#that never would have been said about any other civilian population no matter how awful their government is

[eriexplosion]

Honestly I think that if your Take on Israel involves it being any Special Kind Of Evil it's likely based on some kind of antisemitic theory. The Israeli government is doing blatant crimes against humanity in front of everyone, but it's unfortunately not special. There are multiple genocides ongoing perpetuated by different countries and governments right now because humanity has been doing this since the start of recorded history.

Netanyahu is not a special kind of evil, Israel is not a special kind of evil, its actually an extremely typical kind of evil. Which doesn't mean it can be ignored, absolutely speak out against it and put your voice behind the Palestinian people. They'll need it now that the ceasefire has ended again. But trying to conspiracy theory out how actually the Zionists are running everything or trying to make the Israeli people out as being somehow more evil or more likely to lie than any other group of people? That's just antisemitism and its been rampant ever since people felt like they had an excuse to let loose.

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episode 13 (Worthy)

Well, wow. That sure was an episode that happened.

Thoughts under the cut.

Anyone who leaves spoilers for episode 14 on this will get blocked.

- First of all, I want to now talk about the spoiler I saw for this episode last week, to put the anger from my last post into context: After I had just finished watching episodes 8-12 and started writing my post about them, I went into one of the RWBY tags bc I’m dumb and saw a post that said (I don’t remember the exact words, but more or less): “I’m so glad Yang is finally dead, so now her fans can shut up about her and everyone can ship Blacksun instead.”

… Yeah. Imagine seeing that when you haven’t seen the actual episode and have no idea what really happened. I honestly completely panicked for a few minutes, before remembering I don’t actually know anything and this might just be a “Weiss gets impaled in Volume 5, but one episode later it turns out she’ll be fine” situation. So then I had to look up what actually happened to Yang, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. So, to the person who made that post: Fuck you. Not only did you freak people out for no reason (because come on, there’s no way falling into the void actually kills you – and even if it does, we at least definitely don’t know that for sure after episode 13), but even if Yang had actually died, it’s super shitty that your first reaction to a beloved queer character’s death would be “yay, now people can ship my m/f ship instead”. Like, I don’t care if you personally dislike Yang/ dislike Bumbleby/ prefer Blacksun – show a little bit of decency.

Phew. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest because it really made me angry. Now let’s get into the actual episode:

- “Worthy” as a title pretty much already made me predict that Cinder would succeed in her plan, since “you have to be worthy” was what Watts told her in his speech. She’s gotten the message and is now back to efficient plans – and while I love to see it, it also very much scares me when it comes to our heroes’ survival chances. The last time Cinder was doing well, we lost Pyrrha, so… help.

- And gosh, this whole episode was so intense! I feel like it mostly set up a bunch of very intense situations that are going to escalate in the last episode that I’m very much not ready for.

- I still think the whole central location between the worlds is really beautiful, if dangerous. (They should have specified to Ambrosius that they want handrails or something.)

- Nora using her hammer like a witch’s broom was amazing.

- I also loved the scene with Jaune and the people at the train station; that was really funny.

- The middle of the desert might not have been the best place for the exit. Didn’t the group consider that there might be a sandstorm or something else unpredictable out there? Couldn’t they have picked a better exit point?

- Cinder causing an explosion in the middle of the evacuation that throws multiple people into the void was bad and all – but it was still one hell of an entrance!

- I love that now that Cinder realized that she has to rely on teamwork, she’s suddenly being so nice to everyone. Apologizing to Neo, complimenting Watts on “tearing the kingdom apart with nothing but his intellect”, that soft “You deserve this, Arthur”, complimenting Team RWBY on their plan, thanking them for teaching her “one last lesson”. Yeah, maybe she’s just talking to Neo and Watts like this because she needs their help, and to Team RWBY because she’s confident she’ll win – but it’s still amazing to see the shift in her attitude and how she’s clearly changed her tactic.

- It’s insane to me that some people correctly predicted that Cinder would ask Jinn the last question based JUST on the fact that there’s a part in the opening where everyone else freezes in time while she walks past them. Holy hell! I love trying to guess stuff based on the intro, but I would have never thought that far.

- Cinder’s question to Jinn seems like a waste considering it was Jinn’s last question, but maybe it just seems that way to us as viewers because Jinn didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know. Was it the right thing for Cinder to do? I don’t know, to be honest. Yes, it did give her the chance to ruin the heroes’ plans, but I have a feeling Salem won’t be happy about the question being gone. Pretty sure Salem was going to ask Jinn how to get the Beacon relic, and now she can’t do that. (Cinder ruining Salem’s plans for the beacon relic? Let that be foreshadowing, please.) I mean, maybe it’s worth it from Salem’s POV if it gets them the staff and then she’ll have 2 of the 4 relics – but they could have still gotten the staff later, while I don’t know if Salem has any plan B for the beacon relic. And I’m a little worried about Cinder now. I always thought that Salem wouldn’t kill Cinder no matter what, because she still needs the Fall Maiden for the beacon relic – but if she now has to wait another 100 years for the beacon relic anyway, I’m not sure if she’ll have a reason to keep Cinder alive. (And I’m still worried about that “Some lives will end much too soon” line playing over that scene of Cinder clutching her Grimm arm in the opening.) I also wonder if Cinder even knew that this was Jinn’s last question. Did Jinn even tell her that? Also, when will the 100 years even be up? Do the questions just reset every 100 years regardless of when they were used? So maybe we’re already at year 80 or something and will only have to wait 20 years?

- The cut from everyone at the central command place screaming to them being dead was kinda funny in a “very dark humour” way.

- When Harriet first jumped onto that ship with the bomb, I, like an idiot, thought that she was finally being sensible and trying to get the bomb as far away from Atlas and Mantle as possible, not that she was trying to still drop it on Mantle. She and Ironwood might as well be working for Salem’s team at this point, because they’re doing everything to help the villains’ plan. And the villains are even counting on it! Watts freed Ironwood from his cell and is piloting Harriet’s ship. Those two are just straight up helping Salem’s team in their attempts to… what was it? Save Atlas?

- Ironwood killing Jacques was awful and proves once again that Ironwood has zero morals left. And I didn’t like Jacques, but that was the kind of death that absolutely no one deserves. He had no way to escape or fight back, he was defenseless, locked up in a prison cell with nowhere to run – that’s not just a murder, that’s an execution without a trial. And Jacques wasn’t even a threat, he wasn’t in the way of any of Ironwood’s plans. Ironwood killed him literally just because he could. And no one who thinks they’re the good guy (and Ironwood still thinks he’s the good guy) should go around just killing people who aren’t even a threat.

- And then we have Yang falling into the void. Honestly, as heartbreaking as Blake’s sobs and anger are, I kind of love this from a “supreme angst, let’s see my faves suffer” perspective. That said, Yang better actually be fine or else.

- Actually, my prediction is that the rest of team RWBY will jump into the void to save Yang in the last episode. Because they’re all falling in the opening, and because “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall and fight for every life”. That’s pretty much the only prediction I feel somewhat confident about, for the rest I have no idea.

- I wonder if it would have been better if Penny had just gone through the doorway and gotten the staff to Vacuo. I get why she didn’t, because Yang just fell and her other friends were in danger… but at the same time, she was supposed to protect the population and the staff (and she has the maiden powers that I’m sure Cinder still wants). If she had just gotten out of there, at least the group in Vacuo would have had some help against the sandstorm and the Grimm. But then again, it would have also severely weakened Term RWBY’s chances against Cinder and Neo… it’s a tough call, really.

- “Why didn’t you just learn your lesson?” “Oh, Penny… I did.” Okay, but that’s the thing: She really did! Just not the lesson Penny wanted her to learn. And notice how Cinder called Penny by her first name again? She didn’t use to do that. I still think somewhere down the line Penny has earned her respect.

- I wonder if Penny’s technically weaker now because she’s human (?? is she??). She’s definitely not used to fighting without her robotic parts (as you can see when she tries to reach for her swords and realizes they’re not there anymore). I summoning those swords like she then did her semblance or another maiden power?

- Blake now has to choose between helping Ruby and helping Penny and Weiss – gosh, the suspense…

- I’m glad Vine at least finally tried to stop Harriet now! (Better late than never.) But I really wouldn’t blame Qrow and Robyn for crashing into their ship. It’s not like they had any way of knowing that Vine was trying to talk sense into Harriet. Also, Qrow crashing through Harriet’s windscreen was amazing.

- Winter and Ironwood are going to fight to the death and I’m so scared of it. (I just need Winter to survive, please…)

- When Weiss described the doorway as a “one-way ticket to Vacuo” last episode, I briefly wondered if that meant they wouldn’t be let back through, but then I brushed it aside and didn’t think about it too much anymore. Oh, damn. You really do have to be very specific with Ambrosius.

- I’m not even sure which location is the best to be in right now because they all seem very unsafe: Atlas and Mantle are unsafe because Atlas is falling, because Mantle might still get blown up by Harriet, and because Salem might still come back any time. The place between worlds is unsafe because of the void and because there’s a big fight happening right there. And Vacuo is unsafe because of the Grimm and the sandstorm. So really, they’re all awful for the civilians right now.

- And now I’m thinking the volume might actually end with the protagonists split into three groups as well: Team RWBY in the void (that they’ll spend Volume 9 finding their way back from), one half of the other characters in Vacuo (Oscar, Ren, Emerald, maybe more?), and the other half still in Atlas/Mantle (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter, maybe more).

- I’m super nervous about the last episode. I haven’t seen any spoilers at all so far, and I plan to keep it that way. I’ll probably completely ignore anything RWBY-related until next week because the anxiety would kill me otherwise. I’m really worried we’ll get a character death or even several. And ironically, my first prediction on who might die this Volume (Penny, Nora, Winter, Cinder) hasn’t changed all that much. I’m worried about Penny because she has the Maiden Powers and the staff, so Cinder will come after her (but I really think it would be an awful writing choice to kill her off after we just went through so much to save her). I’m very worried about Winter because she’s engaged in a duel to the death with a man who has a big canon that he just blew someone up with. I’m worried for Cinder because of the opening and because Salem might be pissed at her for using the last question. I’m worried for everyone who’s still on Atlas and might get blown up by the bomb (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter again). And I’m very worried for the characters who are in the in-between realm. Not so much Team RWBY, but I’m worried about Nora, Jaune, and Penny. So yeah, I’m pretty much worried about everyone and very much not ready. Now let me ignore RWBY’s existence for a week – or only reblog posts I already have saved as drafts – because it’s the only way I’ll know peace.

[inqorporeal]

hi! i just read through your mandalore theory, and it's FASCINATING, i love it! any thoughts on Satine herself?

(The Mandalore Theory)

I have a LOT of thoughts about Satine, both meta and in-universe. If she were a real person, I can pretty much guarantee we would never be friends, but as a character she’s fascinatingly complex. I’mma put this under a cut, cus it’s going to be long.

Satine is a wealthy, privileged member of Kalevalan nobility, born and raised on Kalevala and educated on Coruscant. Her father, then-Duke of Mandalore, was likely rarely home when she and her siblings were younger, since he would have had to be resident in Sundari; the rest of the family remained on Kalevala for their safety, because the Mandalorian clan wars kicked off in 60 BBY when a number of Mandalorian clans rejected then-Mand’alor Jaster Mereel’s proposed social reformations and formed the Death Watch (the Wookieepedia says the clan wars started about 44 BBY, but if we examine the larger series of events, it’s pretty clear that things started much, much earlier). Satine hadn’t even been born at that time; due to the growing conflict, it’s understandable that the Duke’s family would have been housed elsewhere for their safety.

Satine’s mother and older sibling (the canonical parent of Korkie) are both unnamed but they’re also both presumed dead, likely victims of the Clan Wars. Eventually the Duke was also killed, prompting Satine’s involvement under the guard of Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

At this point, Satine is a complete outsider to Mandalore. Kalevala effectively owns Mandalore -- it has its own king/queen, and provides political support to the New Mandalorian faction (it can be debated as to whether Kalevala originated as a Mandalorian settlement which eventually severed ties, or if it began as its own sovereign world and later adopted some Mandalorian social structures such as the clan system). Satine is not from Mandalore, has never lived on Mandalore, was not educated on Mandalore, and has only the barest, most watered-down connection to Mandalorian culture. Canon and Legends offer slightly different stories, but the important part is that the Republic backed the New Mandalorian faction and helped them to win the Clan Wars. Satine then effectively outlawed traditional Mandalorian society within the parts of Mandalore controlled by the New Mandalorians.

There’s something to be said for the way people react to childhood trauma, the way they deal with healing, and how it affects their relationship with the world as adults. Satine was a child when she lost two members of her family, and a teenager when she lost her father to the same, seemingly unending conflict. Her family has been caught up in this war since before she was born, and it’s entirely understandable that she would have a vested interest in ending the conflict for good, preferably forever.

But as a result, her policies are authoritarian, albeit with the blessing of the people who consider her their leader. The people who stay in New Mandalorian-held territory approve of her work -- everyone is probably sick to death from nearly 20 years of fighting by that point. It’s notable that, during TCW, the only New Mandalorians who actively fight back against Death Watch are the Sundari guard: New Mandalorian civilians never give any indication of owning weapons, armour, or the means for self-defense, and without the Republic’s support -- which Satine refused! -- are utterly steam-rolled by Death Watch over the course of the Clone Wars. Traditional Mandalorian culture has been completely wiped out of their society, and whether this was the ultimate goal of the New Mandalorian faction or if Satine’s own policies led to this point, the fact of the matter is that she was the nominated leader of the movement and approved if not encouraged the sundering of Mandalorian martial tradition. The factions that wanted to continue the conflict -- who refused to surrender their culture -- were banished to what are effectively penal colonies: if they wouldn’t follow the New Mandalorian way of life, they would lose their ancestral homes.

These are not the policies of a leader who seeks reconciliation and social progress; these are the policies of a colonizing force. This is the quintessence of cultural genocide, and Satine is depicted at the forefront of the movement.

On the meta end of things, the fact that a kids’ TV show tries to prop this up as an ideal is more than a little shocking. There was so much space to have an exploration of morality and cultural preservation in TCW’s depiction of Mandalore and Satine as its controlling authority, but they completely dropped the ball and instead went with a very two-dimensional depiction with zero critical discussion. And then showed New Mandalorian pacifism failing Satine’s people repeatedly anyway; good job, Filoni.

Satine has her reasons for her policies and her treatment towards a significant population who should, in theory, also be her subjects. But it’s important to recognise the distinction between having a reason for one’s behaviour, and having a responsibility to address that behaviour when it’s hurting others (or oneself). When one is in a position of holding power over others -- whether in a management position, leadership role, parent or teacher -- it’s even more crucial.

My thoughts on Satine are that she’s a terrible person, secure in her perceived moral superiority, who never shows any indication of ever questioning whether her personal morality is actually what’s best for the hundreds of thousands -- if not millions -- of lives she’s responsible for. She places personal morals above necessary diplomatic compromise; and blames the resulting conflict on the people whose lives she effectively spearheaded the ruination of. If everyone would just do things her way, everything would be better! Whilst she deplores physical violence, her noncombative policies still enact violence against people who hold different values, and in this way she is as uncompromising as her opponent, Pre Vizsla; they both lead cults of personality by sheer force of will.

(A side issue for me with regards to Satine -- which is a far more personal issue than anything objective -- is her treatment of Obi-Wan Kenobi. She displays an incredible lack of respect for his culture -- which is consistent for her established characterisation -- and the way she constantly negs him reminds me of the way my asshole ex could never say anything positive about me. They’re set up to be an ideal for how Jedi should handle attachments and love, as a contrast to Anakin and Padme’s relationship, but I can’t see anything romantic in it.)

But you know what? As a character in a piece of media, I like her. Media desperately needs more complex characters like Satine, particularly female-presenting characters, who are frequently given only two dimensions and one of them is “pretty”. She had a role in TCW that could have been very nuanced with the room to explore a very controversial topic, had the writing been up to the task.

And then the showrunners killed her off for the sake of another character’s manpain. The New Mandalorians -- her cult of personality -- doesn’t even fall apart without her in charge, the way cults of personality are wont to do in real life! The manner of her death serves no real purpose at all in the larger plotline; she could have been killed by anyone else at any other point and it would have had the same effect on Mandalore. Nothing changes there in the year -- a full year! -- between Satine’s death and the Siege of Mandalore at the end of the Clone Wars. Satine could have been kept alive in captivity; she could have gone into exile; the results would have been the same, or possibly even more interesting.

I think Satine is an awful person. I also think that -- as a complicated, contentious, controversial character -- she was underused and underdeveloped, and deserved a hell of a lot better from the storyline than how it treated her.

[fallenangelontheceiling]

Thoughts on The Finale

Pros & Cons

CONS:

Most of these can be categorized as problems with tone. This has been a problem throughout the series and unfortunately it was most clear at the finale.

John Walker's Character Arc - I guess I can buy that he didn't want a truck full of people to die instead of taking revenge... but it feels too quick. In 1x04 there was blood on the shield and the stinger for 1x05 (the thing that primed us for this episode!) telegraphed him as unhinged. Now he has Sam and Bucky's reluctant approval. Talk about tonal whiplash.

And then at the end - were we supposed to think it was cute that this mentally unstable man is all excited to go out in the field again? I think we were. And I kinda hate it because he'd be a great villain. He went from Everything Wrong With Entitled White Men to an insecure doofus who happens to have the strength to lift a car. I think that was a very sanitized decision.

Ironically I think the reason behind that decision is because they didn't want Lemar to just be the Dead Black Dude. John is the one that gets to tell Karli the truth: "Lemar mattered," and by saying that he illuminates everything wrong with Karli's fight. And I guess he really did care about Lemar as a person (on some level, at least - everything else about John points to narcissistic tendencies imo).

Bucky's Confession - Felt rushed. We didn't see Yori get any bittersweet closure. I don't understand what the last shot with Bucky, Yori, and Leah was trying to convey - especially Leah's little nod at him. Look, I appreciate how this show doesn't always spell everything out, but all that shot did was take me out of the scene - does Leah know he was the Winter Soldier now? that he killed Yori's son? and at the minimum shouldn't she feel mad or awkward about the way Bucky ditched her lol?

And now I'm gonna sound like a real bitch... but because that scene didn't hit the right amount of bittersweet Bucky's happiness at the party later doesn't feel earned enough for me. I love smiley SebStan as much as anyone, but facts.

[In retrospect, one interesting thing about the confession was that Bucky said "I was forced to do it. It wasn't me." That's character growth. I wish we had seen the journey to that realization more, but I'm okay with that likely being incited by him being able to actually rescue civilians of his own free will for a change.]

This is more of a personal belief creeping in: Bucky, just because you're done with the book doesn't automatically mean you're done with therapy lol. I think Bucky should need therapy for the rest of his over extended life, and that is not a sign of weakness or infantilization. I think that would be a far better message for the show to give about mental health. (And I was sent out of the scene AGAIN because I was wondering um, isn't that still court mandated?? I thought the schedule was just more flexible, not terminated.)

Karli - Isn't it weird how I can agree with a villain's motives so much but not find them interesting at all as a character? Like how lol?? I think if they had fleshed out her and Sharon's relationship she could have been a very tragic figure. Or her relationship to Mama Donya, for that matter. Instead we get her with mostly nameless Flagsmashers that narratively operate more like goons than comrades.

Sam - I started this series pretty convinced that Sam should get rid of the Cap mantle and shield due to racism, nationalism, populism... a few other -isms that I am not smart enough to elaborate on. But after episode 5 I was on his wavelength. I was hyped by his training montage! I screamed for him to put on his sexy costume uniform!

And then the costume sucked. Okay it definitely didn't totally suck (more on that later), but the colors and goggles look horrendous.

Maybe I'm just in too jaded a mindset to enjoy a superhero show but I rolled my eyes that an impassioned speech would make any difference. I hated that the senator looked ashamed, like that would never happen, especially not in public lol. I wanted him to do something a bit more subversive -what exactly I can't put my finger on, but this was too much of a buy-in that powerful institutions work. I thought it was really corny how suddenly everyone started listening at the exact same time. I know throughout the show we've seen civilians constantly monitoring with their phones in the background, but the way this was shot was too on the nose for me. Maybe if it had been just one news camera nearby? Idk idk...

The Power Broker - It could have only been Sharon so I didn't really care.

PROS:

These are shorter because I'm tired and it's always easier to say more about things we dislike lol.

Sam's Utilities and Fight Scenes - The costume looked awful but it worked great! Loved the two redwings and what they can do, the way the wings and jet back move when he fights, and I have to admit I like the angelic look of the wings.

I love that Sam still takes more punches than nearly any superhero in the MCU but he doesn't let that stop him. "I can do this all day!" is very Cap. I adored how he collaborated with the civilian (senator?) in the helicopter to get everyone to safety. That also felt very Captain America and in line with Sam's strengths. That scene worked as a strong opening.

Isaiah Bradley - Just. Carl Lumbly needs an Emmy. I kinda love Eli as well.

Sarah Gazes Up at Bucky as He Shows Off and Plays with Children and Brings What is Clearly a Costco Cake to the Cookout - Same, girl. Same. I want a slowburn Hallmark movie about them.

Sharon - I enjoy Emily VanCamp getting ~revenge~.

Zemo's Butler (Of All People!) Taking Out the Last of the Super Soldiers - Is it bad I cheered? This is what creepy Batman-esque butlers are for, yes?

[blackswaneuroparedux]

It is always dangerous for soldiers, sailors, or airmen to play at politics. They enter a sphere in which the values are quite different from those to which they have hitherto been accustomed.

- Winston Churchill, The Gathering Storm

**Pictured above: Seated, left to right: Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal; Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke, the Rt Hon Winston Churchill; Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham. Standing, left to right: the Secretary to the Chiefs of Staffs Committee, Major General L C Hollis; and the Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, General Sir Hastings Ismay.

No one serious has ever doubted the statesmanship of Winston Churchill. However a broad criticism of Churchill as warlord only came to light after the war. Many historians thought that he meddled, incurably and unforgivably, in the professional affairs of his military advisers.

The first surge of criticism came primarily from military authors, in particular Churchill’s own chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, and Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Alan Brooke. The publication of his diaries in the late 1950s shocked readers, who discovered in entries Brooke himself retrospectively described as “liverish” that all had not gone smoothly between Churchill and his generals.

On 10 September 1944 he wrote in his diary (an entry not known until the 2001 updated version was published:

“[Churchill] has only got half the picture in his mind, talks absurdities and makes my blood boil to listen to his nonsense. I find it hard to remain civil. And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of this world imagine that Winston Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no conception what a public menace he is and has been throughout the war! It is far better that the world should never know and never suspect the feet of clay on that otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again….Never have I admired and disliked a man simultaneously to the same extent.”

Many of the British field marshals and admirals of World War II came away nursing the bruises that inevitably came their way in dealing with Churchill. They deplored his excessive interest in what struck them as properly military detail; they feared his imagination and its restless probing for new courses of action. But perhaps they resented most of all his certainty of their fallibility.

Norman Brook, secretary of the Cabinet under Churchill, wrote to Hastings Ismay, the former secretary to the Chiefs of Staff, a revealing observation: “Churchill has said to me, in private conversation, that this was partly due to the extent to which the Generals had been discredited in the First War—which meant that, in the Second War, their successors could not pretend to be professionally infallible.”

Churchill’s uneasy relationship with his generals stemmed, in large part, from his willingness to pick commanders who disagreed with him—and who often did so violently. The two most forceful members of the Chiefs of Staff, Brooke and Cunningham, were evidence of that. If he dispensed with Field Marshal Sir John Greer Dill as Chief of Imperial General Staff, he did so with the silent approval of key officers, who shared his judgment that Dill did not have the spirit to fight the war through to victory. 

As General Hastings Lionel "Pug" Ismay (later 1st Baron Ismay), Churchill’s chief military asdvisor and link to the CIG, and others privately admitted, however, Dill was a spent man by 1941, hardly up to the demanding chore of coping with Churchill. “The one thing that was necessary and indeed that Winston preferred, was someone to stand up to him, instead of which Jack Dill merely looked, and was, bitterly hurt.”If Churchill were to make a rude remark about the courage of the British Army, Ismay later recalled, the wise course was to laugh it off or to refer Churchill to his own writings. “Dill, on the other hand, was cut to the quick that anyone should insult his beloved Army and vowed he would never serve with him again, which of course was silly.”

It was not enough, of course, to pick good leaders; as a war leader, Churchill found himself compelled to prod them as well—an activity that occasioned more than a little resentment on their part. Indeed, in a private letter to General Claude Auchinleck shortly before he assumed command in the Middle East in June 1941, Dill warned of this, saying that “the Commander will always be subject to great and often undue pressure from his Government.”

The permeation of all war, even total war, by political concerns, should come as no surprise to the contemporary student of military history, who has usually been fed on a diet of Clausewitz and his disciples. But it is sometimes forgotten just how deep and pervasive political considerations in war are. 

Take, for example, the question of the employment of air power in advance of the Normandy invasion.

As is well known, operational experts and commanders split over the most effective use of air power. Some favored the employment of tactical air power to sever the rail and road lines leading to the area of the proposed beachhead, while others proposed a systematic attack on the French rail network, leading to its ultimate collapse. This seemingly technical military issue had, however, political ramifications, because any attack (but particularly one targeted against French marshalling yards) promised to yield French civilian casualties. Churchill therefore intervened in the bombing dilute to secure a promise that French civilian casualties would be held to a bare minimum. “You are piling up an awful load of hatred,” Churchill wrote to Air Chief Marshal Tedder. He insisted that French civilian casualties be under 10,000 killed, and reports were submitted throughout May that listed the number of French civilians killed and (callously enough) “Credit Balance Remaining.”

This is not to say that Churchill’s military judgment was invariably or even frequently superior to that of his subordinates, although on occasion it clearly was. Rather, Churchill exercised one of his most important functions as war leader by holding their calculations and assertions up to the standards of a massive common sense, informed by wide reading and experience at war. When his military advisers could not come up with plausible answers to these harassing and inconvenient questions, they usually revised their views; when they could, Churchill revised his. In both cases, British strategy benefited.

In The World Crisis Churchill wrote: “At the summit, true strategy and politics are one.” The civil-military relationship and the formulation of strategy are inextricably intertwined. A study of Churchill’s tenure in high command of Britain during the Second World War suggests that the formulation of strategy is a matter more complex than the laying out of blueprints.

In the world of affairs, as any close observer of government or business knows, conception or vision make up at best a small percentage of what a leader does—the implementation of that vision requires unremitting effort. The debate about the wisdom of Churchill’s judgments (for example, his desire to see large amphibious operations in the East Indies) is largely beside the point. His activity as a strategist emerges in the totality of his efforts to shape Britain’s war policies, and to mold the peace that would follow the war.

The Churchillian model of civil-military relations is one of what one might call an uneven dialogue - an unsparing (if often affectionate) interaction with military subordinates about their activities. It flies in the face of the contemporary conventional wisdom, particularly in the United States, about how politicians should deal with their military advisers.25 In fact, however, Churchill’s pattern of relationships with his Generals resembles that of other great democratic war statesmen, including Lincoln, Clemenceau and Ben Gurion, each of whom drove their generals to distraction by their supposed meddling in military matters.

All four of these statesmen, Clausewitzians by instinct if not by education, recognized the indissolubility of political and military affairs, and refused to recognize any bounds to their authority in military activities. In the end, all four provided exceptional leadership in war not because their judgment was always superior to that of their military subordinates, but because they wove the many threads of operations and politics into a whole. And none of these leaders regarded any sphere of military policy as beyond the scope of his legitimate inspection.

The penalties for a failure to understand strategy as an all-encompassing task in war can be severe. The wretched history of the Vietnam War, in which civilian leaders never came to grips with the core of their strategic dilemma, illustrates as much. President Johnson, in particular, left strategy for the South Vietnamese part of the war in the hands of General William Westmoreland, an upright and limited general utterly unsuited for the kind of conflict in which he found himself. He did not find himself called to account for his operational choices, nor did his strategy of attrition receive any serious review for almost three years of bloody fighting. At the same time, the President and his civilian advisers ran an air war in isolation from their military advisers, on the basis of a weekly luncheon meeting from which men in uniform were excluded until halfway through the war.

A Churchillian leader fighting the Vietnam War would have had little patience, one suspects, with the smooth but ineffectual Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Earle Wheeler. He would, no doubt, have convened all of his military advisers (and not just one), to badger them constantly about the progress of the war, and about the intelligence with which the theatre commander was pursuing it. The arguments might have been unpleasant, but at least they would have taken place. Perhaps no strategy would have made the war a winnable one, but surely some strategic judgment would have been better than none. Nor can strategy simply be left to the generals, as they so often wish.

The Churchillian way of high command rests on an uneven dialogue between civilian leader and military chiefs (not, let it be noted, a single generalissimo). It is not comfortable for the military, who suffer the torments of perpetual interrogation; nor easy for the civilians, who must absorb vast quantities of technical, tactical and operational information and make sense of it. But in the end, it is difficult to quarrel with the results.

[tanadrin]

I’m reading One Long Night, because the interview with Andrea Pitzer on Chris Hayes’ podcast was so interesting; and the book does not disappoint, though the subject matter is in equal measures depressing and infuriating. I want to talk about it at length when I’m through with it, but I was particularly struck today by her discussion of the Soviet gulags and how concentration camps arose in Germany, and how they marked a transition away from how concentration camps had been used before then.

The background is this: the concentration camp as we know it is only a little more than a century old. The individual kinds of violence that all inform the modern concentration camp have plenty of predecessors, some as old as time: internal deportations, native reservations, forced expulsions, detention without trial. But prior to the modern era, the characteristic feature of a concentration camp--the long-term detention of large numbers of civilians not convicted of any crime--would have been prohibitively expensive in manpower and effort. Two major technological innovations altered that calculus, Pitzer argues: the automatic gun and barbed wire. Those two devices permit a small number of guards to contain a much larger number of people; all that was needed was the will to do so.

The concentration camp as we know it was invented during Cuba’s struggle for independence; the advantages enjoyed by the rebels meant that Spain struggled to clear them out of the countryside, and the general in charge of Cuba, Arsenio Martinez Campos, noted that the only way to win the war would be to relocate basically the entire rural population of the island to Spanish-held towns to cut off the rebels’ base of support and prevent them from hiding among the rest of the population. And this he refused to do, considering it unthinkable under the rules of warfare. So Spain replaced him, and his successor, Valeriano Weyler, was all too happy to attempt what Campos would not. The resulting atrocities--including starvation and the spread of disease--were one of the things that spurred the American public to support war with Spain shortly thereafter, and while the Maine provided the immediate casus belli, Spanish conduct in Cuba was, in the public’s eyes, just as important a reason for going to war.

What is so bitterly comedic about that justification, though, is that after the war, when the U.S. found itself in possession of former Spanish colonies like Cuba and the Philippines, it found itself struggling against the very same rebels that Spain had failed to suppress; in the Philippines, the military immediately adopted tactics almost identical to the ones the Spanish had used in Cuba; and when during the Boer War in South Africa, the British likewise rounded up both Boer and black civilians in the Boer republics, it could cite the U.S.’s use of concentration camps as a justification for its own. And so on--each subsequent generation of internment drew on the precedent its predecessors had established, and if you wanted to object to (say) the policy of Germany interning all the British in the country at the start of World War I, you had to contend with the fact that they were doing nothing the British hadn’t done a few years before. (Indeed, it was the British internment of enemy aliens specifically that set off reciprocal treatment all over Europe; Pitzer relates the account of one Israel Cohen, a British man, being arrested in Germany and interned at Ruhleben, who, when the police came for him, was told ‘You have only your own Government to thank for this.’)

In fact, World War I is very important--internment of enemy civilians established not only a general precedent in favor of concentration camps in the eyes of the public, but it created the expectation that if you went into a concentration camp, you would come out again. The conditions in these camps were not good by any stretch of the imagination, but they were not as awful as the camps of Cuba, the Philippines, or South Africa, where famine and disease killed thousands. Concentration camps became decoupled from actual battlefield strategy, arising not “out of the local chaos of warfare, but instead represent[ing] a deliberate choice to inject the framework of war into society itself.’ (p. 103)

To this grim precedent, the Soviets added another innovation: the gulag was the first time concentration camps were used in peacetime particularly, and they were integrated into the Soviet state apparatus as a normal part of its justice system. And more than just the semi-punitive labor that, say, German POWs had been forced to perform during the war (and after--Germany had to release the POWs it held when WWI ended, but thousands of Germans continued to be detained long after the war), the Soviets hoped to make gulags profitable to their economy on net. Whatever their original justification, it quickly becomes clear as the labor camp is institutionalized in Soviet society that much of the behavior of the Soviet state around forced labor is shaped by the age-old impulse of conquerers to use conquered peoples to enrich themselves. After Poland was divided with Germany, thousands of Poles were shipped to the gulags and forced to work. And not only was the USSR thus inheriting the system of forced labor that Tsarist Russia had used, it was making it significantly crueler.

The premise of using labor to reeducate problematic citizens to be part of a bright Soviet future gave way to the idea that detainees themselves represented raw materials to be consumed in building that future.

In reality, Frenkel [an administrator at the Solovki camp] did not invent the tiered ration system from scratch. Likewise, the shift from idealized rehabilitation to a more permanent system maximizing forced labor may have been inevitable. Stalin appeared impressed with the possibilities of detainee labor and believed in the profitability of the Solovki endeavor (despite the fact, as Anne Applebaum has noted, that Solovki required a subsidy of 1.6 million rubles--perhaps due to graft). (p. 132)

Under the tsars in previous centuries, Polish insurgents resisting Russian rule or political prisoners convicted for offenses against the tsar were shipped off to remote Siberian katorga, working in mining or logging. Their penal labor had often been brutal, but it had come after conviction in an actual trial. Compared to penal labor under the tsars, Gulag workdays were longer and the rations shorter. A daily quota for earth mined by a single Decembrist prisoner at Nerchinsk under Tsar Nicholas I was 118 pounds; in the Soviet era, the same lone prisoner might be expected to excavate 28,800 pounds. And while tsarist courts had long sentenced political prisoners to labor camps, the Gulag was orders of magnitude larger from its very beginning. The Soviet Union had grafted the worst of Russian penal history onto the extrajudicial detention of internment, creating a vast malignant enterprise. And it would continue to grow. (p.133-34)

The scale of the gulags declines after Stalin’s death, but it never quite disappears.

Neither self-sustaining nor productive in the long run, the system required tremendous resources, and the economic burden of the camps had weighed heavily on the Soviet Union in wartime.

Still, as historian Steven Barnes has pointed out, ‘The Soviet leadership never entertained the notion of dismantling the system.’ The USSR had always had a camp system; its tendrils had grown into agriculture and industry, as well as becoming a key facet of government interactions with citizens. The Gulag was intrinsic to the state itself. (p.155)

And then there’s this passage, about the camp at Solovki, which was almost painful to read:

Prisoners heard from the radio station that [Maxim] Gorky was coming. Detainees could hardly wait for him to tell the world what was happening on Solovki: ‘Gorki will spot everything, find out everything. ... About the logging and the torture on the tree stumps, the sekirka [punishment cells], the hunger, the disease... the sentences without conviction.... The whole lot!’

Before Gorky’s visit, contingents of prisoners were hidden in the forest to lessen evidence of overcrowding. Sick patients were given new gowns to wear ... . Gorky visited the sick bay, a labor camp, and stopped in at the children’s colony that had been formed since Likhachev first encountered the urchins hiding under his bunk.

Gorky asked to speak to one boy privately and stayed with him a long time. Standing outside with the rest of the crowd, Likhachev counted forty minutes on the watch his father had given him. He recounts that Gorky emerged weeping and climbed the stairway to the punishment cell at Sekirka.

Yet when Gorky’s anxiously awaited piece on the trip came out, the section about Solovki was relegated to Part Five of the report, with the devastating conclusion that ‘camps such as “Solovki” were absolutely necessary. ... Only by this road would the state achieve in the fastest possible time one of its aims: to get rid of prisons.’

The German system, of course, did not start out as a program of genocide. It did not even necessarily start out as a program of forced labor (i.e., slavery) like in Russia. Its immediate predecessors, in fact, might be said to be the concentration camps established before the Nazis even came to power to keep Roma away from cities like Frankfurt (cf. p. 183); the Roma were subject to registry before any racial laws about Jews were passed, before the Nazis ever took power, and they were swept up along with the homeless during the Olympics to keep them out of sight of the international press (p. 187). But as the classes of political prisoners and other undesirables swelled, so did the concentration camp system.

Once war broke out, of course, the temptation to use prisoners for war industry was not resisted.

By late 1941, the camps had grown dense and squalid from the flood of detainees arriving from abroad, yet the war placed still more demands on the camps. ... a complex network of labor projects emerged, spread across thousands of sites. Every camp and subcamp used prisoner labor in some fashion. Prisoners working for the I.G. Farben rubber plant lived in a dedicated compound at Auschwitz. Fur linings in the coats of the SS came from hutches of rabbits under the administration of prisoners at Dachau. At Neuengamme, detainees were set to work clearing rubble from the bombed roads and buildings outside Hamburg. ... Both Nazis and Soviets went to war on the backs of their concentration camp prisoners. Forced-labor Gulag efficiency expert Naftaly Frenkel had suggested the system be optimized to get the most out of prisoners in their first three months, after which they were disposable. He would have been ideally placed to appreciate that before the end of the war, average life expectancy at Neuengamme concentration camp had dropped to twelve weeks. (p. 200-201)

What is perhaps the most bitter flourish on the German concentration camp system is that there was a very real possibility it could have been entirely avoided. Pitzer argues that even after the death of Hindenberg and Hitler’s adoption of the title Fuehrer, there was a very real possibility that the Nazi regime might have proceeded along (still cruel, still inhumane, still racist) legalistic lines, keeping continuity with German law, rather than relying on extrajudicial terror. Himmler’s desire to strengthen his position within the government and the purge of Rohm and the SA led to him expanding the concentration camp system further; and this was what ensured that, when the systematic, wholesale extermination of the Jews was decided upon, there was a preexisting infrastructure in place to facilitate it. (see p. 178-179) In the early years, local prosecutors actively sought to arrest and try sadistic guards, and the notion that the concentration camps were sites of abuse or torture was hotly contested.

In his first months as commandant at Dachau, Theodor Eicke flew into a rage, haranguing prisoners about the vicious rumors in the community about conditions there. Reminding them that detainees had already been killed for spreading word about the camp--including Dr. Katz, who had helped so many prisoners--Eicke threatened that more could be executed at any point. He seemed especially offended by any suggested comparison to Soviet tactics. ‘There are no atrocities and there is no Cheka cellar in Dachau!’ he insisted. ‘Anybody whipped deserves to be whipped.’

Even the Nazis, one supposes, would balk at being compared to the Nazis.

Special mention goes to two people in this section of the book: Margarete Buber-Neumann, a German communist who fled to Russia and, who along with her husband, was arrested and thrown into the gulag. She survived; her husband did not--but survived only to be handed over to the Nazis after the invasion of Poland, as part of a prisoner exchange, whereupon she was shipped to a Nazi concentration camp. She survived the war, at least, and seven years total of internment; she lived until 1989.

Hans Beimler was a Communist elected three times to the Reichstag, the last in May of 1933. He was arrested in April and imprisoned in Dachau, where he was repeatedly beaten and humiliated and encouraged to kill himself. Nighttime beatings and the murder of his cellmates (some of whom were friends of his) made him resolve to escape, since he figured it would be better to be shot trying to break out than to be murdered and have it staged to look like a suicide.

[A] friend who was a prisoner outside the bunker managed to slip him a tool to unscrew the grate over his window and tin snips to help manage the barbed wire. Later reports claimed he strangled a storm trooper and took his clothing, but Beimler simply crawled out of his high window, taking a board with him. He navigated three layers of barbed wire--the middle one electrified--using the wood for insulation, and climbed onto the six-foot wall surrounding the camp’s exterior. Waiting there a moment to make sure he had not been seen, he jumped down the other side and made his way to Munich.

The next morning, Steinbrenner arrived to find an empty cell. Frantic searches were made, prisoners were interrogated. For some time, guardhouse staff remained certain Beimler was hiding somewhere on the grounds. Dogs were used to search, and a hundred-mark reward was posted in the local paper Amper-Bote. But Beimler remained in hiding until he could safely get to Berlin and cross the border to the east.

Once out of the country, he mailed a postcard to Dachau telling the camp commanders to kiss his ass. Some three months after his escape, he was sitting in Moscow writing a searing indictment of Nazi atrocities. It was printed in three languages and circled the globe. (p. 173-174)

It’s important to observe that no system of mass detention ever sets out with the cruelty that (sooner or later) inevitably manifests in mind. From reconcentracion in Cuba to the Nazi crimes, there is never a single point of no return for the countries involved, nor a single moment of moral clarity where the architects of these policies are forced to confront what they are creating. It is always possible for those responsible to hide behind precedent, behind political rhetoric, behind expedient to justify to the rest of the world as to why their camps are not only right but necessary, to argue away any evidence for the gravity of these sins as ‘a few bad apples’ or ‘an unfortunate excess.’

And the corollary to this is that you will never get one moment you can point to and say to the people around you, “Look! There it is! That’s the moral event horizon, and they just crossed it. You can’t possibly support them now.” Because there will always be a way for people to rationalize their support of such policies. I suspect the only antidote, individual or collective, is an ironclad moral will that rejects the dehumanization of others outright--and to fight like hell to shut such evils down when they first begin to appear.

This all has obvious relevance to the present political moment--that’s why Pitzer was on Hayes’ podcast, that’s why I wanted to read this book to begin with. I don’t think that, outside genuine, self-described neo-Nazis, even in the darkest imagination of the most reflexively prejudiced Trump supporter, the desire for Soviet or Nazi-style gulags exists, I really don’t. But things can always get worse. The cruelties build on themselves incrementially--and the only way to prevent that, to actually make sure that kind of thing can’t happen here (or anything like it--there is, after all, plenty of evil that is not outright genocide) is to refuse to permit the creation of the institutions that are its necessary predecessors.

[rex101111]

Following Orders.

Rating: E

Warning: Gore, blood, body horror, Mentioned attempted suicide, Holocaust mentions, civilians getting shot by nazi soldiers (the usual awful things).

Right so I recently got into The Magnus Archives so I had to contribute something :D blame @imbeccablee she introduced me to it. You should check it out it’s REALLY fun if you into horror and podcasts and horror podcasts :D

Anyway enjoy!

"Statement of; Johan Hess. Regarding an encounter in France during his time in the German army around the Normandy landings.

Statement Originally taken: December 15th, 1981

Recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Statement begins;"  

-_-

The phrase "I was just following orders" is the emptiest thing a soldier could say. It is a pathetic, cowardly attempt to dodge responsibility by pinning it on your superiors. You throw away your choice, the option that you could have done different, by claiming you had no choice at all from the moment you placed yourself in uniform and became just another face in a firing line.

Of course I shot those civilians, I was following orders.

Of course I burned that house down, I was following orders.

Everyone was following orders, everyone was shooting each other and walking in lockstep as they were told to march, march forward onto hell and onto death and onto the enemy's bullets and bayonets without a thought.

We were all just. Following orders.

It's the excuse, and that it all it will ever be, an excuse, given by soldiers in the Great War when questioned about the mustard gas in the trenches. It's the answer you'll get from the soldiers that came back from Vietnam with mud between their fingers and blood in their teeth.

And it was the excuse I used, every single day of my life, from the moment I joined the German Military during World War Two. It is the excuse I use to get up from my bed in the morning, the one I used when I hugged my wife and had to convince myself I had the right to say that I loved her, the one I used day in and day out even after the true scope of what the Fuhrer had done to the morals of my country and the values we held dear.

I know it is a lie, that the cause for that war was corrupt and cruel from the very beginning, I have always known, but that lie is the only reason I managed to keep the barrel of my gun out of my mouth after we saw the...footage.

Have you ever seen pictures of the survivors of the death camps? Those gaunt figures with their bones nearly sticking out of their skin? Bodies, dressed in filthy rags, so emaciated that they barely appeared to be human? Their eyes filled with pain and fear?

How about film? Even in black and white, the way they moved, as if struggling against the wind lest it folded them in two, spoke to the depth of the horror and cruelty those people endured.

My people did that, my countrymen did that to those people. My neighbors and friends dragged them out of their homes, shaved them bald, starved them, beat them, put them into rooms filled with death, stripped them of everything that made them human until all was left was a massive hole in the ground filled with meat and blood.

 And I allowed it to happen, me and every other soldier in that army when we put on those uniforms. As we swept through Europe like a hive of locusts, stripping the land bare and dragging people kicking and screaming from their homes and gave Hitler and his sycophants more power and territory. I was not one of those animals, those soulless demons of the SS, but the blood on my hands was the same as the blood on theirs.

 Both of us allowed those terrors to happen. The only difference between them and I is that they did of that all directly, with full knowledge of what would happen to those poor Jews and Blacks and anyone deemed lesser. I was a fool, placing my fingers in my ears and refusing to see things as they were.

 My fellow soldiers were the same, high on patriotic fervor that blinded them to what our fatherland had become. I didn't join the Wehrmacht to kill people, though I knew that it would be asked of me, I joined because the thought of my friends and family dying out there alone made me sick. I wanted to do my part, and every article in the newspaper and every poster on the streets and every speech on the radio convinced me that my part was to hold a gun and shot until I was either dead or we won.

 Even as we turned on the Russians and operation Barbarossa failed miserably, even as the Americans started landing on the beaches of France, even as more and more of my fellow soldiers died around me, I was convinced that I needed to do my part.

 That all changed in a single night.

 I was stationed in France, near the Eawy forest, on June 13, a week after the Allies began landing on Normandy. I was sent to France almost as soon as I finished my training, almost two years previous, and had been to many places in that time. France is a beautiful place, its cities gleamed and its nature spanned wide and far in many places.

 It pained me in a way I refuse to say out loud to have to visit this place with guns and tanks.

 I was a part of a unit made to combat partisans and French rebels hiding in the forest, rooting out encampments between the trees and keeping the local population in line and stop them from thinking to do anything as foolish as fighting back.

 My unit passed through many villages in the forests of France, burning and pillaging as we went. Our commander, Heinrich Werner, was a vicious man who believed the word of Hitler down to his bones. He ordered us to take every Jewish civilian we could find in every village we passed, gather them in the town square, and shoot them were they stood.

 He often complained aloud at how unsatisfied he was at his position and placement, only growing louder as news of the Americans landing on the beaches reached us and we all stayed put. I suspect he exercised this cruelty to prove himself in some way, to show he should be fighting the allies instead of hunting in the forest for rebels with rusty weapons. If that was true than he failed miserably, and only grew more and more cruel as time wore on.

 Man, woman, child, elder, Werner wanted them all dead to the last. It mattered not that they screamed or begged, his voice was calm and steely as he ordered us to bring our rifles to bare.

 And no matter how they screamed and pleaded and cried, we all did as he said, we all followed our orders.

 None of us hesitated, none of us questioned, none of us were shot for disobedience. Every time, we lined up our rifles, steadied our grip, and pulled our triggers as one. You never appreciate how loud a gunshot could be until you put your hands on an actual firearm. Movies will try, but the sheer noise a gun makes when you tell it to help you take a life is something that can't be replicated.

 Imagine a wall of noise, slamming into the center of your chest. For a split second, every single one of your bones rattle inside your flesh. The liquid in your eyes shivers from the shock, blurring your world for a long moment.

 And then, nothing. Your shot echoes out, slowly dying in the air, but all you hear is nothing. The world is a void of sound and noise, the shot ringing in your ears is gone almost as soon as it arrived. When you are part of a firing line, you not only have to suffer the shock from your own weapon, but the weapons to your sides as well, walls of the noise crushing you from all directions at once.

 It deafens you, even after your ears either adjust to the noise or are so damaged by constant gunfire that it no longer stings, those walls of noise steal every sound from the world for a few moments.

 Just long enough for you to hear the bodies of your targets fall to the earth. You shot someone while they stand and they fall apart from the bottom up. First their legs give out, lacking the strength to hold up the weight, and then they slump forward or backwards, laying on the ground as if their strings were cut.

 The thud of flesh hitting the ground, be it mud or cobblestone or bricks, is unavoidable. You can't escape it. Even if you fill the air with so much noise and fire and death that you can't even hear your thoughts from the lead all around you, you can always feel the moment someone hits the ground and begins staining it with blood.

 And if your bullet is the one that caused it, the thud echoes. It reverberates through your chest and lodges itself between your lungs, and for a long time after you hear it with every breath you manage to pull.

 The nights after we raided a village were always quiet after that, each of us making sure not to look each other in the eyes as we ate our rations and crawled into our sleeping bags.

 Until one night, when Werner started screaming at us to get up, "On your feet! Everyone in uniform! NOW! EVERYONE OF YOU GET UP!" I remember those words exactly, even after all those years, like he had just shouted them right in my ear. It was the first time I ever heard anything other than cold satisfaction or cruel excitement from the man. This time, every single word he spoke was quivering with shock, even as he tried to hide it with his orders.

 It was a rush of people in the dark, elbowing me and hissing at me to hurry up as I shook the sleep from my bones and put my uniform on in a near blind panic. I was the last to get ready and follow the rest of the soldiers to the center of our makeshift camp.

 I was not very close with many of the soldiers in my unit, despite how long we spent together. I was never an overtly social person even back home, so I exceled at making sure I never stepped on anyone's toes, but suffice it to say no one there considered me a friend and I extended them the same courtesy.

 None of that made the sight of a mangled pile of body parts any less shocking to me. Least of all because I recognized the soldier it had once been. It was Karl, one of the riflemen that always seemed to be the most eager to file into a firing line when Werner started barking orders.

 He was pulled apart like an old doll, each of his limbs bleeding profusely from ragged stumps on the torso they were arranged on, with his head on the very top of the pile as some sort of vicious centerpiece.

 And his face. His face was the worst of it, instead of a blank stare like that of a drowning fish, or the twist of dying agony and terror I had so grown used to over the two years of my service, instead his face was the very picture of fathomless sorrow. His eyes were as if on the verge of weeping, his mouth closed in a mournful grimace.

 I felt myself drawn into those eyes, the clear blue of it glinting in the moonlight as I stared. I could swear they were filling up with unshed tears as I continued to gaze in numb horror and felt a deep, shredding dread cutting up the pit of my stomach.

 I could hear more than a few of my fellows retching at the sight, and I was barely able to hold back my own bile as Karl's blood continued to pool around the flesh of his mangled corpse.

 Werner was pacing back and forth, breathing heavily through his nose as he glared at us. "Who did this?" He asked us, voice trembling with some mix of anger and fear. "One of you must have heard something, did anyone see?"

 We all looked at each other uneasily, none of us having heard a thing before Werner had started screaming. He started shouting at us again, calling us all idiots, pathetic excuses for soldiers if someone could just walk into our camp and kill one of our own and get away with it.

 He continued shouting meaningless insults for another full minute, wildly gesturing with every word as he seemed to try and wring out his own fear, before he stopped abruptly, leaning his ears towards the deep, dark woods.

 We did the same, and all of us flinched at once when a deep, loud noise rumbled from between the tree trunks. Nothing human could have made that sound, and I heard no animal capable of anything like it either. It was something between the growl of a bear and the dying gasp of our many victims, echoing with a mix of anger and hate, and it made the dread in my stomach burn more and more brightly.

 Werner snapped at us once more, barking at us to gather our rifles and flashlights, and to march with him into the woods to hunt down whatever was, "making a fool of him." His face was twisted with anger and denial, as if the murder of his soldier and the noise was accusing him of something, and his pride was refusing to take it laying down.

 It said something of German Military discipline when there was only a short moment of hesitation before we all began to gather our equipment, all of us defaulting to the one thing our basic training had drilled into our heads in the face of this horror.

 We followed our orders.

 Again, I had fallen a bit behind, only one of the other soldiers, Wilhelm, waiting for me for a moment before continuing on to the group gathering in front of the woods with Werner. My hands were still shaking from the pile of body parts, unable to stop myself from stealing glances at it as I gathered my things.

 As I finished attaching the bayonet to my rifle, something caught my eye near what was once Karl. A piece of paper, resting on the palm of one of the hands, not flying off in the breeze despite the fingers being spread open.

 I walked over to the paper almost without thinking, the sounds of Werner shouting orders and warnings to the other soldiers sounding muffled, as if through water. With every step I took towards it, Werner sounded further and further away, finally falling silent as I stood right next to the outstretched, severed palm of my fellow soldier.

 It was a note, on it a single word, scrawled in French, the letters scratched and thin.

 I learned more than a little French back at home, my mother being from Paris, and the word on that note was unmistakable.

 In the beginning, the Jews we executed merely whimpered at us, begging for their lives. As time wore on, as the French people became more emboldened by the resistance and the allies pushing us back, they began shouting at us in rage and anger.

 They shouted many things, but one word kept repeating, over and over, the children screaming first, before their parents joined in. The word echoing in my ears even as the gunshots died on the wind.

 The same word on that note, the letters changing color from ink black to a familiar red as I stared at it, burning themselves in my mind as the note started to bleed from them.

 Monsters.    

 I was suddenly wrenched from my trance when I heard Wilhelm calling out to me, the rest of the unit, 29 men in all including myself, Wilhelm and Werner, already deep in the woods. I looked back at Karl's palm for a moment, and saw that it was empty.

 I shook my head and followed Wilhelm's call, barely hearing Werner shouting marching orders at the head of the party. I took a breath and marched forward with clenched teeth, feeling the woods swallow me whole.

 Forests at night were a terrible thing. Without the sunlight filtering through the canopy, they were utterly pitch black in every direction, only the occasional ray of light from the moon piercing through to barely illuminate anything.

 You could hear every little sound in the night, owls flying between branches, insects and lizards scrabbling up the bark, the trees attempting to deafen you while you were blind. Only the solid footfalls of my unit walking together gave me some sense of place, and whenever I looked away, the dark seemed to stretch out for miles.

 The Eawy Forest is one of the largest in France, over six and a half thousand hectares of forest, a border of trees on the northern edge of Pays de Bray. You could literally walk for miles, hours, weeks in these woods if you got turned around. And in the dark, the trees stretch out into the abyss no matter how hard you look.

 You could hide a body in these woods, and it would be months before anyone found what was left of it. There could be an enemy hiding behind every trunk, every errant bush, and the possibility of that seemed to finally enter Werner's head as we walked on and into the woods.

 More than once, a loud snap would sound from a direction, and every one of us would whip our rifles to shot whatever made the foolish decision to be alive and moving within our sight. Every time, there was nothing, and Werner would growl at us to keep our wits and keep marching, his voice losing more and more of its edge with each repetition.

 I don't know how long we moved through those pitch black trees, at some point my mind was panicking over why we hadn't seen the sun yet, thinking we must have walked for hours now.

 Me feet ached, but I dared not complain, not even as a matter of discipline, but more that the thought struck me that if something in these woods heard me admit a weakness, it would be the last thing I would ever do.

 And so we walked, deeper and deeper, almost in a trance, not a single one of us daring to speak a word, fingers tight around our weapons. In that silence, I noticed the sounds of the woods stopped as well. Wilhelm looking over his shoulder at me, a ray of moon light illuminating his face just enough for me to catch the worry in his pinched brow.

 I could only shrug helplessly at whatever silent question he threw at me, and he turned away with a silent grimace.

 All of a sudden, we stopped, Werner having apparently seen something and ordered a halt. One by one, the unit began to spread out wide and forward, with me at the very back I could only see why when the motion reached me about a minute or so later.

 We reached a clearing, large enough to fit all thirty of us and still leave room to spread our arms out. The moon was shining brightly, perfectly lighting up the clearing even though it had almost completely waned.

 I looked around at the rest of the unit, seeing them all stare ahead at something at the far end of the clearing, all of them still perfectly silent with Werner the furthest in. I leaned my head up to see what it was, not trusting my voice enough to risk breaking whatever heavy silence had fallen on us all with a question, and then felt the bile rise again in my throat as I caught the smell.

 The acrid scent of old, stagnant blood filled the air. Every breath I took was laced with the pungent odor of rotting, fetid meat, and the source was right in front of me, but I could not see. Images of torn city streets flashed in my mind, bodies strewn about haphazardly and left to bleed and rot in the sun, crows and maggots picking at their flesh.

Some force of morbid curiosity pulled me forward, the same mindless walk that led me to the note in Karl's hand, and I was about 10 feet away from Werner when I saw what he was staring at.

 And saw him shaking like a leaf in the wind, whimpering like a child.

 It was a pool, about 30 feet wide and stretching out into the dark of the forest, it's surface calm and smooth as glass, and the moon light blooming in the clearing reflected of it perfectly.

 The smell, fetid and stagnant and rotten, was the strongest right at the lip of the pool, and the moonlight made it impossible to miss the deep, red color of the water.

 No, not water, the more I looked the more I was certain that not a single drop of water was in that pool. The bile rose in my throat and burned it as I stared at this huge pool of blood, smelling of decay and sorrow so strongly it nearly knocked me off feet, and so thick I could not see through it.

 I desperately wanted to look away, to hold my nose and turn on my heel and flee from this place with all my might, but I was rooted to the spot. Despite my horror, something else rose in my chest, a crushing feeling of guilt stuck itself between my lungs and stopped me from breathing, and tears started welling up in my eyes as I continued to stare at this massive pool of red.

 A Knowing grew in my head, a certainty that would have dragged me to my knees had I been able to move. I spilt this blood, I filled this pool to the brim with every trigger I pulled, I couldn't look away, I had no right to look away. All I could do was weep and feel the bile I could not vomit churn in the back of my throat.

 I could vaguely hear the soldiers around me whimpering along with Werner and myself, some of them whispering desperate apologies and gagging on their own vomit as we stared at this pool of gore we all made.

 After what felt like an eternity of begging for forgiveness and staring unblinking at that pool of blood, the glass like surface of the pool began to ripple outwards from the center, something moving just below the blood.

 The ripples began inching closer and closer to the edge of the pool, closer to us, before stopping dead and vanishing all at once. We all fell silent and held our breaths as we stared at where the ripples were, waiting for…something.

 Almost without warning, an arm shot out of the crimson pool, and started clawing at the grass. Before we could fully understand what we were seeing, a second arm joined the first, and together they started pulling at the ground, dragging something, someone, out of the blood.

 It stood up slowly, painfully, blood dripping off in rivulets and pooling near its feet instead of sinking into the ground. It was barely the size of a child, limbs thin and muscles emaciated. They wore bloody rags, the cloth sticking to its skin, through which I could see bones nearly bulging out, bent at odd angles.

 Its hair was shaved in irregular patterns, and what hair it had was soaked with blood like the rest of it. It kept its head down, taking deep, ragged breaths. Every inch of me was screaming at me to run, that what I was seeing was wrong, that staying where I was meant death in every sense.

 But I did not move, the Knowing that told me I made the pool told me that this is where I needed to be, and I could do nothing but stay, and wait.

 It raised its head, and it wore the face of a child, the face of every child. The face of every child I saw while I went to school, the face of every child I saw dragged kicking and screaming to the trains, the face of every child I saw at the far end of my rifle.

 Its eyes were a deep brown flecked with red, mud on a rainy battlefield, and the sheer depth of hatred in its eyes made me feel like someone was ripping me in two. It hated us, this thing from the pool, hated us all, personally, on the deepest level possible. It hated me, for everything that I was, everything that I am, for everything that I ever did in that pointless, cruel war.

 Its jaw started twitching, wrenching open with a sickening sound of stretching flesh, and a sound began coming out of its throat, slowly forming into a word.

 I knew the word before it said it, before it scowled at us and its face twisted into an overwhelming expression of sheer rage. I could feel the word burning in my mind as it took a deep, wet breath between its blood stained, jagged, broken teeth.

 Monsters.

 It spoke with the voice of a little girl, word dry and ragged in the air like it hadn't had a drop of water for years, and it echoed deep into the woods and deep in my bones and I could not argue with it at all.

 It said it again, and again, and again, the same word, the same accusation, over and over and over.

 It called us monsters, in French, in German, in Hebrew, and more and more and even when it spoke in a language I had never heard before I knew what it said, knew every implication and every nuance and every inch of hate in the words it used.

 And I knew, know, that it, that she, was right.

 We were monsters, every single one of one of us, and we had earned the hate in her eyes. Every. Last. Inch of it.

 I felt myself fall to my knees, tears of shame and fear and sorrow running down my face as the words flowed through my blood and strangled my heart. I heard the soldiers around me do the same, their whimpers replaced with broken sobbing as the words sank into the trees behind us and went on, on into the wind until all was silent again.

 She stood there for a moment, sweeping a hateful, furious scowl all around the clearing as she took us all in. And she scoffed, but said nothing in response to the weeping and sobbing of the men, cowards, monsters, around her.

 She began walking forward, her steps landing in a loud squelch of wet dirt, the blood dripping off her form never seeming to end as she closed the distance between her and the sobbing mess that was Heinrich Werner.

 She stood in front of the bawling man for a long moment, staring down at him as he fell apart under her burning hateful gaze. He said nothing intelligible, all he could manage was a long string of blubbering and tear soaked pleas for mercy. His voice went on and on, growing more and more hoarse until I was sure I started to see blood mix with his spit from the strain and yet he kept begging her. Begging her to spare him.

 Even as she ripped off his right arm, gripping it with boney fingers and slowly ripping the flesh away from him he continued to beg.

 She ripped off his other arm, his legs, cut open his stomach to let his entrails spread across the grass, and yet he kept begging.

 She grabbed his head with both hands, her broken teeth grinding together as she started to pull, and only then did he stopped begging, and started screaming.

 His head screamed and screamed, even as the last strips of flesh connecting his neck to his skull snapped away with a wet sound. It screamed and screamed and screamed, the sound ringing in my ears and rattling the teeth in my head, before she crushed it between her palms, the gore of Werner flying off in odd directions, spraying me and the other soldiers in blood and liquids I dare not name.

 She grabbed the body parts she pulled from Werner, and dragged them to the pool, tossing them into the deep, dark red with a careless gesture. The ripples died almost as soon as they started, the opaque blood swallowing the meat ravenously until nothing remained.

 And then she went to Wilhelm, and the begging, the tearing, the screaming, it all started again.

And again with the next.

 And the next.

 And the next.

 All around me the soldiers begged and then screamed and then were devoured by the pool as she ripped them apart one by one. I could not move, not to run, not to look over my shoulder to see her claiming her pound of flesh from us. All I could do was sit on my knees, the tears continuing to fall down my face, and wait.

 Soon, the last soldier screamed their last behind me, and she walked passed me to TOSS the meat into the pool. She stood in front of it for a long moment, the wind whispering between us as I waited.

 Slowly, painfully slowly, she turned to face me, the hate in her eyes burning just as brightly as when she first emerged. She pinned me down, stopping my shaking and crying and even my breathing as her face twisted into a soundless snarl.

 I blinked and she was right in front of me.

 She waited, waited for me to beg, to scream, to plead.

 I opened and closed my mouth, trying to say the same as the rest of my unit, but my voice refused to leave my throat to say them. I was a monster, just like they were, I deserved no less and no more than what she did to them.

 But when I finally spoke, when my voice finally formed into words, all I could manage was a sob.

 I took one last breath, and using strength I did not have, by the force of a will I did not deserve, I looked right into her eyes, her burning, piercing eyes, and said, "I'm sorry."

 No excuses, no begging, no pleading for mercy or cries of fear. Nothing more than apology, weightless and pointless in the face of my sins, but it was all I could manage to say.

 For a moment, for a single second, the hate in her eyes were replaced with shock, her face dropping the burning scowl she's had from the beginning. I could see her for the first time, truly see the young girl behind the gore and blood that called us all monsters with such conviction. And the guilt sunk in my chest again, and the Knowing came back and told me that I did this to her, and more tears fell again.

 As soon as that Knowing passed through my mind, the hate returned to her eyes, twice hot and making my heart drop to the bottom of my stomach, before I could say another word, a plea or another worthless apology, her fingers clenched the flesh of my shoulder and pulled, ripping my arm without a hint of resistance.

 The pain blitzed through every inch of me, burning so bright I couldn't even scream, but the urge to do so blared in my mind so brightly it nearly blinded me. Before I could even fully comprehend the pain, she grabbed me by the collar of my uniform shirt, and started beating me furiously about the head and face.

 She did so soundlessly, no grunts of exertion, no growls of anger, but in the brief moment before she landed each blow, I could see her face. The scowl was still there, still as accusing and raging as it had been since the beginning. But between her beating my face to a pulp I could see something reflecting the moon light off her cheeks, and in the delirium of pain I realized they were tears.

 The beating went on for what felt like hours, but soon she dropped my bloodied form on the grass. She looked down at me like I was a piece of filth stuck to her shoe, face impassive as I spat red stained spit and teeth on the ground.

 My vision began to blur, but before oblivion could embrace me fully, she grabbed me by the shortened hair on my bleeding scalp and began dragging me towards the pool. I dared not struggle, knowing, Knowing, that she was pulling me to a fate I deserved.

 I think I managed one more blood soaked apology before I blacked out, but I was never sure.

 Next thing I remember; I was in a field hospital in the village of Ventes-Saint-Remy, with a missing arm and nearly my entire body covered in bandages. My head especially was heavily wrapped in gauze with the exception of a single eye.

 A nurse was the first thing that I was able to focus on, she was speaking to me in calming, gentle French, asking for my name.

 Without thinking, I answered in French, and she smiled at me with kindness I will never deserve.

 I did not tell her I was a German soldier, and she did not think I was. Apparently I was found in the woods by a couple of young boys, naked as the day I was born and covered in wounds. That was months ago.

 It was December, she told me with a grateful and tearful smile, and the Germans were losing.

 If you asked me why I didn't tell her who I truly was, or what had happened to me, the only answer I could give you is that I was a coward. That I am a coward. But whatever the reason was, I spent the rest of the war in that hospital, slowly regaining my strength under the care of that nurse.

 Her name was Irene, and her kindness and heart were more than I will ever deserve.

 As the war ended, I found my way back to Germany, and saw my home in ruins. I did not live in Berlin or anywhere that far east, so I was somehow spared having Stalin and his Soviets watching my every move.

 But I never forgot that night in the forest, where my whole company payed the price they owed for being monsters. I spent years waiting for a court martial, or for someone to unearth some document that proved I was the unit that burned lives and towns in France and for an angry mob to demand my head.

 But it never came, it was like I never fired a gun or served in the army a day in my life. Whenever I asked my parents about it, they acted like I spoke nonsense, that I never spent a day in France, much less as a member of the Wehrmacht. They said my injuries were because of some car accident, or the result of a building fire, every time I asked they were confused as to why I didn't remember and refused to speak further of the matter.

 I started to believe that perhaps I imagined it all, that perhaps my nightmare in the French forest was just that. A nightmare.

 Years passed, I started a family, had children, and tried to ignore that alien feeling of guilt that sliced up my stomach whenever I passed a Jewish temple. It was a nightmare, it had to be, and that was what I was able to convince myself.

 Until the pictures started coming out, until the trial in Israel began appearing in the newspapers. Until footage of the full scale of what would be known as the Holocaust became public knowledge.

 I went to a newly opened museum in my home town, and with every display, with every picture, with every frame of film, the terror I remember from that night returned to me in full force.

 Gaunt figures, broken teeth, shaved heads, every one of them a reminder of that blood filled night in the forest.

 I can still remember that moment, that instant where I recognized a face in a group photo, a young girl in rags. The face nearly made me vomit in the hall, but when I saw the caption of the picture, saying it was taken in France, I collapsed then and there and rushed to a hospital.

 I never told my family the truth that I could no longer deny. Not my wife, not my children, not my grandchildren. Even as I had irrevocable prove of the punishment I had suffered, I could never find the courage to admit to the ones I loved that I was a monster.

 I spent the last few years applying myself to charities for the survivors of what my people did. I spent back breaking hours in soup kitchens and rallies, I devoted every second I had to make the apology I breathed in the forest air mean something.

 It was never enough, even as people received help and money and hugged me so fiercely I thought they would snap me in half it was never enough. And I never told a soul that I wore the same uniform as those that treated them like animals.

 Until today.

 Understand, I did not come here for absolution, or aide, this was simply a long needed confession from me. It is getting harder and harder to get out of bed, my wife passed away years back, and my children and their children barely keep in touch with me anymore.

 I have run out of excuses, I can no longer hide behind the orders that told me to commit such horrible sins. I will forever be a monster, no amount of charity or apologies will change that, but me being a coward? That is something firmly within my control.

 I do not expect you to find anything, or even believe this crazy, one armed man who suddenly appeared on your doorstep. That's okay, giving me a chance to write this story down, even if no one will ever read it, was more than enough.

 Thank you, all the same. And for the tea.

 It may seem small to you, but to a monster like me? It's more than I will ever deserve.

-_-

"Statement ends. Johan Hess died two months after giving this statement, so any chance of a personal follow up is impossible as this point.

 Further, considering that he recounted events that happens forty years previous, even Gertrude could not find much with what little investigation she did. According to German Military records that have survived from the French Occupation, no unit such as the one that Hess claimed he belonged to ever existed, at least not anywhere near Eawy Forest.

 In fact, there is indeed no document stating that Mr. Hess served during the war at all, so nobody remembering he went to France is no big surprise.

 There is a picture of him included in the statement, which does show an extensive amount of injuries to his face along with a missing left arm, but that hardly proves anything. Finding anything about any building fires or car accidents that could have given him those injuries have also turned up nothing.

 He didn't lie about his contributions to charity work to support Holocaust survivors, and there was a report of him being rushed to the hospital after collapsing in a museum, but that's where anything solid about what is said in this statement stops.

 I would dismiss this report entirely, if not for one thing regarding his death. The death itself was not as…visceral as what had allegedly happened to his unit, simply a heart attack in his sleep. But his neighbor, who had reported his death to the police and called an ambulance, found something clenched in his hand.

 It was a note, written in French. The neighbor, as well as the rest of the tenets in the building where Mr. Hess was staying, does not speak a word of French, and handwriting analysis determined that Mr. Hess did not write it himself. Translated, it reads as follows:

 Not a monster. Not anymore.

 End Recording."

[chaniters]

SUNKEN TOWN

Episode 4 of my Awan Cormac second series! (Belonging to @kruk-art)

Spoilers in this one too!

Enjoy!

__________________________

Rangers HQ

“There’s nothing there!” Anathema says, enhancing the image

“We just need to go over the parameters. Can you switch to thermal readings?”

“Already did and it’s not turning up anything” 

“Why are we letting the civilian into the city’s camera security feed again?” Steel complains.

“If he thinks he’s onto something,” Ortega says tiredly “We ought to try”

“Combine thermal and visual trough this filter,” you say handing him a Data-rod.  “That should get us what we want” 

“Sure, but I think we’re a bit past filters by now. This isn’t going to… “ he stops mid-sentence as the image changes radically 

“...wow. You’ve got to be joking!” he says as the image shows a ghostly figure walking the streets, unseen by all civilians.

“I told you he was using cloaking devices!” you say exasperated.

Ortega goes silent as he observes Void leave the camera’s fixed angle. 

Anathema doesn’t wait for your cue and applies the same procedure to other cameras. Soon, they begin showing images of Void, setting up the hospital attack from the shadows. 

“That’s enough, the tech team can take it from here,” Ortega says putting a palm on Anathema’s shoulder. Technicians begin duplicating the procedure over the rest of the city-wide security feed as you all follow him to the meeting room. 

“Good job, Sidestep,” he says with a smile

……………………………………………………….

It takes hours, and they won’t even let you back into the tech-room. Your access got rescinded after Steel started quoting regulations. Nothing to do but wait and you’re in no mood for Ortega’s shenanigans. 

You keep fiddling with your targeting jammer, trying to amplify its powers, since that’s all you can really do. The ranger tech-tools you stole are admittedly better than your old work tools at home, and you want to fine-tune the hell out of it for the next time you meet Void. 

An annoying tingling at the back of your skull starts distracting you from your work, while you do your best to ignore it. Contrary to what you would expect, It doesn’t go away but begins burning mercilessly, like a hot iron. No. Not iron.

“What?” you say without turning, as you feel you can’t take it anymore.  

“I see you already helped yourself to our tech,” Steel says, arms crossed, staring at you. 

“I shared something, so it’s only fair you share something in return, don’t you think?” you retort. You generally respect Steel but you’re on edge. 

You. Are. Not. Having. It. Today. 

“I want to stop that asshole, just like you and rescue all the patients while at it. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“You seem to know an awful lot about Void”

“We do have a history. Ortega knows that already, I think he told you unless I imagined that part”

“No one fully explained what that history is, and I don’t think he knows either.”

“I helped stop him last time in case you forget!”

“Maybe so, but I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on. And I think we’re going to be at risk because you’re holding on to information.”

He’s right, and you know he’s right. But you can’t really tell him that Void was trained by a government program that creates artificial humans because that would lead to a whole different can of worms. “I told you everything I know about his mods!”

“Yes, you did. Still, I also know cloaking devices like that are experimental army tech that you’re not even supposed to know about. How you have a filter capable of seeing through it, that’s what I’m wondering.”

“Experimental stuff gets misplaced all the time, right? Like drugs that kill people or give them powers. You’re seriously coming at me because the army lost another toy? I’ve just happened to have seen this stuff before” At least this is the truth. Void’s cloaking is government made, and they misplaced it. Big time. How Void got authorization to even use back when you were both in the farm it is something that you always wondered about. Whoever handled it to him back then must be regretting it very much now that he’s gone rogue. 

He says nothing, so you take the chance to speak again.

“If that’s all you got, please go away? I don’t like being stared at”

“I’ll stop when I figure out who do you work for.” 

“What the fuck are you implying?!” you say standing up and facing him… 

“ENOUGH!” Ortega says entering the room. “Can’t I leave you two alone for more than a couple of minutes?”

“I WISH I was alone” you complain under Steel’s glare.

“You know what? You two should just…” Ortega starts before realizing the futility of it all “... whatever. I’m not your nanny… Just came to let you know that we lost them. The trail goes cold when they reach Sunken Town. The cameras end there”

“So when do we leave? I’m ready right now” you state standing up and shoving the scrambler on your backpack

“Nobody’s going right now ... What we’re going to do is keep working on it day and night. There are other… whoa. Wait!” 

You’re already walking to the door, Steel stepping to the side more than happy to have you out of the HQ

“That’s it, I heard enough. I’m going to Sunken Town alone then”

“That area’s not even mapped! And it’s huge! You’re never going to find them like that. And they’ll see you coming from miles away! Our teams are trying to trace their comms… something’s going to show up, we just need to be patient, that’s how these things work!���

“Well, that’s not how I work!”

“But… one does not simply walk into …”

You slam the door leaving him and Steel behind.

“...Sunken town” he finishes the sentence groaning. 

--------------------------------------------

Sunken Town. 

Blacked out on tourists maps of Los Diablos, the government would have it be looked at from afar but never visited. 

Former Los Angeles’ city center, the area was sprawling with skyscrapers right until the big one hit. The city’s iconic skyline turned wasteland in a matter of minutes, as the earthquake seemed to hate this area hardest. What remains now is a labyrinth, of interconnected toppled buildings leaning unsteadily onto each other in odd angles, along with a series of tunnels,  garages, basements and old subway installations.

 The new system combined to create a massive man-made cave system that is constantly expanded further by its duellers in (often catastrophic)  attempts to create new passages and recover pieces of sellable wreckage and valuables.  Everyone refers to it as the “Sunken Town” and only the most desperate dare venture -or live- here, the population consisting mostly of criminals, treasure hunters, social outcasts and the desperate. 

Declared unsafe by virtually every engineering survey, the whole area became abandoned after attempts to bulldoze the rubble caused heavy tremors and deadly incidents with the locals. By all accounts, it is a death-trap with buildings collapsing almost every week and populated by hostile and armed pariahs under the ugly shadows cast by of Los Diablos brand new buildings.  

Ortega wasn’t kidding when he said you’d never find Void like this. Even with your telepathy, the residents simply don’t know the layout well enough beyond their own turf and have confused and conflicting ideas about the rest. Picking their minds to create some sort of map won’t be effective if the pieces won’t add up. 

You switched strategies to focus on rumors of the kidnapped victims, but all you get is some silly urban legend about people getting taken in their sleep and murdered by some sort of cult hiding somewhere in here. You have a hard time imagining Void joining a cult, and while Psycopathor and his fans are actually a sort of cult, their killings tend to be public.  

You’ve been at this almost the whole day now, and not a single mention of them. It’s maddening. You might as well go back to the rangers and see if they got something by now, but that’d be admitting defeat.  The night-vision setting on your mask is really giving you a headache by now but there’s no electricity here.

Your thoughts are interrupted by stray thoughts atop one of the inclined buildings. You can hear gunshots as you lift your gaze, and then a figure jumping several stories down onto the pile or rubble below, the fall slowing down into a glide before her feet touch the ground.

Impressive. Some sort of levitating boost?

 You’re getting an adrenaline rush from her mind. Someone’s after her… and soon enough you can see her pursuers, wearing night-vision goggles. All of them jumping down behind her.

 Unlike her delicate fall, they’re using a simple combat exoskeleton enhancement over their clothing, landing heavily and leaving cracks on the old pavement. You considered getting one of those, but the batteries are faulty and need recharging all the time. 

But more importantly… Matching uniforms and equipment, and all of them chasing the same individual…? This stinks of supervillain minions. 

Without another thought, you start running towards them with your gun drawn. If you don’t act, she’s going to get caught. You hide behind a corner and pull her by the arm the moment she runs next to you. 

She tries to pull away, but you hold her arms and look into her arms while trying to calm her mind. It takes a few seconds for her to realize who you are, and then she stops struggling. In turn, you can see she’s no ordinary civilian… she’s wearing her own costume.

“I’m Sidestep, and I’m here to help.” 

“Wow. I thought I was the only one in this dump, less of all someone famous. I’m Elyise, nice to finally meet you!” 

“Any idea why those goons are chasing after you ?”

“I don’t know.. Maybe my magnetic personality? No?” she laughs nervously “Help me take those jerks down and I’ll share what I know”  

“You’ve got it,” you say to that peeking at the rubble pile from your hiding spot. 

Your mind’s sensing something odd about her. Some sort of telepathic ability bouncing off yours, too faint but it’s there. She might be an empath?. 

No time to give much thought to it as you can see her pursuers catching up. 

“She can’t have gone far! Find her now!” one of them demands, furious. 

The enemy starts running in your direction, four males and a woman, all armed, all furious and charging with their exo-skeleton suits, so it’s do or die. You pull quickly and take a shot at the one who spoke. He collapses with a shriek as the energy blast hits him squarely on the chest, while the other one avoids you taking cover. He shoots his own gun right back at you, but you’re behind cover now. Telepathy always gives you an edge in shootouts.

Elyise jumps to the side, waving her arm… causing several pieces of debris to lift from the ground and rain in her general direction. Telekinesis… magnetism? Hard to tell.  One of the enemies gets hit by a piece of wreckage and falls flat, while the other covers with their exoskeleton’s arms. Your mind tells you the one hiding is about to shoot Elyise, and thus you’re ready to take a shot the moment he pokes his head from his cover,  taking him down as well.

Only two left.  

“It’s Sidestep!” one of them screams

“I don’t care who he is, he’s not gonna get past me!” the woman answers in turn, ripping the door from a rusted car, and charging towards you. The old door blocks your shots and Elyise’s wreckage rain, letting the other minion follow.

Both of you are forced to duck as the one closer to you flings the door in your direction, missing narrowly. Falling to the side, you roll to avoid getting stomped by the male minion, but end up taking a hit to your hand, forcing the gun out of your fingers. Elyise’s got her plate full, gliding to the side to avoid the other one.

“You're so beautiful in that suit… I’m going to enjoy turning you to a pulp!” the woman screams charging her, sending fist after fist, edging closer to her.

Your opponent gets ready to finish you off, pulling his fist back, ready to crush your skull… but luckily he’s forgotten who you are. You haven’t. 

Stepping to the side, you let his fist get stuck in a decayed brick wall.

You can’t help the smile under your mask as he struggles to free himself realizing his mistake, not fast enough to avoid the spinning kick that turns light’s out for him. 

Turning to help Elyise turns unnecessary, as she’s lifting her opponent in the air as she flails her arms fruitlessly before being slammed into the dirt so hard it makes you close your eyes. 

“Who’s the pulp now, asshole??” she says kicking her a few times. Perhaps there are some anger management problems there…?

“Well, that takes care of the trash,” she says dusting her hands “We have to bind them so they don’t report back on us and…”

“Leave that to me,” you say focusing on their unconscious minds. It takes a few moments, but it’s relatively easy now that they’ve been taken down. “They won’t remember a thing,” you say standing up.

“You… you did something to them?” she asks uncertainly. Of course, you were right, she is a telepath of some sort. This just confirms it, that she could tell you did anything in the first place. 

 “Just a minor thing. Let’s get far before they wake up” you say taking a tunnel formed by a collapsed structure as she follows. 

……………………………………….

“Come in! Come in Elyise” the intercom says

“I’m here! Stop yapping already!” she answers

“Oh thank god! I thought they’d get you! And it’d be all my fault!” 

“Nobody’s going to get me, you hear me?. I had it under control! And now Sidestep’s here so we have an even better chance!”

“Sidestep? Sidestep is that you?” the voice sounds different than what you remember… he seems confused. You look at the image… Reaper’s on the other side, sitting on a sofa with a cast arm and a cigar on his mouth in a very richly decorated room, a half-empty whiskey bottle next to him. What the hells is going on…?

“Hey, Reaper… it’s me” you say

“Thank you! Thank you for looking after my protegee.. She’s…”

“I’m not your protegee!” she interrupts “I found you drunk at Owl’s wailing about what Psycophator did, and took the case, remember? I needed your resources and your computers! You’re the one helping me, not the other way around!”

“Thank you Sidestep…” he goes on and on ignoring her. 

Elyise groans, turning off the audio. “He’s under meds for the pain… his doctors are a bit… liberal about painkillers. He’s been in high cloud nine right now since the fire, and he’s also drunk because he thinks it’s somehow his fault” she says before turning the audio back on.

“... and if something happened to her, it would be like Hood’s death all over again! She’s even telekinetic like him… I mean not exactly like him, she’s not nearly as insufferable but still, if something happened I wouldn’t even know what to…”

“Nevermind that! Did you find any extra intel?” she cuts him off

“Intel?” Reaper asks losing his previous train of thought. “Oh… right. Yes, Charon found a lot actually interesting details”

Charon… his supercomputer named after the mythical ferryman according to the comics. Supposedly an AI. You never thought it was real.

“The structure you found, is part of a collapsed chemical plant” he explains showing a diagram in the intercom's screen. “The plant’s been abandoned since before the big one. Also, hear this out… It’s the original plant where they first manufactured the hero drugs, back when they were just diet pills!  It was a big scandal back then when the media broke the entire story, the corporations, they  stole this researcher’s papers and used them without her consent to develop...”

“You can spare us the history lesson… we could use plans of the place tough” Elyise interrupts again. It would seem she’s officially had it with wasted Reaper by now. 

“Hm.. here,” he says the intercom updating with schematics. “The building’s partially collapsed now, but many floors and labs should be intact, and it had several basements, you’d have to go check on them yourselves.”

“It wasn’t abandoned now,” she says “It’s been turned into some sort of clinic, guards everywhere, and they’ve got the patients from Houswald captured inside. I think they’re experimenting on them… “ she says looking at you.

“Those bastards! They can’t do that!!!! You just hold right there… I’ll go get my suit and…” he says suddenly enraged.

“Enough!” she yells “You’re wounded, and in no shape to fight Reaper, and besides you’re retired! If you want to help, you need to pass on the coordinates to the rangers, your the only one with the tech in place to have communications in this dump!” Reaper’s gizmos are the most advanced you’ve seen yet rivaling farm’s experimental tech, and way ahead of the rangers. No wonder he was the top hero for so long if he had that much money to burn on it...

There is a silence on the other end and you can tell Reaper’s trying to process the words in slow motion. He’s so darn high, it’d be funny if your lives didn’t depend on him right now. “Fine… I’ll tell the rangers. Just wait till they are close before you make your move, you don’t want to get caught without reinfor..-” 

“I know!!! It’s not my first time doing this!” Elyise complains, but Reaper keeps going on about the dangers of the job until she simply turns off the intercom frustrated. 

“Wow… you’re really harsh on him” 

“Spare me,” she says walking onwards “I’ve been taking his tale of woe for three days straight while Charon investigated. And the worst part? The AI It only works with HIS voice recognition. HIS. Not mine. So I had to get him to repeat every question I asked, and you’d think he ‘d stop drinking while at it?  He did not. And the crying. God, the crying is the worst… You wouldn’t believe how bad he…”

You smile as you keep walking behind her hearing her huge list of complaints.

____________________________

My fanfics: https://chaniters.tumblr.com/post/181692759294/my-fanfiction-for-fallen-hero

DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fan fiction using characters and the setting of the Fallen Hero: Rebirth and upcoming Fallen Hero: Retribution games written by Malin Riden. I do not claim ownership of any characters from the Fallen Hero wold. These stories are a work of my imagination, and I do not ascribe them to the official story canon. These works are intended for entertainment outside the official storyline owned by the author. I am not profiting financially from the creation of these stories, and thank the author for her wonderful game/s, without which these works would not exist.

[loyalflutist]

History Repeats Itself (Rem x Deuce, slight Machina x Ace)

Rating: Teen and Up Audience Archive Warning: N/A Words: 4,183 Summary:  After hundreds of years from the great war in Fodlan, a new era of peace has arrived. However, history repeats itself to an extent when it comes to relationships. Machina and Rem find themselves thrust into Garreg Mach Monastery as transferred students from Suzaku Peristylium in Orience, facing their teachers who they learn are from an all-too-familiar background.

A/N: Eh.... Forgot to upload this up here. Still working on my Edeleth stuff, so for now, enjoy another Rem x Deuce OS! Wanted to pull in the concepts from Fire Emblem: Three Houses and use it with this pairing. Might plan out a longer series with a genuine crossover of these two series.... but I digress. 

---

Garreg Mach Monastery is known for its peculiar history. Hundreds of years have passed since the time of the Great War between the three nations in Fodlan. The Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance squared off in a vicious conflict that spans roughly five years. Legends of an Ashen Demon and an Adrestian emperor, their actions left marks upon the land. The results? A new era of peace.

However, history is known to repeat itself.

The existence of Crests still exists to this day with discriminations and olden lifestyles rule over the population. Those Who Slither in the Dark are still present, their experimentations and foul play disrupt the country. Civilian unrest rumbles society as political corruption began to unveil itself to the public.

It was never about the pen beating the sword. It was those who wield the sword that decides who would wield the pen.

“Rem? Are you okay?”

Rem Tokimiya blinked. She found Machina Kunagiri staring at her, his concern bubbling right above the surface. The two students were spotted inside the carriage. Having hailed from a respective part of Orience, the Dominion of Rubrum, their travel long and arduous since the early morning, it was no surprise that her childhood friend acts this way. No… Perhaps he asked not about their exhaustive state. She moistened her lip and glanced through the glassed window. Pine trees sprinkled with shades of darkness by the sunset’s orange rays crawled by as the horses continued their throttles. Not far from their destination, the famous monastery stood miles away, its huge structure both inviting and intimidating.

“…I’m okay.”

Dressed in the new school uniform provided by the monastery weeks ahead, the student unconsciously rubbed the back of her hand.

“I’m really okay.”

“Rem…”

Machina extended his hand but stopped halfway. He stiffened his lips. The young boy slowly retracted from Rem and felt an additional weight plop on his shoulders. Machina could not bear to look at his friend’s eyes. Then, under his breath, he whispered,

“I’m sorry.”

After all, he could do nothing but watch the horrors that befell upon her when they were young. The war between the Milites Empire and Dominion of Rubrum wasn’t enough. Those Who Slither in the Dark had strong ties with the Empire’s leaders. How the two managed to interact and align their ideals was a mystery. Not that it mattered to the male student. His jawlines were outlined, Machina gazing through the opposite window.

He witnessed the horrors of their parents dying by the soldiers’ hands. What he did not forget was the horror of watching his friend undergo experimentations to implant a Crest into her body. Cruel experimentation devised to test the hypothesis of a person not only not from nobility, but from another country altogether and their adaptation with the Crests was given the green light by the two communities. Those Who Slither in the Dark wish to rise their power in another country. The Milites Empire hopes to use this to their advantage for the current warring state.

Machina and Rem were two of the many unfortunate souls, and they were the sole survivors of the non-consensual surgeries.

Recounting those days always caused a shudder to run down his spine. He dryly swallowed, his elbow now rested on the carriage’s door, and pressed his chin against his palm. Occasionally, Machina would glance over at Rem. His friend still sat upright, the black magus drumming her fingertips along the uniformed skirt. A cough ripped through her tranquil state. Machina nearly bolted up from his seat as the female covered her mouth, a violent fit shaking her entire figure.

“R-Rem!”

She shook her head in the midst of her hacking. It went away after a few seconds, but not without consequences. Rem leaned back against her seat, breaths fast, the smeared blood present from the corner of her opened lips. Machina immediately took out his navy handkerchief and offered it.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Stern tonality trickled in his words with hopes of some honesty from Rem. Rem simply nodded after wiping. He chewed his lip, retrieving the soiled cloth, his stares becoming dagger-like.

“Why are you still—”

He stopped himself. Then, his eyes softened and felt tears welt from them. Machina glanced away with a silent grimace. When he spoke no more, the female softly called out to him.

“Machina?”

No response. Rem didn’t push him to speak. A moment of observation told her plenty about his reactions. She stifled a long exhale and reverted her gaze elsewhere.

‘ He’s beating himself up again… ‘

And there was nothing she could do to stop him. (The last time she did, he unintentionally hurt her in the process.) Machina had crawled back to their past once again. Back to the time when they were held prisoners by the two organizations. Outcries and screams echoed in the back of his skull. The knives that plunged into his friend’s arms without anesthetics, the blood transplants, the forceful insertion of a Crest into her chest cavity… Rem was always the one to save him, and she always did. Even now she’s hiding the side effects from the surgeries to alleviate his guilty conscious. The handkerchief trembled in time within his whitened grip. The rest of their rides were basked in utter silence.

-----

Two hours ticked by and nightfall switched with daylight. Stars shone in the clear sky, the flames from lamps flickered in-sync, and the lack of students notified their abnormal arrival. Despite the lonesome arrival, they were greeted by a Gatekeeper. The young man saluted to the two students, his eyes brimming with excitement.

“Greetings, Rem and Machina! I hope your trip from Orience went well.”

“It was,” Rem clasped both of her hands, her smile shining to the security guard. “It was worth the trip.”

“Excellent. I was afraid the both of you would never come since it has gotten late.”

“Don’t be silly,” Machina motioned. “No matter the time of the day, we’ll come here.”

“Aren’t you both in good spirit,” the older male chuckled. “Now that you’re both here, I’m happy to inform that your assignment to a house has been finalized too by Lady Flayn.”

Machina crossed his arms and faintly hummed.

Garreg Mach Monastery’s Officers Academy was known well for providing resources and a community for students from all three nations in Fodlan. As the two were foreigners, they would be placed by random chance into the three houses. Their alliance would lie in whatever nation they belonged to. Even though Fodlan was known well for its unification, the three countries were still divided based on their ideologies and people. It was literally the same situation as Orience minus the current conflict it undergoes. The only difference is the lack of a unified academy from Orience, the academies all under a nation’s flag.

The Gatekeeper looked at Machina.

“Machina, you have been assigned to the Blue Lions House.”

“Huh… I guess we’re both—”

“Rem, you have been assigned to the Black Eagles House.”

“Wait, what!?”

The male student felt his posture falter. Ever since they were young, they were inseparable. After the incidence with their past traumas, Machina and Rem stuck closer to each other, always as a pair… Though this was more so from the male’s dependency. He straightened his back and coughed audibly into his fist.

“You’re telling me that we’ll be separated?”

“I… I suppose so.”

“But why?!”

“Please, don’t ask me!” the older male wildly pushed his hands outward, beads of sweat flying out of his head. “This is all under the discretion of Lady Flayn!”

“I demand that one of us transfer to the other house!”

“You can try talking to her, but… I don’t think she’ll change her mind.”

“I’ll try!” Machina glanced over at the flabbergasted Rem… though flabbergasted for reasons other than class placement. He huffed. “I will speak to the archbishop. I will be back soon!”

And off he goes… with a cloud of smoke too behind his heels! It was almost comical had it not been for the circumstance that prompted his dash. Both the adult and student stared in awe after Machina. They exchanged looks. Then, a forced grin bore on their faces. Words would never be able to describe their feelings about this.

“I suggest you visit your classroom,” the Gatekeeper said. “Knowing that Lady Flayn wouldn’t make any immediate plans, you might as well familiarize yourself. I also believe the professor is still in the classroom.”

Rem tilted her head. “At this time?”

He nodded.

“Yes… her name is Deuce. She’s a new professor here at the monastery.”

“She is?”

“Indeed. It’s her first time teaching, but I’ve heard many good things from the other professors,” the Gatekeeper cupped his chin. “If I recall… she’s from Orience too like the other professor.”

An imaginary exclamation point popped over Rem’s head.

‘ Someone from Rubrum?! ‘

Learning of this new fact urged the student to visit the lecture hall; a quick thanks and farewell were given before leaving. Of course, a bit of time passed as Rem found herself losing track of her place in the large academy. Vague directions on top of the dark environment hardly posed clarity. (There was an incident with crashing into a wall, but that hardly warrants an explanation.) The student, fortunately, found the premise… with a little help from a white hooting companion.

Rem popped her head into the empty classroom. Well— Somewhat empty. There was a petite brunette standing in front of the lecture hall. The young girl, dressed in a familiar dark uniform from Suzaku Peristylium and vermillion cape, drew a couple of arrows and notes on the blackboard. Light taps and scratches emitted from the chalky utensil with occasional pauses. She didn’t seem to notice the brown-haired newcomer.

‘ She’s wearing the peristylium uniform… ‘ Rem mentally shook her head. ‘ She can’t be the professor he spoke about. She's too young. ‘

Perhaps there were a couple of students that came from Rubrum this academic term. It was worth noting that some students from all four nations had transferred out of the country for various reasons. Most of them were for a political movement. Some were due to familial circumstances. Others were a little more on the enigmatic side. In Rem’s and Machina’s case, they were transferred for a multitude of reasons. Could this be the same for this young girl?

“Hello?” The brunette’s hand froze and glanced over her shoulder. Seeing as how she didn’t move from her position, Rem decided to approach the girl. “I’m looking for the professor. Do you know where she is?”

“That’s me.”

The speaker's tone was so soft, she could have mistaken it for a whisper. Rem blinked.

“I… I didn’t quite catch what you just said.”

“I’m the professor.”

“…”

When greeted with silence, the brunette sighed. She placed the chalk onto the nearby desk and properly looked at the student.

“My name is Deuce. I’m the professor for the Black Eagles House,” the professor finally cracked a smile. “I’ve been expecting you. Though I must say, I’m a little surprised to know there are more students arriving from Rubrum. It might be a small world after all.”

“You’re so young to be a teacher.”

Rem, after much silence, blurted with unintentional disregard for the instructor’s comments. There was a pregnant pause. Eventually, Deuce lightly scratched her flushed cheeks in response, her eyes briefly shifted elsewhere.

“People say that all the time to me.”

“You must be very smart.”

“I don’t think so,” the youngster now giggled and frantically waved her hand. “The archbishop must have seen my talent in music and pitied me… or maybe it’s because I’m not from Fodlan…”

“Um, you studied in Suzaku Peristylium, right?”

“Yes, until last year when I transferred here with some of my classmates.”

Rem clasped her hands behind her back, leaning forward. Due to their proximity, Deuce found herself unconsciously examining the girl’s face. Those long eyelashes, those pair of curious eyes that twinkled with optimism, those soft lips— Heat burst into Deuce’s head. It took a great effort to resist the temptation to hide. The teacher placed a hand over her chest, her heart rapidly thumping. Just what is this feeling that tugs at her heartstrings?

‘ Mother never told me about this. Am I sick? ‘

Unlike the brunette, Rem was not oblivious to the source of her reaction. She giggled. How innocent of her teacher. It would be best she holds back the teasing and gets back to their original topic.

“What class were you from?”

It appears that it had snapped Deuce back to reality. The pink tinges lightened as the ex-cadet lowered her hand.

“Class Zero.”

“Class Zero…?! It’s no wonder why you were chosen to be a teacher!”

“Is it? I didn’t know it was that important.”

Rem immediately grabbed ahold of the girl’s arms and gently shook her.

“How could you not know? Class Zero was always known as a legend… No one has ever spoken about being from that class!”

“That’s not what Mother said…”

“Mother?”

“It’s a long story. I might have to tell you about sometime tomorrow.”

Their exchanges were brief as nightfall hardly allowed much time to spare. However, the two girls instantly clicked. Could it be from their shared homeland? Or could it be due to their age? Whatever it was, what Rem could attest to is the comfort she finds in her new professor… even if she is a little younger than expected.

Deuce was left in the classroom to complete her preparation for tomorrow’s lesson. Although Machina came running towards her with tears flowing down his cheeks about the inability to transfer later on that night, Rem secretly thanked Flayn for keeping them in their respective houses. It never hurts to have a breather from her overprotective friend. Besides, after getting to meet Deuce, she wouldn’t want to transfer to another house.

-----

The next day came quicker than ever for Machina and Rem after settling in. It was a whole new setting to experience. Students had flourished the monastery’s grounds. Some of the guards and warriors that patrol the premise seem to be from the same class as Deuce.

“It’s nice to find some folks like us!” Nine playfully slugged Machina’s shoulder. “Ya know, we gotta stick together, yo!”

“Nine, could you please leave the students alone?” Queen adjusted her glasses with a stack of files at hand. “We have to deliver these to Seteth.”

“Oi, why do I have to go with you anyway?”

“I hope you understand we have to report our results to Lady Flayn.”

“Ugh… of course… Well, hope ya’ll have fun with your new class.”

Though they arrived a month into the school year, the students were approachable and welcoming to the newcomers.

It turns out… Deuce might be one of the best professors out there. Young as she may be, her intelligence, coupled with the battle knowledge gained from her time in Orience and Fodlan, made her a valuable faculty. Many students, though older than her, generally find her loving and humble to an extent.

“I thought she would be clueless,” one of the students whispered over to Rem’s direction. “Turns out, she’s not all bark. Kinda scary.”

Scary? Rem didn’t think so. Throughout the days that came to pass, she had not seen the young girl raise her voice at her students. Exceptions were made when they were out on the practical field trips, but they were from protecting her students rather than to belittle them. Still… despite her gentle demeanor, the status of being one of the youngest professors teaching at Garreg Mach Monastery shook the students to their core. Deuce was an abnormality alongside her classmates from Class Zero.

As for Machina… turns out, he’s got a young teacher too by the name of Ace. His professor has a similar background as Deuce, albeit slightly different from the way he handled his classroom. He wasn’t as soft nor much of an introvert as his comrade. Ace was known to be calm and collected, but his emotions ran deeper than his reasoning. This caused Machina and Ace to butt heads at times despite their associations. Still, Machina has a newfound respect for the blonde. Ace was never one to mislead his new student in the right direction.

Days soon turned to weeks, and weeks soon turned to months… Varying seasons flew by at a steady pace. Rem and Machina were able to make new friends. They’ve become acquainted with members from Class Zero. They were able to get closer to their professors. Teatime was exchanged, their past traumas unraveled to the prestigious instructors. Rem could never forget the response she got Deuce after explaining her reason for being in the Officers Academy.

“I was hoping to find a way to live with the Crest inside of my body. I don’t know how much longer I have left to live, but I came here to find out how. It would be better to find a way to stop my coughing fit too.”

“Rem…” the brunette grabbed ahold of her hands, squeezed them, her voice having dipped into a broken whisper. “I promise, I will find a way. I promise from the bottom of my heart.”

The same could be said for Machina and Ace. Ace was surprised to hear that the young male struggled to cope with his PTSD. Someone like Ace and Deuce, who were vigorously trained as child soldiers for Arecia Al-Rashia, never understood the disorder. This was a first for the card wielder.

“I couldn’t protect her!” Machina hollered and weakly shoved Ace. “They should’ve chosen me first! Why!? Why did they choose her!? Why did they spare me!? WHY!?”

“Machina…”

It would be a lie to say Ace didn’t tear up. He had to embrace Machina with hopes of keeping the student from having an irreversible meltdown.

Both teachers were there for their students, especially for Rem and Machina. It felt as though they had strengthened their bonds. The connection they had for one another was as deep as it could get.

For Machina, his bonds grew even stronger with Ace after spending time caring for a baby chocobo with his teacher, their lifestyles slowly formatted to that of parental care for the creature.

“Us? Like parents? You could say that,” Ace said without much thought. “I think Machina would fit the mom role well.”

“Aceeeee—! What are you trying to imply here!?”

Rem finds it amusing to see her childhood friend, who was always so clingy to her, let loose… especially at the cost of his embarrassed features. His red face was a comedic sight to see. Yet from a mile away, one could tell that Machina didn’t mind the implications. Machina did confess during their time at the monastery about his romantic interest towards his young instructor.

What about Rem and Deuce? It was also clear as day that Rem was crushing hard on Deuce… Very hard, in fact. Machina felt bad watching his childhood friend struggle with an oblivious professor like Deuce. Whenever they were out on a date, Deuce had always seen it as if they were friends. Regardless, their relationship became clearer in the following month. It was a bit more dramatic than what the two males had.

“Rem, look out!”

“!”

A flash of white beam was shot at the cadet’s direction. Rem, her bloodied daggers having been pulled out of a bandit’s body, found herself as its target. At least, until Deuce slammed against Rem with her shoulder. The rough shove caused the injured student down onto the ground. An “oof” slipped out of her cracked lips as she slammed face-first onto the wet greenery.

“ARGH!”

Rem snapped her head up, the bruises beginning to form from her cheek, her eyes widen at the unfolding scenario. Deuce’s silver flute had been tossed to the side. The teacher curled into a fetal position, her hands impressing themselves onto her chest. One of the faculty, Queen, rushed to her aid.

“She’s been burnt!”

The self-proclaimed secretary cast Heal as another student tried to flop their professor onto her back. Deuce’s facial features were twisted, the pain all-too prominent. Hearing her whimper surged forth newfound energy into the sickly student. Rem got up onto her two feet. The red daggers were readjusted, the female immediately kicked forward to the assaulter.

It was all a blur. Rem’s vision was completely red. She was not one to fall under the spell of vengeance nor unnecessary violence, but something had snapped in her the moment her professor succumbed to the attack. A battle cry erupted from her throat, the daggers slashing at the enemy in a flurry. What should’ve been a simple mission from Lady Flayn to defend a village from bandits turned into a bloody mess.

Crimson stained her school’s uniform, the magma-red blood splattered onto her exposed skin. The tips of her blade sunk into the tough bandit’s armors. No steel could prevent the magically infused weapon from piercing into its thick layer. Rem tore the weapon away as she lost breath. Then, she fell to her knees, her vision beginning to narrow.

‘ No, no! Not right now! ‘

Rem stabbed her daggers into the soft earth. She lowered her head, her eyes squinted, and blood beginning to drip from her chin. A coughing fit shook her entire achy figure. The Crest was taking a toll on her frail body. It provided her strength on the battlefield, making her a one-man army, but at what cost?

‘ Deuce… Deuce! ‘

The young student struggled back to her feet. She slowly dragged herself towards the fallen bard. Deuce, who acted as support for their battles, was unconscious. Queen shot a glance at the wounded student.

“Deuce is fine if you’re wondering,” she mumbled. “The laser didn’t break through her muscles. Some luck she has…”

Seven from nearby immediately caught the wobbly student. Arm over her shoulders, the tall soldier directed another Class Zero member, Trey, to cast a healing spell onto Rem. Though Rem managed to keep herself awake throughout the rest of the day, Deuce wasn’t that fortunate. The student had mostly healed from her bruises and lacerations in the aftermath. The same could be said for her teacher. However, the professor was in a coma for a week.

“Oh, Deuce…”

Completely dropping the formalities, Rem sat by her side on the seventh day, her hands clasped together into prayer. She watched the same scene happen over and over. Chest rising and falling at even intervals. Occasional twitches from her fingers and brows. The silence that hung in the air between the two girls. Rem lowered her head and wept tearlessly.

“When will you wake up?”

If anything…

“How could I tell you how much I love you?”

As expected, there was no reply.

Time ticked by until the sun began to set. Machina and Ace came by, their visits brief and acting as a reminder to return to the dormitory. Rem had gotten up from her seat. However, compared to the previous times where she would say her farewells and leave the premise, she found herself hovering over the brunette’s face.

“…”

It was the heat of the moment. Rem didn’t think twice about her actions, letting her instincts run freely. She closed her eyes and planted a kiss on her professor’s lips. Those luscious, soft lips were as delicate at Deuce was. Guilt settled into Rem’s stomach once she retracted. Heat overwhelmed her head as she bit the bottom of her lip. Kissing her professor was already overstepping her boundary… How could she do that?! She didn’t even properly proclaim her love to Deuce!

Right when she was about to pull away, Deuce reached up to caress Rem’s cheeks. Then, as if on cue, the brunette returned a kiss of her own.

“!!!”

She couldn’t even call out to her teacher’s name. Rather— She was thunderstruck! Rem opened her mouth and closed it like a fish gasping for water. Deuce, on the other hand, could not resist a weak giggle from her end.

“Why are you acting that way, Rem?”

“I—I… I-I mean! You’re… You’re awake!”

“Rem…”

“I’m so happy! I didn’t know what to do if you haven’t awakened—”

“Rem.”

“Yes?!”

Deuce eventually reached up to pat the flustered girl’s head. With a smile of her own, the professor whispered,

“I love you too.”

Turns out, Deuce finally sorted out her feelings during her comatose period. A week in a dream-like state gave her plenty of time to straighten her thoughts out. As she soothed the crying student, the ex-cadet thought back to the times of history from Fodlan. This situation eerily reminded her of a certain couple found in legends... A flashback of Byleth Eisner and Edelgard von Hresvelg transparently overlapped the two girls. Not all of history was to be repeated, but in this case, the blooming relationship of a teacher and a student from special circumstances began anew.

[north-peach]

I HAVE RETURNED. Headcanons for GoodDadEnji AU pt 2. The Emergency Number being used in ACTUAL EMERGENCIES wherein his child is terrified and crying, there's fights happening, he can HEAR the danger and he just N O P E S so hard.

Ooohhhh, you brilliant thing. I adore this and Imma write a mini fic, ‘kay?

GoodDadEnji AU

Enji couldn’t help the vicious smile that spread across his face as he grabbed his opponents fists, while setting his hands alight. A feminine face snarled in pain, as she spat several nasty words in his face.

Endeavor twisted and with a shout of his own, lifted the villain- a tall female with enhanced strength and an absorption Quirk of some kind- up and over his shoulder, slamming her into the ground. The dry Earth cracked at the force even as the villain choked as the breath was forced from her lungs.

Truly, this was a fight that was stretching his muscles because not only was the villain absorbing his flames, she was decently skilled in martial arts and combat tactics. The fight had already been going on for at least ten minutes and the cameras could probably pick up the pleased expression on the face of the No. 2 hero.

Especially as no matter how hard Endeavor slammed, threw or hit the woman, she still continued to stand and return the attack. 

Enji had taken to increasing the temperature of their environment and it showed in how heavily the woman was both breathing and sweating. Still, she got to her feet every time. She hadn’t aimed to take civilian lives, and they were in a relatively open area so Endeavor was free for the rest of the day.

Heavy sparring to liven up his increasingly boring week. Enji couldn’t be more pleased. Even at the thought of the paperwork that would come of this.

The seconds in which the woman stayed on the ground was a brief instant in which a very loud and attention-grabbing ringtone distracted both the hero and the villain. The way Endeavor immediately diverted his focus to swiftly answer the phone was a moment of reprieve for the villain, one she took, allowing herself to breath and prepare a counter attack.

However, the voice on the other end had an entirely different affect on the no. 2 hero when the caller began to speak.

“Daddy! Daddy, you need to come and get me!”

It was a child, sobbing audibly and with the high pitch tones of distress even as the muted sounds of an explosion echoed through the tiny speakers.

The villain scarcely had a moment to make the connection because the temperature shot up to such an unbelievable level that she wheezed in her next breath.

“Where are you, Fuyumi?”

The voice that came snarling from Endeavor’s throat with thick with the scent of hellfire and brimstone even as embers began to drift from his flaming form. 

He paid no attention to the woman weakly struggling under his grip even as his fist began to slowly darken her skin.

“I was walking home from school- with T-takeshi-kun- and then there was f-fire and I tried to- I tried to put it out but then there were people and I didn’t like them and I’m scared and I don’t know- I don’t know where I am!”

“Stay right there, Fuyumi, no matter what you have to do. Daddy will be there soon, okay?”

A choppy breath, a stifled sob and a noise of agreement before Endeavor quickly punched in another number and began barking orders. 

“I need a trace on my daughter’s phone, right now. Patch the line through to my comms.”

The temperature eased and the villain sucked in a much lighter breath of precious air. A shadow fell across her face and she looked up into the face of an Endeavor that was drastically different from the one that had been fighting her.

“If you know what’s good for you,” the man said in the voice of the devil, “you will stay down.”

Truthfully, the villain would be perfectly fine after medical treatment. Even if she never quite recovered her memory from what exactly Endeavor did, she could say that was a fight that she would never forget.

~///~

The helicopter carrying the reporters- along with the cameras- would capture the entire event in perfect clarity. For the most part. The visible waves of heat did mess with the picture, but the situation was apparent to viewers. 

No one could really miss Endeavor bursting into brilliant scarlet flames and launching himself into the air- towards the more populated areas of the city. It didn’t take long for his destination to be clear- the school was the only place that was in the direction he was headed that was reporting any disturbances. 

Those were extremely recent though- three minutes after Endeavor took off is when they received the first reports of explosions.

Four minutes after Endeavor took off, at the height of a particularly massive leap, there’s a bright burst of flames and the no. 2 hero drops out of the air into the middle of a road somewhat obscured by thick, black smoke. 

Half a second after that, there’s a gust of wind and flame and the smoke is cleared. There’s a group of about a handful of people- villains clearly- along with small glittering pillars and spikes of ice. However, the reporters immediately focus on the smudge of white cradled against the blue of Endeavor’s costume.

It takes only a moment for the reporter to realize it’s a child. It’s the camera man that brings up Endeavor’s wife, Todoroki Rei, who has an Ice Quirk and brilliant white hair.

There’s ice covering a villain, a white-haired child in the hero’s arms and then there’s movement-

It’s so fast, after this ends, the live coverage will be replayed in slow motion. People will remark on how much they trust in Endeavor, in his rage at his daughter being in danger, in the swiftness of his actions. His public approval ratings will soar and remain high for weeks.

Endeavor turns around to place the girl gently on the ground and he’ll bend down to place a kiss on her forehead. He’ll give her a push and she’ll walk away until she stands a couple feet from her father.

Endeavor will turn around.

There’s flames. Lots of flames. The air trembles and the occupants of the helicopter will later ask one another if they heard the faint sounds of screaming.

Regardless, the end result is the same. Burned villains crumpled on hot asphalt. There are melted footsteps in the ground and there’s no trace of ice left. 

The slow motion rewind will show every strike Endeavor made, every kick, every fireball he threw and the way he almost skewered two villains together if they hadn’t thrown themselves to their knees voluntarily. 

Still, they are obviously not going to be moving under their own power. Which is why Endeavor does not hesitate when he turns and lets his daughter throw herself into his arms. The Flame Hero simply starts walking. 

There’s silence in the helicopter before the cameraman whispers a quiet, awed, ‘damn’. That’s followed by faint noises of agreement that soon turn to almost hysterical giggles when Endeavor disappears into an ice cream shop.

Police arrive almost immediately after and the event goes down in history why it’s a bad idea to mess with Endeavor’s kids.

Not that some don’t get the warning, but usually those incidents always end with a completely deadpan, ‘really, what did they expect?’.

Fuyumi proud stands before her class and says, ‘my daddy is the best hero.’.

Enji will grumble about the audacity of villains and how heroes always win, of course, but Fuyumi is moved to a different school. One with much more security.

Also a driver is hired for the Todoroki household.

EDIT: It’s canon that Shouto’s mother is called Rei.

[roseymoseyberry]

The Prime’s Intended (4/?)

What’s up, it’s your girl Rosey, and I’m back with more of this nonsense.

Title: The Prime’s Intended

Series: TFP post-war AU where Optimus didn’t die

Ship(s): Optimus/Ratchet

Tags/warnings: Big Awful Public Wedding AU, Established Relationship, outing a relationship without consent, and just a lot of dealing with bullshit from paparazzi/media/etc. Mentions of sticky interfacing, but none on screen

Fic Summary:

“A photographer spotted us leaving your quarters this morning.”

In which paparazzi out Ratchet and Optimus’s relationship, their PR consultant plans them the biggest and most extravagant public wedding they never wanted, and Ratchet has to deal with suddenly becoming the Prime’s conjunx-to-be.

Chapter Summary:

"It'll be fine, old friend. Just follow what we discussed and try to be -- well, your nicest self."

| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 |

Optimus had worried all morning as Ratchet washed himself more purposefully than usual. Hell, while it wasn't a word that Ratchet would normally use to describe his lover, there was no other way to put it than Optimus fussed as he helped Ratchet apply a new layer of wax on his plating. Ratchet was fairly certain the last time he had bothered to wax when it wasn't time for his annual checkup was when he was made Chief Medical Officer of the Autobots. He hadn’t even bothered when he was made the Chief Medical Officer of Cybertron – he was simply too old to be bothered with such vanities anymore.

Or, at least, he had thought he had finally outgrown them.

Ratchet eventually waved his lover off.

"Would you stop that hovering? You're starting to make me anxious."

Optimus looked unconvinced, and for good reason.

Ratchet was already, without a doubt, a bundle of anxiety.

Speaking wasn't his strong suit. Never had been. Oh, he had bedside manner aplenty despite the way mecha joked about him -- he could read individual patients at a glance and act accordingly. And arguing, well. No one would try to say he wasn't damned good in an argument. Public speeches were less natural to Ratchet, but he had presented to other medics before the war, and had relearned the rhythm and cadence of it after.

But that was in small groups, or about topics unrelated to himself. It was about his patients, or medical procedures and research, or the good of the health of Cybertron's citizens.

Ratchet had never had to discuss himself in any real personal manner that wasn't with mecha he trusted.

Optimus leaned in slowly, pressing a kiss to Ratchet's helm.

"It'll be fine, old friend. Just follow what we discussed and try to be -- well, your nicest self."

"Rude," Ratchet groused, even as he leaned back to revel in his lover's servos that grasped and kneaded his shoulders.

"Simply being honest. You know I love you, but you can occasionally be--"

"An aft."

"--Abrasive," Optimus corrected. "But you will be fine. It's just a few interviews. And if you have changed your mind--"

"I don't need you to make excuses for me. Like you said, it's just some interviews. I can handle that much at least.”

"I know you can. But you do not need to if you don't wish to."

Oh, it was tempting. Ratchet had successfully managed to stay locked away behind official and private doors, not having dared to go out in public just yet, keeping his awareness of the chaos waiting beyond the walls around him to just the hypothetical. It was almost easier to deal with the frustration when he could really believe that at the end of the month everything could go back to the way it was.

But he knew he could not hide forever.

Not with Optimus as his bonded.

Ratchet let his optics drift offline as he leaned back against Optimus.

“If Cybertron is so desperate to get to know me, then that’s their folly and they’ll just have to live with the consequences when I give them what they want.”

Optimus huffed with amusement as his frame eased behind Ratchet.

Ratchet didn’t feel the least bit relaxed but hid it well as he let his partner finish applying his wax and give him a good luck kiss.

“You must be Prime’s intended,” said the mech at the front desk brightly when Ratchet arrived, the words accompanied by an awed expression as he handed Ratchet the itinerary and then led him down the hall.

“Look alive, folks! Prime’s conjunx-to-be has arrived,” announced the photographer to his aids when Ratchet was dragged into the photoshoot studio to suffer through the awkwardness of trying to present himself well in front of a camera he hadn’t known would be involved at all.

“An honor to meet Prime’s lover,” said the mech who would be interviewing him with a slimy megawatt smile that would put even Spinmaster to shame as she held out her servo to Ratchet to shake.

“Ratchet,” he corrected irritably. Already his plating felt itchy and too tight with the repressed frustration that he had to be the first one to say his own damned designation in this damned building.

“A pleasure,” she replied without missing a beat, as if she hadn’t noticed at all, too busy smiling and gesturing towards a pair of plush chairs. “Please, take a seat and make yourself comfortable. I’ll have my aid get you some energon and then whenever you’re ready we can get started.”

Ratchet would swear he could see the entire surface of the mech’s dentae with how wide her smile was. If the results of this interview were to only reflect on him, Ratchet would have well lost his patience already and let himself be belligerent and petty, because so far as he had seen, the staff deserved little better. They all looked at his face in a way that clearly belied the fact that they were thinking about Optimus. It was insulting.

But this would reflect on Optimus. This was public politics that Ratchet was stepping into and it wasn’t his career that was likely to suffer from any backlash.

It took effort for Ratchet to force out a small wane smile of his own in return.

The day never improved. Different faces in different buildings had only the same sorts of questions to ask.

Some were so banal and dull that Ratchet just gave the same answers eventually. Questions about who he was -- a medic, the Autobot’s CMO, now Cybertron’s CMO. Questions about the bonding ceremony -- the date and the possible venues and any details that Ratchet could not give because he honestly didn’t know them. Questions about if he was excited, eager to bond with his lover, with Optimus Prime! – yes, of course, Ratchet had to lie through his dentae, telling himself again and again it wasn’t a lie so much as exaggeration because he was happy to be bonded to Optimus, the upcoming ceremony be damned.

The questions of how they met were a little more difficult, but Ratchet had been prepared for that.

“We met long before Optimus was, well, Optimus. He was still Orion Pax, an archivist at the Halls, and I was one of many med students who spent half his time being ordered around a hospital and the other half parked in the Halls writing papers and desperately fighting off recharge. It’s a miracle that we managed to form a friendship with our schedules, but clearly it worked out--”

Questions about how they had become lovers were expected, but that didn’t make it easy. It still felt wrong to talk openly about them being lovers at all, let alone to try to explain the intricacies of their shared lives in an easy to digest answer.

How could Ratchet ever explain the way that impending revolution and civil war had put a harsh halt to the way they two had been drawn towards the inevitable conclusion of their feelings for one another; how Orion becoming Optimus had uprooted their lives and shook their friendship to its core as Optimus flung himself helm-first into war and Ratchet followed on his heels; how easy it became to ignore the beating of their own sparks when surrounded by war, a war which well over half the current population of Cybertron had abandoned and never known and would never understand when reading some article in a magazine?

How would any civilian understand the quiet horror of being surrounded by death and the unfulfilled dreams it left in its wake, and how that constant horror finally had Optimus pulling Ratchet close on a night like any other, apologizing in the same breath that he explained he needed Ratchet to know he loved him?

How could they understand how Ratchet had wept in his arms with relief because he had thought himself condemned to taking his love for Optimus to his grave?

Cybertron wanted a cute story, not the melancholic desperation of soldiers grasping ahold of one another and hoping against hope it would not end in tragedy.

“I wish I had a better story to tell, but it was just a matter of one of us finally saying something. Optimus was always the braver of us, and Primus did I—I care so deeply for him.”

It was never enough for the mecha interviewing him. They would push and poke and prod with further questions, but inevitably they would accept that Ratchet was not going to open up about it.

“Shy” they had called him. “Shy” and “Bashful” and “Sweet” and any other number of words that Ratchet had never heard thrown at him of all mecha.

But he would have taken them over the questions that he and Optimus had spent their millennia together avoiding.

Optimus Prime was Ratchet’s leader.

Ratchet was Optimus Prime’s Doctor.

No one dared to suggest that they would ever say anything about the arrangement. Every interviewer would wave a dismissive servo or wear that sly look, like they were in on some joke they shared with Ratchet. I’m on your side their smiles said as they voiced concerns about work place ethics and abuse of authority and the possibilities that one of them may be taking advantage of the other.

I believe you their servos on Ratchet’s wrist suggested when Ratchet would manage to sputter out the practiced response about constant communication and checking in with one another, because neither of them would ever wish to coerce the other, let alone take advantage.

Because explaining that amongst the Autobots, Optimus had been everyone’s leader and Ratchet had been everyone’s doctor, and that the idea of committing themselves to loneliness with no end in sight was too horrible to consider--

--It wasn’t terribly romantic either.

No amount of assurance in the interviewers’ voices comforted Ratchet. Every damned time the next interviewer would start talking in that too-sweet voice, Ratchet’s spark would twist, knowing it was coming and wishing that just this once they wouldn’t ask and thus remind him of all those mecha out there who would think the worst of their coupling.

Ratchet wasn’t sure which was worse: that they would think Ratchet was taking advantage of Optimus, or that Optimus was taking advantage of him.

Both made him feel sick to consider.

And then would come questions he hadn’t seen coming. No doubt they were meant to be palate cleansers since they were all the sorts of questions Ratchet would have expected to be asked around groups of newly forged mecha.

“Now, we’re all dying to know. What is Optimus like behind closed doors? Is he—”

“—romantic?” most interviewers started with, as if they were imagining Optimus like some mech out of a romantic novel, carrying frivolous gifts while speaking overly mushy words of love.

“—passionate?” the last interviewer jumped right to with a sharp gleam to his optics, and Ratchet knew at once he meant something far more lascivious.

Was he a physical lover like the photos suggested, easily dropping affectionate kisses while touching Ratchet with ease, and could the public expect to see more of that side of their relationship? Was he funny or was he serious or was he gentle or was he passionate -- again and again each interviewer would finally ask that most important question.

“Is Optimus passionate?”

Does he frag you? their optics asked when their voice boxes couldn’t.

Is our great Prime also a great frag?

Does he make love or does he frag hard and fast until you’re screaming?

Won’t you tell us about every which way your arrays have aligned so we might imagine what it’s like to frag the Optimus Prime?

Ratchet had never considered himself a prude by any stretch of the imagination, and yet found himself burning from the inside out from embarrassment and shame.

“I’m happy with him and I make him happy, and that’s all anyone else needs to know,” Ratchet managed when all he wanted to do was scream that it wasn’t their damned business.

The moments they had together – Optimus’s large and sure servos interlocking with Ratchet’s and the affection in Optimus’s optics whenever he looked at Ratchet and the warm timbre of Optimus’s voice when he asked Ratchet every night how his day had been – didn’t belong to anyone but them.

“Shy” they all called him again, as if that could be the only reason Ratchet wouldn’t tell them about the way their frames fit together when they went into recharge each night.

But Ratchet managed to make it through each interview, and if he got to experience some glee in seeing the brief flickers of frustration on his interviewers’ faces, that was something at least.

Until that very last interview.

“Can you fully merge?”

Ratchet’s spark stopped cold in his chest as his optics went wide.

“What?”

“I’m sorry, I know, that wasn’t an approved question, but some of our readers are starting to wonder about that. What with the situation with the Matrix and all--”

“What?”

Watts, Spinmaster’s aid who had followed in Ratchet’s shadow all day to speak with the other staff members and no doubt to keep an optic on him, looked up sharply at his tone, her optics at once narrowing at the interviewer.

The interviewer at least bothered to look abashed, but still continued even as Watts started walking over, “As our Prime, Optimus’s spark communes with the Matrix, doesn’t it?” Ratchet nodded shortly, processor still reeling with confusion while his spark only grew colder with some realization it wasn’t yet sharing. “Well then, when the two of you merge – if you have yet, of course, I would never assume –”

“Don’t answer him,” Watts interrupted, standing at Ratchet’s side, and despite her minibot frame she did her best to look irate as he gestured at the interviewer with the datapad in her servo. “That topic is outlined as strictly off limits so you best stop right there or this interview is over.”

“What topic?” Ratchet asked, irritated at the conversation going on around him. Since when had there been off limit topics? Who had decided that and why hadn’t they bothered to consult him about it? And what the frag was all of this about spark merging—

The interviewer’s optics gleamed like a predator’s as he spoke over Watts protests.

“Presumably you can’t merge with the part of the Prime’s spark that communes with the Matrix, so are you able to truly bond?”

Watts had started nearly shouting now, though Ratchet wasn’t sure who at and what about because all he could hear was the rush of energon pounding through his frame. The frustration that had built over the span of the day felt as if it was boiling over in his lines.

And the bitter twist of shame in his spark finally set his temper aflame.

“Do you really think that whether we can complete a full spark merge makes any damned difference?” Ratchet snapped. Watts placed a servo on his wrist that he shook off as he pointed aggressively at the interviewer. “No, you don’t, because that has never been a requirement for legal bonding and never will be. There are plenty of bonded who do not merge fully for plenty of reasons and their bonds aren’t questioned. So just get to your point!” Watts was desperately trying to placate him now, but Ratchet didn’t pay it any mind as his optics narrowed in their focus on the interviewer whose fake smile wavered. “Just say that you want to throw doubt on our relationship until I pour out enough sordid details to prove myself that your readers can go home and self-service to their newly-informed fantasies of what it would be like to frag Optimus in my place!”

There was silence for that brief moment as the whole room seemed to gape. The interviewer’s optics had gone wide.

And then a genuine, albeit cruel, grin pulled at his lips.

Another staff member entered the fray though before he could speak, his servos gesturing placatingly as his gaze flipped from Ratchet to Watts and back, over and over. “Now, now, clearly things have gotten out of hand, so please let me offer apologies on behalf of the magazine. We would never want to suggest any insult to the Prime and his intended--”

“I have a name!” Ratchet shouted as he got to his pedes, aware of how his plating was flaring out. When the staff member just stared at him blankly for a moment before continuing with his asinine apology, Ratchet growled and he turned away to stalk out of the room.

Watts was close behind.

“Wait, sir, Ratchet,” she said as her short legs raced to bring her to walk just in front of him. It was the novelty of hearing someone else in the damned building say his name that had Ratchet finally looking down at her. There was something quick about the way her optics scanned his face, analytical and precise, and with a nod she continued, “Right, understood. I’ll handle damage control here and cancel the rest of your appointments for today. Security will be waiting for you out front to escort you back to wherever you’d like to go. Is there anything else you need?”

There were countless things Ratchet needed, the top of the list being a miracle that somehow he could have his old life back.

But that was impossible, so he shook his helm and escaped the building.

[mybullshitsensesaretingling]

It’s All Pros

Request: Can you please do a peter quill imagine where the guardians come down to earth and meet the avengers? the reader is part of the avengers. when the guardians are having a "meeting" with the avengers, Y/N comes down singing one of the songs from the awesome mixes. and peter falls head over heels and it's all very fluffy. thank you.

Few people had actually seen the inside of Avengers tower. There was a few SHEILD agents, Sam Wilson’s mom, Pepper, and the occasional other hero. Most civilians weren’t completely sure what the point of it was. About one third of the population assumed they all lived there. Another third thought it must be for training and team bonding exercises. And the last third didn’t care what it was for and simply thought it was an eye sore. The truth of the matter is that they were all right; the team did often spend their nights there and they did have a training room and it was a bit of an eye sore. But aside from all that, it held another purpose that wasn’t often fulfilled, a meeting place for other heroes and teams, but today that was the main purpose of the tower.

“How long do you think it will talk you to repair your ship?” Steve asked, leading the Guardians into the living room.

“Two days,” Rocket told him.

“I am Groot.” Groot had to stoop in order to fit in the hallway, which resulted in a long shadow being cast over most members of both teams.

“Yes, I can,” he shot back.

“Most of this you won’t be able to find on Earth,” Tony said, looking over the list of equipment they needed. “But I’ve got something better.”

“I doubt it,” Rocket grumbled.

“Whatcha got?” Peter asked.

“You ever hear of a technopath?” Tony grinned.

“Of course. What kinda idiot doesn’t know what a technopath is?” Peter leaned back towards Gamora and in a hush voice asked, “What’s a technopath?”

“It’s someone who can manipulate technology, dumbass,” Clint told him, shuffling past the group and dropping down onto an arm chair in the living room.

“No one manipulates my ship, but me.” Rocket thrust a thumb towards his chest.

“It is not your ship,” Gamora grumbled, taking a seat on the couch.

“You can trust your ship with them. They’re the best at what they do,” Steve told them.

“IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS,” a loud voice sang from the hall, “AND GETTIN’ CAUGHT IN THE RAIN! IF YOU’RE NOT INTO YOGA!”

“And here’s the respected professional now,” Natasha snorted.

Peter couldn’t help but smile as he watched you dance into the room. You didn’t seem aware of the room’s occupants as you continued singing the lyrics to Escape, whipping what looked to be oil and grease from your hands and moving your feet to a beat only you could hear.

While Peter had always been a sucker for cheesy 80’s movies and the concepts that came with them, he had never really believed in love at first sight. Lust at first sight? Sure. Annoyance at first sight? Absolutely. But love? Just wasn’t realistic. Then again, Peter had a problem with being unrealistic.

When you saw Tony, your singing quickly changed to excited, fast paced speech, “Tony! Just the billionaire playboy I was looking for. We need to talk about the jet. I-” The rest of your sentence got lost as you finally became aware that the room was full of faces you didn’t recognize. A blush rose to your cheeks and you realized they must have heard you singing.

“What about it?”

“There are people here,” you said quietly.

“Yes,” he said briskly. “What did you do to my jet?”

“Non-Avenger people,” you clarified.

“Uh huh. What did you do to my jet, (Y/N)?” Tony repeated.

“Why is there a tree with a face in the living room, Tony?” You used your entire arm to gesture at him.

“I am Groot.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Groot,” you smiled politely before turning back to Tony and Steve. “Who is Groot?”

“These are the Guardians,” Steve explained. “We told you about them. Their ship broken down. We’re helping them out.”

“Guardians…” You thought about it for a second, before gasping, “Their space ship?”

“Yeah, and you can’t touch it,” Rocket said, crossing his arms.

“Don’t worry I won’t,” you smirked. “What’s wrong with it?”

The moment the space ship became the topic of conversation, your attitude shifted. The redness across your cheeks faded, you stood up straighter, you exuded confidence. This was your element and Peter could help be sit up and take notice.  

Tony handed over the diagnostic report. Looking it over you nodded.

“You, cute guy.” You glanced back up.

Peter gestured at himself questioningly.

“Yeah, you. Take me to the ship.” You returned your attention to the screen. “The racoon can come to. But I’m liable to smack you if you get snippy ‘bout the ship.”

“I ain’t a racoon.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” you said dismissively. “We’ll discuss the jet when I get back. I didn’t break it. Pinky promise.”

“You better not have,” he huffed as you started towards the door, waving for the others to follow.

“Do I wanna know what happened,” you asked, starting down the hall they had just come from, “or is it gonna make me weep for your poor ship?”

“It’ll make ya weep,” Rocket said bluntly. “Dumbass here don’t deserve her.”

“They never do,” you agreed, folding the tablet under your arm. “Are you gonna tell me your names or should I just call you Gaurdian one and two.”

“Starlord.”

“Starlord?” you repeated. “You’re a lord of a star?”

“It’s an outlaw name. It’s cool,” he sounded slightly exasperated like he was going very tired of having to explain this to people.  

You shook your head. “I’m not calling you that.”

“Fine. Peter Quill and that’s Rocket.”

You looked down at the not-a-raccoon. “You know, somehow that makes sense.”

“Thank you.” Rocket crossed his arms, clearly not ready to forgive you for being able to fix the ship better than he could. But he followed you into the elevator without any other signs of protest.

“I’m assuming your ship’s on the landing pad,” you said hitting the button for the roof without waiting for an answer.

“Yeah,” Peter confirmed.

You let out a low whistle as you exited the elevator. You had to hold up a hand to shield your eyes from the light reflecting of of the metal of the ship as you moved further out onto the pad.

“Can you fix it?” Peter asked.

“Piece of cake,” you told him, confidently. “Damn. Now I want cake.”

“And you don’t need anything? Tools? Blueprints?” he offered.

“Got everything I need right here.” You pointed to your head and opened the door with a snap of your fingers. The snap was unnecessary, but you liked to put on a show for guests.

“Show off,” Rocket grumbled.

You smiled at him before slipping seamlessly into work mode. Your expression became neutral, professional. Holding the list up, you went over it again, before handing it to Rocket.

“Tell me what you don’t have the parts to fix. I’m not an endless source of energy.” You walked through the threshold, but popped your head back out almost immediately. “You live like this?”

“Yes.”

You gave Peter a disgusted face and moved further into the cabin. Rocket stepped quickly behind you.

“Hey! Where do you think you're goin’?” Rocket shouted.

“I thought I’d start with the engine. It’s that way, right?” You pointed to the back of the ship.

“Yeah, but-” he started, but you cut him off.

“Don’t you have some trash to dig through?” you asked, moving past the common area to the back of the ship.

“Don’t you have some bad music to listen to?” he retired.

“Everybody likes Escape,” you and Peter said at the same time.

“Except Steve,” you added, “but that’s just because ‘adultery is morally wrong.’”

“You’re not supposed to listen to the lyrics,” Peter pointed out.

“Right?” You focused on the engine. Slowly pieces detached, moving out into the open space and floating in mid air.

“I feel like I’m seeing parts of the Milano she doesn’t want me to see,” Peter said, watching you in awe.

“Don’t worry,” you smiled, moving around the tech to inspect it, “I asked her first. She’s cool with it.”

“I told you not to touch,” Rocket snapped.

“Do you see me touching anything?” You looked down at him and put your hands on your hips.

“You’re touchin’ it with your mind. It’s worse.”

“Do you want me to stop? I can stop,” you offered. “You ship will just stay broken and you’ll be trapped here forever.” You leaned towards him, looking at him with an intense gaze. “And Earth is terrible.”

“Rocket, why don’t you go fix the nav,” Peter suggested.

Crossing his arms and mumbling under his breath, Rocket trudged away, towards the stairs.

You slowly made your way through each broken piece, fixing it and then moving on to the next. Peter watched you attentively, completely fascinated. Every time you would successfully fix something your face would light up and his heart would melt just a little more.

Dropping down to a nearby chair, he began regaling you with tales of the great adventures that had lead to parts of the ship being damaged. You were completely engaged in each one despite your unwavering focus on the job at hand. He had never had someone listen to him the way you did or laugh with him instead of at him. Whenever the conversation switched to the missions you had had and the stunts you had pulled, Peter felt that he could listen to you talk for hours.

Just as your concentration was starting to falter and your frustration starting to build and voice from the entrance of the ship called out, “Hey, kid.”

You turned to see Clint standing just outside the ship. Neither you nor Peter had noticed that it had gotten dark out until then.

“Break time. You’ll pass out if you don’t eat something.” He held up a box for you to see.

“Hell yeah! Pizza!” you cheered, bouncing to the door. The ship parts clattered to the floor behind you as you lost you focus.

Peter stared at the pile, wondering momentarily if he should pick it up or remind you that it was delicate machine, but instead he announced that he was going to go check on Rocket and make sure that he wasn’t making everything rodent sized. Again.

Putting your hands on either side of the pizza box, you gave Clint a suspicious look. “How much of it did you eat?”

“None. Why do you always assume I ate some?”

“Because you always do,” you pointed out

“It’s not like you need a whole pizza,” he argued.

“I’m just saying that if you come in here presenting a whole pizza box to me, there should be a whole pizza inside.”

“You know, I don’t have to bring you pizza.”

“I know. Sorry.” You took the box from him. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Clint looked in the direction that Peter had gone, and his expression darkened. “Be careful with that guy, (Y/N).”

“So I shouldn’t take him up on his offer to swan dive off the side of the roof?” you joked.

“I’m serious. He was a criminal. He might be a hero now, but that shit sticks with you.”

“You would know,” you said, opening the lid to the box.  

“Yeah, I would.” His tone made you look up at him. “Just don’t go galavanting off to the stars just because he smiles at you, okay?”

“I won’t.” You thought about it for a second. “Maybe. Maybe I won’t. I mean, if he asks, it’s not like I’m not gonna think about. But it’ll be because of ass.”

“Oh, well, then it’s fine,” he smiled, going back to the cheery attitude you were used to.   

“No one’s making you eat any ‘nasty Tarren food’, man. Stop yelling,” Peter said, coming down the stairs.  “Hey.” His head appeared next to your shoulder. “Man, I haven’t had pizza in years.”

“Half of this is all yours,” you smiled.

“Half minus this piece,” Clint grinned, taking a piece from the box and making a run for it.

“Are you kidding me, Clint? You’re the worst,” you yelled after him, before turning to Peter. “Come on.”

“Where’re we goin’?”

“You get to look at the stars everyday, but when was the last time you got to see the New York city lights in all their glory?” you asked over your shoulder, leading him around the ship.

“Never. I grew up in Colorado.”

“Well, you get to see them now.” You stopped just shy of walking of the side of the building.

“Wow.”

“Not as cool as the stars though, is it?” you asked.

“Nothing is.”

“You can’t even see the stars here,” you complained, sitting down. “Too much ambient light.”

“I could take you too see them,” he offered.

“Why don’t we start with sharing this pizza, Walkman.” You set the box down next to you and held up a piece. “Then we’ll talk about leaving the atmosphere together.”

He dropped down beside you, leaving the box in between you and picked up a piece of his own. “Sounds fair.”

“How’d you end up in space anyways?” you asked.

“I was kidnapped as a child by a bunch of aliens who wanted to eat me.”

“Yeah, sure. Don’t know why I didn’t just assume that,” you joked.

“You really should have. It’s pretty obvious,” he chuckled. “What’d about you?”

“World went sideway, I built some weapons with my mind, kicked some bady ass. Eventually people took notice.” You shrugged.

“You build weapons with your mind. That is literally the coolest thing I ever heard.”

“Well, I’m pretty cool.” You leaned back on your arms. “I could show you the armory. Between Tony and I it’s sky high with cool toys.”

“Really?”

You nodded. “And I could show you what an mp3 is because it’s ridiculous that you still use a Walkman. Seriously who are you, DJ Tanner?”

“I’m obviously Uncle Jessie.”

You snorted.

He looked back at you.“You could be my Rebecca.”

“Are you using Full House references to flirt with me right now?”

“Depends. Is it working?” he asked, leaning back so he was on the same level as you.

“What would it make me if I said yes?”

“Honest,” he smirked.

“You’ve got an ego on you, buddy.”

“But you’re into it,” he said confidently.  

“And you’re into all of this.” You motioned down yourself.

“I am. I’m super into off key singing and weird dance moves.”

“We all have our things,” sitting up straight again and reaching for another piece of pizza.  

“You know I was serious about taking you to see the stars.”

You scooched around so you were facing him more than the city. All you could do was look at him. The seriousness in his eyes setting you off. You had no idea how to respond. Going to space would be amazing, it’s literally the dream, but you had just met him and you had a responsibility to help protect Earth.

“No, hear me out.” He sat up again too, moving closer to you. “You love the Miliano - maybe even as much as I do. This way you can see her in action. And, yeah, Rocket might try to kill you once or twice. Three times tops.”

“I’m an Avenger; I’m used to people trying to kill me.”

“See. Nothing to put in the con column. It’s all pros!”

You nibbled on the lower lip, making your own pro-con list in your head.

“What about my friends and family?” you asked. “And the team?”

“It doesn’t have to be forever. You can come back whenever you want.”

He was making a lot of sense. And you knew before he even asked that you’d be easily persuaded.

“Imagine all the crazy awesome shit you could do with space tech,” he continued.

“That’s true.” Your face scrunched up and you looked out at the skyscrapers, thinking it all through.

“You’re adorable when you’re trying to concentrate by the way.”

You slapped his arm. “Shut up I’m trying to think.”

And he did. He waited for you to speak up first, watching you anxiously.

“You’re right. It’s pretty much all pro’s.”

He nodded excitedly.

“And with the way you pilot that thing, you could use a technopath.”

He grinned and nodded even more energetically.

“Yeah, ok! Take me to space!”

Peter jumped up punching a fist in the air. “Yes! You’re gonna love it!”

“We’re not goin’ to space right now,” you laughed. “I’ve got a pizza to finish.”

[secretlystephaniebrown]

Time’s Running Out: India

Sorry for the delay on this chapter, there were a lot of things happening these past few weeks! Hopefully things will normalize a bit from now on!

Anyways, on to part 2, where we pat canon condescendingly on the head. Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment on the last chapter, you guys are wonderful and help motivate me to keep this story going!

Summary: The Reds and Blues; and their respective Freelancers, find themselves stranded on a strange planet named Chorus. Secrets, lies, and the unexpected seem to lie around every corner, and there might be even larger threats looming over the horizon.

They’re possibly even less ready for Chorus than Chorus is for them.

Pairings: Lots of friendships, Suckington, Yorkalina, Chex, eventual Yorkimbalina, possible others.

Start

Previous

Ao3

Tex didn’t like Armonia. But then again, she didn’t have the best track record with cities.

It was a well-formed grid of a city, complete with two walls. Turrets and watch towers were visible at regular intervals, showcasing that this was the city of a world at war. The capital city, no less. There were roads and various buildings, the city divided into various quarters. Once, according to the maps Tex had managed to download, the city would have had all sorts of things. Museums and tourist places, residential areas, and the like. There were parks and people lived in houses, not barracks.

Years at war had changed that. No one lived too far from the military bases, as Armonia no longer had a civilian population to speak of. Instead, they crowded into barracks not too far from headquarters, which had once been the capitol building of the city. The parks that Tex had seen had been turned into functional farms to try to grow crops to help supplement the ordinary rations.

Tex gazed upwards, at the open sky. The New Republic had lived in caves for years, avoiding the gaze of the Federal Army and protecting them from aerial attacks.

Armonia had no such defenses. They were vulnerable to the sky. They were a bright, obvious target. The New Republic, by moving here, had sacrificed mobility and the option of guerilla warfare. Tex knew there was an argument to be made for strength in numbers, but she hated the idea of being trapped here. There was a river right to the south, another major weak point that Felix and Locus would be sure to exploit. She’d have to talk to the generals about doubling the patrol there, maybe mining the river…

“Why are you on the roof?” Church’s voice said behind her. Tex didn’t turn around.

“I like roofs,” she said.

Church hesitated, as if he had something he wanted to say, but he decided against it. He sat next to her instead. Tex angled her head slightly to look at him, making sure that he hadn’t fallen apart since she’d seen him last. But he still looked fine, his new armor clean and remarkably intact for everything they’d gone through. And he felt whole as he ever did, another thing to be grateful for. They hadn’t touched him. She’d know if they had, she was sure of that.  

“I’m glad you’re back,” he said.

Tex nodded. After a moment of hesitation, she placed her hand on top of his in a deliberate motion. She saw no need for physical affection beyond that, not here and now. Later, maybe, she’d check him over fully and let him do the same for her. But now, this was enough.

She’d take these quiet moments where she could find them, in the middle of this new war.  

“I need to go,” she said after a moment.  “I want to investigate the docking bay.”

He nodded. She was loathe to remove her hand, but she did, jumping off the roof without care that the fall would injure most people.

Tex was not most people. Her landing was heavy, sure, but there were no witnesses besides Church, and it was faster than the stairs. So what if there were a few small cracks in the concrete that hadn’t been there before? No one would notice.

The docking bay was a bit of a walk from the headquarters, but Tex took it invisibly. It would be faster if she had borrowed a mongoose, but she couldn’t be bothered to do so, not when the trip was so short. People were already running around, moving in supplies from the caches both armies had all over the planet. Tex wanted to inspect some of them. Felix and Locus had known where these caches were, and she wouldn’t put it below them to do something like tampering with the weapons or food that they were going to need to survive.

She was initially pleased to spot a group of mixed cadets; Feds and Rebels both unloading their shipments, before she realized that they were tolerating each other for the sake of gossip.

“I definitely heard that Felix skinned a guy alive,” one of the Feds said, leaning in close, as if afraid she might be overheard. “I know a chick who was stationed in the south, and she swears she found the knife near his body. Orange stripe on the blade, y’know. Like he’s bragging. He wants people to know it’s him” She shook her head. “Locus was creepy and all, but at least I never heard of him torturing people for information.”

One of the rebels scoffed. “That’s a load of bullshit,” he said. “I heard that Locus tortures plenty.”

“Yeah, c’mon,” another rebel added. “The guy’s a fucking machine. He doesn’t care about things like that. I heard he tried to kill Agent Washington even though he was supposed to be with your group.”

Tex felt her mouth tug down in a frown, despite herself. Gossip was normally just irritating, but this was getting under her skin for reasons she didn’t care to examine. Tex ducked behind a pillar to decloak, before stepping out behind them. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered to hide her appearance, but people were jumpy about invisibility because of Locus. Yet another thing for her to hold against him. “You should probably get moving,” she said, keeping her voice deceptively mild. “We’re on a schedule.”

One of the Feds let out a small scream. “Yes, sir, Agent Texas!”

Tex was glad to see that Grif and Simmons were spreading her reputation around.

Seeing Tucker in a hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment and all-too-still was one of the most difficult sights of Wash’s life. Wash didn’t like to quantify things like this, didn’t like to make lists of the macabre and awful things he’d seen and even done. But there were bandages on Tucker’s stomach stained with blood.

Doctor Grey had assured him and Kai repeatedly that Tucker was fine, but none of that removed the image seared into his mind from Kai’s description of the way that Tucker had crumpled to the ground. He hadn’t been there. He’d been too far away to be of any help, his ribs cracked and bruised from the brutal beating Locus had given him. But Kai had seen it all, seen every second, perched as she was on top of the tower with Carolina and the others. And from the way that she held Tucker’s hand, Wash thought she might have had it worse.

Wash held Tucker’s left hand in his own, running his thumb over his knuckles, his eyes flickering between Tucker and Kai.

The Reds and Blues had taken him in. They had given him a home. But it was Kai and Tucker who had looked at him, broken and screwed up as he was, and wanted him anyways. They were everything Wash wanted, and everything he knew he didn’t deserve, no matter how many times that they told him otherwise. He was lucky, amazingly lucky, that they loved him.

He was never going to let anything like this happen to Tucker again. Bad enough they’d been separated for so long, bad enough having spent every day not knowing if he was alright. But this?

Wash didn’t know how many more times he could take a sight like this before he lost it.  

“How’s he doing?” Tex asked, poking her head in. She looked tired. She’d been running ragged over these past few days, trying to hunt down Felix and Locus. Wash had tried to tell her that she was wasting her time, but then he’d looked at Tucker again, and hadn’t found the words.

“He was awake longer this time,” Kai said quietly.

“Good,” Tex said. There was a dark, dangerous note to her voice that was reminiscent of how she’d sounded under Omega’s influence. “Has Church come to visit?”

“No,” Wash said. He reached up and pressed his fingers against Tucker’s cheek. “I think he’s… struggling.”

Tex let out a sound that Wash might have described as tired. “He is.” She moved closer to Tucker’s bed, hovering. “We were lucky,” she said. “They didn’t know who he was. They would have…”

“I know,” Wash said. God, he knew all too well the kind of things that might happen to Alpha if people with few enough morals got their hands on him. “But they don’t know. He’s safe.”

“They’ll figure it out if they put together that Epsilon sounds just like him,” Tex said. She stood at the foot of Tucker’s bed and gripped the posts, bowing her head. She was practically shaking with exhaustion or rage or something else entirely that Wash couldn’t place. She hadn’t removed her armor, but Wash knew her eyes were firmly on Tucker’s face. “This was too close,” she said.

“Yes,” Wash agreed.

“I’ve gotten sloppy,” Tex muttered, more to herself than to Wash. Wash looked up, surprised.

“Tex,” he said. “This wasn’t on you.” There were a thousand people Wash would blame before he thought to blame Tex. A part of him, before he’d met Kai and Tucker, had blamed Tex for parts of Freelancer. He was not immune from the competitiveness, from the bitterness that had tainted the rest of the project, and the favoritism that the Director had shown Tex, and the knowledge that the Director had thought that everything he was doing, he was doing for her, grated.

But he knew better now. Tex had been a victim, as much as the rest of them had been.

And she had been the one to take her vengeance on the man who had ruined all their lives, at least, if Sarge had guessed correctly. And Wash had learned long ago not to doubt Sarge’s deductions.

“I should have killed Felix at the cliff,” she said. “Sloppy. Soft.” There was a huff, as if she was taking a deep breath, but that was impossible, because Tex didn’t breathe anymore than Church did. But somewhere in that sound, Wash thought he heard another word, hissed like a curse.

“Human.”

But before Wash could ask Tex any questions, Tucker began to stir again, eyelids fluttering as he started to drift awake. When Wash looked up from Tucker’s face again, Tex was gone, without as much as a shimmer in the air to indicate that she was nearby.

And then Wash was too busy to remember Tex’s musings, occupied as he was with trying to stop Tucker from ripping his stitches as he tried to get out of bed far before Dr. Grey wanted him to.

“Tucker, sit down,” he said. “You’re going to make it worse.”

“Fuck that! I’ve been in here forever, I want to go home!”

“Our quarters’ situation hasn’t been fixed yet,” Wash lied through his teeth. Doyle’s second in command, a man named Fredericks, had already helped finish the paperwork to get the three of them reassigned into shared quarters. Wash had expected that they’d have to share with someone else, or that there would be protests about Kai sharing with two men, but Fredericks had tapped his nose and said that General Doyle had said that everything was okay.

The General of the Army had basically given them the okay to fraternize. And Wash had thought he and Kai had done a good job at keeping things secret while they were with the Federal Army, but it seemed that not only that, but Doyle had known about Tucker too. Wash didn’t know really what he was supposed to do with that, but he intended to make the most of it.

After Kai had threatened to tie Tucker to the bed, and then promised to do that to him when they got their quarters situation straightened out, Tucker finally agreed to lie back down. From the wince he was trying to hide, Wash suspected that he had been hoping for a promise like that all along.

Rolling his eyes exasperatedly, Wash pressed a kiss to Tucker’s knuckles as Grey began to fuss with his IV and painkillers.  

And he didn’t think about how close they had nearly come to losing Tucker.

Kimball’s new office was bigger than three of her bunks back at the New Republic base. It was a strange thing. She’d never had a desk before; the leaders before her had, but she’d never really seen the need. The metal desk of her predecessor had been smelted down for bullets before his plane had been shot down anyways.

Felix had shot him down, she thought, running her hands over the wooden grains of the desk. Killed him for trying to leave the planet. They were trapped here, truly trapped, like rats in a trap.

The familiar burning sensation rose up in her throat but she swallowed it down. There wasn’t time for anything like that. She had too much to do, she couldn’t afford to linger on the way Felix had laughed in the video, and how it compared to every other time she’d heard him laugh.

There was already paperwork accumulating on her desk; Martinez, one of the soldiers who Harris had rescued, had appointed herself Kimball’s assistant, and had been helping her put together the paperwork they’d need to try to calculate the exact state of the New Republic and Federal Armies’ joint supplies.

Slipping into the seat behind the desk, Kimball set to work, internally marveling at the fact she wasn’t crouched over a card table in her bunk. There simply wasn’t enough room at their old base for an office to only be an office, so her private quarters had doubled as hers. But Armonia had rooms to spare, even now with the New Republic squeezing in.

It was hard not to envy the Federal Army for all this space. Logistically, it made things difficult for them she knew. They didn’t have the population to man a city of this size, and defending it was difficult. The city was formed by three rings; the suburbs outside the city wall, the city itself inside the city wall, and then the military area, inside yet another wall. All of the suburbs and the city outside of the inner wall had been abandoned, and were trapped to try to form additional layers of defenses. It was in those defenses where Kimball and her people had been caught when they’d tried to attack Armonia.

There was a knock on the door, and Kimball straightened up.

A tall woman in teal armor walked in, and Kimball wanted to stare. She’d seen photographs of Agent Carolina, but none of them had really done her justice. There was an aura she carried with her, of sheer power and confidence. Her armor was well worn, like all other armor on this planet, but it was still a sight. It was augmented in ways that Kimball could notice, but she had no idea what they were supposed to do. It was clearly the kind of armor that Kimball couldn’t afford to equip her own soldiers with; the kind of armor that people like Felix and Locus wore.

Kimball hadn’t met Carolina, even amongst all the chaos of readjusting. There hadn’t been time. She’d been coordinating with Doyle, writing peace treaties, agreeing to terms of alliances. She’d stopped by the infirmary to check on Tucker, and met the frequently mentioned Washington and Kaikaina in the process, but other than those two, she’d only seen the captains out of the vaunted Reds and Blues. There was too much going on.

“General Kimball?” Agent Carolina said, saluting.

“Just Kimball, please. You must be Agent Carolina,” she said. “Tucker spoke of you often.”

There was the slightest of softening to Carolina at that. “I see.”

“How can I help you?” Kimball said, before realizing there wasn’t a spare chair in her office. Grimacing, she made a note to ask Martinez to try to find one—surely there was a storage room with furniture somewhere in this city.

“I just wanted to let you know that Epsilon has finished decrypting the manifest the Reds took from The Hand of Merope,” Carolina said.

“Yeah, cuz I’m fucking awesome like that,” said a voice that was vaguely familiar to Kimball as a bright blue light shimmered before forming the small armored figure.

Kimball frowned, before placing the voice. “You sound like Private Church,” she said. She still hadn’t met him, but he’d radioed her several times, helping out the Federal Army with their own logistics.

Epsilon paused, and then fidgeted, in an act of sheer, unmistakable humanity. “It’s… complicated,” he said. “But hey! I figured out the identity of this “Control” guy.”

Kimball swallowed. “I—we should get Doyle, he’ll want to be here.” She paused, looking at Epsilon. “Did you—do you know why he wants Chorus?”

“He’s reverse engineering the alien technology he finds on this planet,” Carolina said. “And then he’s selling them.”

It was like the world falling out from under her again. “All this… for money?”

People had died. Their world was savaged. Kimball had sent people to their deaths, had been willing to die, had believed every lie that had come out of Felix’s mouth, and it had all been for profit. Someone, out there, was profiting off the deaths of her people. Maybe they had started it, but there was more to it than that. Someone had paid Felix and Locus to make sure they never made it to the negotiation table. Someone made sure no one could go for help.

All so he could reap the rewards from a planet of the dead.

Carolina placed a hand on Kimball’s arm, warm and comforting. “We’ll make sure they pay for this,” she said, and there was a ferocity in her voice that made Kimball’s knees weak. She tried to remind herself that now was not the time, but it really didn’t help much. There was a presence to Carolina that was almost intoxicating, and Kimball was caught up in it.

There was another knock on the door, and Harris poked his head in. “Hey Kimball, do you have a sec—oh. Carolina.”

Kimball felt her heart leap at the sight of him. She still hadn’t managed to get a hold of him since finding out he was alive. It was odd, but she’d missed him a lot, even though she’d known he was alive and well.

(She refused to let herself think of her reaction to his death.)

“Private Harris,” she said, and she couldn’t quite keep the fondness out of her voice. Glancing at Carolina, she decided to risk some unprofessional behavior, and crossed the room, intending to hug him before she lost her nerve. She wasn’t sure if Harris would be comfortable with that, after all. She placed a hand on his shoulder instead, but she couldn’t help feeling that the gesture was insufficient. “It’s good to see you alive,” she said.

Harris suddenly seemed incredibly uncomfortable. “That’s—that’s what I’m here to talk to you about. Kind of. Not the alive thing. But there’s… there’s something I need to tell you.”

Kimball frowned. “Can it wait? Agent Carolina says Epsilon has cracked the encryption. I was going to call Doyle.”

“That is an incorrect statement,” an unfamiliar voice said, and Kimball leapt back as a green armored hologram, the exact size of Epsilon, appeared in front of her. “Epsilon never was fond of sharing credit.”

“Oh, c’mon Dee, don’t be like that,” Epsilon snapped.

“Dee?” Kimball said. “Another AI?”

“Uh, Kimball, this is Delta,” Harris said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He’s… he’s my partner.”

“It is good to meet you at last, General Kimball,” Delta said, and his voice was distorted, so clearly inhuman compared to Epsilon’s. There was intonation there, she realized, separating him from the voices of normal machines. But she’d never mistake his voice for that of a natural human one.  

“But… I thought only Freelancers were partnered with AI,” Kimball said, numbly staring at the little green avatar. Delta was wearing outdated armor, but was looking at her curiously, as if gauging her reaction.

Harris scuffed his foot on the floor, but met her gaze. He was bracing for something, she realized. He was expecting something bad to happen. The thought chilled her to the core. “That’s the part I need to tell you.” He took a deep breath. “My name isn’t Nick Harris. I’m… I’m Agent New York of Project Freelancer.”

Kimball stared at him, and then looked at Delta. “Why didn’t you tell me?” She said, feeling honestly hurt. He hadn’t trusted her. All this time, she’d thought he was her friend, and he hadn’t trusted her.

After Felix, that cut deeper than it should have.

“I do!” Harris—York?—said quickly, holding up his hands. “But I thought Felix might sell me and Delta out, and—”

“What?” Kimball said, incredulously.

“Pff, some friends you have, York,” Epsilon said, and she turned slightly, remembering that he and Carolina were still in the room, watching all of this. “Can’t trust them not to sell you out.”

Kimball’s head swiveled to Epsilon. “Friends?”

Even through his helmet, Kimball could tell that York was currently trying to kill Epsilon with his gaze. “Felix and I served in the war together,” York said. He was standing straighter, all of a sudden, his hands clasped behind his back. Suddenly, she could see it. A Freelancer. She had been working with a Freelancer this whole time. She felt that when she had time, she’d be able to put things together more coherently. That he’d provided her with some parts of the picture that she’d been missing this whole time. “Alongside Locus.”

Kimball felt her own gaze harden. The taste on her tongue was bitter and fresh. She could recognize it as betrayal now. When had it become such a familiar feeling? “You knew?”

“No!” York said. “I—look, he was a bastard, but you were paying him, so I didn’t think—I didn’t know he’d—”

Kimball had heard plenty.

“Agent York, I think that’s enough for now,” she said, and she was amazed by the steadiness of her own voice. She didn’t feel steady. First Felix, then Harris… what was next? Tucker? Caboose? Was there anyone that she could trust? “You’re dismissed.”

There was a moment when he just looked at her. Then his gaze jumped to Carolina for a moment, almost as if he was expecting her to have something to add, before looking back to Kimball. He nodded once, then saluted her. But it wasn’t the normal, lazy one that usually could make her smile, even on the worst days, but a proper salute, stiff and formal.

And then he left, leaving Kimball alone with the other Freelancer and the other AI.

[indianangel01]

A Corona Warrior's Tale of Woe

This is a guest post Day 75 of lockdown: More than 2 months of lockdown have passed by in a haze. On 21st March, our PM declared a nationwide lockdown. The next 10 days resident doctors spent in a limbo wherein we wondered about the upsurge of cases, what measures would be taken to contain them, and when would the public healthcare system be hit. What we didn't anticipate is how badly it would be hit and how fast it would crumble. I'm an exam going resident who got relieved of my duties as a resident on 1st February of this year. I was expected to give my International Council of Ophthalmology examination on 20th April and my M.S. Ophthalmology theory exam on 15th of May. By June end I was supposed to be a free bird. Cut to 1st April, all exam going residents who were neck deep in exam prep were recalled back for duties. Specifically covid duties. All exam leaves were declared cancelled until further notice. ICO flashed status of our exam as postponed to 3 months later. Shit was about to hit the fan. Those of us who were in the same city rejoined immediately, others from different cities and states scrambled to find transport to rejoin as the lockdown was in full swing and all trains and flights and cabs were suspended. We were given circulars saying legal action would be taken against anyone who didnt rejoin work. Our degrees were already at stake. A friend of mine spent 25000 and hired a car to come from Bangalore to Mumbai. There would be no mercy shown to those who couldn't show up. I work at Sion Hospital, one of the busiest in Mumbai. There was buzz that Nair hospital would soon be converted into a COVID designated hospital. Sion was referring positives to Seven Hills, Kasturbha. We were managing the workload quite efficiently. The first danger started when Dharavi got its first COVID positive case. Dharavi, last recorded population of over 8 lakhs, is situated exactly behind Sion Hospital, and its residents form a major chunk of our patient load. When cases started emerging from Dharavi, initially in single digits, then rapidly in double and triple digits, we knew Sion Hospital was about to go under the COVID wave. It was days before the State Government finally accepted that community spread had occurred in Mumbai. Community spread is spread basically which cannot be contact traced, direct contacts are already traced and tested; it's very difficult to contain a disease once community spread occurs. By the time the government declared community spread, Sion hospital was already receiving enough COVID cases that it could no longer refer to any other hospital. We had become a covid and non covid hospital now fighting to strike a work balance. Residents were shunted from departments to work in COVID wards in shifts. The Category A residents of specialties like Chest Medicine, General Medicine, Anesthesia would lead the fight; specialties like Obstetrics and Gynecology, Radiology, ENT and Ophthalmology were to struggle alongside. Ophthalmology as a specialty doesnt equip us to deal with either respiratory distress or cardiac arrest. Systemically unstable patients are encountered by an ophthalmic surgeon as frequently as chilly weather is encountered in Mumbai. Once in a blue moon. I was petrified of what I would even do in such a scenario. I hadn't declared a single death in three years of residency. More precisely, none of my patients had died in three years because systemically unstable patients are always stabilised before we operate on them. Thrust into an unending vortex of community screening, ward duty which was putting angiocatheters, catheterizations, blood collections, vital monitoring, paperwork with alternate managing of department duties- casualties, OPD and OT it started looking like residency would never really be over. Exams or no exams, this was war and everyone had to participate. Everyday we would get some new protocol from the authorities; some change in the period of quarantine we would be offered- which decreased from 7 day work and 7 day quarantine to 5 day work and 2 day quarantine to 9 days of work and 6 days of quarantine to 14 days of work and 9 days of quarantine and so on. Apex institutions disagreed with the Municipal Corporation which disagreed with institutes which disagreed with departments. The result? Residents were testing positive by the dozens. Within a couple of weeks, 61 residents at Sion Hospital had tested positive, some were critical, all were stressed and overburdened. Meanwhile Nair was declared COVID only and referrals of non covid patients to Sion had of course increased substantially. Sion was crumbling under the weight but apparently nobody except residents could see the cracks. One afternoon a video from Sion became viral. It was shot by the relative of one of the COVID positive patients and showed body bags on beds next to living patients. It didnt take long for everyone from civilians to the media to the government to raise questions about how Sion hospital was being managed so badly. They questioned the humanity of the doctors and the delay in transportation of dead bodies. What they didnt question was the reason behind it. They didn't question the lack of goverment investment in public healthcare since decades. They didn't question why noone bothered to rectify this when shortage of beds and manpower has been an issue way before this pandemic. And they definitely didn't question whether the government had let doctors down by sending them to battle ill equipped and underprepared. Residents were being made to work inhumane hours but noone had the energy to really speak against it because things were getting worse by the day. We lay in wait for the new resident batch to join so that we could get some respite. New circulars kept popping every day - "Residents will receive COVID work benefits of rupees 300 per say", "residents will receive a pay hike". Meanwhile our salaries were credited late, with a 10% tax cut, no COVID benefit and definitely no stipend hike. A stay order on the state merit list of new incoming resident batch was finally lifted a week ago, which gave us some hope. Hope that was immediately squashed by the administration which issued a circular saying no matter when the new residents joined, we would not be relieved of our duties till 31st July at the earliest. No word about our exams or if we would get a preparatory leave period. Meanwhile residents were thrust to the forefront while everyone else cowered conveniently behind us. We were being called "corona warriors" but we felt nothing more than a scapegoat. There is no glory in working a PPE suit so impervious your sweat forms puddles around your feet or taking swabs going from house to house in 40 degrees in a PPE suit. I wont even get into how worried our families were during this ordeal. My mother lives in Nagpur and with every phone call she was becoming increasingly worried and upset and I was becoming increasingly quiet. She asked me to leave everything and just come home. Nothing is more important than staying healthy, she said. Of course, I didn't listen to her. Though none of us had signed up for this, this was a price we would all have to pay, whether we liked it or not. What was awful to watch was not the fact that we all were being coerced into work, but the fact that not only were the people of Mumbai doing nothing to abide by the lockdown, but our administration wasn't supporting us with a well formulated protocol either. There was complete chaos in the way the pandemic was managed, right from availability of PPE and masks, to overlapping duty schedules, lack of facilities to isolate positive asymptomatic resident doctors and symptomatic ones, lack of facilities to keep asymptomatic positive patients and lack of tests. The government was refusing to let us test anyone asymptomatic, even those who had known contact with someone who had turned positive. Because of this, asymptomatic carriers were running rampant, and there was no way to identify who would be positive next until a 60+ person landed in respiratory distress in the emergency services. Instead of focusing on things like getting adequate PPE for residents, making sure they got salaries and other covid benefits for their services, their food needs were taken care of; airplanes were busy showering petals from the sky. Policeman had by this time given up on checking ID cards. Essential and non essential people were out on the streets. We were getting the usual trauma like assault when everyone was supposed to be maintaining social distancing and staying indoors. Some routine complaints like watering of eyes and refractive error were resurfacing. Clearly the pandemic seriousness had not permeated to all sections of the society, and even if it had, not even was being done to mitigate it. Amidst the chaos, the fear and frequent blasts of depressing bulletins, residents were waging a war against the virus that had left life as they knew it in shreds. Managing to treat patients to the best of their abilities, bringing smiles to cured patients, delivering babies, operating tumors and saving lives. All while praying they wouldn't contract the illness, praying they would be able to survive this pandemic with only emotional scars and nothing more. Now here we are, still exam going, still very much working, still frustrated, overburdened and exhausted. With no end of the pandemic in sight (the peak is yet to come) and monsoon around the corner, which itself brings a tidal wave of dengue, malaria and leptospirosis and no manpower nor hospital facilities to deal with the upcoming doom. Read the full article