only guess what kind of press nightmare Midoriya’s return would mean for the school once more of the dust settled. It made sense Nezu would want to get ahead of everything now.

Finally, after hours of paperwork, statements, and bureaucratic red-tape, they’d been given the go-ahead by prison staff to see Midoriya as a preliminary interrogation with Tsukauchi there to act as an official representative of law enforcement.

“Thank you again for inviting me to this interrogation,” Nezu said to Tsukauchi as they navigated the empty white hallways of the prison. “I know this is a very… unique situation. As principle of UA high school I feel it is my duty to be here to see what happens next for our student.”

Tsukauchi nodded. “We currently have the media in the dark on the details of the attack. All they know right now is that the League was responsible and that All Might was on the scene. Details about who exactly All Might was fighting are being kept quiet for the moment.”

“What about the patrol students?” All Might asked as they walked. “Did the press get their hands on them yet?”

Tsukauchi shook his head. “No. We managed to place police officers on them as soon as support forces arrived on scene. Those that were injured were taken to the hospital. Initial reports are giving the injured good chances of recovery. Midnight was still in surgery the last time I got an update – broken ribs, internal bleeding, and a ruptured spleen, but she should make it out okay. From what Aizawa said, that was all from just one punch from Midoriya. Endeavor’s son came out with a broken nose and jaw. Also has a pretty bad concussion, but he should make a full recovery. Worst seems to be the second student patrol member, Bakugo. All the fingers on his right hand were crushed. Wrist and forearm suffered multiple compound spiral fractures. He’s going to have a long recovery and rehabilitation ahead of him before he’s able to use that hand again… The other students that weren’t injured were immediately taken to the closest police station for debriefing. No reporters were able to talk to them and we’ve placed the students under temporary gag orders. Assuming there are no leaks, the media shouldn’t get any details about the attack from them. As of right now, the general public doesn’t know that Midoriya is still alive or that he is involved with the League.”

“Good,” Nezu nodded. He was visibly hurrying to keep pace with All Might and Tsukauchi’s strides. “Obviously a number of things still lay ahead of us with regard to Midoriya. But for the moment no one is the wiser about his involvement with the League, which I would like to maintain for as long as possible. I would hate to see one of our students’ future as a hero jeopardized by being cast as some kind of coconspirator with the League of Villains. Until more is known about the details of Midoriya’s captivity it would be best if his return is kept quiet.”

Tsukauchi released a tired sigh. “The prison currently has Midoriya in a specialty holding cell on the deepest level of the prison. It has the highest security and is virtually impregnable – both from inside or outside the cell. No risks are being taken, especially since Shigaraki threatened to come back for Midoriya and he has that warp-gate specialist, Kurogiri, with him.”

All Might’s pace unconsciously quickened, his blood running hot. “They are not getting Midoriya back. I will die before I let that happen.”

Neither Nezu or Tsukauchi replied. What could they really say in response? All Might felt there was no need to keep it a secret how upset he was about the situation. Someone had kidnapped one of his students, then turned him against them. No matter what kind of hero he was, he was not about to let such a crime go unaddressed.

Tsukauchi led them down a turn in the hallway. How Tsukauchi knew his way around Tartarus so well was beyond All Might’s understanding. All the halls looked exactly the same to him – pure white and lit from above with bright florescent lights. At the end of the new hallway two prison guards stood at attention. As they neared, All Might saw they flanked a set of two separate doors. He assumed behind one of those doors was Midoriya. All Might wasn’t sure if he was excited or apprehensive to see Midoriya again so soon after their battle.

“With permission from Principle Nezu I called UA and had the school’s nurse, Recovery Girl, brought in as a consultant,” Tsukauchi said as they approached. “It seemed the most prudent thing to do given her preexisting knowledge of Midoriya’s medical background and quirk. She’s been overseeing his medical assessment since we brought him in.”

All Might nodded thoughtfully. “Hopefully she’ll be able to give us some insight on what’s going on with young Midoriya.”

They neared the guards and flashed them their visitor passes. One of the guards ran his key card through a security reader and opened the left hand door for them with a beep and heavy clunk of disengaging bolts. All Might followed Tsukauchi and Nezu inside.

The door opened into a small room. The room was as stark and colorless as the hallways outside. A single chair was the only furniture there. The only other feature of the room to speak of was a large pane of glass that took up a majority of the right hand wall. As expected, Aizawa and Recovery Girl were already there. Recovery Girl barely looked up at their arrival from a thick folder of medical papers in her hands. Aizawa barely acknowledged them either from his spot on the far side of the room. His attention was focused through the window into a secondary room on the other side.

All Might had been in similar interrogation rooms before. He knew that “window” was actually a two way mirror that looked into a holding cell. With a slight clench of trepidation in his stomach, All Might looked through the mirror.

The holding cell was about the same size as the visitor’s side. All Might estimated it measured about 3 by 3 meters. There was no furniture – not even a chair or bed. White padding lined all four walls –even the inside of the door that lead outside to the hallway. It was a specialty cell for high-powered criminals with strength-based quirks. For situations in which such a room was need, no risks were taken. All Might knew the walls of that room’s outside walls were over two meters thick of super reinforced concrete and metal. Nothing short of a nuclear blast would break through that cell.

On the other side of the mirror, Midoriya stalked the perimeter of the room like a caged animal. All Might saw he’d been strapped into a specially designed straightjacket over a pair of plain white hospital pants. All Might was slightly relieved to see that his fake hero costume had been taken away. Shigaraki seemed to have known just how to twist the blade in All Might’s stomach with that little touch.

Under the harsh florescent light of the holding cell All Might was able to properly take in his resurrected student’s appearance for the first time. Even bundled in a thick prison straightjacket, Midoriya was noticeably skinnier than he remembered. Overlong hair hung in his face. All Might couldn’t be sure from a distance but he thought he saw a large bandage covering the back of Midoriya’s neck where he’d torn Shigaraki’s control device away. The boy’s skin was a sickly shade of white. Dark circles ringed madness-filled eyes as if Midoriya hadn’t slept for the last several months. All Might’s blood pulsed a bit faster at the sight. He would make sure that the League did not get away with this. Whatever suffering Midoriya had endured would be met with justice. He would not let them get away with this.

Despite being barefoot, bound, and in rough health the boy still managed to give off an almost tangible aura of danger. That was why they had to take so many precautions. From past visits to the jail, All Might knew that straightjacket Midoriya wore was lined with a special material that was linked to the holding cell’s fail safe against unruly prisoners. On the visitor’s side was a panic button. When pressed, the fail safe activated a super-powered magnetic device underneath the holding cell’s floor that would pull the prisoner to the center of the room and hold them there in an artificial gravitational force field until the prisoner calmed themself. This, in addition to Aizawa’s quirk-nullifying gaze, was possibly the only method to ensure Midoriya remained secure.

Blocked by the two way mirror, Midoriya remained oblivious to All Might and the others’ arrival. He continued to pace the sides of the room. As All Might watched, he paused at the left wall of the holding cell and violently swung his upper body into the padded wall as though testing the wall for weaknesses. Despite the attempt, All Might could tell Midoriya was not using One for All. With a snarl, Midoriya moved away and resumed his track around the room.

Aizawa’s eyes followed Midoriya’s every move but his hair remained limp around his face. For the moment, the boy did not seem to be an actual threat.

Tsukauchi led the way into the room and glanced through the mirror into Midoriya’s holding cell. “How long has he been awake?”

Aizawa finally broke his gaze from the pacing teen to glance at the new arrivals. “About twenty minutes. He hasn’t said or done anything too outwardly aggressive yet, but we’re not taking any chances. He could go wild again at any moment. He’s definitely still feeling whatever Shigaraki gave him.”

All Might looked at Recovery Girl. “Were you able to do a medical assessment yet? Do you know what we’re dealing with here?”

Recovery Girl released a heavy sigh and snapped the folder of papers she held close. “Emergency response teams were able to recover the device you said you pulled off Midoriya’s neck. It appears to be a storage container for vials of serum that can be remotely administered to the boy. It looks like it was feeding directly into his spinal column. We were able to recover one full vial of liquid from the delivery pack. We still need to send it to a lab for closer analysis, but initial tests show dangerously high levels of testosterone, anabolic steroids, methamphetamines, traces of opioids, as well as several other compounds too complex to identify at the moment. Basically, the poor boy’s brain cells are swimming in a noxious cocktail of drugs that make him want to rip other people’s faces off. No wonder he’s out of his mind right now.”

Aizawa scowled, his features darkening. “Shigaraki did say he called that stuff Berserker Serum. He was right. It does live up to its name…”

Releasing another sigh, Recovery Girl stared through the mirror at her patient. “While he was still unconscious I managed to do a quick examination. There’s nothing too seriously wrong with him physically. He appears slightly malnourished and has some minor bruises and several circular scars around his hairline I don’t remember being there before, but I’m not sure what they’re from exactly. It could be nothing, or it could be related to whatever the League did to him. This so-called "Berserker Serum” is definitely a big part of what’s causing him to lash out like this, but I’m almost certain he’s suffered some kind of psychological harm as well…"

The sick feeling in All Might’s stomach worsened. Recovery Girl’s assessment made him only feel more helpless and angry than before. He should have been there to protect Midoriya. It was because of the League his student was in a straightjacket locked in a cell half out of his mind on unknown drugs. He would not let the League get away with such crimes.

Recovery Girl went on, “From what Mr. Aizawa’s told me about the fight it does look like Midoriya is coming down a bit from the worst effects of the drug. But he’s still obviously feeling them.”

As if to emphasize the doctor’s assessment, on the other side of the glass, Midoriya paused at a section of padded wall just to the right of the two way mirror and slammed his shoulder into it like an American linebacker. All Might could feel the hit reverberate through the wall and under his feet.

Snarling, Midoriya moved away to continue his track around the cell.

“In other words,” Tsukauchi carefully observed, “he’s still extremely dangerous. Until further notice the police department has commissioned Mr. Aizawa to remain at Tartarus and act as a guard over Midoriya. We can’t risk him breaking free and getting loose. After the train station attack, who knows what other chaos he could cause.”

“Has he said anything since he woke up?” All Might asked.

Aizawa shook his head. “No. Nothing. Just got up and started tracking the room. Oddly, he hasn’t tried to get out of his restraints or inflict any actual damage on the room.” Without taking his gaze off the pacing boy, Aizawa motioned with his chin towards a large red button on a panel underneath the two way mirror. “First sign of aggression, though, I activate that fail safe. The head guard told me the magnetic pull of that thing can go up to one hundred times Earth’s natural gravity. Between that and my own quirk to neutralize his super strength we should be able to keep Midoriya immobilized if it comes to it.”

“Shall we see if Midoriya is willing to enlighten us about his time away?” Nezu asked the room. He glanced up at Tsukauchi. “I understand this is officially a police interrogation, but I don’t believe Midoriya knows you. Perhaps it would be alright if I asked Midoriya questions? If he remembers me he might be more willing to talk.”

Tsukauchi considered this for a moment. “Alright. I’ll allow it.”

“There is an intercom that connects the rooms together so we can speak to Midoriya, correct?” Nezu asked.

Tsukauchi nodded. “Yes, of course. Here.” He pulled the only chair in the room over to the two way mirror and offered Nezu a hand up onto it. The principle gratefully accepted the officer’s help. Once standing on the chair he was almost chest level with everyone else there.

Tsukauchi pointed to a small control panel beside the room’s fail safe button. “Just flip that switch on the right to activate the intercom. Flip it back to cut the feed to the holding cell.”

“Thank you,” Nezu nodded. He glanced back over his shoulder towards All Might. “All Might, as a precaution, might I suggest you remain silent during the interrogation? The League seems to have somehow convinced Midoriya you are his enemy. He might be more forthcoming with information if he is not encouraged to attack you if he knows you are here.”

All Might’s first instinct was to argue. He wanted to know what had happened to Midoriya more than anyone else there. Midoriya had been his responsibility before anyone else’s. He had been Midoriya’s mentor since before the boy was even admitted to UA. If anyone should have a chance to speak to Midoriya first, it should be him.

But… Nezu did have a point. As much as All Might didn’t want to admit it, the League had somehow turned Midoriya against him. As Nezu pointed out, if the boy heard All Might there Midoriya might try to continue their fight where they’d left it off at the train station.

“Alright,” All Might reluctantly agreed. “I won’t say anything.”

Nezu gratefully nodded. “Thank you. I do understand how difficult this must be for you. We’ll do everything we can to figure out how to help Midoriya and bring him back to us.” Nezu glanced at Aizawa. “Please stay sharp. First sign of aggression, please take any necessary steps to curtail it.”

“Of course,” Aizawa dutifully agreed.

Nezu activated the intercom with a flick of his paw. “Hello, Midoriya. This is principle Nezu from UA high school. Do you remember me?”

Midoriya abruptly stopped pacing and turned towards the mirror. All Might knew Midoriya couldn’t see them, but he still felt a cold chill go down his spine as the boy’s eyes swung towards the two way mirror. Midoriya’s lips curled back from his teeth in a psychotic grin. Even though the boy was calmer than when All Might met him at the train station, Midoriya still had a predatory look in his eyes. Like it wasn’t really him that was locked up and bound in that cell; but rather them, his visitors, who were the ones trapped there with him.

“Nezu,” Midoriya purred in greeting. “How could I forget? So they dragged you here to see me.”

“It seems you created something of a ruckus at the train station earlier.”

Midoriya released a low chuckle. His lips twisted in a devilish grin. “I guess you could say that.” He took several steps closer to the mirror, manic eyes boring into the reflective surface as though trying to somehow see through it to the other side. “Is All Might in there with you? I’d really like to talk to him again. We have some unfinished business…”

“Unfortunately, he is not. He’s seeing to several important matters right now.”

Midoriya’s face screwed into an angry scowl. “More important than me? Shame. I would have made his visit worth it.”

“The police and I have several questions we would like to ask you.”

Midoriya edged closer to the glass. He now stood only several feet away from it. “I’m sure you do.”

“Where was the League of Villains holding you?”

“Don’t know.”

“Do you know what the League’s plans are next?”

“Nope.”

“What was their ultimate goal for attacking the train station tonight?”

Midoriya gave a low chuckle. All Might thought it was a sound that belonged in an insane asylum. “To draw All Might out into the open. The master wanted to test my strength. He said it was time to see what I could do.”

Midoriya inched closer to the two way mirror and slowly tipped forward until his forehead bumped the glass. He stared out from under overlong green bangs into his own reflection. His breath made little puffs of fog against the mirror. All Might knew there was no possible way for Midoriya to see him there, but that didn’t quite stop him from standing up a little taller. The hairs on the back of neck instinctively stood on end. Even Nezu leaned back from the glass. Midoriya’s presence was invasive and exuded danger even through several inches of special reinforced glass. Madness seemed to seep off him in tangible waves.

“How about a question for you,” Midoriya smiled. “If All Might’s not here, where is he?” He sluggishly rolled his forehead side to side as though scouting through the glass to scan the visitor section. “Did I hurt him much?”

The question was asked almost hopefully, which made All Might uncomfortable.

Nezu kept his calm and didn’t let anything slip in his voice. “All Might is fine. But he is very worried about you. You are obviously not yourself.”

A laugh erupted from Midoriya as manic eyes swung back to stare straight ahead through the mirror – ironically, almost directly at Nezu. “All Might should be worried less about me and more about what I’m going to do to him once I get out of here… Do you think if I used my quirk to break out of here he’d come?”

As if to test his theory, tracks of glowing red energy appeared across his face and neck. Even separated by several inches of military-grade glass All Might could feel the charge of electricity in the air.

But as quickly as One For All manifested it abruptly disappeared again. Deranged green eyes immediately swung to the far left side of the mirror where Aizawa stood. The erasing hero’s hair was swept up away from his face, his eyes a soft glow of red.

A chill went through All Might. There should be no way for Midoriya to know where Aizawa was standing behind the mirror. But somehow he’d managed to pinpoint him. Could he somehow feel the direction Aizawa’s quirk came from? To All Might’s knowledge that should be impossible, yet here they were with Midoriya staring daggers through the glass almost directly at Aizawa. Even half-crazed and high on some unknown quirk-enhancing drug, the boy’s skills of deduction were frightening.

All Might didn’t seem to be the only one to realize what just happened. If All Might wasn’t mistaken he could have sworn he saw Aizawa stiffen and actually take half a step backwards in surprise.

“I should have known you’d be here, Mr. Aizawa,” Midoriya growled through the glass. “You stopped me from finishing All Might at the train station. Once I get out of here and finish All Might I’ll make sure to come see you next.”

To his credit, Aizawa’s voice did not betray any unease. “That’s not going to happen, Midoriya. Not while I’m here.”

Midoriya leaned back from the glass, a psychotic smile curling almost to his ears. “Keep telling yourself that. Hey, Mr. Aizawa,” he murmured, leaning closer to the mirror again as though to whisper a secret. “Remember that first day of class when you said you’d expel the student that came in last for the fitness test? You should have sent me home that day. Because erasing quirk or not, once I get out of here I’m going to hunt you down, scoop your eyeballs out of your skull and squish them between my toes like grapes.” Midoriya’s smile widened even more before a manic cackle erupted from his mouth. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Midoriya’s threat was not an empty one.

It was at that moment that All Might truly realized just how much the League had warped the young boy All Might had taken under his wings what felt like a lifetime ago. Whoever this boy locked in this cell was was no longer the Midoriya he remembered. Seeing him like this and hearing such threats come out of his mouth made All Might wonder if there really was any hope of bringing the boy he once knew back.

Nezu was the first to recover from his shock at Midoriya’s threat. The mouse delicately cleared his throat. “If you please, Midoriya. Let’s try to stay on track… You keep saying you want to attack All Might. What exactly did he do, or the League say he did, to make you so intent on this?”

Midoriya returned his gaze forward. Green eyes burned bright with madness. “All Might knows what he did. I trusted him. When I first met him I actually believed he was the kind of hero everyone else said he was. But now I know I was just being a dumb, idiotic kid to believe all that fake hype. I saw All Might’s true colors when it really came down to it. It’s his fault they took me and made me live in the dark. It’s his fault the master had to reset me. This. Is. All. His. Fault!”

All Might didn’t know how to react. He’d heard many villain monologues over the years – blaming him for all the wrongs of the world and why it was somehow his fault crime was the only answer to their problems. But hearing such things from his protégé’s own mouth hit All Might in way it had never got to him before.

Before he could remember his promise, All Might blurted out, “I don’t understand, Midoriya! Tell me what I did. How can I make this right?”

The change in Midoriya was instantaneous. As soon as All Might’s voice registered in his brain his gaze sharpened. His lips peeled back from his teeth in a ferocious snarl. Murderous rage filled his eyes. “ALL MIGHT!” he roared at the glass. “I’m going to kill yoooooooouu!”

Energy suddenly crackled the air around Midoriya. Sharply leaning back from the two way mirror, Midoriya snapped forward at the waist. His forehead smacked the glass with a hollow thunk. The mirror shuddered in its tracks.

“I’ll killlllllllll yooooooooooou!”

Midoriya reared back again and violently drove his face into the glass. A dinner plate-sized shatter point appeared in the middle of the glass. Spider web cracks shot across the mirror several feet in all directions. The center of the impact point shined a wet, sticky red.

There was half a heartbeat of startled horror from everyone in the visitor room. Aizawa was the first to shake himself out of his shock. The erasing hero’s hair flew up around his face. His hand darted out and slapped the fail safe button.

Midoriya was rearing back for a third strike just as the crackling energy of One For All disappeared from around him and the fail safe kicked on. Blood streamed down his face in thick rivulets. Droplets of red spotted the front of his straight jacket. A low hum filled the room and suddenly Midoriya was being dragged backwards to the center of the room. He dropped heavily to his knees, viciously thrashing against the invisible magnetic pull. Without the use of his quirk, though, all he could do was struggle.

“ALLLMIIIGHT!” he roared at the window in a mindless rage. “I’ll kiiiiillll you! You hear me?! I’ll kill yooooooooooou!”“

Aizawa reached over and slapped the intercom system off so their voices could no longer be heard in the cell. Midoriya’s ranting screams abruptly quieted too, but they could still hear the muffled whisper of his screams through the cracked remains of the mirror.

All Might stood frozen in place, staring at his former student in heartbroken, stunned anguish. The pure violence of Midoriya’s assault on the mirror in response to just the sound of his voice was shocking. He knew Midoriya was not himself and that this reckless hatred towards him was a result of his stay with the League of Villains. But that didn’t lessen the sting of knowing that the boy he loved as a son wanted to see him dead.

It hurt. It hurt in a way All Might hadn’t been hurt for many, many years now.

All Might only came back to himself when he felt Tsukauchi step up beside him and grip his arm. "Hey, All Might. Come on. Don’t listen to him. He’s out of his mind right now. Whatever the League did to him wasn’t you fault.”

Wasn’t it though?

All Might wanted to listen to Tsukauchi. He really did. He trusted the young cop’s judgment but this was something that went beyond logic. Midoriya’s accusations struck at his very core, reminding him once again of what a failure he was and how much he’d let his student down.

“I suggest you get out of here, All Might,” Aizawa darkly announced. Quirk reddened eyes continued to nullify Midoriya’s quirk through the glass. Aizawa did not risk even tilting his head in All Might’s direction. “This interrogation’s over. We’re not going to get any more useful information out of him now.”

All Might heard the disapproval in Aizawa’s voice. He knew he’d screwed up by speaking and letting Midoriya know he was there. But how could he leave Midoriya now? He had to figure out some way to help the boy. He had to!

Nezu jumped down from the chair. “Come, All Might. Let’s leave Aizawa to his work. We’ll wait until Midoriya is calmed down to try talking to him again.”

All Might numbly let Tsukauchi guide him towards the door.

Tsukauchi glanced back over his shoulder towards Aizawa and Recovery Girl. “Please let us know if there are any improvements in his condition.”

Recovery Girl let out a tired sigh, as if steeling herself for the long road ahead. “We’ll continue running what tests we can on this Berserker Serum. Hopefully whatever it is will wear off quickly. In any other circumstance I’d suggest possibly sedating the patient to wait for the chemicals to clear the system. But… given we don’t know exactly what this Berserker Serum is made of, how it would react with any sort of sedatives we’d give him, and how overtaxed the poor boy’s systems already are with so many chemicals running through him I don’t think that would be a good idea right now… As long as Aizawa can keep him under control I don’t suggest making this situation any worse than it already is.”

“Please keep us posted,” Nezu insisted.

Midoriya’s muffled screams could still be heard through the two way mirror. All Might glanced back one last time as Tsukauchi guided him into the hallway. The boy was violently thrashing on his knees. Blood stained his face and the front of his straightjacket. Between the blood-matted locks of hair Midoriya glared at the two way mirror. All Might saw nothing but murderous rage in those eyes. Watching Midoriya scream and thrash, All Might honestly could see nothing of the sweet boy he one knew and loved. All that remained was this demon-possessed being of hate. Not for the first time he wondered if there was any way to bring the Midoriya he loved back.

***

It was over an hour before Aizawa felt Midoriya had calmed down enough to release him from the cell’s fair safe. For that hour he was held in the fail safe’s magnetic pull Midoriya continued to scream and rage at the two way mirror, mindlessly yelling threats and obscenities at All Might who was no longer even there. Aizawa would have been lying if he said he wasn’t taken aback by some of the more gruesome ways Midoriya described how he would eviscerate the Symbol of Peace once he got his hands on him. It only further illustrated how much the League had warped the young boy’s mind.

When Aizawa did release Midoriya from the fail safe, the boy immediately began to stalk back and forth in front of the two way mirror like a predator stalking the entrance of a burrow its prey had disappeared. Saliva foamed in the corners of his mouth as he paced back and forth. Madness-filled eyes glared at the cracked remains of the glass as though trying to see through it to the other side. Rage radiated off him in almost tangible waves. But he did not try to break through the mirror again or use his quirk to escape, which Aizawa was immensely grateful for.

From there the hours began to bleed one into the next. Aizawa didn’t even try to keep track of time. His only concern was watching Midoriya. If the boy went wild again it was his job to stop the rampage.

The boy had scared him earlier. Before Midoriya’s return Aizawa would have never thought his student capable of such murderous rage. The Midoriya that stalked back and forth in front of the mirror was nothing like the boy he once taught. The boy in that cell was a raging demon. If he somehow got loose there was no saying what kind of destruction he could cause. Even All Might had had trouble fighting him. Aizawa could only hope Shigaraki’s Berserker Serum wore off soon.

Over the day numerous people came in to observe Midoriya. Recovery Girl came and went several times – sometimes accompanied by the prison doctor, other times by herself. Tsukauchi returned at one point and took Aizawa’s official statement about the train station attack before disappearing again. Aizawa didn’t know where All Might and Nezu went. He assumed Nezu returned to school to start preparing for the political fallout of their student returning from the dead as an accomplice of the League of Villains. Once word of Midoriya’s return got out the press was going to have a field day with the story.

And All Might… Aizawa thought it possible Nezu or Tsukauchi might have been able to talk All Might into going home to rest. But knowing the Symbol of Peace like he did, Aizawa suspected he was still somewhere in the building. All Might had been visibly shaken by Midoriya’s accusations. No doubt the other hero was not taking their student’s return well.

By the next morning, Midoriya finally began to show signs of coming down from his Berserker high. After sluggishly pacing the cell’s perimeter slower and slower all night he finally sat down and slumped against the far wall of the cell.

Aizawa continued to watch the boy. Although tired and his eyes gritty from exhaustion and overuse of his quirk, Aizawa refused to let his guard down. Midoriya was still an unknown threat.

By the afternoon of the day after the train station attack Midoriya went utterly still. He sat in the same place he’d dropped the night before, staring blankly at the floor from a curled position against the wall. He appeared almost as if in a trance. Aizawa could detect no signs of his earlier aggression or rage. He reminded Aizawa of how he’d first seen Midoriya at the train station – quiet and disassociated from everything around him to the point that Midoriya reminded him of a soulless robot. He couldn’t say why exactly but seeing Midoriya like this unnerved Aizawa more than when Midoriya had been in the throes of his berserker rage.

As the hours dragged on, Aizawa began to feel the weight of his assignment. He’d been up for at least the last 36 hours. His eyes burned and his mind was sluggish from exhaustion. It was a struggle to remain alert. He knew he couldn’t risk letting his guard down, though, even for a moment. Even though it was unlikely at this point, there was no guarantee Midoriya wouldn’t go into another rage like before. He had to be ready in case Midoriya did.

Aizawa was used to getting little sleep. He’d gone longer without sleep on other missions before. Sleep deprivation was basically his signature trademark. But while he was used to foregoing sleep in one way or another, that didn’t mean if was fun. He saw it as just an unfortunate consequence of his job. That was one of the reasons he cherished his naps so much. Once this whole mess with Midoriya was settled, he promised himself, he was going to give himself several days to sleep like the dead…

It was sometime after Midoriya went catatonic that Recovery Girl came back.

“Oh dear,” she sadly murmured as she gazed through the cracked two way mirror at her patient. “He certainly doesn’t look well, does he?”

“No,” Aizawa agreed. “He hasn’t moved for the last several hours. I’d say he was sleeping but his eyes are open and every so often I see him blink.”

The elderly doctor gave a sigh. “At least he seems to finally be coming down off that villain’s concoction… I just got results back from the lab we rushed that sample of Berserker Serum to.”

Aizawa risked a quick glance away from Midoriya, intrigued. “What did they find?”

Recovery Girl pulled a sheet of paper out of the folder she always carried with her when she came to check on Midoriya. She scanned it with a frown. “Unfortunately not a whole lot more than what our initial tests showed. Several compounds are still beyond our testing capabilities to identify. The lab techs are still trying to analyze them. Some of them appear to be completely new - probably lab-made. But I can almost guarantee you not by any lab sanctioned by the national government… Besides the steroids, testosterone, and methamphetamines we originally identified, the lab also found a powerful variant of ketamine in the mix. Ketamine is known to cause trance-like states, sensory distortion, memory loss, and is even sometime used for sedation. Given all that, it would certainly explain a lot of Midoriya’s current state of psychosis…”

Aizawa could only nod in agreement. He might not have a medical background but even he knew so many powerful drugs in one person’s system could not be good. And if Midoriya had been on such a concoction for the last several months, who knew how his brain cells were processing any information right now. No wonder he’d been half out of his mind…

Recovery Girl laid the folder of medical charts aside on the chair and leveled a heavy look at Aizawa. “I know you’re probably going to object, but I’d like to go in and do a physical assessment of Midoriya. I need to check his vitals and maybe even clean him up a bit. His face is still crusted with blood from when he smashed his face against the glass.”

“Absolutely not,” was Aizawa’s immediate response. “That boy almost pummeled All Might into the ground with his bare fists earlier. I’m not about to let you go in there to take his temperature.”

“I’m not exactly asking for your permission, Aizawa” Recovery Girl tartly replied. “The boy is my patient and I am in charge of his medical well-being. And I am telling you I need to see him up close for an assessment.”

Aizawa turned towards Recovery Girl with raised eyebrows. He couldn’t say for sure if he’d ever heard the school nurse show so much attitude before.

Recovery Girl met Aizawa’s gaze undaunted. “The boy is coming off a chemically induced high no medical professional has ever seen before. I need to see how his body is reacting. I know what your objections are, but I don’t care. I will be careful. I just need you to keep watch while I assess his condition.”

Aizawa scowled into the folds of his capture weapon. “Midoriya is smart. He might be brainwashed and drugged, but he is still extremely intelligent. He could be faking right now to trick someone into going in there and giving him an opportunity to escape. I’m not ready to believe he won’t attack if we go in there.”

Recovery Girl straightened herself up to all three feet of her full height. “Again, I’m not asking you for permission. I have a job to do just like you do. The prison doctor, Dr. Tsubaki, is waiting in the hallway for me. We are going to go in there whether you come with us or not. I would prefer to have you there with us as backup, but if you’d rather stay in here in case we have to use the fail safe we can have one of the guards accompany us into the cell.”

Aizawa inwardly growled. Despite her diminutive stature and grandmotherly demeanor, UA’s school nurse had a backbone of steel.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “I’ll go with you. But one of the guards has to come in here to man the fail safe in case Midoriya starts getting aggressive again.”

Recovery Girl leveled a deceptively sweet smile at him. “Of course.”

Aizawa followed Recovery Girl out into the hallway. Two guards stood there along with an older man with salt and pepper hair and glasses. The ID card hanging from the lapel of his lab coat identified him as Dr. Tsubaki - Tartarus’s head doctor.

“Mr. Aizawa will be accompanying us in to check Midoriya,” Recovery Girl happily announced as they came into the hallway.

“Good,” Tsubaki nodded. “Honda, please stay by the fail safe button while we are in the cell. This is an alert level five threat. First sign of aggression activate the fail safe.”

“Yes, sir,” the guard closest to Aizawa replied. In the blink of an eye he disappeared into the visitors’ side of the cell.

Recovery Girl glanced up at Aizawa. “Dr. Tsubaki’s quirk allows him to diagnostically "read” another person’s body,“ she explained. "He can tell what’s wrong with a person just by touching them. He has been extremely helpful so far in Midoriya’s case. He helped me assess Midoriya when he was first brought in.”

“Let’s try to move quickly,” Tsubaki said. “No more than five minutes in there. From everything we’ve seen so far, the less time we stay near the prisoner the better. He could become violent again at any moment.”

Aizawa had to admit he liked the doctor’s no-nonsense attitude and sense of caution. But then again, Tsubaki worked in a maximum security prison where all his patients had both the capability and desire to cause massive harm. He’d probably developed a super-heightened sense of caution over the years.

“I’ll go in first,” Aizawa said, moving to the door of Midoriya’s side of the cell. “As much as possible please try to maintain a clear line of sight from me to Midoriya. I need to keep him in my sights to nullify his quirk.”

“Understood,” Tsubaki nodded. He shifted the strap of a medical supply bag hanging from his shoulder. “Let’s do this. Nishikawa, open the door.”

The other guard slid his keycard through the scanner beside the door. The heavy clunk of internal mechanisms sounded. Aizawa’s hair was already lifting from his face as he pushed open the door. Quirk-reddened eyes found Midoriya still slumped in the same place against the wall. The boy hadn’t moved at all. Aizawa strode across the cell to the far wall, his eyes locked on the motionless form.

Recovery Girl and Tsubaki cautiously followed Aizawa inside the cell. The second guard remained in the doorway. His finger hovered over the trigger of his gun.

The boy remained motionless. He didn’t even seem aware that anyone else was there with him.

“Midoriya?” Recovery Girl called. She hung back several feet from their patient out of reach should he suddenly lunge at them. “We’re here to help you.”

Still no reaction from the boy.

The two doctors exchanged a cautious glance.

“Let me,” Tsubaki said. He slowly inched forward and dropped to one knee in front of Midoriya.

Aizawa’s eyes narrowed. If Midoriya really was faking, this would be the moment he sprung his trap.

Tsubaki reached out and gently slid two fingers underneath Midoriya’s chin to feel his pulse. Midoriya didn’t even blink at the touch. He might as well have been a doll for all the reaction he gave. “Mr. Aizawa,” Tsubaki said over his shoulder, “please drop your quirk. I can’t assess the patient with you erasing my diagnostic quirk.”

Aizawa hesitated. All his instincts screamed at him not to release his target from his gaze. If Midoriya decided to attack he could use the split second delay of Aizawa reactivating his quirk again to make a move. The boy was frighteningly smart – he’d proved as much before when he’d pinpointed Aizawa’s position behind the two way mirror. But the longer the doctors couldn’t do their job the longer they had to remain in that cell exposed to a possible attack.

With great reluctance, Aizawa let the heat in the back of his eyes recede. His hair drifted back down to hang around his face. “Be quick,” he growled at the doctor.

Tsubaki’s hands skimmed across Midoriya’s face and neck. Recovery Girl moved forward to kneel beside Tsubaki in front of their patient.

“Temperature feels okay,” Tsubaki murmured as his hands moved. “Heartbeat is sluggish though. I’d say about 55/45. Definitely suffering from dehydration. I can feel his organs starting to struggle.”

“Poor boy hasn’t had any fluid for at least 48 hours,” Recovery Girl frowned. “In any other situation I would have put him on a saline drip when he first came in. But with that straightjacket, we can’t get to his arms. Also, if he has another fit like before he’d probably only rip it out and hurt himself.”

“We could do a neck or ankle IV,” Tsubaki suggested. “It’s not ideal but at least it would get a fluid flow into him.”

Recovery Girl frowned. “I’d like to not resort to that just yet. Let’s see if we can’t get him to drink something on his own first.”

Recovery Girl went to the medical bag Tsubaki had carried in with them. She rummaged around the contents for a moment before extracting a handful of things. One of them was a water bottle with a long, tapered head – almost like a straw.

Gently smoothing the overlong hair back from Midoriya’s face she tilted his head away from the wall. Green eyes blankly stared past her into nothing. Aizawa was once again unnerved by the boy’s catatonic state. It just wasn’t right…

Recovery Girl rested the water bottle’s spout against the boy’s cracked lips and squeezed a small stream of water into his mouth. Midoriya reflexively swallowed the offered water. Aizawa was reminded of a living doll.

“There we go,” Recovery Girl praised after half the bottle was gone. “I bet that tasted good, didn’t it?”

Midoriya offered her no reply. He just continued to mindlessly stare into the distance, oblivious to everything around him.

“Let’s see if we can’t clean you up a bit while we’re here,” she said as she pulled out a cloth from the doctor’s bag. Squirting some of the leftover water onto the cloth she gently dabbed at the streaks of dried blood crusting Midoriya’s face. As Recovery Girl did this, Tsubaki continued his diagnosis. He pressed one hand to the side of Midoriya’s neck and closed his eyes as if to better understand what his quirk was telling him.

“This is so strange,” he murmured with a frown after several moments. “Everything just feels so… wrong. When I touch a normal person I can feel everything that’s going on in their body depending on where I focus my attention. But with this prisoner… it’s like something’s been disconnected. Everything feels… numb. Like how it feels after getting a shot of local anesthetic. I’ve never felt anything like it before. And his mind… it’s like the lights are on but no one’s home. I don’t feel any sense of cognizant awareness like I normally would. It might be that his brain is just so overtaxed right now by all those chemicals that it’s gone into some sort of hibernation while it tries to recover.”

Tsubaki removed his hand from Midoriya’s neck and leveled a serious look at Recovery Girl. “It’s still very early in his recovery but I think this is something that’s going to go beyond a physical medical professional’s ability to heal. I get the feeling a trained psychologist is going to need to be brought in at some point.”

Recovery Girl gave a small sigh of disappointment. “I see…” She leaned back from Midoriya and sadly surveyed her handiwork.

Cleaned of the blood, sweat, and spittle of his earlier rampage, Aizawa was taken aback by how young Midoriya suddenly looked. After seeing his student’s demonic fits of rage before it was jarring to remember Midoriya was really just a child. A rush of intense anger welled up in Aizawa at the thought. If he ever got his hands on Shigaraki he was going to make sure the League of Villains regretted ever going after one of his students.

“Let’s get out of here,” Tsubaki declared. “We’ll let him continue to rest. There’s nothing else we can do for him right now.” The two doctors quickly cleaned up their supplies and made for the door.

Aizawa followed after them. As they went into the hallway, Aizawa glanced one more time into the cell. Midoriya still hadn’t moved from his spot. He remained in a curled ball against the wall, staring blankly ahead into nothing. After seeing his student up close and hearing the doctor’s assessment Aizawa couldn’t help but wonder when the boy would begin to recover.

By the next morning Midoriya’s state began to worsen. It happened gradually, almost imperceptibly. It started with small muscle spasms in his limbs. At first Aizawa thought the boy was starting to regain his sense of self and trying to wake from his stupor. But as the hours wore on Midoriya’s breathing began to grow more labored. The muscle jerks turned into visible full-body shaking. Sweat broke out across the boy’s forehead and neck, giving him a sickly sheen. Not long after that Midoriya began to vomit. All he brought up were thin ropes of foamy bile which puddled beside him on the floor. Having not eaten for the last several days, there was nothing else in his stomach to throw up. But that didn’t stop his stomach from turning over and over, leaving Midoriya unable to do anything more than dry heave in open misery against the wall.

Recovery Girl and Tsubaki assessed these things as signs of drug withdrawal. The prison doctor tried to spin it as a good thing – that the noxious chemicals the League of Villains had poisoned the boy with were finally starting to leave his system. Aizawa saw the logic in that, but it didn’t really ease the helplessness and anger he felt as he watched his student spiral deeper and deeper into increasingly violent withdrawal symptoms.

He expressed such concern to Recovery Girl at one point but was told there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t risk giving Midoriya anything to help ease withdrawal symptoms or risk taking him out of the cell yet. There was still no saying where he was mentally and what kind of threat he’d still pose if he suddenly became violent. Until the drugs left his system, all they could do was wait.

By late that evening the worst of Midoriya’s shaking finally began to subside. Midoriya’s face remained sweaty and flushed. To Aizawa, Midoriya appeared the living embodiment of sickness and suffering. It was sometime after one of the prison guards brought Aizawa his evening meal that he caught a faint murmur over the cell’s intercom system. Intrigued, he stared at his student through the cracked mirror. Midoriya’s head rested against the padded wall of the cell. His eyes were barely open. He seemed more asleep than awake. Through the overlong locks of green hair that curtained Midoriya’s face Aizawa could see the boy’s lips trembling as if he were talking to himself. Very faintly over the intercom Aizawa was able to catch several feverishly mumbled words.

“All Might… no… don’t leave me…”

Aizawa wasn’t sure what to make of Midoriya’s rambling. The boy didn’t sound angry and vengeful like he had when talking about All Might before. He almost sounded… frightened. Pleading, even.

From there Midoriya’s murmurs dissolved into a string of unintelligible mumbles. Through the night Midoriya continued to occasionally cry out and whimper in his fevered sleep. When he did he would jerk and twist inside his straightjacket as if cringing away from something or someone only he could see in his mind.

Aizawa kept vigil over the boy the entire time. Although it silently tore his heart to see his student reduced to such a pathetic state he had a mission to keep watch over the boy, and that was what he was going to do.

The next morning All Might, Tsukauchi and Principle Nezu returned to check on Midoriya’s progress. By that point Aizawa felt a strange sense of floaty disconnection from the rest of the world. He’d been up for over 72 hours now. The caffeine pills he always carried with him for missions like this were starting to lose their effectiveness. A headache was starting to brew just behind his eyes. If this kept going, Aizawa wasn’t sure how effective he would be if Midoriya suddenly went crazy. He was starting to reach the end of his physical limits.

He didn’t seem to be the only one having a hard time with everything. Aizawa had been taken aback when All Might followed Tsukauchi and Nezu into the room that morning. The other hero seemed to have aged twenty years since Aizawa last saw him. A dark cloud hung over the Symbol of Peace. All Might always seemed quieter and more prone to bouts of sullen thoughtfulness when he was in his weak form. But the emptiness in his eyes now was something Aizawa had never seen before. It almost reminded him of how All Might looked in the days immediately after Midoriya’s supposed death.

Aizawa had never approved of All Might’s blatant favoritism of Midoriya. Teachers were supposed to be impartial and treat all of their students the same. He didn’t understand why All Might and Midoriya had such a close relationship. Even from the first day of class All Might had shown Midoriya extra attention. Whatever the case – regardless of Aizawa’s feelings towards their relationship – there was no denying All Might’s attachment to the boy. Aizawa had actually been surprised when All Might returned to UA after summer break. He’d seen how hard the older hero had taken their student’s death. So to have Midoriya back now and blaming All Might for his captivity… Well, there was no way All Might wasn’t stewing in his own guilt.

In some ways Aizawa understood All Might’s feelings. He’d come to respect Midoriya himself over the course of the semester. Aizawa had deemed Midoriya his new “problem child” early on in the semester. Trouble seemed to follow the bookworm wherever he went, but the kid had great potential. He just needed to get Midoriya to learn how to control his power without shattering his body every time he tried to use his quirk. When Midoriya had been “killed” Aizawa had been surprised how hard the new hit him. He’d expelled numerous students of the years, taught the others and sent them on their way to become pro heroes where several of them had eventually been killed in the line of duty. But never had Aizawa actually lost a student while still under his tutelage. Although he hadn’t been there at the shopping mall with his students Aizawa couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else he could have done to prevent Midoriya from being taken by the League of Villains.

If he himself was experiencing so much doubt and guilt, who knew how All Might was dealing with everything…

Shaking himself out of his wondering thoughts, Aizawa tried to focus on what Tsukauchi was saying. Whenever he got this tired it got harder to focus on anything.

“We’ve had both police and heroes out in force, but there have been no other signs of the League since the train station attack. Shigaraki seems to be laying low for the moment.”

“I will take that as a bit of good news,” Nezu said.

“So do I,” Aizawa agreed. “But I’m not ready to believe Shigaraki or the League is ready to give up just yet. No doubt Shigaraki’s planning his next move as we speak.”

Tsukauchi nodded. “The entire city’s been put on high alert. All hero agencies are conducting around-the-clock patrols. Everyone is just waiting for the next shoe to drop at this point.”

“Has the Education Board had anything to say about students being involved in the latest League attack?” Aizawa asked. It was something he’d been worried about since Midoriya was brought to Tartarus. The student patrol program had been started under the strict understanding from the government that no students were to be involved in combat of any kind. Their sole role was to patrol and report back to licensed pros. Yet in typical class 1-A fashion, less than a week after starting the program, six students had been involved in a life-or-death fight with the League with two students and one teacher ending up in the emergency room.

Nezu sighed. It was the closest Aizawa had ever seen the principle’s unflappable cool come to faltering. “They were… not happy about the incident. All student patrols have been put on hold until further notice. The Board is currently reassessing the threat the League of Villains poses and how much risk students should be expected to face while they are still so young and inexperienced. I’ve had to call in several emergency substitute teachers to come in to teach classes since you, All Might, and Midnight have been out.”

“How is Kayama?” Aizawa asked. He hadn’t gotten any other updates about his colleague since that first night in Tartarus.

“She���s recovering. I visited her in the hospital yesterday,” Nezu replied. “Doctors say she’ll have to remain there for at least another week, but they have given her an excellent prognosis for recovery.”

“What about the student patrol members that weren’t injured?” Aizawa asked. “They should have returned to class by now. Did any of them leak information about Midoriya’s return?”

Nezu shook his head. “No. I spoke to them before they returned to class and reminded them of the police gag order they’re under. Midoriya’s return is considered classified information. I know several of them were close friends with Midoriya before his disappearance so they were all understandably upset and confused by what happened. Unfortunately, I couldn’t give them any information about his current state or whereabouts. I could only promise them that we were all doing everything we could to help him.”

“We might not be enough to help him,” a soft voice spoke up behind Nezu. All Might stood by himself away from the rest of them. Haunted blue eyes stared at Midoriya’s motionless curled form through the cracked two way mirror. Sorrow was etched in every corner of the hero’s wizened face. “The League hurt Midoriya so badly… What if nothing we do is enough to help him?”

“You can’t start thinking like that,” Tsukauchi gently insisted. “Midoriya’s only finally starting to come off of Shigaraki’s drug. We should have a better understanding of what we’re dealing with after Midoriya is a little more like himself.”

As though somehow hearing his name through the glass, Midoriya’s one leg twitched in his sleep. He squirmed inside the confines of his straightjacket. Weakly pressing his forehead harder into the padded wall the boy released a low whisper. His eyes were opened partway but Aizawa did not see any actual awareness in them. His lips trembled as though murmuring under his breath.

“What’s happening?” All Might demanded, instantly alert. “Is he alright?”

“He’s been doing that on and off all night,” Aizawa explained. “I’m honestly not sure whether to call it dreaming or hallucinating. Recovery Girl and the prison doctor say it’s a sign of drug withdrawal. Sometimes he’ll start talking or calling out to people. I heard him call out for his mother at least twice last night.”

Tsukauchi seemed to perk up a little at this news. “Has he said anything important?”

Aizawa shook his head tiredly. “No. Mostly just random words and phrases. Nothing to really make any sense of.”

In the cell, Midoriya squirmed inside his straightjacket as though fighting against the restraints to reach out towards something. He still appeared asleep, but locked in a vivid nightmare. Several tears suddenly slipped down his face as a hiccupped sob drifted across the intercom system. “No… no! All Might… don't… no.”

Aizawa heard All Might’s startled gasp from across the room. Distraught eyes swung away from Midoriya to spear Aizawa with an incredulous look. He seemed shaken.

“Has he called for me before?”

“On and off,” Aizawa admitted. “But he always quiets pretty soon afterward. He hasn’t shown any more aggression like he did when he first heard you through the intercom.”

All Might turned to fully face the erasing hero, fists clenched by his sides. Anger was inexplicably building in his skeletal face.

“He was calling me and you didn’t call to notify me?” he demanded. Straightening his back, he rose to his full height over Aizawa and glowered down at him. Even Tsukauchi and Nezu seemed startled by the hero’s sudden mood change.

Aizawa was too tired to react to All Might’s anger. He met the taller hero’s gaze with blood shot eyes, undaunted. “I did not because there was nothing to report. The League brainwashed Midoriya into seeing you as his enemy. They drugged him to the point that he was willing to put his face through a pane of reinforced glass to try and kill you. Just because he’s calling your name doesn’t mean anything. He’s sick and hasn’t shown any signs of sanity since he was brought here. No matter how badly you want him back, he’s not ready to have a rational conversation with you.”

“It is not your decision when I should be updated on my student’s health,” All Might growled through gritted teeth. “If he was calling for me you should have immediately informed me.”

“And do what with that information exactly?” Aizawa snapped back. In some distant corner of his brain he knew he should just stop talking and let All Might be angry with him. But he was really just too tired to try and hold his own frustration about the situation in any longer. His temper always got short when he let himself get this tired. “What would you have done if I had called you? Come all the way out to Tartarus and stare at him through a two way mirror? There’s nothing you can do to help him. As of right now, he is no longer your student. He is a weapon of mass destruction the League is trying to kill you with. Midoriya is not the same boy you once knew and he might never be again!”

Aizawa regretted his words as soon as they left his mouth. The startled look of hurt in All Might’s hollowed eyes told Aizawa he’d gone too far with that. All Might didn’t need him pointing out how useless he was. The other hero had probably spent the last few days beating himself up with very same thoughts.

Taking a deep breath as if to collect himself, All Might shook his head. “I don’t care what the League’s done to Midoriya. He is my responsibility. It was my job to protect him and I wasn’t there to do that. It was my fault the League got a hold of Midoriya and turned him against us. It might be too little too late now, but I’m not going to let him down again.”

With no other warning, All Might abruptly turned and stalked towards the door. Aizawa, Tsukauchi, and Nezu all stared after him in confusion.

“Is he-?” Tsukauchi murmured. Horrified realization blossomed across his face.

“Shit,” Aizawa cursed under his breath as he darted after the Symbol of Peace. Stupid! He should have known All Might would immediately want to go to Midoriya once he heard the boy calling him.

“All Might, wait! Don’t go in there!” Tsukauchi shouted.

All Might was already in the hallway and swiping his access card in the cell’s scanner. The two guards stationed there seemed unsure about what they were supposed to do in this situation. The door’s internal locks slid aside with a heavy thump. All Might shoved the door open with a bang.

“All Might, don’t!” Aizawa yelled.

But All Might had already disappeared inside the cell.

Aizawa’s eyes burned as he activated his quirk. After so much use and going without sleep for so long it felt like acid being poured against the insides of his eyeballs. The erasing hero blinked back the sting of tears as he rushed into the cell after All Might, hoping against hope the Symbol of Peace wasn’t going to get himself killed before he could stop it…

***

All Might ignored his colleagues’ shouts as he stormed out of the visitor’s side of the cell. He was so focused on his mission their shouts might as well have been the buzz of mosquito wings in his ears. He swept past the guards in the hallway and swiped his pass through the keycard scanner that led into Midoriya’s side of the cell.

“All Might, don’t!” Aizawa’s voice yelled.

Aizawa might as well have been yelling at the wall. The only thing on All Might’s mind right now was getting to Midoriya. The boy had called for him. He had to see him. He’d already let his protégé down so much. There was no way he could ignore his plaintive calls.

The locks to Midoriya’s cell disengaged in a series of heavy thunks. All Might pushed the door open. He must have pushed it harder than he thought in his haste because the door swung inwards and hit the padded wall with a loud, echoing thwack.

Midoriya visibly startled at the bang as though abruptly woken from a dream. Bewildered green eyes flew open. His head snapped up away from the wall. He looked around in startled confusion. Against expectations, instead of leaping onto the offensive Midoriya cringed back against the wall, drawing his legs up to his chest as though to make himself smaller. He seemed to cower into his straightjacket.

All Might took several long strides to the middle of the cell and stopped. For a moment he just stared at his former student. Up close to Midoriya like this the boy looked so much smaller and frail than All Might ever remembered. A sickly sheet of sweat covered Midoriya’s face and neck. Green hair lay plastered in tangled mats against his forehead and cheeks. Although bundled in a thick prison straightjacket All Might could still detect a slight tremor in the boy’s frame – but whether that was from chills or drug withdrawal he couldn’t say. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago this same boy had been a raging powerhouse of destruction.

Behind him, All Might heard Aizawa push his way into the room and hurriedly take point behind him to his left. Although he didn’t look behind him he knew Aizawa’s quirk would be fully activated.

Tsukauchi and Nezu hung back in the doorway. The guards in the hall were on full alert. Their fingers hovered over the triggers of their stun rifles. Tension filled the air like a physical presence.

“All Might,” Tsukauchi hissed from the doorway. Panic tinged his voice. “We shouldn’t be in here. It’s too dangerous. Come back and we’ll talk to Midoriya through the intercom.”

All Might stood frozen in place. His eyes were locked on the shivering form. Midoriya looked so sick. His suffering was almost physically tangible. It made All Might want to fall to his knees and pull Midoriya into his arms where Shigaraki and the League could never hurt him again.

But All Might still had the presence of mind to resist the urge. The last time he’d seen Midoriya face to face his protégé had been trying to kill him. Although sick and suffering there was no guarantee any of Midoriya’s rage had gone away. They still didn’t know what the League had done to him or why he wanted to kill All Might so badly.

All Might suddenly realized the dangerous situation he found himself. He’d heard Midoriya pleadingly call his name and he’d immediately gone running to him. His only thought had been to go to his student’s side. If his former teacher, Gran Torino, had been there the old hero would have beat him upside the head for acting so foolishly. If Midoriya tried to attack him there was hardly any room in the cell to maneuver. He was also still recovering from his battle with Midoriya. He hadn’t tried to bulk into his muscular form since the train station attack. He doubted he would be able to transform and hold that form for very long given how much that fight had weakened him. As far as he knew, there also wasn’t anyone left in the visitor’s side of the cell to hit the fail safe button if Midoriya did become violent.

The Symbol of Peace silently chastised himself. He should have known better to put himself and the others in such a position. It was like hearing Midoriya call for him had made him completely forget all his years of training and common sense. He’d let his emotions rob him of good judgment. Shigaraki truly couldn’t have targeted anyone else that could make him lose his focus and hurt him so badly on an emotional level like Midoriya could. At some point since taking Midoriya as his protégé, the boy had become his greatest weakness.

Nonetheless, the damage was already done. He was already here. He couldn’t just turn and walk away from Midoriya now.

“Midoriya?” All Might gently called.

Midoriya seemed to cower deeper into the depths of his straightjacket. He cringed back against the wall as though trying to somehow push his way through the padding and concrete to the other side. “D-don’t hurt me!” he weakly cried. “Leave me alone!”

The words hit All Might like a physical punch to the gut.

“I won’t hurt you, my boy. I’m here to help you. It’s All Might. You called me so I came.”

Midoriya lifted his head away from the wall and gazed up at All Might from underneath overlong bangs as if seeing him for the first time. Bloodshot eyes stared at All Might for a long moment of intense silence.

All Might’s heart buoyed with hope. Perhaps now that Midoriya was free from the influence of Shigaraki’s Berserker Serum the boy would remember himself. Maybe he would finally be able to celebrate his student’s unexpected return from the dead.

But those hopes were dashed as Midoriya’s face contorted into an ugly scowl of disgust. Lips pulled back in a weak snarl. His eyes narrowed with hate.

“Don’t you dare come near me,” Midoriya spat with surprising vehemence given his sickly state. He weakly pulled himself up to sit a little straighter. He didn’t appear strong enough though and slumped back against the wall for support. “Don’t you dare pretend like you actually care about me now, you fake hero.”

All Might’s heart dropped into his stomach like a lead ingot. The threat of tears stung the backs of his eyes. He’d been so hopeful Midoriya had finally come back to him…

Desperation built in the hero’s withered body until it felt like it was going to physically explode out of him. “I don’t understand. What did I do? Why are you so angry at me?” he pleaded.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t know!” Midoriya snarled. Hate-filled eyes glared at All Might as though he’d found something nasty on the bottom of his shoe. “You know what you did.”

“No. I don’t,” All Might insisted, honestly confused. “What did the League say I did?”

“They didn’t tell me anything. I saw it! I might have only been their prisoner but they still dragged me out to see that press conference. I heard what you said. I saw it with my own eyes. So don’t try to deny it! I saw it!”

Behind All Might, Tsukauchi and Nezu hesitantly crept farther into the room, intrigued by this information. Midoriya was talking and appeared to be somewhat sane. This was the opportunity they’d been waiting for. Perhaps they could finally figure out what had happened to Midoriya while he was away.

“What press conference are you talking about?” Tsukauchi asked.

“The one All Might gave after I was kidnapped,” Midoriya spat, venom dripping off every word. “The League sent demands for my release. They said they’d exchange me for several villains that were being held in Tartarus. But All Might – All Might himself! – in front of a room full of reporters refused! He said he and the police department wouldn’t negotiate with the League! He said the League of Villains was a terrorist organization and they wouldn’t accept any ransom demands from them, even for a UA student.”

Green eyes glared up at All Might as though wishing he could make him combust into flames with the sheer power of his anger. “You said I was a regrettable loss! A necessary sacrifice to make sure villainy didn’t prosper! You even said that if I knew what was happening that I would agree with your decision! That I would understand!” Tears formed in Midoriya’s eyes and ran down his cheeks in hot, angry tracks. “Well, I didn’t! I didn’t agree with it! You said I wasn’t important enough to make such an exchange! You abandoned me! I trusted you to come and save me but you just left me!”

Midoriya took a deep breath of air, his breath catching in a sob. He hung his head as though suddenly drained of energy by his rant. “I trusted you…” he added in a choked whisper of despair.

All Might turned and shared confused looks with the other men. What press conference was Midoriya talking about? All Might couldn’t even remember the last time he’d given a formal press conference. Probably not since before he became a teacher at UA.

Midoriya lifted his head, the anger building in his face again. “They locked me in a dark room after that. I don’t even know how long they kept me in there. For awhile I was sure they were going to kill me since I wasn’t any good as a hostage anymore. That whole time I waited in the dark I still held onto the hope that maybe – maybe – you’d change your mind and come find me. But you never did… I waited. For weeks! But you never even tried to save me! I was just a regrettable loss! I thought you cared about me but you tossed me away like a piece of trash! You didn’t even try!”

All Might was at a confused loss for words. Slowly, he dropped to his knees so he could be eye-level with Midoriya. He made sure to keep at least a meter between him and the angry teen. He hadn’t forgotten how dangerous Midoriya was. Even bundled in a straightjacket and visibly trembling with sickness from the after effects of Shigaraki’s Berserker Serum, Midoriya still had that glint of raw hatred in his eyes.

“Midoriya… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never gave any press conference.”

“Yes you did!” Midoriya snarled. “I saw it! Don’t try and lie to me! I saw it!”

Nezu tentatively inched forward. “All Might is right. He never gave any press conference after you were taken.”

“We all thought you were dead,” All Might said. “I never gave any press conference after you disappeared because… because I was broken by losing you.” All Might’s voice caught at the admission. His eyes unwillingly misted with unwanted memories of those days after Midoriya’s supposed death. “I didn’t leave my house for almost a week. The thought of seeing the press or talking to anyone else was unbearable. I only finally left to go to your memorial service at the school.”

Midoriya angrily shook his head, unmoved by All Might’s confession. “Stop trying to lie to me! I saw you on television! The League sent their demands and you refused! On national TV! You refused to save me! You didn’t even try to look for me! I thought heroes were supposed to save people! You just left me there with them!”

All Might stared into Midoriya’s eyes, desperate for the boy to believe him. Midoriya’s accusations cut him like blades. The thought that Midoriya believed he would do something so callous, so cruel as what he described made All Might want to scream and rage in denial.

“Midoriya… my boy. If I had known you were still alive… If I had thought for just one second that you were still alive I would have tore this entire city apart looking for you. I would have never stopped looking for you. If the League had come to us with a ransom I would have immediately gone to get you myself. I would have never abandoned you. You could never be a necessary sacrifice – not to me, no to anyone at UA. I would have found some way to get you back. But I thought you were dead.”

For a moment Midoriya hesitated, the first hint of doubt breaking through the haze of anger clouding his eyes at All Might’s sincerity. Shaking his head, Midoriya insisted, “I saw you. I saw you! I didn’t imagine that!”

“We don’t know what you saw,” Nezu carefully interrupted, “but whatever it was wasn’t real. All Might never spoke to the press. We never received any demands from the League. UA would have never left a student with the League like that. We would have worked with heroes and police to get you back no matter the price. But we all thought you were dead.”

Confusion flooded Midoriya’s face. It looked as if he was warring with his desire to believe them and what he thought he knew to be true.

“How can I trust you? How do I know you’re not all just lying to me?”

Once again All Might was hurt that his protégé thought him capable of such monstrous deeds. The wizened hero leaned forward on his knees, desperately holding Midoriya’s gaze with his own. “When have I ever lied to you? Before you were taken did you ever have a moment when you thought I wouldn’t do everything in my power to protect you? Before you were taken did you ever have any reason to think I would leave you?”

Midoriya’s face crumpled, his expression twisting in a kaleidoscope of warring emotions. Confusion and lingering distrust were the strongest of them that All Might could identify. “… no? But that’s why it hurt so much when I heard you say those things. You left me. You left me! They put me in the dark and it was all your fault! I was so mad at you! And then he came… When he started messing with my head all I could do was blame you for leaving me with them. They kept saying they had to "reset” me. All because you refused to save me!“

All Might’s heart clenched with anguish. He had to physically fight himself not to grab Midoriya and draw him close – to physically squeeze away Midoriya’s hurt and prove he hadn’t abandoned the boy like Midoriya thought he did.

"I’m so sorry, Midoriya. I don’t know what you went through but it wasn’t because I abandoned you. I would have stopped at nothing to save you if I knew you were still alive. If it meant getting you back I would have gladly given my own life. I would never abandon you. I don’t know what the League said or showed you but it wasn’t real. I would have never willingly left you with them.”

Midoriya’s face crumpled and his head dropped against the front of his chest. Tears streamed down his cheeks and onto the front of his blood-splattered straightjacket. He slumped back against the wall as if he no longer had the energy or anger left to remain upright. To All Might, it almost looked like he was giving up and had been left empty in the wake of his tirade.

Nezu and Tsukauchi slowly came closer to stand beside All Might. Aizawa also relaxed his stance, letting his eyes close and his hair drift down around his face. At least for the moment, Midoriya did not appear to pose a threat. Perhaps they would finally be able to get more information on what Midoriya had gone through.

“How long was I gone?” Midoriya demanded in a watery voice. He sounded tired and drained.

All Might sorrowfully surveyed his broken student. “Two months. You’ve been gone for two months.”

Midoriya’s head snapped back up. He stared at them incredulously. Tears still glistened on his too-thin cheeks. “What? No. No, that’s impossible. I was gone for longer than that.”

Confusion once more engulfed the men.

“It’s true,” Tsukauchi said. “Shigaraki’s attack on the shopping mall where everyone thought you’d been killed was just about two months ago.”

Midoriya vigorously shook his head. “No! I was gone for years! Years! There’s no way I was only gone for two months.”

All Might was unsure how to respond. The boy’s confusion was not an act. It was genuine.

Tsukauchi carefully cleared his throat. “Sometimes people in captivity have their sense of time warped. Time seems to speed up or slow down exponentially. Especially if they’re placed in extreme isolation or left for extended periods of time in complete darkness.”

“I didn’t imagine being locked in a dark room and tortured for years!” Midoriya snapped. “It had to be longer than two months.”

Aizawa stepped forward and crouched down beside All Might in front of Midoriya. He removed his cell phone from his pocket and hit the power button. Holding it up to Midoriya he showed him the home screen with the time and date. “We’re not lying to you. It’s September 16th. You were only gone for two months. The shopping mall attack was on July 25th.”

Midoriya stared at the screen as if unable to comprehend what he saw.

All Might dug his own phone out of his back pocket and held it out to Midoriya. The same date and time showed on both their screens.

Following suite, Tsukauchi and Nezu also pulled out their phones and held them up for the boy’s inspection. Midoriya’s eyes darted back and forth between the devices as if trying to figure out how such a thing was possible.

Confusion washed over the boy’s face. New tears welled along the bottoms of his eyes. His lower lip began to tremble. “This… no… it’s not possible. I know what I felt. I…” Distraught green eyes drifted back to All Might. Midoriya beseechingly stared at him for answers. In that moment he reminded All Might of a lost and frightened child. “I-I don’t know what’s real anymore…” he admitted in a frightened whisper. Midoriya’s face crumpled and he dissolved into distraught sobs.

Seeing his student in so much pain and confusion, All Might could no longer stop himself. Long thin arms stretched out towards Midoriya and gently wrapped around his shoulders. The boy didn’t resist and even leaned forward slightly to meet the Symbol of Peace. He let himself be pulled into All Might’s embrace. Burying his face into the front of All Might’s shirt Midoriya began to angrily sob into the hero’s chest. All Might’s arms tightened around Midoriya and remained there like a protective shield. “It’s alright,” he murmured into the top of Midoriya’s head as the boy cried his heart and sanity out into the old hero’s chest. “It’s okay. I’ll keep you safe. I’m so sorry. I’ll keep you safe now. I won’t let anyone else hurt you. I promise.”

“I’m still mad at you!” Midoriya angrily wailed. “I thought you’d left me! They said you’d left me! They made me believe it was your fault I had to stay in the dark! But now I can’t even be mad about that! It’s not fair!”

“It’s alright. You can still be mad at me,” All Might offered, fighting back tears of his own. Regret and guilt tore at his heart. “I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. I’m so sorry. If it makes you feel better you can stay mad at me.”

Unfortunately, that only seemed to make Midoriya cry harder.

All Might didn’t know how long he held Midoriya, but it was awhile before the boy’s sobs finally abetted enough for All Might to feel it was okay to loosen his hold. All Might swiveled around to sit beside Midoriya against the wall. He kept one arm looped behind Midoriya’s back to keep him close.

Completely drained of energy, Midoriya let All Might hold him. To All Might’s further surprise, the boy actually slumped against his side and tentatively let his head rest against the hero’s bony shoulder. All Might instinctively held him closer, but whether for his sake or Midoriya’s he couldn’t say for certain. He’d wished to have the boy back for so long that to finally have him there in his arms now was surreal. His shirt was damp with Midoriya’s tears and snot, but All Might didn’t care. It meant everything that just happened was real and his protégé had come back to him. Maybe not as he’d been before. But Midoriya was no longer trying to kill him and in fact was willingly letting himself be held. All Might was certain a long road still lay ahead of them, but for now he was willing to accept this small gesture as progress.

As the two sat there – Midoriya still sniffling softly into the collar of his straightjacket – All Might felt him shiver against his side.

“Are you cold, my boy?”

Midoriya reluctantly nodded, his face down turned and expression utterly miserable.

“Can we get him a blanket?” All Might asked, looking up at Tsukauchi.

“Of course,” the police officer nodded. He went to the doorway of the cell and spoke in hushed tones with the guard there for several moments before returning to the group of teachers.

In the meantime All Might hugged Midoriya closer, offering him his own body heat. Midoriya hung his head, his face still red and wet with tears. He seemed to find some reluctant comfort in All Might’s embrace and huddled closer to the hero’s side.

“What did I do when Shigaraki brought me back?” Midoriya murmured. “I remember being at a train station. But then… everything went red. I don’t remember much of what I do after I see red…”

Tsukauchi crouched down beside the others. “There was a fight between you and All Might. Shigaraki was using you to draw All Might out for an attack.”

Midoriya was quiet for several moments, his eyes far away. “Did I hurt anyone?” he finally asked.

There was no immediate response from any of the adults. Several cautious glances were exchanged between them. Their silence was instantly noticed by Midoriya.

“Did I hurt anyone?” he insisted.

“Several student patrol members and UA teachers were also involved,” Nezu replied. “There were a couple injuries but nothing a short stay at the hospital won’t fix.” His upbeat tone was noticeably forced.

Midoriya sat there quietly, staring at the floor between his feet as if shifting through disjointed memories. “Kacchan was there, wasn’t he?”

Aizawa heaved a sigh. “He was. You and him went head to head. It’ll be awhile before his arm is out of a sling, but the doctors say he should eventually regain use of his hand.”

Midoriya seemed to shrink deeper into the depths of his straightjacket.

“It wasn’t your fault,” All Might insisted. “The League lied to you and was drugging you to attack people. No one is blaming you. Whatever you did wasn’t your fault.”

“But it was,” Midoriya softly murmured. “When I see red I don’t remember much afterwards. Just bits and pieces. Like flashes of a movie in my mind. But what I do remember of fighting Kacchan is that I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to make him feel pain like how he used to hurt me back in middle school. It wasn’t all because of what Shigaraki gave me. Some of that was me too. That stuff just makes it harder to say no to the things you’d never actually do any other time. It just makes you so.. angry. You remember everything bad the other person ever did to you and you just see red. You can’t think about anything else. All you want to do is hurt that other person. You want to rip them apart and make them bleed. When hewas in my head all I could remember were the bad things. Some of them were things I’d forgotten about until he made me remember. Sometimes I’d wake up from their "test runs” and my knuckles would be bloody from punching the floor because there was nothing else to hit.“

All Might was dismayed. He wasn’t quite sure what to say after such an admission. The sour feeling in the pit of his stomach churned. It made him physically sick to hear what suffering Midoriya had gone through. Doing the only thing he could think of, the hero hugged Midoriya closer.

At that moment, the guard returned with a thick grey blanket. Tsukauchi took it and shook it out over Midoriya. With All Might’s help they tucked the edges around the boy. It was prison issue and scratchy, but it was heavy and warm. Once successfully bundled in it, Midoriya leaned against All Might’s side again as though suddenly exhausted.

But the adults were not ready to let his rest just yet. There were still so many questions they had.

"What did the League do to you while you were with them?” Tsukauchi asked. All Might could tell the officer was slipping into interrogation mode now. He wanted to get as much information as he could while the teen was still willing to talk. “You mentioned there being a "him” that messed with your head. Who are you talking about? Shigaraki?“

Midoriya squirmed underneath the blanket, suddenly reluctant to meet any of their eyes.

"No. Not Shigaraki…” he hesitantly mumbled after a lengthy pause. “Shigaraki brought someone else in to work on me. Another member of the League. He…” Midoriya trailed off, a panicked look creeping into his eyes. He voice trembled. His lower lip began to quiver. “H-he…” Whether from fear or an overwhelming rush of bad memories, he didn’t seem able to find the words.

Nezu stepped closer and rested a paw on Midoriya’s blanketed knee. “It’s alright, Midoriya,” he soothed. “We don’t have to talk about any of that right now. Right, Officer Tsukauchi?”

Tsukauchi nodded, though with a hint of disappointment. “Yes. We can wait to talk about that later.”

Nezu offered Midoriya a warm smile. “We’re just so happy to have you back. We were so worried about you.” He glanced at Tsukauchi and Aizawa. “Now that Midoriya seems to be calmed and not about to attack anyone, perhaps we can see about removing this straightjacket and moving him to a better location where he can properly lay down and rest?”

Tsukauchi considered that. “I’ll have to speak to the warden but I don’t see why n-”

“No!” Midoriya blurted out. His eyes were wide and panicked. He cringed back against the wall. “Don’t take it off! I don’t trust myself! If I see red again I don’t know what might happen. I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

The adults all froze, startled by the vehemence of Midoriya’s protests.

All Might gently hugged Midoriya closer. “My boy, we removed Shigaraki’s control device from your neck. He can’t use that serum on you anymore.”

“I don’t care! Don’t take it off yet! I can’t control myself when I see red. I can’t risk it!”

Nezu was the first to regain his composure. “Alright, Midoriya,” he placated in his unflappably calm way. “We can leave it on a bit longer if it makes you feel safer. But at least let’s see about getting you cleaned up a bit, hm? You surely must want a bath after everything you’ve been through. And then maybe some food?”

Midoriya at first seemed startled by the idea, as though the offer of a bath and a meal were luxuries he hadn’t even considered until now. Shakily, he nodded his head. He didn’t seem capable of words at that moment but gratefulness shined in his eyes.

Nezu patted Midoriya’s knee again. “Is there anything else we can do for you?” he asked.

Midoriya was quiet for a long moment of silence. Finally, he whispered in an almost inaudible voice, “Can… can I see my mom? She must be so worried about me. I really miss her.”

All Might was glad Midoriya couldn’t see his face from where he sat because the Symbol of Peace felt heartbroken tears sting his eyes. He kept forgetting just how young Midoriya was.

Tsukauchi nodded. The officer couldn’t quite seem to meet Midoriya’s eyes either. “Yes. Of course. We’ll get her here as soon as possible. I promise.”

Midoriya seemed to shrink back down underneath the blanket against All Might. All Might tightened his hold around the boy if for no other reason to reassure Midoriya he was still there. Midoriya wordlessly leaned into him.

“In the meantime,” Nezu announced, “let’s see about upgrading out pupil’s accommodations. Aizawa, All Might. Can you continue to keep watch over Midoriya?”

“Of course,” Aizawa nodded.

“I’m not going anywhere,” All Might said as if swearing an oath. Now that he had Midoriya back he would not let him go again without a fight. No matter what the League had done to him he would see to it that Midoriya found his way back to the light.

[thisismytotallyawesomeblog]

YOU GUYS WANT “READY FOR IT” FAN THEORIES?

Hold onto your butts, because my friend and I accidentally created not only a fan theory, but an entire connected universe within Taylor’s music and videos. It started with a little bit of friendly speculation about the evolution of them and turned into this, so let’s get to it. Please keep in mind that we’re treating this as a fictional alternate universe rather than an actual thing, because trained soldiers and a post apocalyptic cyperpunk future and as far as we know, Taylor has never beaten anyone with a golf club. Also it’s very very long.

It starts in 2009, when Taylor is just a kid in high school dreaming about great romance, reading Romeo and Juliet and crushing hard on her next door neighbour (Love Story and You Belong With Me). She’s geeky and kinda quiet but has good friends through marching band and summer camp, and gets to watch her crush be mistreated by his girlfriend. She grows closer to him and when they get together at prom, no one except his ex girlfriend is really surprised because come on.

People think it’ll last for longer than it does and are surprised when they break up after a couple of months. They’re kids, and Taylor realised that she liked the chase more than she liked the actual relationship. So Taylor moves on. She goes through a couple of guys over the next few years and ends up with a reputation of being a heartbreaker, and also of being just a tad willing to do anything to get the guy she wants, even crashing a wedding and convincing the guy to run away with her (Speak Now). Their relationship is as short lived as any of her other ones, she’s all about the thrill of the chase, a trail of broken hearts left behind her. She doesn’t realise when she becomes the prey.

Taylor meets him at a gas station, takes his hat and his glasses and he looks at her so fondly that she falls in love immediately. They go on a roadtrip together, he gives her his necklace and she gives him her heart. He leaves her in the dust with a broken heart, three miles from anywhere in an abandoned concert yard (I Knew You Were Trouble). She picks herself up and moves on, vowing to never let it happen to her again. She throws herself a huge party for her 22nd birthday (22) and it’s nice to be just Taylor for a little while.

She meets a cute guy picking her niece up from school, a cute ginger with tattoos like melted crayons swirled across his skin as far as she can see (Everything Has Changed). Taylor takes it slow, cautiously; he introduces her to some of his mates, one of his mates takes a shine to her and introduces her to sort of higher society and she takes it from there. She meets a cute guy who just happens to be rich, then another and then another; she takes their hearts and their money and no one is any the wiser. Until she beats one of them near to death with a golf club and wrecks his house. Oops. (Blank Space)

It’s not really an accident so Taylor goes on the run, but her reputation of seduction and manipulation precedes her and people take notice. People with connections that go beyond friends who have their father’s money. People like Lucky Fiori and Welvin da Great. Taylor finds herself recruited to the Agency which honestly seems like a better deal than going to prison. She gets taught to use those skills, taught how to fight, how to blend in while standing out. She’s given a purpose and honestly? It feels kinda good. She can seduce anyone, kill anyone and leave without a trace, and for a while she’s living a different kind of high life that she loves. Until the Mission. Until Arsyn and her betrayal (Bad Blood). Taylor, Catastrophe as they now call her, gets kicked out of a window and left for dead on the crumpled remains of her car. The Agency picks her up, put back together again with new parts and pieces, keeps her comatose so she has time to heal and her body has time to accept her new cybernetic upgrades.

Taylor dreams while she’s comatose, horrid, vivid dreams of being chased by wolves, trying to traverse an ever changing terrain as it tried to kill her, crawling through mud only to be ensnared by tree roots crushing, choking the life out of her (Out of the Woods). She fights her way through and finds herself, wakes up in a sterile hospital room stronger than ever and determined to get revenge.

Her revenge goes too far.

In the attempt to destroy Arsyn for what she did, for betraying her and the Agency, they accidentally destroy their world. Uncontained experimental weapons fire can apparently have far reaching consequences; while Catastrophe has her revenge, the entire city crumbles around them. The outpouring of refugees from The Incident are forced to flee across the country for places to live, accidentally causing widespread shortages of jobs, food, and housing. Everything crumbles. America becomes a desolate free for all. Making matters worse is the insider release of information about the Agency, revealing it to the rest of the world as their restricted experimental weapons technology is released onto the black market. The knowledge of cybernetic enhancements becomes known and as America starts to rebuild, humans start to build themselves: better, stronger, faster, as much machine as they are human. Taylor becomes Taylor again, hunting for the person who twisted Arsyn, released the data, the mastermind behind it all.

Now obsessed with revenge, Taylor uses the newfound knowledge of cybernetics and robotics and creates a few robotic replicas of herself, tries to program them to help her but they all end up with wildly different personalities, they’re all snakes hissing at each other constantly. She sends them out in the world so that even if they can’t find the mastermind, they can attempt to help rebuild. They don’t. Every one of them seems stuck with some single attitude, amplifying the worst aspects of their implanted memories. One starts robbing the few banks that exist after the rebuild, one starts a motorcycle gang and one goes completely insane, attempting to build a perfect race of humanoid robots only to destroy them (Look What You Made Me Do). Taylor has no choice but to destroy them all, burning through their most delicate circuitry with high powered lasers.

With all her enhancements, Taylor can’t die, and getting no closer to finding the mastermind, she tries once more to make a replica of herself, accidentally creating the most human one yet. Because of the potential, Taylor keeps her locked in a vault, updates her programming slowly, programs her to fight without hesitation, to seek out the mastermind and destroy. During her visits, the clone always knows who she is, she stands at attention and is ready to show off what she’s capable of( Ready For It). She can flip through forms with ease, making armour and weaponry materialise from her body.

But she’s still so innocent.

She creates a white horse, some imitation of a saviour that Taylor can’t help sneer at. It’s too late for that, she’s too far gone. Still, the clone finds wonder in her abilities: she can create things out of pure energy, lift herself off of the ground in some small imitation of flight. It almost leaves Taylor in awe. Almost. It does, however, rattle her enough that the next time she tries to initiate a data transfer, she lets too much slip, allows the clone to realise how far Taylor has fallen from where she was. There’s no goodness left in her, everything has been corrupted by betrayal and revenge. The clone breaks free and Taylor lets it happen, knowing deep down that even though she can’t die, her fate was sealed years ago. Her face is shredded off by the shattered glass of the cell the clone was kept in and she becomes who she always dreaded becoming: just another faceless person in an indifferent world. The clone escapes, and maybe, just maybe, she will succeed where Taylor failed. Maybe she can bring down the mastermind and help the world rebuild. Or maybe she can just be the person Taylor never got to be.

Holy crap if you guys read through all of that, I salute you! It took like two and a half hours to write it all down.

Please be nice. We wrote this just for fun and we don’t mean to offend anybody. It’s just a silly fictional extended universe based on some freaking amazing songs and music videos that we created a fake timeline for.

[saynoutodrugs]

They

They walked the road like they’d walked together a handful of times before.

It was an after dinner walk, though putting it that way might bring to mind the idea of a warm house in a quiet neighbourhood, perhaps a dog and maybe even a sense of domesticated regularity. But regularity was hardly present here - he had just turned 21 and she was 23, going on 24. Maybe it might make more sense to say that after a dinner out (having shared a grouper burger and an oxtail strozzapreti) they had decided to take advantage of the evening cool to enjoy a stroll through the surrounding greenery.

The restaurant they’d had dinner at was off a crossroads in a corner of Dempsey Hill, with thin, tungsten-lit roads leading off in a few directions. If there had been people around they hadn’t really noticed. The light breeze carried faint scents of possible worlds. 

They headed off eastwards.



“How do you think you’ve changed in the past year?” she asked.

He was surprised she was asking, he’d already told her a fair bit in recent months about how he’d finally climbed out of his hole. He tried to sum it up, or at least point out the relevant changes.

“I feel happier, like I’m in a better place. More self assured, more optimistic about how life might turn out. Why?”

“My friend was talking to me about how I’d changed. This guy I’m seeing, he’s not my usual kind of guy. There are a lot of red flags - like he told me he cheated on his ex.”



He stopped walking to add effect to the deliberately confused look he gave her. 


“And we come from very different backgrounds,” she continued, “like he’s had a lot all of his life and he just followed what his parents wanted so he has no idea what he wants to do now. So my friend told me that I’d changed a lot recently compared to all the years she’s known me for. Like younger me wouldn’t have dated him. You know, my need for-,”

He turned to look at her.

“Stability,” he completed.

They exchanged smiles.  

“But you’re happy with who you are?”


“Mm. I guess.”

“That’s all that matters.”

They walked on and conversation continued to meander with them.

Out of nowhere, he felt a sudden pang in his chest, rising quickly through his midriff, almost grasping desperately for purchase as it forced itself through him, like a red bloom in a clear glass of water. It was not an unfamiliar feeling.


The air around them suddenly felt charged, ripe and pregnant for catharsis. He began to feel a pull towards worlds where in that very moment he gripped her hand and held it tight. (In some she’d look at him alarmed, in some she’d push him away playfully like how she always did, in some she'd blush and do nothing). He saw worlds where he’d stop, turn to face her, (she’d stop to look at him and her eyes would be deep with emotion) and hold her tight. “Heyy”, she might manage, perhaps with an added “aww”, expressions that while not hostile, carried not acceptance but slight admonishment and motherly worry. She would be appealing to shared understandings that, had he been less peaceful, he might have felt screaming at him to grow up.

They found themselves at the end of one of the roads, in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They turned around and set back for where they started.

Feynman, in his theory of multiple-histories, proposed that when an electron arrived at a certain point, it had taken all possible routes, across all possible histories to get there. Some might have gone all the way to the moon and back. Might Feynman’s electron have whizzed past the nape of her neck as they walked along, on its long journey to wherever? Would it have zipped past a different world where it was her who had held him? Even if it did, what did it matter? The distribution of the electron’s possible paths were mere possibilities. In the end they would all average down into a simple straight line, the path almost always taken, paradox of unlimited endings resolved deterministically. Possible worlds were possible worlds, and the world he lived in was, statistically speaking, the most likely one, shared with other selves across history - worlds where he simply continued to walk on.

Soon it was quiet again, the red bloom looking now more like a little splotch, a waned, reddish coffee stain dried up on a white saucer. He realised that he’d momentarily forgotten - or remembered - that he held no claim to her. They were friends, yet time spent with her was almost entirely time spent loving her, her soul and her being. Moments with her would fill him with joy that would continue to light up his heart when he walked on without her. Somehow, no matter how many times he’d tell himself they were close friends, he’d always lapse into gleefully seeing their outings as dates. And a lot of the times he didn’t like being pulled back to reality.

Years later, whenever he’d tell people he was certain that you could love someone - love them deeply and with care and want the best for them - without feeling the need to fall in love, this moment would inevitably make itself present in his mind. Had he loved her? Without a doubt. Should he have said anything? That question had long faded out of his consciousness.

“I don’t see why we can’t love multiple people,” he’d try to explain, vaguely frustrated, “Not everyone is good for us in a strict, limited sense, and we might not be good for them either. But we share moments, you know? Moments where we look at someone in front of us and hold everything good and beautiful about them in our hearts. Where we love them, if even but for a brief moment. Why can’t we have these moments, these undeniable, concretely real moments where we can truly feel and say ‘I love you, I love you in your entirety’ and call them love?” He knew why. What they wanted, he wanted too. No matter if they couldn’t or didn’t want to understand, he’d still hold every moment in his heart.

Once again, they found themselves back at the crossroads where they had started. Having exhausted the roads in all directions, they got into a car, and drove off into the night.

—

“Promise you would,” she’d texted, “One day explain.”

Of course I would, I don’t quite like leaving things hanging. Yet the task seemed arduous, and the beetle in my box glared at me angrily. I was half tempted to stroke it, but I figured that maybe now wasn’t the time. How does one go about explaining where and how lines might be drawn? Lines between your experiences say, as the reader, and mine, as I sit and write these words while looking at the Indian family in front of me trying to figure out what to eat.

There are other lines too, lines between what we hope for in people and what they offer, lines between actuality and potentiality, lines that we might get tangled up in, getting themselves all over and in between our hands when we try to sift though and carve up the torrential stream of our experiences.

Fundamentally though, they’re all the same lines, creating an undefinable, ungraspable chasm between holding something warm in the depths of your heart, too scared to hold it tightly while happy to let its glow fill your being - and listening to the dusty winds of regret. Some lines connect two points, but these lines run on forever, leaving on either desolate side parents and children, spouses and friends, your memories and mine.

We were lying on our beds, several thousand kilometres apart. I was lying on my side, looking out at the warm afternoon light feeding the gently swaying Saga trees. In retrospect, I hadn’t thought to ask her what she’d been looking at, maybe her eyes had been tracking the lines of Sputnik torn out and stuck to her wall, or maybe she hadn’t been looking at anything in particular. We were both basking in the warm afterglow of intimacy, miles away our bodies worked hard in tandem to push through us a flush of dopamine and oxytocin, prolactin and beta-endorphins. Hugging my pillow, I mentioned how lovely our conversation was - better, I un-jokingly supposed, than the lulling push and pull of climax.

“It feels like we’re in a relationship,” I mumbled. “And this is the lovely after-sex bonding.”

A soft and delicate, slightly sleepy and half mumbled “Yeah, it does,” came through the line, traversing a continent and a half to shortly rise and fall through my awareness.  

She’d probably gone on to ask, and if not at that exact moment then in some vague form or another (memory of our exact conversation eludes me), “What are we doing?” It was a sigh let out low and slowly, like the moan of a train's wheels as it pulls into its station, less a question than a mild expression of childish surprise, or the feigned resistance of a lover, or the resignation of a tragic hero to fate. It might have been preceded by or ended with a yawn.

In my memory those moments stretched on forever, us still talking and the world still and righted. The sun still giving the Saga trees life. Phone line still open as I doze off to the sound of your breathing.

How do you explain to someone that when you say you love them, you love them and hold their warmth and person deep in your heart? That when you think of them you will always remember every moment in your shared histories, moments you treasure and warmth and joy and gratefulness for their being? That you want them to be happy and peaceful, that you spend inordinate amounts of time wrestling your desires to take into well wishes and desires to give? Those memories and feelings will stay on your side of the chasm, consigned to keep you company by a void where words and matter cannot pass.

Fundamentally, her inability to understand my explanation was thanks to lines, her lines and mine, which insidiously hid themselves from sight until one fine day she’d let slip that the whole debacle had been but a mistake.

—

“I love you,” he finally told her, his heart bursting. Everett would be proud.

“Love doesn’t work that way,” she told him, “you love so many people that it doesn’t count.”

[theridiculousangharad-blog]

How Post-Apocalyptic Parents React to the Loss of a Child, From Walking Dead to Pacific Rim

“Got all these widows and orphans,” we hear Beth Greene say to Michonne, “but what do you call someone who lost a child? You’d think someone would have given that a name.”

The Walking Dead: Warming Up or Getting Tough

If season three of The Walking Dead is any indication, we as a culture are obsessed with watching the world go up in flames. Do we get a vicarious thrill out of watching the world we live in implode into terror? Or maybe zombies are just a really perfect allegory for the problems we relate to in this this modern age.

Whatever the case, Apocalyptica is a trend that has been cropping up for the past several years. A common thread running through it  is how the characters handle the death of a child. “We read fantasy to find the colors again…” says George R. R. Martin author of Game of Thrones, “to taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang.” While escapism is sometimes frowned upon by the court of public opinion, fiction as a whole can help viewers cope. The most terrible pain that can be felt is the loss of a child. What does the way post-apocalyptic fiction handles this situation tell us about ourselves?

The Walking Dead utilizes the zombie apocalypse not only to show juicey zombies, but to postulate that the true evil is humanity. One of the most heartbreaking stories is that of fan favorite Michonne.

First seen holding two “walkers” with chains and her trusty katana, Michonne was first considered a mystery. “Got all these widows and orphans,” we hear Beth Greene say to Michonne, “but what do you call someone who lost a child? You’d think someone would have given that a name.” Michonne trudges through the zombie apocalypse like she is one herself.

In a truly spectacular tragic fashion as only The Walking Dead can provide, it is revealed that Michonne’s infant son was killed in an attack on her former camp due to her boyfriend’s neglect. Our only entrees into her mind are the guilt ridden dreams of the life she lost. When Rick starts to hallucinate that his dead wife is back, Michonne says succinctly, “I used to talk to my dead boyfriend,” almost in solidarity. This is the most she has said, showing that she is healing and becoming a more open person.

The death of her infant boy took a piece of her that made her just as dead as the walkers. And even though that piece is gone forever, she can find redemption and love in the new group that has made just as many mistakes as she has. As Michonne warms, slowly but surely, to the group and in particular Rick's son Carl, she demonstrates a way to move on.

Carol also lost a child. A former abuse victim, Carol was forced to watch her twelve year old daughter transform into a monster into and killed in front of her. Carol then had a transformation of her own.

While fundamentally different from Michonne, the death of her daughter causes her to change. Michonne becomes more open while Carol, who used to be under the thumb of her brutish husband, becomes one of the most fierce and independent warriors of the camp. Where Michonne gained a heart, Carol gained a skin.

The 100: Finding Faith

Chancellor Thelonious Jaha of CW teen drama The 100 has not only the mantel of single parenthood on his shoulders, but is also responsible for protecting the human race from extinction. The 100 takes place 90 years after a nuclear war ravaged Earth. 100 juvenile delinquents are sent to Earth to see if it’s survivable for humans. Three episodes in and Wells Jaha, the son of the chancellor, is murdered.

Jaha carries around the death of his son on his shoulders. It makes him resigned, so apathetic that he is even prepared to sacrifice himself to get the rest of his people on the ground. He will be the only one left on the Ark - the space station - left to suffocate and starve. But strangely, the death of his son also did something else. It has gave him faith.

In one of the most terrifying and stressful scenes of the show, Jaha hears the cries of a baby. Realizing that he must save its life and not leave it to die, he insulates it in a space suit so he can vault himself on a missile that will take him to Earth. (Stay with me here, it gets good.)

After his space helmet cracks and he almost misses his trajectory, he lands in the airlock and unzips his suit to find that the child is gone. Though it was already not terribly difficult symbolism to follow, The 100 makes it easy. We realize the child only existed in his mind, as his dead son comes to him in a hallucination and tells him he must carry on and not give up yet. (Cue all of us crying.)

Jaha launches the missile and lands in the middle of Earth’s “dead zone” - a horrible and desolate desert, of course. But what Jaha still has after everything is his faith. His continuing mantra is “it’s not our time to die.” He has faith that he is supposed to live on. And before he vaults into unknown territory, he recites the common motto of his people to the visage of his dead son. “May we meet again.”

Battlestar Galactica: Distraction

Sci-Fi is written to examine problems of the day in a removed setting. While Battlestar Galactica is not a new show by any stretch of the imagination, from the first episode, it is clear that this is not, well, your mother’s Battlestar Galactica. Not only because of the truly the antagonistic Cylons, but, because of its relationships.

When the show starts, Commander Adama of the Battlestar Galactica - an ancient space battleship - is already struggling with the death of his son. Adama deals with this loss the way you would imagine a military commander would have to: distraction. Surrogate daughter Kara says “we only speak about it two or three times a year, but he struggles with it.” When you’re a high ranking military official, isn't repression just kind of part of the package? But when his surviving son Lee returns, Adama must face all of the mistakes that were made that led to Zak’s death.

This has less to do with moving on and more to do with mending bridges with the son that’s still alive. The Cylons completely destroy the home planet and only by chance is this ancient battlestar that was headed for retirement not destroyed and must be the ones to keep the Cylons at bay. And in this sort of scenario, does anyone really have time to deal with the death of their son and their ugly estrangement from their other child?

Snowpiercer: Blind Revenge

A child may not just be killed to be lost in Apocalyptica. In fact, it is almost more tragic or indecent when they are not killed at all. Some of the most nefarious things seem to happen in these worlds. The world has ended because things have become twisted and ugly.

In independent film Snowpiercer, the use or, more accurately, misuse of children is subtle and silent, but disturbing all the same. The action takes place after an attempt to combat global warming with a cooling agent. This cooling agent backfires and covers the world as we know it in ice, making the remaining population live on their remaining days on a never stopping train. The poor in the last car are forced to eat rations made out of cockroaches.

The human race lives on and procreates, as is evidenced by Timmy and his mother Tanya, played by the underutilized and wonderful Octavia Spencer. Only five years old, Timmy is taken by the front of the train at the beginning of the film and is never seen by his mother again. A strong female character, even all the male characters attempt to stop her from going to save her son. “I’m stronger than your skinny soldiers,” Tanya throws at hero Curtis defiantly.

This is a priority higher than any sort of overthrow of government. This is the fate of her five year old child. A strong character that could have brought a lot to the story, Tanya is of course killed in the battle for the train’s soul. She isn’t the only one, but her death is looked over and dismissed just as quickly, despite her blind devotion to her child. This represents another coping: blind, self-destructive devotion to revenge.

Pacific Rim: Pride

Nothing is more unbelievable than giant robots fighting alien monsters. But that is the joy of Pacific Rim. Despite the fact that it is effect-heavy, action, blockbuster bait, that’s not all it is. This is not just a gratuitous action movie.

Herc and Chuck are a father-son alien fighting team in their giant jaeger called Eureka Striker. Before the final battle, father Herc is injured so he cannot participate in the final climactic battle that is present in all action flicks. His son Chuck must sacrifice himself in the final battle. Herc understands this. He honors what his son has done, although his son has been taken from him. He continues his fight and stays in line, using his sons sacrifice to elevate him to something greater even than he was in life. He becomes the father of a martyr for the human race, the proudest distinction a parent can have.

Parents will do whatever they can for their children. A post-apocalyptic world just makes these decisions more important. The love a parent has for a child cannot be eclipsed by anything. Although Apocalyptica deals with unbelievable scenarios, these are feelings that are very real.

In a world where survival is paramount, it almost seems that mourning a child cannot be a priority. Yet these characters manage to represent the full range of practical grieving. They keep living, even in an impossible and horrific world. The mere memories of their children make them fight and live on, though in entirely different ways.

[jae-bummer]

My Constant

Request: Aaahhhhhh so many good prompts to choose from! I love all of them, but I think I'll go with 19 with Jaebum please? 💙

19) You ride the subway every morning, not talking to your bias who sits beside you day after day. You begin talking when your morning commute doesn’t go as planned. 

Member: Got7′s JB x Y/N

Type: fluff/angst

You heaved a sigh as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other. It was early still, the station half empty with only a few salary men wandering around the platforms, anxious to begin their day. You looked up, the sensation of being watched heavy on your shoulders. 

Normally, being a woman in a big city, you were always wary of men who sat too close, stared a little too long, or in general entered the box of personal space you had designated yourself. Seoul ranked twelfth in the world on a list of the most dangerous cities for women to ride public transportation systems, but this wasn’t a thought you wanted to constantly reflect on. For a city that was in general one of the safest you had ever lived in, the subway systems still caused you to bristle up, overtly aware of every person who came too close for comfort. 

You looked around slowly, careful not to make any eye contact with those around you. If you looked into the eyes of one of the salary men, it was almost guaranteed that they would take it as an invitation to pester you. 

For a moment, your eyes froze, meeting up with a man around your age. You didn’t know his name, nor had you ever asked, but you were very aware of his presence. He was easily one of the most good looking individuals you had the pleasure of seeing on a daily basis. You quietly coexisted, riding the train every morning side by side. He flashed you a brief smile before looking back down at the worn novel in his hands. You nodded to yourself, biting your lip at the small exchange. Quietly telling your stomach to calm from the butterflies he had stirred up, you readjusted your book bag, urging your train to arrive. 

You winced, noticing a different man in your peripherals standing from a bench just out of your direct sight. He slowly waddled toward you, round faced and much older. You hissed out a breath between your teeth, praying to every God you could think of to keep this creep from entering your personal space. You glanced up slowly, catching your reflection in the sleek glass doors that kept passengers from the open subway lines until the train arrived. In doing so, you caught his reflection as well, his body so close you could smell his body odor. 

HIs eyes were fixed on you, unafraid as he stared into the glass. As the only two individuals in the front section of the platform, the hairs on your neck bristled up with unease. You looked over warily to a very evident sign posted, warning men to not sexually harass women, a small stick figure included. So much for that. 

The man moved a bit closer, the front of his body nearly rubbing the back of yours. You shut your eyes, quietly reminding yourself of self control and turned, eying the man with a glare. The man’s eyes widened and he slowly took a step back until you turned back around, focusing on the glass doors again. The subway alert sounded, signaling the next train’s arrival. 

Thank God.

Just as the doors began to open, you decided to take a quick sidestep, wandering to a different train car to get into. Surely this man wouldn’t have the audacity to follow you halfway down a subway platform. You took a corner seat near an exit and settled in, hardly believing your eyes as your unwanted companion had entered through the same doors, seating himself beside you, ignoring the near desolate car around you. 

You thought you were going to openly cry in public. You had never been so frightened in your entire stint in living in Korea. 

“Excuse me sir,” a deep voice said calmly above you. You looked up, noticing the familiar, yet handsome stranger you had made eye contact with earlier. He clutched his novel, his knuckles near white from his grip. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but may I take the seat next to my girlfriend?”

The salary man remained quiet for a moment, looking from him to you. He nodded briefly before pulling himself to his feet and sitting in the set of seats across from you. 

The young man plopped down beside you without hesitation, placing a careful arm behind your shoulders to rest on the seat without touching you. 

“Hey babe,” he said, just loudly enough for the man to hear across the isle. “How was your morning?”

You looked up through your lashes at him, hoping to convey a silent thank you. “Productive, I got a lot done before heading to work today.” 

“Good, good,” he nodded with a small smile. “You’re taking the four o clock train home, right? I’ll meet you at the station.”

You looked up from your hands in your lap and over to the man across from you. He continued to watch carefully as you and the stranger conversed. “Yes, four o clock,” you repeated. 

“I’m Jaebum by the way,” the stranger whispered below his breath, shooting a careful look to the older man as well. “Sorry if this is a bit much.”

“Y/N,” you nodded quietly. “I’ve missed you Jaebummie,” switching your tone to speak loud enough for the man to hear. 

“You saw me yesterday,” Jaebum smiled, having to stop himself from rolling his eyes. 

“Even too much is never enough,” you chuckled, so thankful for his presence. The stranger stood, shaking his head as he shuffled down the subway car that had launched forward. Nearly falling over, he struggled down the car, taking a spot much further down from you. 

“What a disgusting human,” Jaebum grumbled, now able to talk normally with your newfound freedom. “You know he’s been watching you for the past week?”

“He...what?” you croaked, angling yourself to face Jaebum. 

“I mean, inadvertently I’ve also been watching you for the past week,but I feel like I’m significantly less creepy,” Jaebum muttered, shooting a dirty look at the man. 

“How did you notice?” you said carefully. 

“Well, I like to be at least minimally aware of my surroundings,” he sighed. “I tend to get lost in a novel I’m reading, but I don’t want to miss my train-”

“That’s why there’s an alert,” you muttered, but immediately felt bad for interrupting. 

“You don’t know my focus,” Jaebum smiled. “But as I’m reading, about every five minutes I’ll do a casual sweep of the platform. This guy didn’t start showing up until recently, so I’m guessing he’s gotten a new job...or switched his commute habit because he saw something he liked...

...or someone.”

A shiver ran down your spine as you listened to Jaebum speak. You couldn’t help yourself as you glanced to the man at the end of the train, his eyes never leaving the two of you.

“I never thought he’d have the nerve to actually approach you though,” Jaebum sighed. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” you shrugged. “He never said a word.”

“He was practically sitting on top of you!” he gasped. “I even saw your little diversion tactic. Quick on your feet.”

“Thanks,” you grumbled. “Not like it mattered much. I was a damsel in distress without even realizing...I thought I could handle myself.”

“When push comes to shove, I’m sure you can,” Jaebum nodded. “But I didn’t want push to come to shove. Not while I’m just idly standing by.”

“You’re a real gentleman, Jaebum,” you smiled. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.”

“Gentlemen Jay,” he smiled, waggling his eyebrows. “I don’t have any sisters...but I do have a mother...I would hope for someone to protect her if they were in that situation as well.” 

You nodded, realizing you were easily becoming wrapped up in this man’s smile. If you would have know what a wonderful spirit he had, you would’ve talked to him much sooner than now, not allowing for a traumatic event to bring you closer. 

“Now when do you head home?” Jaebum asked. 

“Why?” you sighed, looking at him curiously. 

“Well, we get off at the same spot, so I’m assuming we’ll be around the same area. I don’t know if we’ll head back at the same time, but if you don’t mind, I can send one of my friends to ride along with you,” Jaebum hummed. “I’ve got this friend Jackson, very into chivalry, would lay his life on the line for you if he had-”

“Jaebum,” you chuckled, immediately shaking your head. “We’ve only just met, I don’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“If something were to happen to you...at the hands of him,” he sighed. “That would sit on my conscience for the rest of eternity, Y/N. Please...just let me arrange something...”

“No,” you repeated. “I’m fine.”

“Okay, maybe you don’t need someone riding home with you,” Jaebum continued. “But you’ll take my number and use it if anything gets a little sketchy, right?”

Your heart leapt at the thought of having Jaebum’s phone number in the depths of your mobile. You quickly nodded, snatching the opportunity in case it wasn’t presented again in the future. You fished your phone from you purse, handing it to JB as he typed quickly into it. 

“And of course you’ll let me sit with you in the mornings,” he sighed, handing you back your phone. “At least until this creep picks a new route.”

You smiled, feelings your cheeks become warm with all of his concern. “Why are you being so nice?”

“To be honest?” Jaebum said quietly. “I noticed you a lot longer than he did.”

“Oh, so this is a weird territorial thing?” you asked, furrowing your brows. 

“No, well, I don’t want it to sounds as gross as that,” Jaebum laughed. You smiled at the sound. “I’ve just...I’ve been fond of you without ever actually realizing I was. You’re an oddly soothing, unchanging factor in my shifting life. I can always count on the pretty girl to be standing at the subway every morning, backpack over her shoulder, and hairs out of place.” 

He reached up, poetically tucking a tendril behind your ear. He grinned, his eyes turning into crescents. “Trains come and go...but you’re my constant.”

[jumpchain-drop]

Chapter 3.5: 0.2 Years

Year 1, day 75: Today, we decided to begin our expedition down the train tunnels from the Terrydactyland station. Do not try this at home, kids; we are professional explorers.

I explained the dangers as well as I could. Chuffy the train had started Banjo-Tooie derailed. With all the stations closed, it seemed very unlikely that there would be other trains running on the Isle’s rail network. But it was still a possibility. Luckily, both Terra and I had some kind of tremorsense from being Ground-types; if we could feel a train coming, I would dig out a nook if possible and Terra would use Wonderwing if not. Whatever would result from a train at full-speed hitting an invincible Terra, I didn’t want to know. Her Giant Feathers had been safely stored in my backpack where we could get them out whenever we needed.

Bitbit protested “why risk running into the train at all when there was still the route to Witchyworld left,” to which I replied that the Mine that would be at the end of the tunnel would be a better place for treasure-hunting, which was a thing that he couldn’t argue with.

So we opened the station and headed for the right-hand tunnel, but we barely got a couple feet in when...

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you!”

I turned. A mole wearing a military uniform and shades was standing at the corner of the tunnel, smacking his palm with some kind of stick.

“There’s very bad things in there...” finished Jamjars.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like a severe lack of discipline and copious amounts of stupidity!”

I wish I could’ve argued with that. “Well what’ll you do if we do?” I said.

“You talking back to me, punk? Am I going to have to use my moves to get you back in line?”

“Look, we don’t want trouble,” Terra interrupted. “We just want to get out of this valley, but the main entrance is blocked and our ideas were running low.”

“Is that it? Hmm...” It was hard to tell with the shades, but I could still feel him looking us over. Eventually, he said, “Normally I reserve my hatches for official military personnel only, but I’m feeling generous today. I can escort you through the tunnels to the public silo network and you can take it from there. Tortoise is going to be a tight squeeze, though.”

“I can turn her into a frog!” Piddle declared. “She’ll be the smallest of us all then!”

“That’ll do it. Name’s Sargent Jamjars. Now get in formation and follow me.”

Thankfully we didn’t have to go the entire way back single-file. Jamjars lead us to the hatch that was near the main entrance; I think it was the one where he taught how to use the Springy Step Shoes. Or will teach, probably. I have no idea of the timeframe. One by one (after Piddle did the transformation, of course) we descended into the legendary realm of the moles.

It was pretty dark in the tunnels, but I didn’t have any trouble seeing. There were a surprising amount of other moles down here, all in military uniform. They gave us some weird looks as we went through, only for Jamjars to give them a significantly less weird glare back until they went back to what they are doing.

“Mole military operations are top-secret, civilians,” he told us. “Can’t have the witches finding out what we’re doing.”

“We swear we won’t tell a soul,” I replied. (Thankfully, I’m not sure this, whatever it is, counts.)

Eventually we arrived in a wider tunnel, more brightly lit, with trolley tracks along the bottom. There was a currently a small trolley on it, parked on the platform we arrived on. It was manned by another military mole.

All their work was really impressive. I guess you could call it a proper underground movement.

“And this here’s a silo network station,” Jamjars said. “These tunnels are open to civilians and connect most of the major parts of the island. Free of charge to use to anyone fighting the witches. On the house this time-” He slapped a handful of Notes to the trolley driver. “-but it’s 20 Notes a ride for up to eight after this.”

“We got it, Sargent,” I told him. “Thank you for all your help.”

“You can thank me by wising up and not walking into a train tunnel like a birdbrain,” he replied.

“Hey!” Bitbit barked. He had taken to my backpack, which was becoming his second-favorite spot behind the top of Terra’s shell.

“Dismissed!” he shouted at us before matching back into the hatch tunnels, sealing them behind him.

Piddle turned Terra back to normal as I thought about where we should go. It took a moment going through the listing when I got an idea.

“Where to?” the driver asked once we all boarded.

“Jinjo Village,” I told him.

The transit took awhile, so I took the time to fill them in on what Jinjos were. We hadn’t seen any in Terrydactyland – not a surprise, as the Jinjos in Tooie were from the Village and scattered due to the witches driving through the place in a digging machine. They were magical bear-bird creatures, but much nicer than any dinosaur we had met.

The village was vibrant and very much more alive without having one of houses flattened. The Jinjos were friendly and welcoming. Piddle really liked them.

That said, when we went to the palace to see if we could live here, the King was rather adamant about Jinjo Village being a place that the Jinjos lived. It was important, OK? Sorry. Luckily, I had a backup idea.

So I spent 20 Notes on the silo to take us to the Plateau.

“So why are we here?” Terra asked when we arrived at the rather flat and desolate location.

“Because Glitter Gulch Mine is right over there,” I said, pointing over to the closed mineshaft. “Also, we might be able to find shelter under that giant beehive. It’ll have to do until we can suss out… something.”

“Something?”

“Today has been a very busy day...”

[lorelylantana]

The Subtleties of Fate Chapter 2: Ready

Tanagar Canyon is completely devoid of Sheikah technology until you get to the Forgotten Temple where there are about half a dozen of Deliberately Placed decayed guardians and I just want to know WHY.

First

Previous

AO3

Next

All was quiet, and the sun shone down on the crumbling temple in what felt like the first time in an age. I walked hand in hand with a man clad in a green tunic and pointed cap. I walked in iridescent sandals, wearing a simple white dress and my hair was loose around my shoulders. He had a sweet smile and fluffy blonde hair that fell in his eyes as he pushed the door open and led me out into a radiant courtyard that filled with flowers and trees that surrounded a gargantuan statue that felt awkward to look at, like seeing a distorted reflection.

I turned to that man that I loved with the first carefree smile that I could remember, and he opened his mouth to speak, but I awoke before he could say anything.

I woke up disoriented and disappointed. I longed to keep that feeling of peace longer, but Calamity yet loomed, and I was still powerless.

To make matters worse, Father had ordered that I was to dispose of the guardians personally, which meant I couldn’t study the contraptions as much as I’d hoped. I’d tried talking him out of it, but he insisted that the Divine Beasts were all we needed and that I would regret defying him further.

I’d told the Sheikah to take them out of the castle, but to wait before destroying them so I could be certain there was no other solution. I just couldn’t bear destroying all of them. Not yet.

Perhaps I could get on final chance to look at them before I

I left my room and walked down to greet Father before my departure to supervise the guardians’ destruction.

“Impa?” I called into the quiet of the seemingly empty hallway. A moment later I felt a presence fall into step behind me.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“Where have you stashed the guardians?”

“We have arranged for them to be stored at the Maritta Exchange, near Tanagar Canyon.”

Something stirred in my chest at the mention of the canyon, a yank on my mind to go see it for myself.

“Prepare my horse, I will ride there as soon as possible.”

“It shall be done, Your Grace.”

And so, hours later, I found myself riding towards Maritta Exchange, only to steer my horse further north. That tug in my mind hadn’t settled down, driving me to distraction. I tried to focus on something else, tuning into the guards idle gossip.

“Can you believe the Captain sent Link running around Castle Town for the entire morning? I don’t know whether to pity him or be glad the Golden Boy got taken down a peg.”

“Hey now, don’t be so hard on the boy, he just lost his father.”

“Yeah, Captain Vanguard left behind some pretty big shoes to fill.”

I remember Captain Vanguard. Mother trusted him, so he was something of a babysitter before he was named Captain of the Royal Guard after she passed. He was the one who taught me to shoot when Mother no longer could. I remember he mentioned he had a son that lived with his family in Necluda. I’d asked if I could meet him, if only to meet someone else my age that I wasn’t related to, but Father deemed it a distraction and that was the end of it.

It was a dark day when Captain Vanguard left us, and it broke my heart that I was barred from his funeral, having to settle for watching from the ramparts where Father couldn’t see me. He thought it would be bad luck for me to dwell on death instead of praying.

“Well, losing a part of his uniform is pretty unlike someone so diligent.”

I cocked my head, trying to make sure I wasn’t eavesdropping.

“He’ll be paying the price for it, losing his cloak right as the snow comes in.”

I pulled on the reins to bring my horse to a stop.

“Link Vanguard lost his cloak?” I asked, abandoning all pretense of secrecy. The guards shifted uneasily.

“We beg your pardon, Princess, we don’t mean to speak ill of the boy, what with him saving your life the other day. It was really impressive, blocking that beam with just a training shield.”

So that was Link. In the commotion, I hadn’t gotten a good look at my savior. I made a mental note to find him later. If not to thank him for saving my life then at least I could apologize for stealing his cloak.

“Your Highness,” called one of the guardsmen sent to accompany me, “The exchange is in the other direction.”

“I know,” I called back, “There’s just something I need to confirm.”

If only to silence my mind.

I stopped my horse when we reached the edge of the canyon and stared into its depths.

The people of Hyrule hadn’t explored the bottom of the Canyon for decades. It was too dangerous, from monsters to falling rocks, any interest in what might be found below was swiftly extinguished by the life threatening nature of such a journey.

“Wait here,” I called to the guards, kicking my horse into a canter before they could protest. I kept an eye on the bottom of the ravine until I noticed a significantly more shallow section of canyon. Upon closer inspection, I could see that what was supposed to be the ravine floor looked a bit too smooth, like stonework. I returned to my retinue.

“How quickly could you get me to the bottom of the canyon?”

We started calling it the Forgotten Temple.

It had only taken a few hours to call the Sheikah excavation team stationed at the exchange and have them set up a pulley system that made it easier to access whatever was below.

We stood in a sizable gap in the wall, peering into the massive building that dwarved Hyrule Castle. Further into the Temple, I could just make out the stone face of what could only be a Goddess Statue. One that made all others look like anthills against a mountain.

“This is it,” I breathed, feeling a massive weight off my chest that almost felt like joy.

“Your Grace?” Impa questioned, I turned to her.

“This is where we’ll keep the guardians, to study them further. Have Robbie set up shop here where even if there was another malfunction, the ravine is remote enough to easily contain the damage. Father won’t find out, and even if he does he cannot complain.”

Impa smirked, and I thought I saw pride in her eyes, but I didn’t have enough experience with the emotion to be sure.

“It shall be as you say, Your Grace.”

I’d wanted to explore the Forgotten Temple, but Impa insisted that I come back after the Sheikah had a chance to make sure everything was safe.

So with a lighter heart, I returned to the castle just as the sun set, Father’s office to give him an update before going to bed.

“Have you dealt with the Sheikah’s weapons?”

“Yes Father,” I answered, almost buckling under the cold apathy of his stare, he merely nodded and waved me away. I curtsied and left

I stormed through the castle, my good mood from the Temple’s discovery withering inside me.

Every encounter I had with my Father left feeling more desolate than I was before.

I pushed the door to my room open, dressed in my nightgown behind the screen before storming out from behind it with the full intention of collapsing onto the bed. I was stopped short, however, when my eyes caught on the bow hanging above my mantle. A birthday gift from the late Captain Vanguard.

Dear Golden Goddesses, I missed archery.

I missed the strain of the bow that promised power to the arrow as I let it fly.

The focus, the precision.

The whistle of sliced air.

The sweet sound the arrow made when it landed.

When Father forbade me from touching a bow so I could focus on my prayers, I spent the night in tears. I loved wielding the same weapon Mother did, it brought me peace of mind to know there was at least some part of me that could access my Mother’s power.

I think that was one of the reasons Father had me put down the bow. Leah and I are sisters, but she takes after Father. Both in her grey eyes and her preference for a sword. I’ve been told that Leah’s hair, dark and curly, resembles Father’s in his youth. It makes sense for Father to love Leah, she’s a splitting image of what he used to be.

While I am a reminder of the love he’s lost.

Sometimes, more often than I’d care to admit, I’ll look into the mirror and for a split second all I can see is my mother’s face, and I always feel so guilty afterwards.

He can’t bear the resemblance, so he locks my bow away and avoids looking into my eyes whenever he can.

Goddesses, I miss my Mother.

It’s this thought that calls me to drag a chair over to the fireplace, clambering to yank the bow off the wall and take off running through the halls.

The training room is bound to be empty this time of night, anyway.

I ran through the castle uninterrupted, though I knew that the Sheikah kept watch over me from the shadows, a notion that would have sent Father into a rage. The Sheikah sentries were one of the few things that gave me a nostalgia tinged sense of security, so I let them be. They had informed me of their intentions to closely watch me and aid me in any way they could, so I saw no reason to send them away.

The training room was deserted, as I predicted, so I grabbed some of the arrows leaning against one of the targets and took my place by the opposite wall.

I strung the bow, desperate, drew it back, and fired.

It hit the outer ring. I knew I was years out of practice, but that didn’t stop my hiss of disgust at how far I’d regressed. I fell into a trance of constant aiming, shooting, and scowling at every missed shot, embracing the sting in my arms telling me to fix my posture. I saw slight improvement over the first few rounds, and I was determined to continue, to feed this sense of growing satisfaction that came with honing a skill.

I’d been starved for this feeling, and I wasn’t going to stop any time soon.

I was eased out of my concentration by a gentle hand on my shoulder.

I turned, ready to offer excuses, only to meet with the same bright blue eyes that had haunted my morning thoughts for the past year.

“Link,” I whispered, recognition resonating deep within my heart and soul. I felt like one more puzzle piece had clicked into place, a step towards a complete picture.

Link bowed his head in a nod and took a breath as if to say something, perhaps to ask why the sacred princess of Hyrule was shooting arrows in the middle of the night in what was perhaps a too revealing nightgown. Instead he clenched his jaw shut, took my hand in his, and wordlessly slipped an armguard over a patch of red skin I hadn’t realized was forming.

“Thank you,” I whispered, careful not to disturb the peace of the night, “not just for this, but for saving me as well. And I’d like to apologize for stealing your cloak, I’ll return it as soon as possible. Again, I apologize, I knew it caused you trouble.”

Link smiled softly but shook his head, “You can’t steal what’s freely given, and you needn’t trouble yourself, I just got a replacement this evening.”

I wanted to say more, but he turned and walked to the lower level of the training room where the sparring ring and practice dummies were and began to go through various sword forms. I turned back towards the targets and continued to shoot until my arms shook and I couldn’t go to full draw anymore. I was reluctant to leave, to give up this meditation after so many years without it, but my eyes were starting to drift closed. I gave Link a quiet goodnight and climbed back to my bedroom, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I awoke before the sun rose, shooting up into an upright position and gasping for breath. I tore myself out of bed and stumbled to my desk. I rammed my shin into the ottoman, but I couldn’t stop to care in my wild desperation to put down the image of my dream to paper. I ran into the desk, scattering various odd and ends in my haste to find pen and paper. I found a loose sheet of parchment and dipped my pen into my inkwell and began to cut into the page, leaving line after bold line. I hunched over the page, taking care not to smudge the fresh ink, and when I finally finished I straightened and stretched, feeling the urgency leave my body like a fever breaking. In the morning light I looked down at a drawing of a long sword with a winged crossguard, its blade buried deep into the ground.

A sword I needed to find.

[hornetdiaries]

Clinical Trials

Medically speaking I’m pretty smart.  I may not know how taxes work, why cars need gas, or how to change the time on a watch I’ve owned for over four years, but if you need someone to spell duodenojejunostomy I’m your gal.  That being said, the hardest part of third year nursing is working in the clinical setting.  Suddenly the safe baby proof embrace of the classroom is forsaken for the desolate septic wasteland of hemorrhages, urine outputs, and trying to read physician's handwritten notes.

    For eight hours we do our best to be of service to the nurses we shadow while hunting down every patient willing to let us start an IV, and somewhere in between chart on three different platforms the entirely same information in a way that is sparkling with SBAR perfection.  Because apparently having to document every two hours that the patient’s language is still English is the most important thing to do with my time.

    My first unit was the OB portion of clinical, which means that people will hand me the most important thing in their life that’s so only hours brand new, and have the utmost faith that I completely know what I’m doing.  I’ve never held a baby before in my life.  The last time there was an infant even in my proximity was when I was the infant.

    Nevertheless, I soon grew to love the happy halls that always smelled clean and were filled with new parents who just wanted to coo with you all about the last few burps their new bundle of happiness had, all while you keep the pain pills coming right on schedule.  It doesn’t take long to get the hang of putting on a bright smile and nodding along to their stories while casually searching for the uterus and making sure they don’t spontaneously hemorrhage and die in their sleep.

    My first time on the mother-baby unit was a lovely time of breezing through meds and washing babies.  I was with a fairly fresh nurse, we can call Becky, who was not expecting to come in and work a twelve hour shift with a student in tow, but was attempting to be cheerful about it all the same.  Nearing the end of my eight hours, Becky and I were walking across the unit to deliver a pain med to one of patients.  That’s when the nurse sitting at the nurses station stopped us.

    “Becky” she called in her deep southern to the bone accent, “I need your help a minute.  I have to run to my car and get something real fast, can you watch the station while I’m gone?  You and Rachel are the only nurses on the floor right now and she’s busy doing a dressing change”

    “I don’t really know how to work the computer” Becky muttered, already walking to the door and entering the glass paned station anyways.  I followed close behind, wondering why we couldn’t do the med pass first and then come back.

    “Don’t worry, I’ll only be gone three minutes, ain’t nobody gonna call” and sure enough as soon as Becky sat down in the worn swivel chair, southern nurse was already halfway down the stairwell.  I didn’t think much of it, seeing as how there were maybe eight patients on the floor and the entire day had been an easy ride without so much as a spike in blood pressure.

    Becky and I get to chatting about the sort of fast paced topical conversation that you get to have with a stranger of eight hours you’ve been forced to share every minute with, all while staring at the vitals chart on the wall.  It’s the most nerve racking TV show, the black screen of patient numbers and values of their wellbeing displayed, every rise and fall eating away at the back of your mind.  That’s why I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw the SPO2 start falling from the low nineties to the eighties.  Oxygen saturation should be mid nineties to a hundred.  I’ve seen it drop to sixties as a patient gasped for air through a wad of mucus clogging their throat, but to watch it spiral down the drain into the eighties and then seventies, setting off alarms as it went, was like watching a plane slowly crash into the ground before you.

    “Becky, I think we need to check on that patient” she turned around to watch the monitor I was watching wide eyed.

    “It’s probably fine…” the expression on her face changed like someone had wiped over it hard with a rough rag, “actually, you hang onto this, I’ll be right back” she hands me the tiny cup containing our med, and before I can even argue the out of place protocol, she’s gone.  Now I’m completely alone at the nursing station and the only two nurses on our side of the ward are indisposed.  I really honest to god thought that would be the end of it.  I one hundred percent believed that it would end there, that life was not so dramatic as to wait for this exact moment to hit the fan.

    That’s when a new alarm went off.  This one on the computer screen before me, showing one room beeping in red.  I couldn’t understand what it was supposed to be reporting, it wasn’t even that close to us.  But on and off it beeped, quiet at first but then getting louder and louder.  It was such an odd tone too, making me lean close to the monitor to try and hear it.  That’s when I realized, it wasn’t from the computer, it was ringing through the hallway.  It was getting louder before it quickly took over the alarms on our side, accompanied by a harsh electronic screech that came from all the elevators.

    The phone rang and I wanted to vomit.  Letting it ring three times before working up the courage to touch it, I answered with the most useless student voice possible,

    “Hello?”

    “GET…..ELEVATOR CODES… SOUTH…. FIRST FLOOR… CODES” the static cut through the voice of a woman yelling into her phone, huffing and seemingly out of breath.

    “Uh, who is this?”

    “MELISSA” who the fuck is Melissa?  Why did I even ask? “GET ME THE ELEVATOR CODE”

    “I’m sorry, I don’t know the code”

    “ALARM… CODES” I drew a blank and did the only thing I could think of.  I slammed the phone down hard on the receiver.  My best plan ever?  No, not in the slightest.

    Custodians and volunteers gave me weird glances as they walked by, a couple of them asking what was going on and why the elevators were all shut down.  I told them that we were working on getting the codes and they’d stop screaming soon.  The screaming was getting louder.

    Like a fool, I felt a wave of relief hit me as Becky came rushing back into the station.

    “Oh thank god, I don’t know what this is doing” pushing myself away from the console I let her lean in and inspect it.

    “It looks like a baby alarm was set off” she said squinting and clicking uselessly at the mouse.

    “What kind of an alarm?”

    “It’s for child abductions.  Looks like it’s shut down all the elevators and send out the code for this”

    “What do we do?” she pursed her lips, clicking every which way and retreating every time something popped up, asking for a passcode, effectively putting us back at square one every time with the map of the floor showing all the points that were automatically locking themselves down.

    “Hey you wanna do me a favor?  Can you go to this room and see if the baby’s there?” I looked at this woman like she just peed on my face.  She wanted me, someone with the physical prowess of an angry wet kitten, to go fight off a possible child abduction.  The last time I was in any kind of altercation was when my black belt cousin beat me up for fun.  The last time I was given any kind of combat training was when my paramedic teacher made us practice stabbing each other with fake knives in the parking lot.  I wasn’t going to stop anybody from taking anything.  Hell I’d probably pack them a bag to get themselves started with their new life as a fugitive family.

    “Sure” I smiled, slightly shaking my head ‘no’.  Like the compliant idiot I am, I hurried myself down into the maze of the ward and found my room without much ado.  Awkwardly I stood outside the door, wondering what to do.  What do you even say?  “Hey are you guys kidnapping a baby? Okay no, awesome!”  I knocked once and then pushed the door open, deciding that if I was abducting a child I wasn’t going to open the door, and I didn’t have time to waste.

    Inside the room, hunched over an infant in a little tub, was the most pissed off nurse I’d ever seen, surrounded by two weirded out parents, and one of my classmates who gave me a little wave.  I didn’t know what to do as they all stared at me.

    “Is that a baby?” of all the things I could have said, that really wasn’t so bad.  But it was still pretty bad.

    “What do you need?” the nurse snapped, still cradling the dripping newborn who sat next to the alarm bracelet that was causing all my trouble.

    “Uh, alarms are going off”

    “Just give me an adjust”

    “Okay great!” and I slammed that door shut and got the hell out.

    Feeling rather accomplished, even in the face of raw embarrassment, I marched myself up to the nurses station where Becky sat.

    “Did you find it?” she asked, having made no progress in turning off any of the alarms.

    “Yeah, the nurse said to ‘give her an adjust’” Becky blinked at me as we shared a weighted moment of silence.

    “...What does that mean?”

    “I THOUGHT YOU KNEW!” before I can inappropriately yell at my nurse once more, the emergency exit stairwell bursts open and in stomps the most out of breath and out of patience nurse I’d ever seen in my life.  I took a fast guess and figured this was Melissa.

    “Out” she snapped at Becky who was already up and away from the console like it had caught fire.  I came around the other side of the station to see my clinical instructor come around and B line for me, a group of nurses all looking extremely pissed off following close behind and hovering around Melissa who furiously started typing all the passcodes into the computer, turning off each individual elevator alarm one by one.

    Deep southern nurse came over to Becky and I, not looking as guilty as I felt like she should have been.

    “Where were you all?” Becky’s voice full of stress.

    “The code shut off all the elevators for the floor!  We were all on the ground floor and had to come up the stairs to get to the fourth floor.  It paged all the nurses that there was an abduction so we all came running.  Melissa tried to call but said it failed in the stairwell” I took this as my cue to begin explaining everything to my professor who mostly shrugged and laughed it off, because my school is cool like that.

    Later we would go on to eventually passing that med, and I’d regroup with my classmates that would fill me in on all their versions of the events to transpire.  But ultimately I’d come to realize there’s probably some deeper lesson about being competent in one aspect of life doesn’t mean shit if you can’t be a well rounded person.  Also after two summers of office work apparently I still can’t answer a phone.