#rw the rogue

[altitudeofalcatraz]

More simple doodles, this time around it’s mostly ocs with a bit of canon sprinkled in ☆

[altitudeslocalgroup]

[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED] Asks are now open! I’m fine with a majority of asks, serious and non-serious, but if I don’t feel comfortable I will deny the ask. The available characters for asks are currently : [VSH] - Violent Sky Hues {they/he} [RI] - Reckless Infatuation {he/they} [HTN] - Haphazardly Throwing Needles {they/them} [STB] - Sight Through Blindness {she/her} [DON] - Denial Of Normality {she/they} [WOTM] - Whispering Of The Many {she/it} [HA] - Harmless Abandonment {he/him} [RB] - Requisite Betrayal {they/them} [DS] - Deafening Silence {he/it}

The Machine {they/them} The Rogue {they/them} The Companion {they/them} Information about the main cast is found here.

[raintailed]

A bunch of new goobers :]

Nine Mushrooms (any pronouns), an iterator who mysteriously went offline. The Rogue was recruited by NM's senior to go and check on them, and find a way to revive them if necessary.

Color concepts for Lewy / The Rogue (any pronouns). I'm going with the third option.

Color concept for Varina / The Fluvial (she/her), the slugcat who found the Rogue when they were a slugpup.

[gay-artificer]

Sorry if this is too out of nowhere but ive been thinking about how most of the normal slugcats arent really carnivorous outside of eating eggs and certain insects, exept for like gourmand (minimally) or saint (cannot digest any meat wether by design or evolution) and of course artificer and hunter. This makes me kinda theorize that yknow, slugcats arent normally carnivorous, and only gain the ability to eat meat through artificial means (exept for gourman they just do that i guess).

It also makes me theorize that maybe the reason why the two are able to do that is that they have some really corrosive acids/substances in their stomachs, for Arti those being in the form of garbage wastes microorganisms that make them explosive in general.

As for Hunter, well, maybe the reason they turn into the rot is because of the fact that they have the rot in their stomach if that makes sence? Like maybe they were made to have/grow some early stage rot growths in their intestines to be able to digest things they normally couldn't, or parts of their insides were given some rot genome, but wether intentionally or not, that system becomes unstable fast since it can become cancerous with the rot overtaking the body after some time.

My guess is that they're highly adaptable omnivores and lean towards various levels of severity based on environmental factors- It should be noted that insects and eggs are carnivorous food sources as much as meat is, its just a more accessible source. (And if you've ever seen the teeth on insectivores you would not doubt them. Look at the chompers on a shrew. A crickets worse nightmare) In fact if you look at the bulk of the basic slugcats diet pre-downpour its actually mostly small invertebrates- blue fruit is actually insect pupae, making the only vegetative parts of their diet bubble fruit, popcorn plants, slime molds. (Downpour added dandelion peaches, lilypucks, gooieduck (another mold), and glow weed. Its worth noting that many of these are added not just for world variety but to add items into the environment as tools- such as gooieducks not just being a substantial food source but providing a counter to wormgrass) (In this sense even saint can stomach some meat, as they can eat the blue fruit pupae and bug eggs) So thus the question is why pushes a slugcat to seek meat. It could be simply that its high energy payoff- most of the meat-eating slugcats get less energy (food pips) from eating small prey sources like batflies or blue fruit, so they turn to hunting larger prey. You have the higher energy cost of being an active hunter offset by payoff of actually being successful. It could also be that some slugcats simply lack the physiology (strong enough teeth, jaw strength) to tear into corpses and can only effective use small prey, even if they could eat meat successfully as scavengers. Tough hides can actually be a huge problem for scavenging animals if something else hasn't exposed the softer parts of the body, and this is why the first things lost on a corpse tends to be accessible and easy to take things like eyes, things like ravens need something with actual teeth to break the skin.

Buuuuut personally I think its a developmental shift- We see something like it in amphibian species. Its actually really neat stuff- basically, for a lot larval amphibians like tadpoles or salamanders they're naturally herbivorous and feed mostly on algae. However these young are generally limited in how much they can disperse until adults, which means competition for food can be very intense. As a result, in this developmental stage some will turn to predation- or to cannibalism. They grow larger then their vegetarian siblings, and in some species will grow larger jaws or new sets of teeth. They actually see this even behavior in species that are strict carnivores- some of the young are carnivorous but hunt unrelated prey, others specifically engage in cannibalism. Depending on what type of prey they target, the actually animal develops differently. Since we have the slugpups as a basis- who follow a diet pattern in line with Survivor and Monk, that can be assumed to be the 'basic' diet. But some individuals (likely ones in high stress, or low food environments) develop more intense predatory behaviors and physiology in adolescence. Genes can be environmentally flexible (polyphenism and epigenetics) and 'turn on and off' under certain cues, so for iterators it would probably be fairly easy to 'force' a specific type of slugcat.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

Stoned guard: hell yeah, I'll take a hit

Rogue Warlock: here bro (casts eldritch blast)

DM: roll deception

RW: 23

Stoned Guard: aw man what was in that weed?

RW: it's mixed with fentanyl man, don't worry about it (eldritch blast again)

Stoned Guard: duuuuuude that shit's strong man

[eeveekitti]

WC/RW DAY 10: ARTIFICER

this is amberspark, the newest warrior taken into drizzleclan! she was found wandering the territory by bubblebounce not that long ago, searching for something...

she used to be a rogue simply named amber, wandering with her kits feather and leaf. a fox killed her kits one day, as the cats had settled uncomfortably close to its den, sheltering its own kits. amber was too late to save her young kittens, and took it out violently on the fox mother, a fight where she obtained most of her scars.

to this day, amberspark harbors a deadly grudge against foxes, and will attack them on sight.

in other news, amberspark is a chimera! she's also a descendant of maine coon cats, hence her fluffiness and size

and here's feather n leaf :]

[ammonitetheseaserpent]

RW headcanon time :3

Survivor: he/him

Monk: she/her

Hunter: they/them

Nightcat: she/him

Gourmand: he/they

Artificer: she/they

Rivulet: they/xem

Spearmaster: they/them

Saint: it/fae

Invenot: genderfluid; cycles between pronouns but most prevalently tends to use it/its

Spearmaster draws out of curiousity, to study and record the world around them. They started strictly trying to capture what they saw, but the more they drew, the more they started adding a slight personal flair to their art.

Spear is quite introverted and, as a purposed being, doesn’t have as much social experience w/ other scugs. As a result, they tend to struggle with prolonged interactions, aren’t sure how to react to a being taking a genuine liking to them, and prefer to keep to themselves - however, due to their curiosity, they’ll be much more easily drawn to interact w/ creatures that intrigue them.

Spear has a bit of an amicable dynamic with scavengers; they’re intrigued by the antlered creatures, and the scavs are intrigued by their organic spears.

As a seasoned survivor, Gourmand is very observant to whatever's around them; he def took notice of whatever Rot was in his field of vision around Pebbles’s structure, and recognized it upon (potentially) encountering Hunter Long Legs.

If Gourm could speak, they would have a rich, kinda soft-spoken, androgynous voice with a mild British accent.

Survivor and Monk live in the same colony as Gourm, who’s their uncle.

Nightcat also lives there and is Survivor and Monk’s older cousin (child to Gourm; that’s where she gets her bit of roundness from) (he’s also Invenot’s half-sibling; though Inv lives alone as a ✨dashing rogue✨).

Watcher is the name she was given at birth, while Nightcat originated as an affectionate nickname from Gourm.

Inv’s eyes gain the pattern on their Singularity Bomb when it feels a strong emotion.

Inv has met Artificer before, and she was intrigued by its Singularity Bomb.

Artificer’s vocalizations are very rough as a result of her throat being somewhat affected by her consistent use of explosives against the scavengers.

Saint is very stoic (if it could speak, it’d do so v formally) and tends not to react much to others (rlly tho, fae’re just. very socially awkward).

[halalchampagnesocialist]

It’s hard to verify bc of all the bots but i find it funny how on twitter Elon basically changed the algorithm to boost RW accounts and they still don’t get half the engagement that a left-leaning tweet would, good 2 know most people are still normal

like using Palestine as an example here, eg

[pro-israel account] “Palestinians are terroristic demons that should be annihilated” 300K views but 2.5k likes

[pro-palestine account] “Israel is a rogue state committing war crimes and genocide” 158K views but 50K likes

Unfort i do find that the kind of tweets which do gain lots of engagement pushed by these same RW accounts tend to be the Islamophobic ones…

but yeah as far as right wing political tweets go it’s a dud

[booksofstars]

rw dnd au

survivor, tabaxi fighter

monk, tabaxi monk/druid

hunter, tabaxi ranger

artificer, tabaxi artificer/barbarian

gourmand, tabaxi barbarian

rivulet, tabaxi/dragonborn bard

spearmaster, tabaxi warlock

saint, tabaxi cleric

inv, tabaxi/aasimar wizard/bard

nightcat, tabaxi rogue

looks to the moon, water genasi cleric

five pebbles, harengon warlock

no significant harassment, half-orc bard

seven red suns, leonin paladin

silver of straw, satyr cleric

unparalleled innocence, tabaxi rogue

chasing wind, tiefling artificer

[gold-droplets-askblog]

RW Space AU Info!

(created by @lemon-ve-ghost!)

SYNOPSIS

The Ancients once sought erasure from existence, but now with the power of space travel, they search for a new planet to call home. The world was beyond saving with their actions of seeking escape, at least what most believed. When a rogue iterator threatened the people (unintentionally), most had fled and destroyed the remaining access to a new life, leaving the remnants of a once great civilization to rot. Feeling betrayed, those who had been abandoned worked harder to catch up, only to leave in panic as another threat loomed over the horizon. And at the very end, the iterators who had helped them flee were left alone in a dying world, left to ponder whether it had been worth it.

Ask Status: Closed (lemme finish setting up first jbhjsdb)

For art-based responses, please direct questions to characters instead of being vague! (i.e. "To Chasing Wind" instead of "Who is…" as the latter will just be a narrator answering)

If asking lore/out of character questions, please mention Lore or OOC!

Please be nice! The typical stuff, like no nsfw asks and no being an asshole

Generally serious, but joke asks will be tagged as such! So feel free to go crazy!

Legend: ☀️ - Available 🌑 - Unavailable (i will post lore comics :thumbsup:)

Cast: (brb gonna make a post regarding heights and adding em later)

Iterators: ☀️ Seven Red Suns - she/any ☀️ Looks to the Moon - she/they ☀️ Sliver of Straw - they/she/it ☀️ Chasing Wind - they/them ☀️ No Significant Harassment - he/she/any 🌑 Unparalleled Innocence - they/it ("Inno" only by Grey) 🌑 Five Pebbles - he/it

Slugcats: 🌑 Prickle to Twine (Spearmaster) - they/it 🌑 Hunter of Fallen Stars (Hunter) - any/all 🌑 Spark of Gunpowder and Smoke (Artificer) - he/him 🌑 Plentiful Harvest as Twilight Falls (Gourmand) - any/all 🌑 Silver Strands (Survivor) - they/it/xe (xe/xir/xirself) 🌑 Golden Comets (Monk) - they/them 🌑 Midnight Depths (Rivulet) - it/neos 🌑 Saint - they/x (x/xs/xself)

Narrators: (answers lore/ooc questions) ☀️ Night's Watchful Eyes (Nightcat) - it/neos ☀️ Echoed Inversions (Inv/Enot/you know lol) - any/all

Extra Info

Feel free to ask questions regarding the blog n stuff! I could make an FAQ page lol uhh lemme set shit up first

Askblog is story-driven! Periodically (whenever I give myself time), there will be larger art pieces or comics that drive the story forward and introduce new characters

Gold Droplets is the name of the planetary system! It is named after void fluid, and it resides within the Eclipsed Galaxy

Main planet is the 5th planet, and although it's very cold, there's still warm enough with enough atmosphere to support life

The entire system has been conquered, iterator-esque stations are all over the other planets and celestial bodies

The people (Ancients) have somewhat evolved separately where they were raised

There are 9 generations of iterators total, with a large age gap between gens 3 and 4

[altitudeofalcatraz]

Some of my slug ocs interacting with canon, and some messy design concepts for some masks! 

[retrowarriors]

Retro Warriors 383 - FMV Games

Topic starts at: 33:13. This week we discuss FMV games! Yes, really! Don’t forget to support the show at https://patreon.com/retrowarriors and come chat with us in Discord at https://discord.gg/WxyjUcJpEx. You can also buy some RW stickers at https://www.redbubble.com/people/rwshow/ and listen to Cinema Rogues at cinemarogues.podbean.com

[raintailed]

Yaay! ref for the Rogue!!

They're a southern highland slugcat who lives in Jarring Realization's local group (group name pending). Rogue was recruited by JR to check on Nine Mushrooms, who had been unresponsive for a long time.

They are silly and happy and also a prolific thief :]

Rogue has two citizen ID drones: Soireck, which is from JR and was given to Rogue so they could access JR's city and get supplies; and Memoly, which was found by Rogue near NM. Memoly was found broken and still needs repairs, so its movement is kinda janky (ex. moves erratically, tends to sink in the air instead of just hovering in the same height)

Rogue managed to get to NM's chamber, only to find the iterator pretty much dead (the rot outside the chamber was. uh. an explanation for what happened). But when Rogue went back to JR, now JR wants them to go back and survey the damage!! What the fuck!! JR didn't ask that in the first place! Grrrrr!!

Notes transcript:

Lewy, "The Rogue;" any pronouns

Drones are "Memoly" and "Soireck"

Memoly moves erratically & floats higher than Soireck

neuron glow: #668ce3

the widest the right eye can open

fur produces stardust (but usually doesn't form star charms)

a lil bit long

[ramblingsekai]

Oh god, I bought Rogue Legacy 2 and Slay the Spire and I’ve been so distracted playing them that the Stray Bad Dogs event snuck up on me. I’ve barely been checking tumblr and twitter and just happened to notice bc the L/n event ended last night. Anyways, I decided to do some scrolling thru tumblr and decided to make some random HCs that I couldn’t figure out how to make into longer posts. Just gonna be something fun and kinda scrambled thoughts I’m dumping into one post. I think I did something similar one time but it ended up being only 25ji HCs, but this time I’ll try to do more than them. Let’s gooo.

MMJ HC

Assuming that MMJ is using something like YT or Twitch to stream their stuff, I like to think that MMJ’s friends end up getting mod status or something similar. Eventually MMJ get full-time mods that aren’t their friends, but I think it’d be cute if the other characters pop in to watch the streams when they can and end up helping out if they’re there.

Kohane and An would type messages to cheer on MMJ as well as reminding ppl to be respectful.

Shiho, Ena, and An also end up being the ones to block spammers and delete more hateful messages. Bc there’s always going to be trolls, but hopefully other fans also help out too.

I’d like if Nene helps out with modding in general too, but I’m not sure how close Nene is with MMJ. I think she might be friends with Minori after Scramble Fest, but it’s hard to say.

If it’s Twitch, maybe Mizuki ends up helping out by making highlight vids every once in awhile (I think Mizuki is a fan anyways so not out of bounds).

All their friends usually end up reblogging/retweeting posts about special events for MMJ.

Like obviously the other characters aren’t full time and are just helping out when they can, but I always wonder how well MMJ is handling the more streaming live/online videos aspect of their careers at this point. I know that the latest Haruka event in JP talked about a new producer for the group, a not Tik Tok app, and MMJ getting flamed bc of a new song sounding similar to another one as well as showing Haruka dealing with her previous feelings about her temporary retirement. This is all based on what I saw on Twitter and some machine translations, but I’d rather not form assumptions based on machine translations and unfortunately there aren’t any fan translations for the event online so I guess I’ll just wait for now.  

VBS

So something I’ve never been able to clearly remember, did Akito ever properly apologize to Kohane about the whole stage lights thing in the main story? I feel like Kohane and An just sorta forgave him after learning the truth, but Akito himself never actually said ‘I’m sorry’. So I kinda want Akito to at some point to properly say that he is sorry to Kohane. Bc even if he wasn’t the one to close the lights, he still intended to try to scare off Kohane bc he didn’t think she was serious about performing music. Now I get it, Akito is super serious about music and thinks that if you’re saying you want to surpass Rad Weekend, you need to be serious. However, Kohane was still a rookie at the time. Just bc she was still new, it didn’t mean she wasn’t serious about it. Akito was new at some point too and had to learn about Vivid Street and music too before realizing his dream more. So I guess it just sorta rubs me the wrong way that Akito tried so hard to scare off Kohane, bc Akito himself was a rookie too at the start and he didn’t give Kohane a chance to pursue the dream. I also wonder if Akito has high-ish standards for An since she’s Ken’s daughter and is serious (in his POV) about surpassing RW, so in a way he felt like An wasn’t living up to his standards. I should probably have reread the main story before typing this, but Akito’s actions and attitude in the main story always seemed pretty hypocritical and petty to me, so I kinda just want him to sit down with Kohane and give a proper apology.

I know it seems like I dislike Akito from this, but I honestly like the guy. Out of all the guys in Proseka, he’s actually my favorite alongside Toya. A thing to keep in mind, Akito is a teenager, and teenagers do dumb and petty shit often bc they’re teenagers. I don’t excuse his actions, but I get it. And he did seem to learn from the whole thing and ended up becoming good friends with An and Kohane still. Plus, I think he’s actually pretty perceptive towards others feelings ( i.e An’s events, Ena and their dad, Toya, etc.). 

So my HC with Akito is that maybe he was so harsh with Kohane bc he saw a partial reflection. Kohane has a lot of parallels alongside Toya (not seeing RW but still trying to surpass it, quieter/calmer personalities, etc), but I think Kohane also has some parallels with Akito. Both don’t come from a musical background, so they had to start from the ground up, their respective partners are more experienced in music than they are, etc. But maybe when first seeing Kohane, he’s reminded of his younger self and soccer. Akito was really crushed about soccer during that summer festival event and ended up being lost until he found a new passion in street music. But the road was probably hard since he had to go it alone, plus this was probably going on at the same time as his home situation with Ena and their dad having their first fight. It got easier over time, especially after meeting Toya. So I wonder if when he first saw Kohane, he saw a version of his younger self and was trying to somehow spare her from the displaced feeling he felt after being crushed in soccer. Again, not to excuse his actions bc it’s still kinda shitty, but showing another POV of what he did.

Obviously, Akito and Kohane are good friends now, but I also hope that Akito and Kohane’s friendship as well as An and Toya’s friendship grow more in the future. I saw around Twitter ppl complaining about how VBS feels more like 2 groups who happen to sing songs together rather than one cohesive unit like w/ the other groups, and I get it. But I also disagree, since I think VBS is learning from each other and the whole 2 pairs thing is sort of a rivalry thing. The pairs push each other to be better as well as helping each other out. Akito helps An out with her feelings/actions towards Kohane as her partner, An reminds Akito that he’s not alone and has a group of friends he can rely on, Kohane is an unpolished diamond that is slowly revealing her shine which is pushing the others to keep moving forward/improving, Kohane is also a sort of opposite of Toya in that she’s a more natural type of musical genius who understands the feeling behind music (we see this with her lessons from Taiga and how open with her emotions she is) while Toya is the more classically trained genius who has put hundreds of hours into music. So Kohane and the others help Toya out with his feelings and music while Toya/An/Akito also helps teach Kohane the ropes. Their combined rigorous training and Kohane’s hard work outside of their practice ends up causing Kohane to level up faster (VBS Miku points that out too at some point in an event later lol).

So yeah that’s all I’m going to put for now. I said I’d do multiple groups, but I ended up doing like 2 groups and they were pretty large rambles too lol. Still, I haven’t done a long ramble in awhile so this was kinda fun for me. I noticed I’ve been slowing down with the longer posts bc I’ve kinda caught up on all the fan translation stuff so now I have to reread stuff or just wait for it to come out on global.

I realize I sorta ended up posting more incorrect quotes stuff than rambles/theories stuff lately. I wonder if I should cut back on that or not? (let me know if that type of stuff is annoying).

But still, let me know your thoughts on what I said. Agree, disagree? Did I miss something? Feel free to let me know. Thanks for reading!

[mitigatedchaos]

Kontext says we’re starting back up again where the ‘90s left off.

I’ve observed a lot of teenagers wearing anime shirts with katakana on them for franchises recognizable to someone who grew up in the 90s/00s.  Mixed in are teenagers wearing shirts for franchises like Rugrats that started in 1991, apparently now rebooted in 2021.  Adults are wearing shirts for the show Friends, which ended in 2004.

What about the new Batman?

Look at this motherfucker.

That guy on the right?  He looks like he could’ve walked out of a My Chemical Romance or Evanescence music video.  What is he, from 2003?  And if you’ve watched the movie, you’ve noticed that he has the attitude to match the looks.

But I don’t recall the anime t-shirts in the 00s having katakana on them.

Writers have two options for producing complex texture in media.  The first option is to be a genius and work out the equilibria of the world on your own, something necessary for prophetic science fiction.  The second is to rip off the real world, which has its own deep texture.  Writers will often do a mix of both - Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex was inspired by elements of Japanese history, while also leaning into a memetic crime wave, which made it a double-hit of coherent novelty for American viewers.

The Batman could’ve been made in 2003.  We could almost imagine a Johnny Depp Batman right next to it in the conceptual space.

Except this film wouldn’t have been made in 2003.  Like the anime t-shirts, it’s from a phantom 00s that never existed. 

Nolan’s first Batman movie was archetypal - everything was so purely the platonic representation of itself that it was insufficiently particular.

In Nolan’s second (and best) Batman, the population of Gotham are terrorized by a rogue philosopher-terrorist who poses them moral dilemmas as practical exercises - perhaps not so different from the trolls and shitposters of 2012 onward.  (The question of who tied people to the trolley tracks in the Trolley Problem at last has its answer.)

Nolan’s third Batman explores the potential energy building up for populist revolution as something for hostile elites to exploit.

Nolan was 4 years ahead.  But The Batman is not visionary - it is a processing of the political information learned by society over the course of the past 20 years, and especially the last seven.  Aesthetically, it could have been done in 2003.  In practical terms its views on institutions (and charities), on social issues/feminism, and even on conspiracy theorists, are more like zero to two years out from now.

Is it good?  I liked it.  RW Twitter liked it.  But in my view it’s fundamentally about the new generation trying to make sense of all this bullshit.  It wasn’t created for me specifically, but it wasn’t created to exclude me, either, and I was left feeling hopeful.

[boldlyanxious]

Remember when

RW masterlist

Follow up to Unplanned Date- Timinette

Part 2-Ghost Hunters

Rouge Gorge turned at the sound of footfalls behind her. Nightwing. Apparently they hadn't forgotten her little stunt. It had been almost 2 months. She kept to the shadows on the rooftops but he had still seen her tonight.

They watched each other without speaking, moving in opposite directions, watching for what the other would do. He spoke.

"It is time for you to cease your evening wanderings."

"Where is the fun in that?"

"I'm serious. This is a dangerous game you are playing."

"That's what makes it fun." She turned and leaped to another rooftop after he took a step towards her. He followed. She looked back at him and before continuing to the next rooftop said, "But it isn't you I want to play with."

It wasn't until she moved across the next rooftop and jumped once more that she realized it had been a trap. She heard Nightwing land behind her as Red Hood and Bat Girl materialized from the shadows. Maybe they had seen her in the past couple months. She turned to make her escape through the gap only to hear a cape flapping as Batman landed in her escape route.

"Slow night?" She asked.

"You have been told to cease running on the rooftops." Batman said gruffly.

"If you were trying to sweet talk me you should have sent Red Robin." She turned at a laugh from Bat Girl. "Did he not want to see me again?"

She was losing ground as they all continued to move towards her. Nightwing spoke, "After you left him tied up on a roof?" He signalled and they all acted at once. She landed a few blows but she was no match for them after their carefully laid plan.

"I did not leave him. Just because you didn't see me doesn't mean I wasn't watching." She struggled against the hold but Red Hood and Nightwing each had an arm and a leg restrained and Bat Girl approached.

Bat Girl reached up for her mask but it didn't come off. "Oh, that's really stuck on there. What do you use?"

"Rude!" Said Rouge Gorge. They shifted their hold and Nightwing attempted to remove the mask. Batman crossed his arms, impatiently waiting for the reveal.

"It really is stuck. Is that part of your face?" Red Hood moved to try as well but that was all she needed to make her escape. She ducked out of the hold and swept her foot out. She pushed Bat Girl into Red Hood and grabbed Nightwing's stick away. She swung it and dropped it before running to the edge of the roof.

"It's magic," she said before dropping off the side. She caught herself with her yoyo but stayed low, between the buildings. She bounced along, looking for anyone following her. When she saw no one, Marinette dropped her transformation and tucked her cape into itself to form a simple bag. She was only a couple blocks from her apartment so she made it home quickly, without incident.

---

Marinette decided she needed to be much more careful after that. She had been making herself useful stopping everyday crimes, not anything major like the Rogues, but doing it without being noticed.

She had never planned to be out and about at all. She had been buzzing with energy one night, a few months back, and ran across the rooftops rather than risking the streets late at night. It had been 2 years since her last transformation and she hadn't realized how much she missed it. She couldn't help it when she saw someone being mugged. She dropped down into the alley to stop it.

It was her second time out that she had met Red Robin. She had been following a band of thieves she heard planning to hit a market as it closed. She didn't want to take on so many, especially since she was out of practice. But while she was sneaking back up the wall a brick slipped and she lost her grip, tumbling down behind them.

Red Robin must have been patrolling nearby and heard their shouts. She received a couple kicks before she could get up and then one of them dragged her up by her hair to face who she assumed to be the leader. Their only concern was how the logistics of killing her might interfere with their planned job that evening.

She made an attempt to break free that was slightly successful. She broke the hold on her hair and hit the one in front of her but the numbers were not on her side. Another hit her in the gut with a gun as her legs were kicked out from under her. Her back slammed into the pavement and her head throbbed, as she opened her eyes back up to see, a man in a red and black suit knock 3 on them back with his stick and hit the other 2.

One of them went to lift her in front of him to get the man to back off but he hit the knees of the one he was fighting and knocked the one who had her in the back. He grabbed her and then used a cord to swing away. She could hear him talking into his comms to let his friends know about the group.

"They are planning to go to the market when it closes," she said.

She heard him relay the information and she could hear the chatter coming back as they had a discussion. He spoke again to them, this time it sounded like they were close enough to see them.

"I did not just grab a girl to be my girlfriend."

"No, the intel came from her but I don't suspect that she was involved."

"I am not desperate for hugs. I'm shutting you off now."

He pushed a button on his communication gear and turned to her. She just realized that she had been watching him. Closely. She still had her arms wrapped around his neck. She quickly pulled away and then stumbled as she realized she was very dizzy. He reached out to steady her as she planted her feet and reached up to her aching head.

He held her by the elbows and carefully examined her face. He reached up and tilted her chin so he could look at her eyes to see if she needed medical attention.

"Don't think you can kiss me without even telling me your name."

He sputtered and turned red, "I'm Red Robin," he said, "and I wasn't planning on kissing you."

He was still talking, explaining the signs he was looking for to make sure she was okay, but she was only focused on getting away. She pushed away and went to the edge of the roof. But before she swung away she simply said, "That's a shame."

@ira-sairain

@wannajointhecrabcult

Part 3-Fire