#she's riding her white tiger mount when the chair is not around

[evorcy]

I'm not sure if I finish this piece or not, but here's the person who's responsible for Aellinor's badass prosthetic arm In attempt to cure the deadly disease Tora sacrifised her legs to stop the virus spreading further. Now she's inventing insane mechanisms and offering her help to people in need.

[theepitomeofamess]

okay here’s the first of the original works I asked y’all about @witch19 and @anuninspiredpoet, here ya go. I’m also posting it to my ao3, if that’s easier to read. Feedback is more than welcome if you have any to give! Thank you!

This story was requested by @witch19. 

Autumn Blue (the title may change)

word count: 2233

The air has chilled around him significantly since he started the day, signalling the slow beginning of night. Crickets begin to sing and howls announce the arrival of the wolf’s time. He knows many who would slow against the cold, who would insist on setting camp for the night before the sun has even started to set. Many of his comrades in arms would already be settled down at a fire by now, roasting a squirrel on a spit. Not him. He keeps riding, following the fading light even after it’s dipped beneath the horizon. He’s better than that.

Thalia whinnies as the sun rises. She isn’t overworked yet because of the steady pace he’s been keeping, but she needs water. She can hear a stream nearby. He can hear it, too. They stop for two minutes so Thalia can drink and he can fill his water skin. They don’t have time for anything else. He hears the whispers in the stream, the snickers and the stories, and he knows that he needs to keep moving. Mounting Thalia again, he gets back to the trail as quickly as possible and keeps going, following the line of his shadow.

The trees talk with the stream, the breeze laughing at their comments. He can’t understand a single word - he hardly hears them - but he knows that they are talking about him. They know what he is doing. They know what’s happened to every other person that has been foolish enough to believe the rumors.

They know that the rumors are true - far too true for anyone willing to prove them right.

The colors around him are saturated to the point of painful to look at for too long, scarlet and tiger orange leaves burning furiously against an impossibly blue sky. He has to bow his head, watching the trail just above Thalia’s ears to keep himself from getting nauseous at the sight. He doesn’t see when the trees open their eyes, watching as he rides by a bit more quickly than he was before. He doesn’t see the vultures grinning at their future meal between the blazing canopy and eerily cloudless sky.

He only truly stops riding on the third night, when he can hardly stand the exhaustion any more. Thalia felt the same, lying on the ground almost as soon as she was content with how much she’d eaten. He known that he’s been working her too hard, only giving her short bursts of rest while he stopped to gather more water or food, but he can’t afford to lose time on this. He refuses to end up like William, declared dead after being missing for a month after he should have been back. He refuses to become just one more soldier lost to the woods. He’s smarter than that, better than that.

He refuses to take his armor off, just in case.

Leaning back against Thalia’s side, he looks to the sky. He can only just make out stars beyond the canopy that has faded from fire to ink. It still unnerves him to look at the space around him - he’ll imagine a face in the canopy if he looks for too long, or hear a word of doom prophesied in birdsong. It makes his head spin.

No, it’s just the exhaustion. He knows that it’s just exhaustion that’s making him hallucinate, that’s making him dizzy. Pressing himself closer into Thalia, he clings to the handle of his sword and tries his best to get sleep. It’s hard, though, when all he can hear is the not so distant chatter of what he imagines to be wolves praising the thought of his liver soon becoming their chew toy.

“Getting close,” he mutters to Thalia, petting her head as he feels the wind pick up. They’re coming up on the center of the wood, the center of the myths. He knows that it’s almost unheard of for journeys through woods like this to go untampered with, but he knows why he hasn’t come across any foe - any living thing at all - since the beginning of his journey. He knows that they want to see the fight, that they want to see him lose. The only concern in his mind is how he’s going to get out of the woods once he’s won, since they will probably all come after him once they see that their champion is no match for him.

He’s nervous when he sees the clearing, of course. Who wouldn’t be? He’s been hearing stories about this place since he was a child, stories meant to keep him from entering the woods in the first place. His mother had sobbed so much when he’d told her about his quest. He knows that she thinks he’s being foolish. He probably is. But the line between foolish and brave is finer and more fragile than a glass hair. He can’t afford to try and make a definite distinction between the two, especially not now that he’s here. He can’t afford to be like that. He has to be better.

He hitches Thalia to a tree - he doesn’t want her to be in the line of fire, but he doesn’t want her to run away once he wins and needs her to take him home. Petting her between the eyes, he almost can’t bring himself to say goodbye. That might be what happens beyond the treeline - he might never see her again.

He can’t afford to think that way. He has to be better than that.

“I’ll be back soon,” he assures her, the words scorching his throat. “I’ll be back soon.”

Knuckles white as he grips his sword, he does his best to take in the clearing. The color saturation is worse here than anywhere else. The grass and small garden to the left of the cabin are just about glowing, the windows looking into the cabin iridescent. He hears expectant chatter echoing from the treeline. The creatures - spirits, nymphs, fae, he’s heard them called a million things - are gathering to see the show, to watch and see if they get a particularly bloody bit of entertainment to hold them over until the next righteous moron comes along.

His mind swarms with the different stories he’s been told about the witch throughout his life. His father had called her a creature of hellfire and scorches her victims entirely with a single look. His mother had called her a wolf that had assumed human form and shares her victims as a meal with her pack. The village priest warned that she was possessed by the ultimate evil and would send her victims to serve their dark master, leaving only a few corpses at the edge of her woods as an example. His grandmother had called her a wonderful judge of character. 

He never knew what she meant by that, but it didn’t matter among the pile of men the witch has stolen away.

He’s sure that she would have every entrance to the place lined with traps. After all, she’d been attacked countless times over the past century or so. Of course, the front door might be spared. Nobody uses the front door when they’re planning an attack. It’s only when he’s got his back pressed to the front facade of the cabin that he realizes he might have wanted to come up with a plan.

Something moves in the cabin. The tap of a cup on a wooden tabletop and the whistle of a teapot.

The whistle is broken by the crack of the wooden door against his foot.

He can’t remember a time when he hasn’t worked with horses. His father owned a horse farm, his first job away from home was in the king’s stables. He was there when Thalia was born, and he has never wanted a life away from stables, away from the smell of hay and mud and horse shit. Most people he met couldn’t see the beauty in it, they scrunched their noses at the life that always left him covered in dirt and sweat that nearly crystallized if he didn’t wash it off immediately.

He’s brushing Thalia gently. He’s in stables that are familiar but foreign. Craning his neck slightly, he looks to the worn down ceiling of the stables. Between the cracks, he can see the color of the sky - so blue, so bright, always cloudless. He can’t remember a time the sky hasn’t been clear. The color seems to squeeze his head between his eyes, the color so flawless that it can’t be real.

He makes a mental note to fix that ceiling before they get a storm rolling in.

He doesn’t ask when they last had rain. He doesn’t question what he knows. He’s better than that.

Through the window behind Thalia, he can see William working in the fields. He’s always had a green thumb. Their parents used to be friends, trading horse manure for produce and buying each other drinks. He’d gone to school with William, played with him while they weren’t working or in class. He’s the one who had taught William to ride a horse, the practice leading to William’s stories about how he would be the famous hero who brought the witch’s head back to the village on a pike. Something about the proclamation had always sounded fake, halfhearted as he looked to his father who warned him to stand by his promise of heroism.

It was William who had persuaded him to join the royal guard in a world somewhere between a dream and a memory, another life entirely.

“Glad to see you’re settling in all right.”

The voice is so clear that it startles him, the brush landing in a cloud of dust on the ground. The woman standing in the doorway of the stable looks old enough to be his mother, silver hair and laughter lines the only indication of any aging. She wears a cloak the came green as the trees lining the perimeter of their little community and a smile that radiates the kind of maternal compassion that’s laced with white lies. In spite of her welcoming presence, he can’t bring himself to look her in the eyes. They’re blue - autumn blue - so clear and bright that it hurts his head.

“Can I help you?” He picks up the brush to avoid looking at her. He wants nothing more than to make her leave, but he won’t. He’s better than that.

“ I just came to see how you’re getting on. It can be disorienting for some, and it doesn’t always go through the first time.”

What the hell are you talking about?

“Would you like to sit down?” He grabs a chair from the corner, setting it out for her. It’s all too easy for him to bite away the question that he actually wanted to ask.

“I see you retained your training in chivalry. Most of them didn’t learn it in the first place.” She moves to sit where he set the chair, and he turns back to Thalia.

The closer she gets, the harder he finds it to focus on Thalia’s mane. The brush isn’t moving, just sitting between his palm and the side of her neck. He can almost feel a crisp breeze coming off of her, running its fingers through his hair. Though she seems vaguely familiar, he has no idea who this woman is or why she’s watching him so intently. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think that he was reliving the first time he prepared a chicken for cooking, his mother watching his every move over his shoulder.

“You’re a friend of William’s, right?” He nods, still with his back to her. He hears the chair just barely creak under her weight. The brush manages to move through the hair again, his body running on autopilot. “He’s a good kid. Just barely edged out of death, he did. He buried it so deep that I almost couldn’t figure out what he was trying to prove.”

“I’m sorry,” he finally forced himself to face her, “but what are you talking about?”

“Oh,” she nodded after a moment, realization crossing her features. “It really hit you hard, then. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter.” She stood, making a stride to leave before looking back at him. Reaching out, she places a hand on his shoulder. “You’re good, you know. I’ve known that for a while. You’re good, better than most. You don’t need to prove it. Not anymore, at least. Just take good care of Thalia. That’s all you need to worry about now.”

Something about the curve of her smile, the crows feet at the corners of her eyes, the slight crack in the cadence of her voice. It all seems more familiar the more he looks at her. She’s still otherworldly, but there’s something that he knows. Something that he trusts.

He nods, and she leaves him to tend to Thalia. There’s something about her, a feeling that he can’t shake. She knows him better than anyone ever has, she knows things that he’s never told anyone before, at least to his recollection.

“Maybe she’s psychic,” he mutters to Thalia, who whinnies and shakes her mane in response as he brushes his way down her side. “Or maybe she’s just a really good judge of character.”

[the-synergized-heroes]

Reboot - Part 2: Internships and Invasions

Synergy looked around the empty classroom, confused. It was empty, like no one had been in the desks in months. He was also pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to be here. Why was he-

“Can you wonder a little quieter, I’m working here,” Aura Palm said, more notes in front of him. He chuckled to himself. “The kids have been busy, Chapu is especially coming along well…”

“Oh, those are the internship reports…uh, how’s that going?” Synergy said, getting close to Aura Palm but looking for the exit out of the corner of his eye. He was sitting in the chair across from Aura Palm.

“Take a look.”

Name: Denshō Minato - LoreSight

Quirk: History Lesson

Hero Gear: A blue trench coat, high collar, with yellow highlights and gloves. A hat that hides their third eye until it opens, protecting it in the meantime. Combat cuffs: weighted handcuffs he can use like nun-chucks.

Interned with: Wanted to work with Night Eye but after they…well, you know, he ends up interning with the Wild, Wild Pussycats primarily under Mandalay. He rounds out their group as a much more ‘relaxed’ persona and even gets some cat-ears on his hat for a time.

Name: Nikkō Hachirou - Helioscope

Quirk: Solar Glare

Hero Gear: Black and white tights with curved orange padding, rings simulating sunrays. A rounded helmet that allows them to adjust their brightness and can focus their light into an intense burning laser.

Interned with: X-Less to practice w/ his hero gear’s offensive capabilities (laser) and develop his support skills. Welcomed X-Less’s cautious nature, emphasizing cause and effect. Glad he learned of his death while it was raining, it’s hard for him to see past through his light in-between his tears.

Name: Shōgekiha Nariko - Rumble

Quirk: Concussive Strikes

Hero Gear: Salmon colored leotard with a single gold pauldron and a wrestle championship style belt w/ mask. Reinforced arm bracers to protect her arms from the recoil of her talent in open air.

Interned with: Death Arms to better hone her quirk in more than combat situations. Scolds her often for rash action and over-bravado, but she still appreciates his advice…even if she won’t admit it.

Name: Haiga Umeko - Mekogen

Quirk: Sickness

Hero Gear: A helmet semi-shaped like a bacteriophage, rainbow-chrome hazmat hoodie. Capture nets: deployable mesh netting best used for capturing groups of villains simultaneously.

Interned with: Her family wanted her to work at their agency, but she very bravely ignores them to work with Ectoplasm, getting her acquainted to crowd control and working under pressure. He pushes her very hard, but she manages to hold it together. He floods her with praise afterwards.

Name: Tanaka Daitan - Guts

Quirk: Fearless

Hero Gear: Black tights with green highlights, knee, and elbow padding. Straps and hook-loops for climbing gear and swinging around.

Interned with: Mt. Lady! He demands to work with her and reluctantly, she takes him on. He constantly flings himself at the larger enemies she tends to fight, much to her dismay (even if she is a bit impressed.) He literally tells giant villains to “choke on him” and…well, they do.

Name: Hōshasen Yoko - Xeta

Quirk: X-Ray Touch

Hero Gear: Black short jacket with white highlights, a skeletal pattern. Thick boots. A pair of stun batons that use her quirk to project their x-ray light over a distance.

Interned with: Centipeder at Night Eye’s Agency. Primarily there to work on her support skills, providing a look into rooms before raid breaches and unknown containers, alongside Jaehee. Gets better at using her batons and unexpectedly, infiltration.

Name: Koizumi Rei – Figurina

Quirk: Figurine

Hero Gear: A very toyetic costume, light blue spandex adjacent to dance tights with an goggles, arm and shin guards and bandolier belt. Arm mounted grappling hooks for better mobility when she’s shrunk as well as a headset w/ a megaphone function.

Interned with: Gunhead to better improve her close quarters combat skills. Begins developing new ways to use her shrinking in a fight. The two playfully tease each other in several ways, primarily on Rei’s clumsiness.

Name: Miyamoto Takuya - Scatter Point

Quirk: Scattering

Hero Gear: Something simple, like a hi-vis vest and shorts.

Interned with: As an admirer, he requested to work with Cementoss. Cementoss however passed him over to Edgeshot, believing the fold-a-body hero would be a much better fit for improving his skills. Takuya was disappointed but trained hard as to not let his idol down!

NEW MOVES: SCATTER SHIELD – Holds his body in a wall-like configuration to protect others

POINT MASK - Reassembles part of his body around a target’s head to deprive oxygen

Name: Hayashi Chāpu - Tricket

Quirk: Cricket

Hero Gear: Body armor-esque acrobatic gear with a set of goggles designed for his eyes.

Interned with: She doesn’t like teams but ends up with Mirko, to better improve his combat skills. She tries to hype him up often, much to his dismay since it usually comes off as teasing. Develops the TRICKET KICK, storing energy before the kick connects and pushing off, launching the target further.

Name: Wasureru Akira - Miss Step

Quirk: Immediate Memory Wipe

Hero Gear: “Tactical turtleneck” under a holster vest. A set of custom-made dart pistols commissioned by her father.

Interned with: Her father pulled some strings and managed to pair her with Snipe, to improve her firearms skill and draw speed. She dislikes her dad’s tampering and Snipe tends to use this frustration to motivate her.

Name: Shimizu Shirogane - Hydrogane

Quirk: Wave Ride

Hero Gear: Deep Blue surfing tights with black highlights. White chunky boots, almost sculpted like jagged seashells, and hooked to an excess water storage tanks to better activate their quirk.

Interned with: Was going to work with Manual but ends up with Kamui Woods. Better develops his ability to move civilians to safety and control the flow of villains. The two get along well, Kamui Wood's focus maximizing Shiro's training. But Kamui gets very emotions if Shiro gets hurt, viewing his mentor-status as an honor.

Name: Rizumikaruna Isao - Groovemeister

Quirk: Flow

Hero Gear: A break-dancer’s jumpsuit with throwable weighted glow-sticks. A pair of headphones wired into the jumpsuit, turning his movements into sound, and better allowing their moves to flow.

Interned with: Present Mic to become better acquainted with his hero gear and further push/strengthen the rhythm matching aspect of his quirk. Every day is a party with them,

Name: Jiba Rinko – Lady Flux

Quirk: Magnetic Tide

Hero Gear: An almost Victorian style ball gown, but with more of a modern fashion flair. A reinforced metal umbrella she uses to move around with while using her quirk.

Interned with: Dragoon Hero Ryuko, finding new ways to apply her quirk. Ryuko encourages her playful pompous attitude, finding it a good way to psyche out villains. The two get a long great!

Name: Gyaku Samara - Tearway

Quirk: Dimensional Tear

Hero Gear: Dark blue cloak with neon red lining. A dark black helmet with a set of red eyes, acting as thermal goggles for better tracking targets while moving through her dimensional tear.

Interned with: Thirteen, maximizing her ability to move other people around for search and rescue. Maximized avoiding villains or surprising them at opportune moments. Starts spending a lot of her downtime with Thirteen and her agency whenever her parents are out of town on business.

Name: Tatsumaki Hideo - Winning Top

Quirk: Spin

Hero Gear: White, Red, and orange Armored suit with a wide-brimmed pointed hat and arm-fins. Designed to be blunted for fighting people or deploy sharp edges when tearing and drilling are necessary.

Interned with: Crust, who almost bursts into tears every time Hideo pulls off something new. Hideo always shows up early for their patrols and Crust makes sure he has everything he needs. Hideo is the angriest anyone has ever seen him when he learns about Crust’s fate during the war.

Name: Watanabe Yuzuki - Zipstream

Quirk: Frictionless Plasma

Hero-gear: Speed-suit coveralls with orange-lensed goggles. A belt that uses air tanks to change direction quickly and provide thrust, controlled by little controls near her wrist and fingerless gloves.

Interned with: Ingenium’s Agency to maximize her speed and control in combat with her quirk alongside Kotsuke. Uses the other heroes as a springboard for jokes and small pranks every day.

Name: Ikeda Ago - TIGRANTIC

Quirk: Giant Tiger Shark

Hero Gear: Orange and Black leotard.

Interned with: Selkie, getting her more actual experience in the water and acting as their heavy hitter. Enjoys Selkie’s attempts at being cute and lowkey wants to be seen as “cute” too.

Name: Moyasu Hiromitsu - Artillery

Quirk: White Phosphorus

Hero Gear: Black hooded cloak, steel facemask w/ visor, metal belt. Steal boots and gauntlets with vents for their quirk.

Interned with: Endeavor’s Agency. Doesn’t say much, is mainly focused on further controlling his dangerous quick. Didn’t get along with many heroes, teased a lot by sidekick named “Burnin.”

Name: Bāsuto Kosuke - Kosuke the Roaring Star!

Quirk: Rear Rockets

Hero Gear: Full on Kamen Rider-esque suit of armor, with retro-thrusters to give him better control in the air. Red, Black, Gold with star symbols. Long golden scarf.

Interned with: Ingenium’s agency, to maximize his speed in pursuits, as well as his aerial tracking skills, alongside Yuzuki. Tests out a lot of catchphrases and poses before taking off, much to the amusement and dismay of his colleagues.

Name: Junji Jaehee - JunJammer

Quirk: Disrupt

Hero Gear: A yellow jacket with white highlights. Gloves that shoot taser-like progs from her fingertips to extend the range of her quirk and the number of targets at once.

Interned With: Centipeder at Night Eye’s Agency. P rimarily there to work on her capture and restraint skills by shutting off communications or stunning multiple foes, alongside Xeta. Ends up becoming the lynch-pin in several operations.

Name: Kane Eito - Deluxium

Quirk: Golden Body

Hero Gear: A purple wrestling leotard with black highlights.

Interned with: Thought he would be working with someone like Best Jeanist but ended up working with Fourth Kind as some sort of punishment from his parents, picking up trash for a lot of his internship. Gains a bit of much needed humility.

Name: Rīchi Ryouta - Para-Hype!

Quirk: Monstrous Parasite

Hero Gear: A magnetic and off-set white colored spacesuit-like costume. Ports for his parasite’s eyes, mouth, and tentacles.

Interned with: Fat Gum! Trained to improve his general combat skills and primarily get a better handle on his parasite’s biological needs in balance with his own. Ate lots and lots of good food. Gets a lot wider after his internship and the two of them are happier for it.

“Uh…uh, AP,” Synergy said his throat dry. “That’s all neat and everything but uh…you kept mentioning heroes dying, and a war. What are you talking about?”

Synergy blinked and AP was now standing near a board. He raised a sword and pointed to the board, no swirling with images and diagrams.

“Heroes and villains. Modern society and a better one. The one raging right now. The one that needs troops, Sundowner.”

“Who the hell is Sundown-Aagh” Synergy felt a sharp pain in his head and tried to duplicate, ready to counterattack. But he found himself alone, clutching his head in an empty classroom.

Synergy looked around, realizing the doors were gone. He turned back to AP, but simply found a similarly empty chalkboard. Wait, no, there were…little shapes on the board, repeating. He crept closer, squinting at the board.

It was him. Tiny little chalk drawn versions of him, marching in perfect tandem.

The board seemed to go one forever, trailing into some impossible space.

“Okay you got me, haha, very funny.”

No response.

“Seriously, it’s great, this is awesome hahaha please let me!”

Silence.

“No…nonononono, let me out! Stop it! I don’t-I don’t want to be alone!”