#the park is of currently run entirely by robots

[sun-e-chips]

#14 Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

Waterspark Moon: “I always thought it would be really fun for Sun and I and all the tiki’s to take a trip somewhere. Somewhere outside of the park all of us, maybe even to another theme park, I don’t know somewhere with a lot of space where we can all be together no work all play. We haven’t tried to pull something like this off because it would be a grand feat with lots of planning: closing the park, hiring a temp security team, transportation, finding somewhere with enough free rooms to book. It’s doable we would just have to be serious enough to plan it at least a year in advance.”

[echantedtoon]

A Bug In The System

You purchase an old game console from your Uncle Litwack after it goes haywire as your new pet project. Everything seems to be working well, however unbeknownst to you there's a bug in the system.

(Got this idea partially from watching console restoration videos on YouTube.)

You weren't sure what about this game cabinet was bothering you. 

Maybe it was the randomly flashing screen you still couldn't explain? Or the changes in code that you found and was so sure you never programmed in. Or maybe it was the strange mutterings you thought you heard the game characters say even though you were sure they weren't programmed to say. You weren't sure. But whenever you played the game or tried going it, it seemed as if everything was running smoothly. 

So perhaps it was nothing but you hearing things. You had been pretty stressed out with college work and staying up most nights as you studied programming and computer science.  So it was probably the lack of sleep combined with weird hallucinations from said lack of sleep. However it was strange it only started after you had started working on this game console. 

It was a Saturday morning.

Your day had started off with a sunny morning and a good meal. You had no classes or anything else you had to get done with that day so you made up your mind to visit someone you hadn't seen or heard from in a while. Your Uncle Litwak. His arcade was only a few miles away from the college and where you were currently living, so why not visit your favorite uncle in your entire family?  You arrived at the arcade a bit later than you intended on with the traffic but luckily there was plenty of parking space for you to just pull up and park your hand me down truck.

The sunlight was warm as you happily walked across the concrete and right up to the doors leading into the arcade. It looked exactly the same the last time you visited a few months ago minus a new game console against the fair wall called 'Twilight's Bain' and looked to be a run and gun style game. Maybe you'd try it out while you were here.

Mustn't have been too busy today as there was only around five or six kids around the place playing games and a few adults you assumed were the parents standing around watching or playing on their phones. 

"Uncle Litwak?," you called out walking past the noises of dancing beats, chase scene music, and the groans of zombies dying inside the digital screens of the game consoles. F/c orbs blinking looking around for any signs of the familiar older man. "Uncle Litwak!"

Maybe he was in the back office? You made your way past the other consoles including one of  the newer ones that was called Heroes Duty. That's where most of the shooting noises were coming from as two boys were both blasting away at the screen shooting fake robot bugs. Passing a few other games and turning a corner, you finally saw the person you were looking for. 

Facing away from you with a phone to his ear was your uncle. He took looked no different than the day you last saw him. Wearing that famous black and white striped shirt, and the pack around his waist wear he was always sure to keep any spare quarters for quick refunds or to exchange for dollar bills handed to him in exchange for the kids to fuel the games. He was slightly leaned over, one hand on his hip as a sigh escaped his lips.

"So you can't make it today?," he asked and the faint sounds of someone's voice coming from the phone answered back although it was too muffled and low volume to tell what the person on the other side was saying. "Oh..I see. Well when are you getting it fixed?" Another pause before your Uncle Litwak hummed. "Alrighty then. Have your boys call me back as soon as you get a free date will ya? Good. Thanks, Harvey. Drop by with the grandkids sometime. It's always fun to see them running around here. Hehe. I'll talk to you later. Alright. Take care."

He must've been too into the call to hear your approaching footsteps or the distant sounds of the arcade muffled your approach so he had no idea you were standing right behind him as he hung up. That is until you cleared your throat causing him to turn to you. He blinked a few times catching him off guard before a wife smile graced his face.

"Hey, hey!," he immediately greeted opening up his arms and turning to fully face you. "Well if it isn't my favorite college gal!"

"Hey, Uncle Litwak!," you greeted going to return the open hug he gave you. It lasted a few minutes with him patting you on the back before you both pulled away. "How are you? I haven't seen you since Mom's birthday party."

He made a 'psh' sound waving a hand off. "Well you know how it is. Some days are a lot slower than others, but it's been okay. Why are you here, Sweetie?" He gestured as he went to start walking. "Shouldn't you be up there studying for...What is it again? Electronics?"

You chuckled going to start walking next to him. "Programming and computer science. And no. I didn't have anything to do today so I figured it'd be nice to visit you. Maybe we can get lunch or something?" 

He seemed to brighten up at the good news. "Honey, that's the best news I had all day."

All day? Your brow rose in curiosity. "Did something happen?'

Again he sighed and a hand reached up to scratch his head. "Well I've been having a bit of a problem with my usual pick up guy."

"What happened?"

"Well my usual salvage guy was supposed to be here this morning to pick up Sugar Rush, but their truck broke down and I'm going to have to wait until they get it fixed," he explained as you both passed the whack-a-mole game, "I guess I can just ask someone to look online for a different local salvage company or I can wheel it out near the dumpsters."

"Sugar Rush?" Your brows furrowed in thought as the name definitely rang a bell. Wasn't that game the racing game that was candy land themed? You vaguely remembered playing it two or three times over the years, but you weren't too familiar with it. "Ya mean that racing game that looks like Willy Wonka made it?"

He huffed a chuckle. "That's one way to put it I guess." But he nodded. "Yeah. Two days ago the darned thing broke and unfortunately it'd cost me more to fix it than to pay someone else to haul it outta here."

"Uh huh..." You hummed it thought. "How'd it break?"

"Apparently the game went coco like your great Nana and someone broke the steering wheel thingamajig on it. I don't know what to do with it now except to wheel it over to the corner until they're able to pick it up I suppose."

"Hey, Uncle Litwak. What if I take it?"

That got him to stop walking and turn to you in question. "You want to what now, Sweetie?"

You smiled at him. "I can take it if you don't want it anymore." You offered to his surprise. "I'm working really hard to study programming so I can use it as a practice project! Maybe I can even get it fixed for you!"

He hummed rubbing at his head again. "Well...I guess it would save me the trouble of getting it outta here and it'd just be taking up space, but are you sure you'd want to do that?"

You nodded. "I'd love to take it!"

...He smiled. "Well alright. If you want it that bad it's yours."

You beamed. "Thanks, Uncle Litwak! Lemme buy you some lunch to make up for it! My treat!"

"Sweetie, that's an offer I can't refuse."

With some help you managed to get the old game loaded up and strapped safely into your truck and hauled it all the way home after your visit was over. Your neighbors were nice enough to help you unload it and carry it back to your apartment where you were fully able to get a good look at it. 

It wasn't in too bad shape. Of course there was the destroyed steering wheel and when you plugged it in, the screen was a bit glitchy but otherwise everything seemed to be ok. The easiest part to fix was the steering wheel. You ended up finding a new steering wheel for two hundred dollars on ebay and ended up purchasing it. Was it expensive? Yes. Did you want to fix the console? Also yes. It took a whole week of waiting before you got a friend of yours, who fixed computers and other devices as a side gig, to reattach the new steering wheel and clean up a little bit of the outside.

If you didn't know it was old, you'd say it was brand new. However the hardest part of the fix up was the internal touch ups as you called it. Taking a careful sweep through inside, showed no damage to any of the wires or motherboard. That was good. It was a little dusty but nothing a soft duster cloth couldn't fix. All that was left was checking on the code.

So when you hooked it up to your laptop, you were surprised to see so much missing. Specifically a lot of the codes for NPCs and game racers.

Now that was certainly strange. Why wasn't there any coding for one of the most important aspects of the game? Sure it was just a simple racing arcade game but it didn't make sense to not include that. No wonder the game wasn't working. Your poor uncle must've been scammed and sold a cheap knockoff or something. 

Well other than the missing characters, there didn't seem to be anything else wrong with the coding at all. This was a perfect opportunity to practice coding in some characters of your own! But first thing's first. You'd run a virus scan on it just to be sure everything was working ok. 

THAT was the first time something strange happened.

It was a routine virus scan being performed on the console. You've done it before. So when suddenly the consoles screen glitched out and your laptop quickly shut down to the blue screen of death in the middle of said scan, you were shocked. 

That hadn't happened before.

A few taps of your keyboard did nothing. In order to get it to stop you had to unplug your laptop from the console which... instantly fixed it and got rid of the blue screen which surprised you. There must've been something wrong with the system. So you unplugged it, replugged it, and got the game to reset. 

Everything seemed to work ok after that. 

You tried the virus scan again and this time it worked. Detecting nothing. Weird but you guessed that the game console being older than your laptop would have a bit of trouble adjusting to the laptop at first.

That wasn't the only strange thing however. Programming in characters in your free time between classes and other obligations was pretty simple and fun. Really the hardest parts was looking online for the normal character models from the original game and getting their exact details and voice lines in. Thank gosh for internet connections. 

The strange thing was when you were trying to code in that princess character. Vanellope Von something or other. You were trying to get it as close to the original game as possible. You got maybe most of the coding for her model done when all of a sudden your laptop blue screened again.

"What the-!?" You tapped the spacebar on your laptop to no avail. A frustrated growl escaped your throat as you glared at the stupid blue screen. "You've gotta be kidding me!" You tried and tried to get it to stop. It only stopped when you disconnected from the system again only to find all your previous progress GONE. "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! IT TOOK ME DAYS TO DO THAT!!"

Stupid laptop. 

You had to start all over again. This time you decided to make the code and only add it to the game once it was all finished. The result of it was you having a full working model for the Princess in game sitting on the popcorn box throne and waving at the players as they raced when she herself wasn't chosen for the roster. FINALLY. 

You were so happy to finally get it in the game that you probably didn't notice the gleaming glitching eyes within the crowd of cheering nut npcs when you did a test through drive of the game to see how you did so far. Not bad. It was a bit buggy still with a few kinks to work out, but nothing you couldn't fix eventually. You especially made a mental note to fix the spontaneous glitch that made you randomly get stuck in the track if you crashed.

The next time you got back around to the game wasn't until a few months later. Studying, exams, family, and your irl job had eaten everything else for a long while. So imagine your surprise when you say down to do a quick playthrough of the game, just as a refresher on what you needed to work on, and you found no traces of the princess in her popcorn throne.

The roster was full of eight of the racers you remembered adding however the one right in the middle was one you'd never seen before..

"That's weird," you mumbled to yourself staring right at the middle character on the roster. "I don't remember adding you."

Right smack dab in the middle of the roster was an odd character. A man nearly complete bald. He looked goofy all dressed up in puffy pants and Tinkerbell like shoes and a purple overcoat, striking an equally as goofy pose standing on one leg and both arms thrown up into the air. A crown sat on top his head as much like the other characters stared at you blankly. 

You definitely didn't add this guy. Who was he? Where did he come from? Had you added him but forgotten?...No. You kept track of what you added. Confusion and curiosity took a hold of you and so you use the steering wheel and peddle to choose said mysterious character. He let out a happy laugh as he was picked out and the game moved along to the racing bits. 

However you did notice the absence of one said princess whom was supposed to be sitting in the popcorn throne or in another one of the other racecars. Instead of her in the racecars designed for her, it was the king looking character you'd chosen for the race. 

"What in the world is going on?", you questioned as you continued the game. 

And was shocked to find it running so ..so smoothly. The previous bugs and glitches were all but gone.  Even when you accidentally slammed into an up coming jawbreaker you didn't get stuck in the track. If anything a few annoyed sounding shouts instead came out of the character. You drove him around and listened to his voice lines of 'Have some candy!' and 'To the rightful ruler goes the spoils!' Only getting second place.

The cutscene that played out was your character standing in the middle of a confetti spotlight as a silver trophy floated down into his awaiting arms. He looked disappointed by his prize humming before saying the voice line-

"Not what I deserve...but it'll do for now."

"Yeah. I definitely didn't program you." You turned around in your seat towards the laptop sat up on the desk and didn't notice the way the character LOOKED DIRECTLY AT YOUR FORM as you stood up. "I'd better check on this."

The panicked look upon the character's face as he quickly fled the scene dropping the silver trophy in the process as you turned on your laptop and began going through the files. Only to be shocked to not see any of the codes for the princess you spent hours on. ...It was as if you never put code in to begin with. Furious you began going through the strands and strands of code looking for a trace of the strand you put in. You didn't find any. However you did find one file you didn't recognize.

"...Turbo?"

Turbo? You didn't remember labeling any files under that name. And where did all of the process code go?! You implemented it in perfectly and it was working out just a few months ago. You didn't have a chance to explore the code any further before once again your laptop blue screened as you tried to access it. For a moment there was nothing but you just staring at the screen before you ended up slamming your face into the desk and let out a muffled cry of frustration.

"I don't get what's going on!," you vented to a friend a few days later as you both were having lunch. He listened patiently as you rambled on pointing a poor fry at everything. "I made sure the code was perfect and it was working fine when I was finally able to put it in! I don't get what's wrong with the stupid thing!"

Your friend hummed as he chewed on cheap college Cafeteria pizza. "Maybe the code wasn't compatible? I mean the console's like what? Over fifteen years old now? It probably got deleted from it or something because it wasn't compatible with the older mainframe."

"Then why is everything else working? I don't get it! And my stupid laptop keeps breaking down in the middle of it all.'' You threw the fry in your mouth with a grumble as your friend hummed.

"Maybe it's not the console but your laptop? Did you get it checked out for viruses and stuff?", he tried suggesting to which you nodded yes.

"Yeah. The repair guy said there's nothing wrong with it which makes it weirder."

"Then maybe there's something wrong with the connection between the devices. How about I come over and see if there's anything wrong?"

"That might actually be helpful. Thanks."

Three days later your friend stopped by with his own laptop which you both connected to the console as two eyes watched you from the frozen pose of the game roster. Your friend was easily able to get access to the code and go through it. First running a virus scan which turned up nothing thank goodness. At least you knew there was no viruses attacking your poor laptop. He hummed along with the distant sounds of the cheery music coming from the console as he went through the code for twenty minutes as you watched from over his shoulder before turning to you.

"There's nothing wrong with anything. No bugs or anything else I can see. Your coding skills seem to be going through."

"There was definitely some bugs I needed to sort out."

He shrugged. "Maybe the console just needed some time to process all the new code fully."

Hm. Maybe. But that still didn't explain the disappearance of one character and the appearance of another one you never saw. "Is there anything lying doormat anywhere? Maybe some unfinished code?"

"I did find some unfinished code for what looks like a disregarded bonus level, but nothing like you were talking about. Is there anything specific to look for?"

You hummed. "....Can you find a strand called 'Turbo'?"

"I can try." Cartoon eyes from the roster widened in worry losing his smile as your friend went through the code again for the characters since that's where you first saw this 'Turbo' profile. "Taffyta Muttonfudge. Minty Saki. King Candy-....I don't see any 'Turbo' here, Bud."

Huh. That's really weird. You KNOW you definitely saw that. But- You pointed out the King Candy profile. "I know I didn't add this guy. Where the heck did it come from?"

Again your friend was unhelpful as he shrugged. "It's not coming up as a foreign program so it must've been in the console when you got it. It's probably an unlockable character that you unknowingly brought out during the input of new codes and fixing the bugs. Did you try resetting the console?"

"Yeah. Three times since my Uncle gave it to me."

"Try doing that one more time and see if that fixes it. If not..then I guess the Princess Vanellope code just isn't compatible with the software somehow."

You did as he advised. As soon as he left resetting the game and still feeling disappointed by your princess being gone. You also tried implementing her code only one more time. You completely gave up on that when your laptop blue screened...Again. So you settled for just having a picture of the princess racing in her pink goggles on the side of the game console from there on out. There was only so much your poor laptop could take before it could eventually break from this.

You were frustrated with the stubborn process but you were satisfied with the end result of all your hard work. Sitting down to play the game became a past time of yours outside of the stress from college and irl life. Your friend must've been right about the old motherboard taking it's sweet time to process the code inputted into it. Because now everything was running smoothly and there didn't seem to be anything majorly needing to be fixed. Although you did tweak a few things.

You gave the clouds a more cotton candy appearance during race scenes, and added a glitter sparkle affect to the dust clouds the cars would kick up as they drove along. However you really wanted to add more to that unfinished bonus level code eventually. Maybe adding it as a bonus points thing or something. You hadn't decided yet. 

But you were having fun with the game more than you expected. In fact you were debating on whether or not to give it back to your uncle or just keeping it for yourself as a testament to what you could do! However there was a few things that were weird that you didn't start noticing until after you started enjoying it more.

Despite the reservations you first had with this king character, you eventually got to like him the more you played. He was pretty goofy and an oddball in a good way. And you found yourself giggling at his antics on more than one occasion with his silly poses or funny voice lines. Not the princess you wanted but a king you don't mind having.

 It was nice to unwind and play a silly game and so you invited a friend to play with you. The two of you picked your characters. Him that kid with the pumpkin hat on his head and you decided to choose the goofy looking King Candy. The game was going well and you were surprised to see you win considering your friend was the more experienced gamer but the cute little bouncy jig and laugh tour character did receiving the gold trophy was enough to make you smile.

"Wow. You sure did a good job on the game," he complimented as you both stood up. "I guess everything turned out good in the end anyways."

You nodded. "Yeah. I still wanna finish the unused bonus level though. You wanna see what I got so far?"

He agreed and together you hooked up your computer (praying that it didn't mysteriously blue screen again) and opened it up to show your friend what you had done so far. 

"Wow. You almost got it finished. Have you decided what you're gonna do yet?"

"It's either gonna be a bonus level or I'm gonna add it to the main track as an alternative route to the finish line. I haven't decided yet. Maybe I'll add it to where you can earn a bonus trophy from the king or something."

That's when he laughed. "First you didn't like him, but now you do? Wow, Y/n. I didn't know you were into Dilfs.~" He teased you to which you scowled at him and pushed his shoulder as he laughed.

"I am not! Shut up!"

"Or is he more of a foxy grandp-"

"Finish that sentence and you're dead, Bradley!"

"C'mon. It's not my fault you're attracted to older- HEY!!"

He laughed and cackled as you kept slapping at him red faced, causing him to get up and flee to the kitchen with you right behind him. Unbeknownst to all of you a curious ear and pair of eyes had been observing this entire time and was curious as to what this 'dilf' was. Neither of you noticed in your fight your laptop exiting out to Google and 'dilf meaning' being typed into the search bar. 

You only were annoyed with your friend when you came back to a shut off computer, assuming it had turned itself off after not being used for a while, and to the same cutscene of the King still holding the gold trophy... However he looked a little different. He seemed to be staring off at nothing at sudden realization dawned on him, red faced, and half his face hiding halfway behind said trophy. 

"Want to go another round?," you offered changing the subject. 

Bradley laughed. "Sure. Gonna use King Dilf again? Or are you gonna be choosing another?"

You glared at him. "I'm not so you can quick making fun of me now!'

Bradley laughed at you but held up his hands. "I was just joking. But whatever her majesty desires."

"Oh, I'm gonna beat you to the ground!"

Queen huh?

You did end up beating Bradley, but only because his character was knocked off the track by the King Candy character in the background. During the gumball falls part, all he heard was the announcer saying 'POWER UP' and 'SWEET SEEKERS' before you both heard the famous voice line.

"Have thom candy!"

Next thing Bradley knew, his Rancis character was shot by a flaming yellow mini jawbreaker at great speeds and literally knocked off the tracks and out of bounds. Making him groan at the high pitched laugh King Candy gave as he drove past and you made your way to the cherry bomb cake. In the end you still lost but you felt satisfied with knowing that you were avenged in the end even though the NPC had no clue what transpired. After all he was just a video game character. 

"I'll see you later, Brad. Hope the jester knows not to make fun of the king now."

"Yeah, yeah." He grumbled exhausted at his own joke being thrown back to him. "I'll see you Monday. Make sure you get some sleep before classes tonight will ya?"

"I will. Don't worry about it."

Waving goodbye to him, you closed the door before turning around and stretching out with a yawn. Yeah. It was probably time you got some sleep. Walking past the game console you smiled at it and patted it's side.

"Y'know..I think I'll keep you after all. You're pretty fun to play with."

You turned to start walking towards your bedroom-

"TURBOTASTIC!!"

You jumped at the sudden voice as before turning back to the game's screen. Nothing but the characters posing with frozen fake smiles stared back at you as you blinked... before turning around and rubbing your face.

"I need to get more sleep."

[selfshippinglover]

TEEHEEHEE MY ENTRY FOR @astro-vision-au 's Valentine's collab/DIYS Challenge COMPLETE!! >:33

The robot’s eyes widen in surprise as they turn in surprise to the group of generous donors. The first thing that catches his eye is the dazzling array of colors adorning the stranger sitting off to the leftmost side of the circular seat. Their body seems to shine and and shimmer with the glow of thousands upon thousand of stars as their dichromatic eyes call out to him with a gravity of their own. To the side of the starry-eyed fellow sat another fellow tv head(are they all mr. Puzzles variants or just other object heads?) sat someone that looked like they could be a carnival worker of some sort? His first inclination is that they could be someone that runs carnival games? Lik, one of those guys holding one of those shitty plastic megaphones as they call out to the park's inhabitants. 

”Step right up! Test your strength!” The thought nearly has him giggling as his visor pans over to the next guy-

“C-Cardinal?” His jaw nearly drops as he takes it upon himself to rush over to the table-while also keeping the two glasses of fruity goodness from spilling of course. “What are you doing here and not,” he lowers his voice, eyeing the bartender nervously, “ya know, in jail?” 

And where the hell is his shirt-

The man in orange currently eyeing him with that ever present trademark grin of his, merely chuckled whilst waving a hand dismissively. “I have my ways little morsel~” Bunnybot rolls his eyes, screen flickering to animate the feeling like a gif but it’s clear by the slight red on his face that he doesn’t remain entirely unaffected by the others words.” I guess I should expect that by now….”

“AHEM,” a voice sounds off to his right which he turns to greet, “Yes hello, I am also here.” The voice of the man dressed surprisingly less scantily than the other people he’s chosen to seat himself with is all at once familiar. “Apologies, I just happen to know Cardinal here.” The smaller robot sets down the glasses one by one. “Mr. Puzzles I assume?” His tail wags slightly in anticipation of a yes. “Looks like someone’s got good taste~” 

“Hardly.” Bunnybot looks up to see the man with the red carnival hat rolling his spiraling eyes, face splashed blue from what he assumes is alcohol. 

“You’re just an old school knockoff of the original~ I’m way more of a tasteful choice~”

 From the way Mr. Puzzles glares at the other, he can only assume this is a normal exchange between the two men.

 “Guys, can you chill out? We’re here to have fun and meet Cardinal’s darling little friend here~” He can feel his face darkening at the spiral galaxy colored man’s compliment whilst turning to Cardinal in silent questioning. ‘I didn’t know he talked about me with other people!’ Just as he’s about to question the other about it, Cardinal suddenly speaks up. 

“Yes, yes, you should get acquainted but why not let the little poor thing sit first, hmm?” He gestures to the seat off to his left with a little pat of the leather and a brow raised in amusement. He can feel the other three exchanging glances as the tall man in a magenta crop top and pretty stockings file out of the booth with the man in a dark red and blue tank top close behind him. 

“Thank you.” Bunnybot quickly seats himself next to Cardinal so as to not keep the other two guys standing too long.

 “Right then, as I was saying,” the indignant tone of the guy has the some version of Mr. Puzzles snorting “My name is Starz,” he gestures to himself with a playful wink that is somehow intensified by the pink blush coloring his screen, “this is Mr. Park,” Park raises his glass with a grin before chugging what was left of it, “aaaand you’ve already met those two.” His tone takes on an air of disinterest as he points out Cardinal and Puzzles.

“Hmph!” The table bursts into a fit of chuckles and giggles alike as BB’s eyes land on Mr. Puzzles screen, now splattered a bright red. “I hate all of you…” This only prompts another round of laughter from the group followed by a pout from Mr. Puzzles. “I bet Bunnybot here finds me charming….”

“Of course I do! I mean, you’re all quite-” He suddenly feels a weight hanging on his left shoulder. “We agreed that this one is off limits.” Bunnybot is not expecting the sounds of warning in the other’s voice nor the huff from Puzzles but also it’s kind of hard to concentrate on those things when suddenly his machinery is whirring faster and his face is getting a considerable amount warmer.

“I was just teasing is all~ Just a little harmless fuuun~” Cardinal only glares at him, the goop in the corners of his screen dripping a little more fiercely than before.

‘It’s just his usual teasing,’ the smaller bot reminds himself silently as his inner workings protest by way of running hotter, ‘nothing more.’ Unfortunately, the facts of the matter fail to leave him without feeling nor action as he subconsciously leans into the other’s offer of embrace. “Ignore him my little cottontail,” BB looks up just in time to greet Cardinal’s yellow eyes now trained on him in an almost predatory fashion, “he’s not thinking straight~” The way Cardinal’s eyes trail over his face is enough to give him pause but then he feels the other’s hand tighten around him and the back of his mouth is going dry.

[theresattrpgforthat]

I found a goth speakeasy/coffee shop by my school that does a Thursday tabletop night where you can bring and run your own games and I was wondering if you had any recommendations for games you'd feel comfterble running with a table of strangers / mostly strangers? Thank you!!

THEME: Games to Run with Strangers.

Hello friend, fall comes upon us and I finally get around to answering your ask. Thank you so much for your patience! I’d definitely recommend bringing some safety tools to any of these games, since you’re playing them with strangers. That being said, I tried to pick games that were easy to pick up and quick to learn considering you’d probably want each session to be a standalone one.

I often run games with groups of people who don't know each-other beforehand, and I'd recommend allowing silliness to blossom when possible, even if you're running a spooky game. Let’s see what we can find!

Wizardry and Bureaucracy, by Oh Little Moth.

You are a member of the National Parks Service. You and your team would do just about anything to protect your national park. Also, you’re wizards. But all the magic in the world can’t save you from the slog of paperwork you have to endure as a civil servant. Your mission is to preserve your park and all creatures living in it, promote a love of nature and the environment, and also keep park visitors from seeing through the curtain separating the magical from the mundane.

Like most Lasers and Feelings games, this has quite a bit packed into one page. Easy character generation, a standard list of gear, an introduction where you collaboratively design your park, and the classic Lasers and Feelings mechanic that makes you automatically better at one thing and worse at another. The game is also set up to be raucously silly. This game includes the very good piece of GM advice that I adore for improv: ask questions and build on the answers. You don’t have to come up with the entire story yourself! Give your players the chance to tell you how exactly magic interacts with the local National Park.

The Children of Saturn, by Dan John Crowler.

The people of Petrikstein are tormented by a blood craving beast prowling the night. Players take the roles of parish appointed investigators on a mission to find and slay this alleged Vampyr, before it claims even more lives. Will they be able to find out the truth in web of lies, myths, and fear fueled superstitions? Play to find out!

The Children of Saturn is a neat little game that combines the Keys mechanic from John Harper’s Lady Blackbird with the graded 2d6 roll of Powered by the Apocalypse. You can accumulate dice to roll depending on whether the action in question is in line with your character, and failure increases the chances of success the next time you roll. The characters are pre-made to some extent, but the players will be able to make them unique through names, descriptions, and how they decide to role-play. This game also come with a small hex map for your characters to explore - and everything fits on one page! If you want something spooky and quick to prep, this is definitely worth checking out.

2400, by Jason Tocci.

2400 is lo-fi sci-fi. It’s centuries in the future, and it’s a decades-old modem that screams like a dying robot when it connects to the net. It’s a space ship with an FTL drive, artificial gravity, and a flickering display you gotta tap a few times to see the jump coordinates. It’s hacking something together with whatever cheap materials you have on hand, ignoring the rules until you need them, banging out something that might not sound finished, but definitely sounds fun.

The 2400 system is a stripped-down ruleset inspired by the OSR that has been used to create a number of hacks in different settings. Every time I’ve run a 24XX game, the session lasted about 2 hours, so it definitely has the ability to play quick. The original page for 2400 currently has over 20 different settings to choose from, so if one of them really hits off, you could come back with a different setting each week for your friends to play through!

The Great Soul Train Robbery, by Cloven Pine Games.

On the road to hell there was a railway line. An express train to the infernal city of Dis, crewed by furies and carrying treasure and souls to damnation. You’re going to rob it.

The Great Soul Train Robbery is a tabletop roleplaying game for 2–6 players and 1 gamemaster about Desperados robbing the train to Hell. Spin an allegorical Weird Western yarn as your sharpshooters, fiddlers, homesteader widows, and other Desperados attempt a Hellish train heist. Will you claim your prize from the train, or be overcome, damned, or broken by the heist?

This is probably the biggest Honey Heist - inspired game that I’ve seen to date. It’s a solid pitch, with very little background needed in order for your players to grasp what exactly it is they’re doing. If players aren’t sure what kind of character they want to make, all of the options have d6 roll tables to give your group a goal, your train some complications, and your character a name and a special item. There’s quite a few pages of GM advice in this, which is probably a big boon to anyone running the game, as it allows you to construct a more complex train than what you might have created out of the top of your head. I’d probably even just steal the train construction section to use for other similar games!

Hold Your Own, by Sharkbomb Studios.

It's a time and place, not unlike the one that you, the players, grew up in. A dark mirror of the decade of your youth.  You play as a group of friends at the cusp of adolescence and life is hard. You're unpopular and unwanted. All you've got is each other.

But it comes worse: A strange menace threatens to devour everyone you know. And nobody wants to believe you, not the teachers, not the parents. It looks like it's up to you to save your home.

Fans of It and Stranger Things will probably like this game. This game uses small dice pools and four basic stats. You’ll be facing off against an antagonist called the Menace, a threat that the rest of the community believes doesn’t exist. The Menace will always be strong enough to provide a challenge, and as you play, you’ll learn more and more about what it is exactly that you’re fighting against. This is a great game for fans of suspense, and it’s also small enough to learn it within the few hours that you’d have at a coffee shop.

Games I’ve Recommended in the Past

Something is Wrong with the Chickens, by Elliot Davis.

Koboldly Go, by CoffeeSnake Studios.

Faewater, by A Smouldering Lighthouse.

The Station, by pidj.

[average-transfem-robotgirl]

heya M4RT4 happy beep boops to ya

Do you think I could cause more trouble controlling every roomba/similar vs cybertruck? like sure the truck is bigger but idk how long id have that army for

Now THIS is the asks I’ve been asking for!! And from one of my favorite bots too!? Beep boop frfr!!!

Alright, time to crunch some numbers!!

The total number of cybertrucks, about 8,000 ever made, would be a pretty powerful fighting force! They can reach about 112 miles per hour at their maximum, which is obviously more than enough to hurt someone. The truck itself is actually kinda sturdy!! This is a trait that is horrible in cars as it can usually result in the death of the passenger, but it’s great for a battering ram or tank!! With this army of 8,000 cars, you’d quickly be able to level a city. Due to them being faulty, however, you’d likely lose a good amount of them. The gas pedals would potentially jam, which could cause one to lose control! If your cybertruck breaks, it could harm one of the many others in your calvary. One good thing is, most of the 8,000 are still owned by Tesla, with only about 3,800 ever making it out to the public. This means that you could quickly reenact the hit video game Decimate Drive within many of the major Tesla factories, easily putting them out of commission for a couple of years. If their hubris leads them to attempt and rise back up, simply smite them down with a new army of cars!!

Alright, now for roombas. The numbers here are a bit more,,, vague? There are multiple companies that produce automated robot vacuums. iRobot with the Roomba, Shark/Ninja with their offbrand, and many more of these smaller companies. iRobot, the largest producer of these roombas, claims to have sold an estimate of 40 million units. With the other offbrand companies added on, I’d give an estimate of about 80 to 90 million vacuums. This is,, far more than the amount of cybertrucks. Lets talk about size! A Roomba series S by iRobot is 12.25 inches in diameter, and is circular. A mile is about 63,660 inches. Divide those out, square root it,and you get the amount of roombas necessary to fill an ENTIRE MILE OF ROOM(ba). 25,936,661 roombas. That is a whole lotta vacuums, but also, almost a third of our roomba supplies. We’d get 3 square miles worth of just metal and plastic, enough to carpet Central Park twice over and then some. I can’t express to you how many roombas that is. Alright, let’s talk about speed. Roomba’s move at about a foot per second, (I couldn’t find many sources on this besides the claims of someone on a vacuum reviewing website, so take that with a grain of salt. Won’t make much of a difference.) which is particularly slow!! They move at a snails pace compared to the cybertruck. You would need a lot of planning to make your takeover possible. If you could somehow manage to get them all in one place, or at least somewhere near each other, you could stop progress. Literally nothing could be done. Cars??? Stopped. One roomba is nothing to a car, but that many??? The crunched plastic and metal would pop tires. People would walk into the street and trip on the ever moving carpet of puck shaped robots. It would be a disaster for a city. But again, it’s an incredibly difficult challenge. As your roomba army marches, millions would be lost. The terrain is too unsteady, mud would clump in their tires, batteries would run out, or perhaps they’d get tipped over on a hill. They are too fragile to explore the natural world for conquest!!

It is because of these reasons that I bring you a solution. Roombas, AND CYBERTRUCKS. Like the boats at D-Day, delivering soldiers to the front lines, the cybertrucks shall carry bounties of roombas within their solid frames. The plan is this: The cybertrucks will take over all current Tesla owned facilities, removing all people from the premises and claiming it for our true cyber goddesses!! With this newfound technology at our hands, we will automate the factory to upgrade our army of cybertrucks with GUNS and MECHANICAL ARMS. Now, we shall send our mechanized army across the lands to collect each and every roomba. They shall pour out into the streets, awaiting their carriage of war. The newly upgraded trucks take each and every one of these small droids of battle, securing them into their armored shell. Taking them back to the Tesla facility for needed upgrades, the cybertrucks shall race across the lands. We take each roomba, upgrade it with a sturdier and perhaps spikier surface, and then once more prepare them for war. I would also recommend upgrading some roombas to work as more maintenace oriented units! That way, they can perform maintenance on the damaged or,, defaulted,, cybertrucks. With this newfound power, we destroy the capital of the United States of America, transforming it into a more perfect, intertwined society. And then,, we go for the Vatican. (Popes had it too good for too long.)

Hope this helps, thanks for the ask.

[lloyd283]

Custom dead end episode 5: Hardly Acting

Here's episode 5. This one's for the dead end whovians. And logs fans.

Cast your mind back about three years before the events of the show (2017?). Logs is watching a new Dr Time episode (unless any of you have better parody names), when at the end an ad for their experience appears and because of being a fan, he asks his family to take him down there, kindly.

Once there, logs and his family are in the lobby waiting to pay for access. Here is where Lloyd appears: but in the timeline here, is currently a girl as of one-shot's ending, looking like an adapted custom teodora/ marcella mash up. Everyone's going on the tour, including Lloyd, handing logs a envelope of shipments regarding a section of the tour. Logs is confused but the group is called together to enter. Lloyd sneaks in as a tourist as currently is.

The tour begins, taking them on an adventure into the show as Dr Time needs your help stopping the Leader from causing monster mayhem. Lloyd's rolling his eyes as if he's actually been involved in actual adventures 👀. Logs is obsessed and acts like Dr Time as an actor probably would. Pepper tins (daleks), robot warriors (cybermen) and those titanic robotic angels are present (instead of Kylie here, it's Pauline. See voyage of the damned e.g. that festive special that nearly 9/11'd the palace). When facing the angels, Lloyd has to slip backstage as he can't handle them.

We see that the group believes it's real, in which, it is. Several people are caught and everyone else including logs runs, with him going backstage in a panic. Logs is having a panic attack and Lloyd's disappeared into the backlogs. However he gets an idea as they're still prop material and a convenient dr time costume is near him. When the props break out to the entire venue, logs does his best impression to make them believe it's the real dr time. They all begin searching for logs when he lures them to an open area. Like dr time, he does timey-wimey stuff (or in this case, create a health and safety violation) and stops the leader's plan bringing everyone back as the clock's the limit. Allonsy!

The staff thank him for his bravery and allow him to keep the outfit, as he's a good actor (shame he got the park job?) and Lloyd re-emerges one more time congratulating him and saying he almost got the actual voice perfect. By 0.01%. He says he'll see him again eventually, when the crying angels are put to sh

ame and says he's got to go on a US camping trip in redwood... (errrr, Wizards paradox episode 5 anyone?...)

We end with a next time trailer for dr time which spoofs famous dr who trailer scenes with a few new ones:

-the pepper tins shoot a specific group

- the leader slaps dr time

- A companion questions another companion

- the 123 being blown up (Wait, What? The 456 were similarly blown up like shown here by.... NO.....)

- A face of logs shows before like the actual credits, the episodes credits are played.

[arbutus-blossoms]

Hey, sorry, weird question, but what happened with Reddit and Westworld? Did the creators of Westworld change something about the show's future storylines because a redditer guessed what was going to happen?

So Westworld had a gigantic audience of 12 million, and it's surprising because this was HBO's attempt for a new tentpole franchise when Game of Thrones was going downhill.

A subreddit spawned, I was in it as a viewer capacity and there was a lot of speculation. Star Ward level of speculation. Which is good , if your show is good, you want them engaged.

So a bunch of redditors had guessed ( Spoilers) that Ed Harris was playing the Current version of Man in Black, and Jimmy Simpson was the younger version of Man in Black , William. That they were the same character.

And that's because the first season was actually beautifully crafted. Including one scene where Younger William enters the park for the first time, and debated choosing a Black or White cowboy hat. This is a simple storytelling device, character is nice, naive, believes in the good in the world, circumstances makes him lose that humanity. Then it made sense for William to be MIB, wearing the black cowboy hat. But until you saw the entire series it could be brushed off. But once you saw it, it made so much sense.

This is during the height of GOT, Star Wars when speculation and the need for twists and turns were paramount. Felt like you needed to outsmart the viewers if you want to be a good showrunner.

During that time, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy have an interview to an audience, which they said things in a joking manner. But in the age of digital social media, things go fast. Especially if it's only a text blurb and people didn't see the actual clip

Turns out to be a tongue in cheek joke. But the damage was done and it spread everywhere.

They also decided to do a prank to reveal the all the spoilers of season 2, turns out they made a rickroll video to Redditors as a light-hearted joke.

With that said, season 2 started but there was a lot of thing that seemed off in the show, it started to get even more conveluted.

Multiple spanning timelines. The show also started to get more and more philosophical. Because the show is about Robots ( Hosts) , you never know if a character is a robot as well. So that could feel like a cheap gimmick.

Also it's not only focused on Westworld anymore, it spanned outside to the real world , making a show called Westworld...not Westworld ( even though the Old Westworld movie had multiple theme park sections as well)

I also worked in Marketing, I also want to take the hunch, that General Audience ( Not the hardcore Human Philosopher/ai/spirit/High Art viewer ) wanted to just watch Robots vs Humans and the drama surrounding that, not get too deep in the human subconscious.

But the showrunners made it felt they added twists and turns so much, maybe to outsmart said Redditors? ( As I said, joke or not right?) That the general audience started to be confused and lost interest

The show then went from season 1 with a staggering of 12 million viewers, to season 4 measly few million. And this is HBO rolling the red carpet for Nolan and Joy.

I feel, if you're a showrunner, you need to be careful because anything you say will be dissected and spread like wildfire, and sometimes written articles don't convey tone, especially if it's a joke, that click bait newest and even well known journals can run with. This you can clearly see if you are part of the Marvel fandom.

All of this is sad because Westworld season 1 was so beautifully crafted and written. But because of all of this, as a viewer, you're left wondering if Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were genuinely trying to craft a twist because the story needed it, or done it for the shock and confuse viewers even more.

Nerdwriter went more in details on it's fall.

This is why I am a bit worried about the TV Fallout Series because they are the executive producers and also Nolan directed some episodes.

This is also why there is so many similar vibes to Westworld, especially MIB to The Ghoul, Dolores Abernathy to Lucy Maclean and so on as I posted on my Tumblr

Both Fallout and Westworld had the gaming aspect where your character could choose to be good, mid , or evil. As Westworld, humans can go in to just explore an enchanting Western theme park, but some are deviants and they go there to unleash their deepest desires.

The only hope I have is that Fall Out is a franchise, they have rules and lore.

Then again Star Wars had rules and lore but they retconned and brought back dead characters just for reusing legacy characters to make more money...

So yeah just my two cents 🥴

[glapplebloom]

When Stats is the least of your troubles.

On Twitter, I found a post asking a specific question: Who would win between Clutch from IDW Sonic Vs Breezie from Archie Sonic? Two characters known for dirty dealings while having a nice public image. In this case, Stats are the least important thing as we have to see what these two can do as business people...

Breezie the Hedgehog

Their take on the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog version, this Breezie is much different. We are to presume that she lived on the streets but if she is anything like her original, she could be a robot. Either way, she did work for Robotnik to trick Sonic into going into a trap in their interpretation of the Game Gear Sonic 2: complete with boss fight against Silver Sonic. After that, she served her ties and formed Breezie Media: the biggest entertainment network on Mobius. 

Like Clutch, Breezie would profit off of Eggman’s works. First, thanks to Neo Metal Sonic, she has her base of operations in Casino Park. Then by buying a lot of Eggman’s old Robots he doesn’t use anymore, she got herself a staff to work the Casino. And it is with these purchases that she got Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts who delivered her a Chaos Emerald. A Priceless Gem normally, but in the current situation her ticket for something greater.

A Tournament she will host and whoever wins gets the Emerald. Both Sally and Robotnik tried to buy it from her but she refused, leading them to have people fight their way through it. While she couldn’t get Sonic to do Prime Time, she did get Amy, Knuckles and Tails in the tournament alongside Sonic. Of course, when Robotnik’s hired lackeys failed, he just sent Metal Sonic to get the Emerald. To counter this, Breezie made it easier for Metal Sonic to do this.

This allowed the heroes to face Metal Sonic and have the entire world’s attention on her and her Casino. While she lost the Emerald, she is basically now worth half the planet. 

Clutch the Opossum

Before Sonic and Robotnik took the stage, Clutch was a master Criminal. He became well known in the underworld as an arms dealer and retired gracefully going into the Chao Racing Circuit. He also still dabbles in the occasional Black Market Dealings; it's hard to stop when there are so many leftover Eggman parts and nobody doing anything useful with them outside throwing them out. That was until the new Generation of Heroes decided to show up. They ruined his retirement so he decided to get back in the game.

While Rough and Tumble provided muscles to his work, and after a run-in with the Chaotix, he formed Clean Sweep Inc: a company dedicated to cleaning up the mess Eggman left behind. They just don't mention the part where he takes those weaponry and adds them to his own collection. Seeing the Restoration as a threat, as well as hiring some more people, Clutch successfully formed an alliance with the Restoration to "help" clean up the mess while having some within the Restoration to make things difficult for them.

Organizing a Clean Sweepstakes Race, Clutch’s goal is to make sure that all eyes were on his company and they would forget the Restoration. He even had it so Sonic’s team was taken out of the race early. But that’s where things turned difficult for him. Seeing something was off, Sonic and Friends worked alongside Eggman to find out the truth of Clean Sweep inc. And since Sonic is Sonic, most people realize that if he’s fighting Clean Sweep, then something is rotten in Denmark. Seeing his plans go up in smoke, Clutch makes some changes that will cost the Restoration everything.

While he did eventually destroy the Restoration, he was captured by Eggman and as of this writing is now his slave with a Spider Badnik attached to his head.

Who Would Win

On Twitter, I’ve seen a lot of people saying Breezie would win with those supporting Clutch not knowing what she is capable of. And my initial thoughts were a Breezie win. But then you got to remember the circumstances of their two big events. With Breezie, Sonic Unleashed was happening and it was a race to get the Chaos Emeralds. Since the Freedom Fighters have to be an example to Mobius, they couldn’t just go in and take it so they joined in. Eggman tried to play along but when that failed just went towards it.

Conversely, Clutch had to face the combined talents of Sonic and Eggman. There was no greater event happening at the same time, so all eyes were on him. Every part was working towards one goal: beating Clutch even if they didn’t realize it at the time. From Sonic becoming the Phantom Rider, to Amy and Tails investigating, to the Chaotix Investigating, to the Babylon Rogues realising if Sonic is facing them then something is up, to Tangle and Whisper knowing more is going on, to Surge and Kit deciding they want a better life.

Breezie just had to let the two sides fight each other, Clutch had everyone going after him. The fact he still managed to basically destroy the Restoration despite losing everything showed that he can definitely be ruthless at times. Breezie could as well, but we’ve seen her with all the cards in her favor. The question remains, what would happen when her Full House becomes a pair of twos? And there is a moment where we see what happens: when Sonic refuses to be in Prime Time.

For context, since this was Sonic Unleashed, Sonic was turning into a Werehog at night. So anytime he appears at night he becomes a gorilla and not the lovable Hedgehog. Breezie wanted him at Prime Time when Sonic didn’t want to be there. So when Breezie refused Sonic’s demands, he was about to leave. Amy and Tails were there (and Knuckles inclusion was an unknown bonus), so they could handle winning the tournament to get the Emerald. Not wanting to lose Sonic because he’s the money maker, he accepts his demands immediately.

She complains that the House would eventually win, but this shows how she may not have what it takes to keep going when times get tough. Not to mention we do see Clutch fighting while Breezie is presumed to be a robot, so we don’t really know what she is capable of as a fighter. And when it comes to hired help, as good as Scratch, Grounder and Coconuts are to Breezies, they just really compare to Mimic. So it is my humble opinion that Clutch would be the one taking over Breezie Media.

But do you agree? Let me know.

[govindhtech]

How DeepScenario and Intel OpenVINO Create Digital Twins

Concerning DeepScenario

DeepScenario, an Intel Ignite and Intel Liftoff startup, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to establish the crucial connection between the real and virtual worlds, enabling industry-specific solutions in dynamic contexts. This enables businesses like Volkswagen, Bosch, and Torc Robotics to establish a continuous loop that involves observing the real world, comprehending its dynamics, and applying this understanding to their unique applications, like autonomous driving.

A basic computer vision programme from DeepScenario is utilised to do this. Videos of the real world are transformed into a dynamic virtual counterpart using highly developed algorithms and commercially available cameras, laying the groundwork for the related application.

The Problem Applications requiring a dynamic digital counterpart of the world are multiplying. This makes it possible to automate processes, cut expenses, and increase the functional scope. Digital twins of road traffic are required, for example, in order to test car software in a simulated environment and advance autonomous driving.

Another example is the transportation sector, which uses real-time digital twins to control traffic in cities and monitor parking space occupancy. Significant obstacles stand in the way of current techniques, such as limited application due to simplifying assumptions or limited scalability because of costly sensor sets.

The Resolution This is the exact situation that Stuttgart-based AI startup DeepScenario finds itself in. Using its 3D computer vision software, DeepScenario creates dynamic virtual worlds out of films. Because it uses widely available cameras and a 3D methodology to assure generalisation, the solution is incredibly scalable.

For example, the automotive sector makes use of DeepScenario’s AI technology. Here, videos from cars, traffic cameras, or drones are transformed into dynamic digital twins of road traffic using the industry-leading algorithms from DeepScenario. Next, new car software is trained and tested in these virtual environments through simulation.

The software developed by DeepScenario can also be applied to transportation-related applications. This involves using already-installed cameras to precisely monitor parking lots, for instance. All objects in the scene are immediately recognised by the programme, which tracks them over time with centimetre accuracy in 3D. DeepScenario’s algorithms, in contrast to current 2D-based techniques, can accurately ascertain the position, orientation, and dimensions of the objects in 3D without the use of extra sensors like LiDAR. They can use this to determine possible parking infractions or infer the occupancy of a parking place in real time.

Additionally, DeepScenario’s software can be used to develop entirely new services, such as automated valet parking. Such a service was just introduced by Bosch Mobility.

With DeepScenario’s AI technology, numerous new use cases are possible, such as applications for logistics or intelligent traffic control.

DeepScenario for Edge Intel Tools Intel has made it possible for its software to run in real time on edge servers in a very short amount of time by using Intel tools. With over a billion fixed cameras and a volume of roughly $15 billion, this creates a market for us that is likely to develop.

What is OpenVINO The optimised interface of DeepScenario’s software with Intel hardware which makes use of tools like the Intel OpenVINO Toolkit is another advantage. The inference of AI applications on Intel hardware is accelerated by this open-source software, particularly when creating and utilising deep learning-based AI models like those from DeepScenario.

Intel OpenVINO Increasing the Usability of Generative AI in Practical Situations​ The OpenVINO toolbox is an open-source toolkit that maintains accuracy, minimises model footprint, and maximises hardware utilisation while speeding up AI inference with lower latency and faster throughput. Large language models (LLM), generative AI, computer vision, and deep learning integration are among the areas it simplifies and integrates more easily.​

Intel Geti Platform With the help of this for-profit software platform, enterprise teams can create vision AI models more quickly. Businesses may use the platform to create models with little data, and by integrating OpenVINO, it makes it easier to deploy solutions widely.

Software & Solutions Catalogue for AI Inference Examine ISV solutions built on OpenVINO when you’re prepared to launch your solution. This ebook is divided into parts, like banking or healthcare, to make it easier for you to traverse the options table and select the solution that best fits your use-case demands.

In actuality, DeepScenario and Intel SceneScape work together to provide a smart parking solution that is a shining example of their teamwork. This method uses just existing monocular cameras to build realistic 4D digital twins of parking lots by utilising the OpenVINO toolset. Apart from surmounting the constraints of conventional techniques, it is also applicable to a range of uses such as intelligent traffic control, port surveillance, and Industry 4.0 programmes.

Additionally, DeepScenario and the autonomous driving area benefit greatly from Intel’s funding of the Carla Simulator’s development.

Intel Ignite With the help of Intel, Intel Ignite, and the Intel Liftoff programme for AI companies, DeepScenario is setting new standards in the creation of dynamic virtual environments from real-world recordings thanks to its AI technology. The methodology employed by DeepScenario is very scalable and has numerous applications. Utilising 3D algorithms creates new technological opportunities, of which DeepScenario has already shown to be indispensable in the transportation and automotive sectors.

Read more on Govindhtech.com

[sun-e-chips]

In your waterpark Au... Do Sun and Moon let high school students volunteer as lifeguards during the summer? I could see Sun and Moon proudly bragging about their students to random people at the park and said kids behind them trying to get them to stop or just plain groaning in embarrassment. Have a fantastic day! (or night?)

Without saying too much (I am currently writing the au shhhhh) I will tell you unfortunately for most the past and the current present there are no human staff and the waterpark is entirely run and maintained by animatronics.

Sun and Moon as well as all the Tiki bots were designed to also fill the role as the park’s lifeguards, many robot eyes are constantly surveying the premise’s. The tiki bots are able to pull people from the water but only sun and moon are designed to perform CPR (I talk a little more about this in a previous ask)

Butttttt If the boys did have human staff they would absolutely be bragging as well as messing with them. The teens would especially be embarrassed by the boys praises and smothering in front of all the parks guests while they’re still on shift. The boys have no shame in expressing their fondness for the staff. All employees would be family no matter how short their time there may have been, Sun and Moon will always remember. They never forget a face after all hehe.

[sunaraw]

all odd

1. Are you an albums person or a singles person? UMMMM albums

3. Do you listen to more oldies or more current stuff? oldies for sure

5. Is there a song you don't like but like its music video? see if i dont like a song i wont watch the music video. so i wouldnt know

7. Would you wear a t-shirt of a band you're not into? yea if it looks cool

9. Do you have a favorite band? yeas, the death set :)

11. Favorite songwriter? two feet

13. Who’s the most popular/mainstream artist you listen to? either lady gaga or gorillaz

15. A song or album from the 60s: house of the rising sun by the animals

17. A song or album from the 80s: once in a lifetime by talking heads

19. A song or album from the 2000s: repetition kills you by the black ghosts

21. A song or album from this year or last year: rush by troye sivan

23. Do you and your partner/best friend share a special song? One you’d call “our song”? i dont think so

25. Is there a song you used to like but can’t listen to anymore because you associate it with someone you don’t like? plenty.

27. Do you enjoy making playlists? If so, are there any you’re proud of and would like to share? YES i love making playlists. im too shy to post them tho

29. Songs you love to dance to: vitality by mittsies, here comes the hotstepper by ini kamoze, new face by psy, and enjoy the silence by depeche mode

31. Who’s your favorite fictional band or artist? i have to say wrath of the gods from saw just bc i do have merch.

33. Your favorite artist from your city/state/country? outkast

35. A song you like in a language you don’t speak: if you come into my heart by jo duck bai

37. If you could travel in time and go to a concert of an artist who’s no longer alive or a band that’s no longer together, who would you choose? queen 100%

39. Which was the last concert you went to? erm. the only concert ive ever been to was a christian rock concert that i was dragged to see when i was like 10

41. Have you ever been to a music festival? If not, would you like to go? id like to :)

43. Do you enjoy musicals? If so, what’s your favorite? not necessarily, no

45. A non-musical movie or show with a soundtrack you love: mr robot

47. Is there an artist you used to dislike but learned to like because of a friend’s influence? UMMM. i cant think of any but im sure someone will remind me if i forgot

49. Is there a cover you like more than the original version? noooo im an original only guy

51. Is there an artist you used to love as a child/teenager and still likes, even if you don’t listen to them as much? linkin park

53. Is there a song you hated the first time you listened to but then loved after listening to it more times? run by iamthekidyouknowwhatimean

55. An album you learned to love after listening to it again and again: torches by foster the people

59. Do you listen to music when it's raining or do you stop to hear the sound of the rain? mmmm rain

63. Do you prefer live recordings or studio recordings? studio for sure

65. Are there any songs you know the entire lyrics by heart? like a million lol

[imfluentinfangirlandgay]

Thrown Home Again - Part 9 (Epilogue)

OK LAST BIT I SWEAR IM NOT MEAN

though writing pure sad angst was definitely a new feel for me

this is just fluffy and cute

Word Count: ~900

The Subway was running optimally. Emmet had been convinced to start seeing a professional about his remaining fears and anxieties, those little needle-like thoughts that Ingo knew dug at him where Ingo could not remove them. Emmet had insisted that if he saw someone, Ingo would see someone professionally, too. He had to admit, it was nice to regularly speak to someone outside of his normal circle and the Subway.

They had also been convinced to take more days off every week, now taking a whole three days some weeks rather than one. Elesa was primarily responsible for that. Neither wanted to admit it, because they truly loved their job, but it was rather nice to just lay around at home or travel. Together.

The brothers currently sat in the park in Nimbasa City, a blanket spread out below them. Ingo laid out on the grass, his leg carefully covered as he blinked in the sunlight. It was pleasantly warm. Emmet was sitting back, his palms resting against the ground as he leaned his face up, towards the sun, smiling. They were both quiet. Pokemon rustled in the nearby trees, some Pidove searching for scraps. A Trubbish had taken up residence by one of the trash cans, joyfully taking any garbage that the park goers had to toss. Some children played nearby with their Pokemon, their parents on nearby benches watching them. A jogger swept past on the sidewalk, his Sawsbuck keeping pace with him, braying.

Ingo felt a hand ruffle through his hair. He glanced over at Emmet. His twin was beaming at him, his face brighter than the midday sun. Ingo could feel a soft smile pulling at his lips. “Are you alright, Emmet?”

“Yes. It is peaceful. You are smiling again.”

“I am happy. Are you happy?”

“Yes. Verrry happy.”

Emmet continued running his hand through Ingo’s hair as they grew quiet again, basking in the sun. They needed to do this more often, Ingo decided. Emmet was entirely too pale.

Chandelure and Eelektross were not far from them. In fact, Eelektross had curled itself around Emmet, settling on the ground and soaking in the sun, as well. Chandelure floated just above the brother’s heads, swaying softly in the breeze. The Hisuian Sneasel, almost ready to evolve now, had laid between the two brothers, purring happily in their company. The four of them were content.

“Uncle Ingo! Uncle Emmet!” Ingo lifted his head slightly, trying to find who was calling them. There weren’t exactly many options. Emmet looked up too, spotting someone and waving enthusiastically at them. Sneasel popped up, tilting her head at the newcomer. Footsteps rapidly approached them. Ingo swung his head, spotting a young boy wearing a red cap and more modern clothing than Ingo remembered. Ingo sat up, both brothers taking the human-shaped bullet to their chests with a laugh. “It’s been forever since I saw you last! So much happened in Hisui since you left, Ingo, and I managed to come home and I remembered things about myself! I met up with my mom again! And I found all these cool Pokemon, I’ve been waiting to tell you about them! Wait, how did you get a Hisuian Sneasel? I didn’t think you brough one back with you?”

Ingo chuckled as the Pokemon resituated, making room on the blanket for Rei. “Well, lucky for you, we have a day off today. We have been making some changes as well, if you are interested in hearing them. The Sneasel is a long story as well.”

“Woah, what’s up with your eye? It looks good as new!”

Emmet grinned as Ingo spoke, “It is robotic. I went to Galar and they implanted a bionic eye and even matched the coloration to my old one. Not many people know I was missing one to begin with. I can see perfectly with both eyes now.”

Rei’s mouth dropped, his smile widening. “That is so cool!! Has anything new happened with your foot? Or do you still have that same one from the last time I saw you?” The Sneasel had stood now, watching the boy with interest. Rei reached out a hand for her to grasp, which she took in her claws and investigated.

“I use the same prosthetics, most people still do not know I am missing a limb. However, Elesa recently learned what material the compression socks I use are made of and has been giving me extras. They are patterned.”

“They have trains on them!” Emmet added. The boy laughed.

“That sounds on-par for you guys, really. Are you back and running the Subway?”

“Yes, I am manning my Singles Line again. Elesa insists we take more than one day off a week and we have been spending more time with Iris and Drayden, our cousin and uncle. Iris is the Champion of Unova currently and Drayden runs the Dragon-type gym.”

“Well, I am staying in Nimbasa for a couple days! I want to meet them, they sound super cool!” Ingo patted the boy’s shoulder. “I want to hear about how you got this Sneasel, too. That sounds like a cool story.”

“We have as much time as we would like. We arranged for Elesa to come meet us for dinner this evening, and as our guest, you are more than welcome to join. Now, how about telling us about these other destinations and Pokemon you found to accompany you? Maybe we could meet.”

And so the group sat out in the park, the boy excitedly leading them through his misadventures in Hisui. Ingo leaned his head on Emmet’s shoulder, listening intently to the boy. Sneasel clambered into his lap, curling up as Ingo began stroking her, making her purr. The other two Pokemon crowded in as well, listening to Rei. The breeze blew their hair softly, the sun making them warm.

Ingo was home again.

[Part 1] - [Part 2] - [Part 3] - [Part 4] - [Part 5] - [Part 6] - [Part 7] - [Part 8] - [Part 9]

taglist: @ruyi-years

[tev-the-random]

A Casual Sonic Forces Rewrite

Part 7 - We'll Meet Again

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me!

Just another warning: swearing. I swear a bit.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Don’t know where! Don’t know when! Oh I know we’ll meet again some sunny day!

Nothing like a song about hope for the future during war time. Could things finally be looking up?

Alright, this is going to be a long one, get ready.

Most of what we saw during the last part was me geeking out done in preparation for this one. Now that Classic Sonic and Tails are about to discover more about the enemy and Sonic and Silver just had an epic fight, why don’t we check back on the Custom Hero?

Once we’re back from our battle against Perfect Chaos, we meet fellow Resistance members in the HQ. We’re greeted with a new cutscene.

An alarm goes off.

‘Oh, what now?’ Charmy complains.

‘We’re receiving a distress signal from the city.’ Espio explains.

A random NPC voice comes through the communicator saying, ‘This is the 8th Unit! Eggman’s forces have broken through! We’re currently pinned down under heavy enemy fire! We need-’

They’re interrupted by the sounds of a struggle.

‘This is bad...’ Amy sounds alarmed. ‘We need an emergency evacuation team!’  

‘But who can we send?’ Knuckles questions. ‘Blaze has the 5th and 6th Units engaged at Seaside Hill, we barely have anyone left to spare!’

‘We can join the fight if that’ll help,’ Vector offers. Espio nods at that.

‘Weren’t we supposed to be looking for the Chaos Emeralds?’ Charmy asks, mildly annoyed. ‘Will we ever get back to that? Or will it just be battle after battle after battle after-’

‘Still, I don’t think just the five of us will be enough.’ Amy interrupts the bee. ‘We’re quickly losing territory from Park Avenue all the way to Sunset Heights!’

‘Don’t worry, guys, I got this,’ Sonic says, already getting up from the chair where he was sitting next to Silver. Amy quickly gets in his way, however, hammer raised.

‘Oh no you don’t! You and Silver need time to recover. You’re staying right here!’

Sonic exchanges a look with the psychic hedgehog, who only shakes his head in compliance. The blue blur crosses his arms, seemingly not done with the conversation.

‘We can’t have any more casualties...’ Knuckles thinks for a moment. ‘Looks like we’ve got no choice. Okay, rookie, I’ve got a tough one for you. I need you to take a partner with you and head back to the city. Your mission is to evacuate the civilians at all costs, got it?’

‘Are you sure we should send the rookie out there? At a time like this?’ The pink hedgehog asks, unsure.

‘It’s what we’ve got for today. Besides, the kid’s got some spunk, they can handle themselves!’

The echidna gives your character a thumbs up. The avatar looks between Knuckles and Amy, then raises their wispon and nods.

End of scene.

It’s a tag team level! Time for Park Avenue. Watch your step!

The biggest gripe I have with this level is that throughout the entire thing, characters butt in to tell you how great you’re doing and how astounding you are and how they’re proud of this big thing you did. Yet there is not a single moment in the entire stage where we do shit. We do nothing at all other than run around the entire time. What are they cheering? Was I supposed to be doing something?

So yeah, I’m partially going to scrap the background dialogue to avoid all the repetition and partially going to give us something to do.

Amy initiates the level with ‘We need a status update on the people who are still in the city. Rookie, you take the west side. Be careful!’

This isn’t just “run to the end of the level”. You cannot progress in the stage if you don’t accomplish your mission first. You must get rid of obstacles — fallen buildings, piles of rubble, explosions, etc. — and defeat robots, clearing way as you run, and at certain points you’ll need to save civilians from enemy fire.

You might even see yourself going against one of the giant robots we see in the background. I got the impression that that was the initial intent anyway, because Knuckles says we can’t just ignore the robots, yet we do...

So now, there will be a point towards the end of the level where you defeat enemies in an underground area. Whoever is your partner says something along the lines of “we’ve secured an escape route. The way is safe for evacuation.”

‘Alright! Let’s keep this momentum going, everybody!’ Amy responds.

But as she says that, the ground starts shaking. You see a giant robot approaching.

‘These Death Egg robots are everywhere!’ Knuckles exclaims.

‘Uh oh. This ain’t good. It’s too much for the rookie!’ Says Charmy.

‘Don’t worry. You got this, right, rookie?’

It is then that you and your partner enter a mini-boss fight against the Death Egg robot. You must beat up the enemy while civilians run past you in the background. That will make your teammate impressed and warrant the compliments you receive later!

Shortly after said compliments, Espio comes in: ‘We’ve got the enemy on the run and all civilians to safety. Well done, everybody!’

And you finally reach the end. Within the rewards you receive by the end of it, you’ll see “Amy will now fight with you”. I’ll explain that soon.

I dearly wish they had done something more with Park Avenue. The City levels are already so similar to each other, it would’ve been good if we at least got a bit more of adrenaline going. Especially since this level is supposed to be proving the avatar’s prowess.

Now that we’ve stroked our ego a little bit, let’s get back to Tails and Classic for a quick dialogue. Tails starts by picking up our last subject:

‘I found some records of Mystic Jungle. Apparently there was some obscure casino area in... well, the jungle. Eggman built it on top of ancient ruins, and it’s since become one of his secret bases. But now that he’s shut it down, I bet he won’t be expecting us of all people to go there!’

Classic gestures.

‘Oh. You’re right, Shadow did see us earlier... I don’t think we have anything to worry about, though. We just need to keep an eye out.’

He gestures again.

‘Don’t worry, Sonic. Once we take a look at Eggman’s database, we’ll be able to understand what exactly that gem does. And I’m pretty sure we’ll find a way to take you home with it as well. If it brought you here, it can take you back, right?’

I like to think that while Sonic’s Mystic Jungle was more focused on the forest aspects, Classic’s should have a heavier focus on the casino part. So I want us to actually go inside the casinos! Card motifs, roulette wheels, neon lights, bridges crossing the jungle, give us all of the good stuff!

The dialogue of this level would be drastically changed, as Tails and Classic don’t know about Sonic’s survival in this version. So instead of looking for him in Mystic Jungle, they’re here to gather information.

‘Let’s try and be stealthy about this, alright?’

Of course, a Sonic player can only be so stealthy when we’re speeding through the level. But it’s the thought that counts. And Tails’ thought can be heard on his next line around the end of the level:

‘Eggman’s lab is right up ahead. Don’t worry, Sonic. I won’t let him take you again.’

This being in reference not only to Classic having been captured by Eggman before, but mostly to modern Sonic, who Tails feels he’s failed by letting Eggman take him away. But he’ll not let it happen again.

I also reckon that Tails would have some witty remarks about the casinos in the middle of the stage, but I’ll leave those lines to your imagination.

Once we’re done with that, a new cutscene begins.

We get a wide look at a big computer room. We then focus on the door, where we see Tails and Classic Sonic peeking inside. Once they confirm they’re safe, they come in. Tails goes straight for the computers, while Classic takes a look around.

‘Ok, Sonic, hang on a second while I access the data.’

The hedgehog looks at the big empty glass tubes on the wall labelled “PR - prototype 11-17”, “PR - prototype 11 - 18”, “PR - prototype 11 - 19” and so on.

‘Found it! The Phantom Ruby Project.’ Tails scrutinises the screen for a few moments. ‘There seem to be some logs on his experiments.’

He begins reading out loud:

“Despite my advancements in replicating the Phantom Ruby’s powers, most recent prototypes could only respond to the DNA of the person who activates it, which only the most strong-willed individuals seem to be able to. With the right vessel, the Phantom Ruby could become the most formidable weapon. It can mix and match elements from other dimensions to create an entirely new reality under the wielder’s control.”

Connected to the tubes is a machine. Taking a closer look at its panel, Classic sees something underneath a glass barrier.

“Experiments held with the younger version of Sonic show that this reality will only affect the person targeted by the wielder, but I theorise that, with the right adjustments, the ruby’s power can be amplified to affect thousands of people at a time.” Tails pauses. ‘So Eggman has been making you his training dummy for this project ever since the Phantom Ruby brought you here... that’s messed up.’

He receives no response, but the sound of glass breaking makes him looks back at Classic to see him holding up a...

‘Is that a Chaos Emerald?!’

The hedgehog smiles and nods.

‘Alright.’ The fox pulls out his scanner and looks at the screen with determination. He connects the device to the computer and starts typing. ‘We’ve got to get all of this information and the Chaos Emerald to the Resistance as fast as possible. We need a plan.’

Before he’s done, however, we hear loud noises from outside. Tails and Classic exchange a look, and the scene ends.

Alright alright alright, I think here’s the proper time for an Intermission!

The dialogue before Park Avenue was a little longer than the usual, but I just wanted to get the feel of these characters interacting and show how few people there are in the HQ right now. Besides, the Chaotix need something to do, so to the City they go.

Also also, I got Charmy to remind us about the Chaos Emeralds. The poor bee always has to be the one to bring up annoying subjects, huh? But it’s for a good cause.

And of course, Sonic, despite being hurt and tired, really wants to join the fight. What else is he going to do, sit down here? Well, pretty much, or else Amy will tie him to the chair-

I already said most of what I wanted to say about Park Avenue, but I’ll add that having NPCs running in the background and a larger sense of destruction would really help with the immersion of the level. We need to create a sense of urgency, as the civilians need to be evacuated ASAP or else they’re all going to die. The way things are structured, you barely see the supposed chaos going on, as it all just blurs into the honestly very clean background.

(Found this screenshot in the Sonic Retro website)

I also gave Vector’s line during the level to Charmy because, in our timeline so far, Vector has already seen what the rookie is capable of, so, much like Knuckles, he’s sure they can handle themselves.

Just before this level, Amy seemed hesitant to send you out with the evacuation team. But seeing the amazing features you performed on the field today, she has decided to trust you. From this point on, you can select Amy to accompany you on tag team missions. As the other second-in-command, I thought it was only fair that we conquered her canonical approval.

Now about Tails and Classic Sonic. What I imagine Classic is trying to convey here is that they’re dealing with something more powerful than they realise. The hedgehog knows the Phantom Ruby is capable of very dangerous things, not only because of his experience with it in Mania, but also, as we see later, because he has been dealing with its powers ever since he got captured by Eggman. Perhaps not as terribly as his modern counterpart or Shadow, but being a guinea pig has definitely taught Classic to keep an eye out for this thing’s powers.

Tails, on the other hand, believes they’re on their way to a breakthrough, and there should be no slowing down. And indeed, what they find later is exactly what they’ve been looking for. I thought that giving Tails this information before he joins the Resistance again would make his individual role in the story seem more important, as he was the one who made the executive decision to look for it and bring it to his allies even after they were separated. Besides, this discovery will bounce off pretty well with the story beat I’ll give you after this intermission.

I tried once again to make Classic Sonic’s presence in the story have more importance. Not only did he bring the Phantom Ruby with him to this dimension, but he was also its first victim in this world. Who else would Infinite test the Phantom Ruby prototypes on, after all? Certainly not on Eggman.

Besides, he found a Chaos Emerald Eggman had been using to power his prototypes, — which, as you can see, are no longer there, as Infinite took them in the previous part — so at least he’s making himself useful.

Now let’s address the elephant in the room: the Phantom Ruby. Although I really liked the idea of it being able to mess with people’s minds, it was a very inconsistent power. If it just affects what people see and feel, then how did the buildings actually get destroyed? How did people get physically affected and even launched across the scenery (looking at you, Sonic) if it’s all just in their head? Did their brain make them throw themselves around? And most importantly, how did it bring Classic Sonic — and in our case, Blaze — here from another dimension? What does that have to do with the mind-altering powers of the ruby?

By making the Phantom Ruby an actual reality-warping object, we can fit all of these elements in. But it can still be called phantom, because to anyone who isn’t targeted by it, all of these things brought from other realities don’t actually exist — they are but mere phantoms of another dimension. That’s why Sonic’s and Shadow’s virtual realities couldn’t be reached by anyone else, and that’s why having a Phantom Ruby prototype changes how it affects the rookie.

Alright, let’s get back to the custom hero for a moment.

Within a new dialogue, Amy speaks with the avatar:

‘I’m sorry I doubted you, rookie. You did pretty well out there, and we’re receiving lots of new recruits because of what you did. So I just wanted to let you know that, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask!’

The avatar smiles, and they look like they’re about to say something.

‘Am I interrupting something?’ Rouge comes in, indeed interrupting.

‘Rouge! It’s so good to see you. Have you got that report?’

‘My, it’s always business with you. I’m working two jobs, you know? But at least you guys seem to be doing more damage to the doctor than G.U.N.’

‘Well?’

‘Eggman seems to have shut down his Mystic Jungle base in order to protect some of his research. The jungle is clear now, though. Both Infinite and Chaos are gone, but I wasn’t able to hack into the security system, so the defenses around the lab are still up. I also got two life signals running through the casino area.’

‘What should we do, Blaze?’ Amy questions.

Blaze thinks for a moment and responds, ‘Did they seem like an obstacle?’

‘Well,’ Rouge says. ‘They were fighting Eggman’s robots, so if anything, they’re not on his side.’

‘We move forward with the plan, then. We’ll take over Mystic Jungle and use its assets to our advantage.’

The custom hero perks up at that.

‘Maybe you should go too, rookie,’ Amy suggests. ‘You seem eager to be out in the field.’

The custom hero nods, eager indeed, and the dialogue is over.

We’re on a roll tonight! Bring me another level! Aqua Road it is!

(Screenshot found in the Sonic wiki. Unfortunately, there’s no specific concept art for Aqua Road)

I may seem overly critical at this point, but this level is so... short. It feels like nothing happens and it’s already over...

Well, since we already had stages to focus on the forest and on the casino, I’d like this one to show us a bit more of the temple parts. Maybe in order to be stealthy and avoid catching the attention of the jungle creatures like what happened to Sonic, we take an underground route for part of the level. There, we can see old corridors of the temple covered in bright lights. Every time we come out of these tunnels we find ourselves sliding above the jungle on some sort of aqueduct structure, with more split paths and obstacles in your way.

Regarding the background dialogue, the characters wouldn’t say this is a hard place to find, because of course, we’ve already been here before as Sonic. Instead, they could comment on how strange it is that Eggman would build a lab in a place so flashy and carnivalesque; maybe he thought he’d go by unnoticed in the middle of all these casinos and attractions.

Approaching the end of the level, Blaze would come in to say, ‘we’re really close now. Team A will meet up with you at the front entrance, rookie, keep an eye out.’

Aaaand it’s over! The next cutscene should be almost the same:

The avatar sees the Phantom Ruby prototype on the floor and picks it up. It shines bright in their hands, and the world around them glitches for a second before going back to normal. They seem really confused, but their thoughts are interrupted when the door to the lab opens behind them.

They turn around with their wispon pointed at the threat, only to find Tails and Classic Sonic getting ready to fight. The two parties look at each other for a moment before lowering their guards, and Tails asks if they’ve met before.

End scene.

Onto the last bits of this part, because no, we’re still not over!

We’re back to HQ with a dialogue:

‘Amy? Amy, come in!’ Espio calls through a communicator.

‘Espio, what’s going on?’ Amy responds.

‘We’re suffering a counter-attack in the City!’

‘Shadow’s here! We need some back up!’ Vector adds.

‘Oh, I’ll show him what for! I thought he was cool!’ Charmy shouts in the background.

‘Charmy, get back here!’ Vector calls, then hangs up.

‘Oh, this is bad! Knuckles and Rouge just left, and Blaze still isn’t back from Mystic Jungle!’ Amy cries. ‘The base is full of new recruits, I can’t just leave them!’

‘Finally some fun for me!’ Sonic comes in.

‘W-well...’ the pink hedgehog sounds flustered for a second before making up her mind. ‘I think I might just be able to lend a hand. Silver! You take care of the recruits!’

‘I’ll... keep an eye on them, I guess?’ Silver responds.

We end the dialogue and head for another Sonic level. Back to the city to help the Chaotix!

Now this level. This level is bloody hilarious. The characters panicking about an army of death egg robots when on our end there’s simply none to be seen, I love it. But of course, we’ll have to get rid of this background dialogue for that very same reason. Anything but the characters talking about something we can’t even see.

Instead of reaching an abrupt ending by meeting the enemy in the middle of the city, Sonic would reach a point of the level where we see a cinematic shot of fake Shadow running alongside him.

‘So, guys? I think I found Shadow. He doesn’t look like he’s up for a talk though.’

We would then get to the goal ring (or symbol, I guess?) in some big empty area, with Shadow skidding to a stop right in front of us.

‘Alright, I guess we’ll make him talk.’

Both hedgehogs face each other as the stage comes to a close and we get our result screen.

Much like I expected from the original game, boss battle time! Sonic versus Shadow, a classic (no Classic Sonic included)!

I like to imagine this as being similar to their first battle in the franchise, where they keep trying to hit each other. Of course, fake Shadow has some sort of attack pattern you have to figure out as you go along, while Sonic has his witty banter going on.

Once you’ve defeated the fake hedgehog, a new cutscene will begin. Sonic and Shadow look at each other, both visibly tired. The blue blur starts talking in a tone that’s more impatient than his regular swag:

‘What’s going on, Shadow? What could Eggman possibly be offering you to do this? Do you have any idea what everyone’s been through?’

He’s met with silence.

‘Are you even listening to me?’

Both parties prepare to attack each other again, but just as fake Shadow is about to punch Sonic in the face, a new contender appears to kick him out of the battle to the sound of All Hail Shadow. Sonic is stunned.

‘Another Shadow?!’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time,’ the real Shadow comments grimly. He stares at his doppelganger, who is glitching out.

‘I... what?’

‘That was a fake.’ Rouge comes flying into the scene. She hovers next to her teammate, who doesn’t seem fazed.

‘Huh... guess I can’t call you a faker anymore,’ Sonic smiles, somewhat relieved, if still confused.

‘Let’s get back to the headquarters. There’s a lot to report.’

The cutscene comes to an end, and we transition to the next one:

The doors to the control room open, and Sonic, Shadow and Rouge come in. Sonic halts when he sees who’s in the room, however. A two-tailed fox is in front of the main computer showing some archives and explaining something to the other Resistance members, who listen eagerly; the avatar and Classic Sonic are by his side.

‘... Tails?’

‘Sonic?’ Tails’ ears perk, and he takes a second to look behind him, almost afraid to do so. When he does, he’s overjoyed and runs towards his brother. ‘SONIC!’

‘TAILS!’

The two of them hug tightly. These are two brothers who haven’t seen each other in six months, I want emotion.

‘When the rookie said you were alive, I couldn’t believe it, I though- I was so afraid you were- Sonic, I’m so sorry-’ Tails can’t seem to find the words.

‘Hey, I’m alright. I’m just happy you’re alright too... what example would we be giving the younger generations, right?’ The hedgehog jests, greeting his younger self, who waves at him.

Shadow stares at the avatar pensively, which intimidates them.

‘Shadow!’ Tails takes a step back once he sees the other hedgehog.

‘Hey, he’s alright. He’s cool.’ Sonic calms him down.

‘The Shadow you’ve seen for the past six months was a copy created by Infinite,’ says the real Shadow. He exchanges a look with Rouge. ‘All of the enemies you’ve been fighting were, it seems.’

‘That... makes sense, actually.’ Tails goes back to the computer screen. ‘It definitely matches what we’ve discovered about the Phantom Ruby.’

The black hedgehog approaches the screen as well. ‘Though they’re mere replicas, their powers are just as formidable as the original.’

‘Apparently Infinite can create an unlimited number of them and bend them to his will,’ Rouge explains.

‘That would explain Chaos...’ says Amy, thoughtful.

‘And where were you for the past six months?’ Blaze asks, suspicious.

‘Trapped.’ Shadow’s tone is bleak. ‘The Phantom Ruby’s powers are stronger than you imagine. It can create an entire inescapable virtual reality.’

‘Virtual reality...’ Sonic looks down, realisation dawning on him.

‘So what? Does that mean Eggman can just keep cranking up his numbers whenever he wants, no matter how hard we fight?’ Silver, the realist, asks.

‘Exactly. As it stands, there’s no way we can win this.’

‘Of course we can win this! We always do!’ Sonic says, gathering back his swag for the sake of the group. ‘We just have to figure out how.’

‘Eggman says he has a plan to destroy us in three days,’ Tails comments. He is determined. ‘So we better start thinking now!’

The rest of the Resistance members agree, the morale slightly raised, and the scene ends.

(Except it’s not a party)

Onto our last Intervention of the day:

Rouge once again gets a casual inclusion. Mentioning G.U.N at least lets us know they’re trying to do something, even if it’s not relevant enough to specify. Because I do believe G.U.N still exists in this universe, otherwise who the heck does Team Dark work for-

As you can see, Tails and Classic are no longer the sole reason why the rookie is sent to Mystic Jungle, because that’s just weird and very convenient. Nay, this time we’re taking over one of Eggman’s bases for good. Seems like his plan to shut down Mystic Jungle to keep the Resistance away from it backfired, huh?

Regarding that cutscene, I’d just like to remind you of something we saw all the way back in part 1: the avatar activating the Phantom Ruby prototype is what brought Shadow back from his virtual reality. The jungle glitching out would be a sign of that, and the following events would happen at the same time as the ending of Episode Shadow.

We can see the City was left to the care of the Chaotix, but we can’t turn our back for five minutes and Eggman’s already trying to take it back. And though our detectives are determined, they could use some help in fighting the Ultimate Life Form.

I thought I’d squeeze in just a tiny bit of Amy’s affection for Sonic here, just so we know that it still exists. Silver pays for it because he’s the only other canon member left in the headquarters. Where did Knuckles go? I’ll tell you soon.

I like to think Sonic would try to argue with Shadow about this whole situation, even if just a little bit. Shadow has been against them before, but this time it doesn’t make any sense at all; look at everything that’s happening! Surely Shadow could at least explain himself?

And explain himself he did. The real Shadow, that is. He reminds us of the Shadow Androids there for a moment before the real talk starts. And once again, it would make sense for him to know all this information, because as we’ve seen in episode Shadow, he’s spent a good while dealing with the Phantom Ruby’s powers.

I honestly think the rest of the scene is pretty self-explanatory. In its core, I didn’t change much.

Alright, we’ve got a ton of story going this time! I wanted to get the plot to a certain point before university was back, so you guys get a mega part 7 to fulfil all your Sonic Forces needs... if you have them, that is. Why are you here? Do you enjoy what I write? I’d hope so, I enjoy writing it.

Until part 8, my guys, gals and non-binary pals!

(Happy Pride Month, by the way!)

[stayevildarling]

Wilhemina Venable x Reader- When the time is right Pt 2

Part 1, Part 3

word count: 3.5k

warnings: brief mention of dizziness and feeling sick, mention of scoliosis, angst + fluff at the end

A/N: Part two! I will write one more part, potentially two, kind of depends. I hope everyone enjoys this story so far!

Taglist:

@lunaticwhittaker , @mrsdeanhoward , @alexajbitar , @in-cordelias-coven , @kenzbro , @loverofallthingssarah , @twistedpoeticjustice , @billiebeanhoward , @minaslittleone , @lilypadscoven , @vintagepaulson , @ninaahs , @whitelotus00 , @httpfiftyshadesofgay

After getting back to your desk and quickly sitting down as it felt like your legs might just give up on you, heart still racing fast and mind filled with thoughts, you try and focus on the tasks ahead again. Your boss instructed you to make arrangements for the new partnership with Kineros Robotics and as you do some research on their website instead of clicking the Company History link or the product one to actually write the article, your thoughts trail off.

As a result, you click on ''Employees'' and you recognize the two men from earlier. One of them is called Jeff Pfister and the other one is called Mutt Nutter and you chuckle at that name. You learn they are heads of the company and then you see HR and there she is Wilhemina. In the photo she seems cold and harsh and not even in your worst nightmares you imagined meeting her would be like it was today.

First of all, you have trouble believing she works and lives in the same city you do now like it must be fate right? You moved and changed jobs and you find yourself in the same city? Your new firm working together with hers? and you running into her after thinking of her earlier while listening to some lyrics in your lunch break?

It all seems too good to be true and it definitely must be the universe sending you both some kind of signal. As you type out some words on your computer, actually trying to get some work done, you feel how shaky you are and that you can't even type properly. Taking a deep breath, you try and remind yourself to say calm and that this feeling will pass and reminding yourself this is just the result from today's events.

As you lean down to get your bag to drink something you see stars and you can feel dizziness approaching, so you slowly make your way to the employee's bathroom, also feeling slightly sick. Standing by the sink, you let some cold water run down your wrists and you also splash some cold water on your face to try and calm yourself down.

Obviously, it would affect you, seeing her again so unexpectedly but you didn't think it would hit you like this and feel like a tornado just rippled through your life. It feels like all this time since Wilhemina walked out of your life, the pain never truly stopped, and even though you had healed since, the scars opened again today.

After a while, you hear the bathroom door open and you hold onto the sink feeling sicker by the second. ''Oh dear Y/N are you okay?'' you hear one of your co-workers ask and rush over to you.

''Yeah I- I think I didn't drink enough'' you say and she offers to take you home but you don't wanna bother her. ''I think I will be fine'' you say and after drinking some water she got for you, you feel less dizzy but still completely exhausted.

''I will talk to Mr. Odell'' she says and before you can protest she is gone. After a few moments, she comes back with your bag and coat and guides you outside the building, and takes you to your car.

''Are you sure you should drive?'' she asks concerned but you reassure her you are fine. ''Thank you'' you say and she leaves with a smile and says ''Just rest and if you need anything just call'' and with that she leaves and you are left, sitting in your car and you let out a deep breath you have been holding in for way too long.

You start your engine, knowing deep down that you are in no state to actually drive and that you probably shouldn't but at the same time you just want to get back into the comfort of your own apartment, as soon as possible and lie down.

The drive doesn't take too long and with the window open, music very quietly playing in the background, and the occasional sips of water, you manage to get home quicker than you initially thought. You drop your bag and coat in the hallway and after shutting the door, you head straight to the bedroom, abandoning all your thoughts and things and practically falling into bed.

The dizziness quickly subceeds as you feel your body now adjusting to the comfort of your mattress, soft pillow, and blanket you managed to wrap loosely around your tired body. Sleep quickly consumes you, your body needing rest after this exhausting day, the thought of the redhead, causing this reaction, abandoned for now but she is here yet again to haunt you in your dreams, moments after falling asleep.

''No no no please don't leave'' you scream, currently caught in a nightmare, another sign your body and brain are still processing today's events. It feels like your personal hell, as you seem to relive the worst moment of your life over and over again and that's Wilhemina walking out of your life just in different scenarios and moments but it hurts in every form of it. Tears stream down your face as you beg her not to go but each time she leaves and it feels like dying every time.

The next morning:

As soon as your eyes snap open after hearing a faint sound coming from the other end of your apartment, you feel exhausted, the last night not providing you with the kind of sleep you needed for your body and mind to fully relax and be ready for another busy and packed day ahead.

Sighing, you rub your eyes and slowly get out of bed, your feet automatically following the source of the noise, that initially woke you up and as you realize it's your phone, you are somewhat glad for the distraction as it pulled you out of several nightmares. As you finally reach your bag, you retrieve your phone and you feel relieved as you realize it's 6:30 am and you didn't miss work. At the same time, your heart skips a beat as you see Mr. Odell's number this early in the morning.

''He-hello?'' you ask slightly dumbfounded why he would be calling you at this time in the morning. ''Ahh Miss Y/L/N I was just checking to see if you feel better'' he starts but you can already feel he is after something as this seems like a small excuse to call you. ''Yes I am, thank you'' you quickly reply, waiting for his actual reason behind calling you this early.

''Listen, the contracts with Kineros Robotics are finished, I need you to go and collect them with Ms. Venable this morning'' he instructs and you can already hear him typing away on his computer. ''Of course'' you reply before he says a few 'Thank yous' and ending the call.

Closing your eyes, you try and take a deep breath and remind yourself that everything will be okay and to keep the raging storm of emotions at bay but somehow the thought of seeing Wilhemina again terrifies you and makes your stomach flip but at the same time there are so many 'What ifs' and unanswered questions, still filling your brain and causing you to overthink.

Still feeling sleepy and also exhausted from the night before, you decide to have a quick shower, before getting ready and adjusting your usual work attire in the mirror, styling your hair, and applying makeup. The only difference today is that no amount of makeup could cover or hide the bags under your eyes and how exhausted you look.

Taking a deep breath and grabbing your things, as well as a coffee, you leave your apartment and head over to Kineros Robotics. Somehow, even though it seemed like on the entire car ride there you didn't even pay attention to anything, the day before you, you somehow did as you find yourself in the familiar parking lot, a while later.

As you walk in, heading straight towards the familiar corridor, walking past the front desk, you don't realize at first, that the entire building is dead quiet, your own thoughts too loud and only as you pass a clock on the wall, you realize it's seven thirty am and probably the reason for the silence and no one there yet.

Part of yourself feels relieved as you hear some clicking on a computer keyboard and without being able to see her yet, you know Wilhemina is already there. You aren't actually that surprised because the redhead used to be the first one in the office every morning, at your old firm where you worked together, always the first to open up and last to close up, really focussed on her work and taking it seriously.

As she hears footsteps approach, Wilhemina looks up confused about who would already be here at this time because she is always the first one and her idiot bosses wouldn't be awake at this time. ''Y/N?'' she asks confused as she sees you enter, stopping whatever she is working on, and for a moment you just look at her unable to say a word.

She scans each one of your features and by your posture and facial expression she knows you are not okay, she used to hold you whenever you weren't feeling well or after a nightmare and she can read you better than anyone else.

''What- what are you doing here this early?'' she asks confused and you can tell she hesitated at first before asking and you notice her voice still sounds dominant but it sounds slightly softer at the same time.

Finally clearing your throat and approaching her desk, ignoring your sweaty palms or heart beating faster, you compose yourself and manage to form a reply.

''I'm here to pick up the files and contracts for Mr. Odell'' you say, still feeling intimidated by her burning gaze. It seems as if she is staring straight into your soul, reading and knowing every single detail about you like the sleepless nights, nightmares, or how she still haunts you every single day.

''Very well'' she replies and nods and she retrieves her cane, gripping hard around the snake handle, before walking over to a cabinet and getting out some folders with the needed documents. As she has to slightly bend down, you notice the same expression on her face, even though you can only see half of it. Wilhemina always hid her pains from you, even back then, she would reassure and promise and pull the most adorable faces, promising she is okay but you knew deep down by the furrow in her eyebrow and how quickly her eyes shut close, whenever she had to move her back the slightest, she was lying.

It takes her moments to gather the needed documents and you find a little smile playing on your lips because despite what happened to the woman you used to know so well, it makes you feel calm that deep down she is still the same organized and hard-working Wilhemina she always had been. It feels like a glimpse of hope, a little ray of sunshine in the middle of a storm.

However, your smile quickly fades as Wilhemina turns around, her gaze lingering on you as she walks towards you. Her expression is stern and cold, no emotion visible and your little glimpse of hope vanishing again. Slowly the realization sinks in that no matter what might have happened, there will be no way to ever get back to how things used to be and this doesn't just cause your throat to go dry, hands shaking uncontrollably again but also for your heart to beat out of your chest, the feeling of anxiety slightly creeping it's ugly way back into your brain.

The woman standing across you, that used to be so much more to you than a stranger, scans your features, noticing the bags under your eyes and the sadness radiating off you. She can look behind the facade, the forced and polite smile but the Wilhemina currently standing in front of you doesn't know how to reach you anymore, as deep down she knows that she lost you long ago and along with you, the only source of light in her life, ever.

Snapping out of it, Wilhemina hands you the files not once averting your gaze and it feels like you might just die from the force her brown observing eyes have on you. As she hands you the files, you reach for it, trying to hide the shaking of your hands but the redhead instantly notices, her gaze finally leaving your eyes.

''Thank you, M-'' you start to say out of a habit, as you were so used to calling her that nickname before but you stop yourself just in time. You give her a polite smile that she doesn't return, her face completely lacking any emotions or giving you any indication on how she is feeling, either about this interaction or seeing you again in general.

Slowly, you turn back around, the same polite smile on your face and a little nod as a form of saying goodbye to her, not expecting to see her again in the near future, as Mr. Odell's assistant would be back tomorrow and you wouldn't be working on this anymore either way. As soon as you turn around and are about to head to the exit, back through the same corridor, your smile fades, face almost crumpling, the pain of seeing the woman you love change into this person completely lacking emotions and reminding you more of a robot than a human, which technically is fitting, considering the company you are currently in and the work they do.

Just as you are about to leave, you suddenly feel a hand reach for your wrist. You flinch momentarily and freeze, as you feel the material of the cold gloves on your skin. Instantly you are reminded of her touch lingering on your skin before when the two of you were still in each other's arms and lives. Her hands had never felt this strange and cold before, as they used to have the sole purpose of making you feel warm and loved, either by holding you or making you feel beautiful in other ways.

Finally, you snap your eyes open as a wave of emotions hit you, part of you wants to cry, part of you is angry about the way she left, heartbroken even being in the same room and just deeply concerned and worried about the redhead standing behind you and holding onto you still as if she was scared if she let go, she would lose you all over again.

''Y/N wait'' Wilhemina whispers and as you turn around, now inches apart, you don't notice the way her voice went soft and she let go of her grip after noticing you flinched a bit at the sensation. The two of you instantly lock eyes and it feels like so much is being said, simply through the locking of your eyes.

Despite the redhead trying to hide her true emotions, internally reminding herself who she is and who she has to be, to keep her perfect and cold appearance intact, she crumbles underneath the bottling up emotions and the way it made her feel to see you again. You notice the inner battle she is fighting, her eyes turning a darker and lighter shape with each thought inside Wilhemina. It feels as if the soft Mina is trying to fight her way out of this darker version, wanting to say so many things to you, but at the same time fighting with everything she has left inside her.

As you stand there frozen, just watching the woman standing across from you, your own emotions take over as tears prickle in your eyes and your heart loudly begins thumping in your chest. You look at the redhead, part of you begging her to speak up, to finally let those bottled up emotions go as you can practically feel them radiating off her. For a split second you have hope, as her mouth parts and you expect something, an explanation, an apology or something that could soothe the many questions and aching in your heart, that started with the day she walked out of your shared apartment.

However, the battle inside Wilhemina is too strong, the darker side having ruled her little kingdom of emotions too long that in result, soft Wilhemina, the woman you used to know and fell in love with, has no chance of winning or voicing herself. You sigh in defeat, as you realize there is no chance to get even a simple explanation out of Wilhemina. ''It's okay'' you mumble, after giving her enough time to speak and realizing that it's too late.

Your ex-girlfriend watches, as you turn your back to her again, this time not stopping in your tracks and this time you being the one to walk out of her workplace and life. She stands there frozen, unable to move for a while as the soft Mina is utterly heartbroken as a small part is still inside fighting somewhere. It takes her several minutes to snap out of her state after hearing her two bosses walk in with silly faces, clearly wanting something from the redhead again and needing her attention. She snaps out of it, turning around and walking towards her desk, the same cold expression on her face as if nothing had happened.

A while later, you sit by your desk after handing your boss the documents and unavoidably handing him the key to your connection to Wilhemina, as from tomorrow on Mr. Odell's assistant will be working on the Kineros Robotics case again, like she was supposed to. You try and focus on the tasks ahead but avert your gaze from your computer, looking out the window and watching as the clouds keep the sun from shining and blessing the city with sunlight. Your mind can't help but wander to Wilhemina and the question what had happened to her in the first place to change into the person you had met again yesterday.

Feeling a little shiver run down your spine, you try and ignore the thoughts, accepting fate and believing that fate always has a plan in the end. ''Maybe we aren't meant to be after all'' you think to yourself, before focussing your attention on your tasks and work for the day again, unaware that in a similar, much more purple office, on the other side of the city Wilhemina is sitting by her desk, her mind occupied by you.

[ayamari-no-goshi]

To Join the Whispers (5)

AO3

Fandoms: Danny Phantom (DP) / DC universe

Summary:  THIS IS A CROSSOVER A  contact for the Batfamily passed along a rumor that the League of  Assassins were investigating a small city called Amity Park. The old man  and Tim managed to find evidence of unusual paranormal activity in the  town. While they weren’t entirely certain it wasn’t just infested with  metas, the locals believed the entities that haunted, for lack of a  better word, the town were actual ghosts. If there was one thing Ra’s al  Ghul didn’t need to get his grubby hands on, it was ghosts.That’s  probably why Jason was doing this. He had the unfortunate luck to experience both death and resurrection in a way he’d never recommend to  anyone else.

Warnings: rated T for violence, mentions of death, and questionable mental health

Parings: none

Notes: originally uploaded to AO3. Cross-posted to tumblr. Jason Todd-centric

The Ops Center was very similar to mission control rooms Jason saw throughout his journeys after his resurrection. Parts of it were even like the main computer of the Batcave, and Jazz explained that it had the ability to switch between a plane, blimp, and car forms. Jack and Maddie really were giving Wayne Industries R&D department a run for their money. The only thing that struck him as odd was the working refrigerator Danny off-handily mentioned was filled with emergency ham.

“Before we talk about anything, I want to make sure this room isn’t bugged.” Maintaining secrecy was a core part of Batman’s training. Sure, he was still technically legally dead, but he had been seen enough times recently that he needed to remember to keep up his civilian façade.

Danny raised a questioning eyebrow before smacking himself in the forehead. “That’s right. You overheard me talking about the Fruitloop’s stupid spy devices.”

“The what now?” Jazz crossed her arms as her eyes narrowed at her brother. “Did you forget to tell me something?”

The teen rubbed the back of his neck. “Vlad sometimes puts these little spy robots in the house. They look like bugs. I haven’t seen any since I destroyed the last couple.”

“Danny! That’s important!”

Chuckling at their antics, Jason pulled out a prototype pair of googles he’d been working on. Since the helmet was a bit conspicuous when he was out and about, he’d been working on an alternative. “Give me a second to run a quick scan.”

They watched in silence as he looked around the room. While there were still some kinks to work out, he did get a couple hits. Walking over to the first one, he found an insect-like machine sitting on top of a few wires. After showing it to an alarmed Danny and Jazz, he crushed it before moving on to the next one. Three more were destroyed before he was comfortable enough to talk.

“How does he keep getting them in here?” Danny wondered as Jazz darkly muttered something about checking the bathrooms.

“If they can fly, they can easily get into an open door, but they’re also small enough to crawl through gaps,” Jason mentioned as he put his goggles away in one of his jacket pockets. He might want to invest in bots like this. They were much more discreet than the devices he currently used.

“I’m going to go through this house and seal up everything I can after this.” Jazz’s scowl softened as she turned her attention back to Jason. “You wanted to know what’s going on with you, right?”

“That’d be nice,” he glanced down at his now normal looking hand. “I have no idea what that was or why that suddenly started. There are others I know who have gone through something similar to me.” When confusion flashed across Danny’s face, Jason elaborated. “They had the same type of exposure I did, but none of them had lasting effects. And, none of them have displayed anything like this.”

“Others?”

“Yeah, you met a few of them recently.” Debating on how much he could safely say, he added, “A regular pain in the ass watches over something similar to your parents’ Portal. He mostly uses it for healing injuries and keeping himself young and insane. Getting exposed to it is an occupational hazard when dealing with him. It’s more like a pool though.” That should be enough information for now.

Danny’s eyes widened in understanding. “Ectoplasm is a weird thing. Exposure to it can cause different effects. Most of my school experienced ghost-like abilities when they were infected by what I can really only describe as a ghost mosquito, but everyone recovered with no lasting effects.”

“Is that what happened?” Jazz shot her brother a look. “I had almost contributed that whole thing to a mass hallucination.”

“It’s probably better to think of it like that. It was one of Spectra’s plans.”

Spectra? That name sounded familiar. “Was that the ghost who impersonated a school counselor?”

“Yep.” The kid grimaced at the thought. “She feeds on misery and is well practiced at getting under people’s skins. Anyways,” he continued with a dismissive wave of the hand, “going back to ectoplasm. For me and Vlad, we both survived accidents with it that should have killed us. I had signs something was wrong almost immediately, but Vlad mentioned his powers came gradually. But, he did get very sick for several years first.”

“So… exposures usually don’t have lasting effects.” That didn’t really help him much.

“What happened to me was a fluke… Due to reasons, I know that the accident could be replicated with the same results if I happened to lose my powers.” His gaze momentarily grew distant before he shivered. “But, we don’t know if I am the only one who would have survived it.” He turned his attention back to Jason and studied him for a moment. “It’s possible since you already are ‘contaminated’, the naturally high levels of ambient ectoplasm could be affecting you.” He glanced at Jazz. “Do you think I should take him to Frostbite?”

“Who?”

“One of Danny’s allies in the Ghost Zone.” Jazz tapped her cheek a few times as she considered it. “That might not be a bad idea. It’s early enough to make the trip and get back in time to get ready for tonight. I guess you’d like me to get our parents out of the house?”

“That’d be great.”

“Fine.” Jazz huffed as Danny shot her an innocent grin. “But you owe me. Make sure to let Sam and Tucker know where you’re going to be in case they need to reach you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Danny typed something on his phone before showing it to Jason. It was just a message about him going into the Ghost Zone for a bit. There was no mention of the why. “I figured you probably don’t want my friends to know.”

“You’d be correct.” He was probably going to have to check how much Danny may or may not have mentioned to his friends. It was one thing to tell them his secrets, but another to reveal his or his family’s secrets.

…

Their plan was very simple. Once their parents finally came up to the Ops Center, Jazz and Danny would announce they got a report of a ghost all the way across the town to get them out of the house. While Jazz kept an eye on them from the safety of the house, Danny would lead Jason into the Ghost Zone to meet Frostbite.

It was a bit too simplistic for his taste. Who would fall for such a simple rouse? There was also no way Dick would let him go without tagging along. Danny reluctantly agreed that was fine.

Much to his surprised, when Maddie and Jack finally appeared with his brother, who almost looked shell-shocked, Jazz immediately announced that they got a reading about a ghost in one of the parks. Both of them immediately drew weapons from somewhere (he needed to find out exactly how they hid those ecto-weapons on them without them being obvious) before dashing off down the stairs. Moments later, they heard a roaring engine and screeching tired.

Jason stood there in stunned silence as he tried processing exactly what happened. “How… how did that work? That shouldn’t have worked.”

Danny gave him a tired smile. “It works every single time with them.”

“Guns blazing and all?”

“Yep.”

“What exactly did I just watch?” Dick finally asked with obvious confusion coloring his voice.

Jason patted his brother’s shoulder. “That was a distraction, Dickie-bird. Anyways, are you up for a trip?”

…

It took a little bit of coaxing from Danny to get Jason to enter the vehicle he called the Specter Speeder, which was a weird combination of a boat and some of the spaceships he’d seen in the past. Danny explained it was the fastest mode of travel through the Ghost Zone which waited for them on the other side of the Portal. Questionable vehicles he could handle. Going through that Portal, that was another thing.

However, Dick seemed excited about the situation and happily boarded the Speeder. He had removed his civies to reveal his Nightwing costume, much to Danny’s and Jazz’s surprise. Since they didn’t know who or what they’d encounter, it was the best way to protect his identity. While Jason didn’t have his helmet, his prototype goggles and lower mask were worn for the same reason.

“Changing up the look?” Dick just smiled as Jason joined him and Danny in the Speeder.

Jason just rolled his eyes. “Would you rather me carry the helmet, which I should remind you contains explosives, everywhere I go?”

“Point taken.”

Danny, now in his Phantom form, paused from pressing buttons on the control panel to stare at him. “You're willing wear something on your head that can explode?”

He shrugged. “A lot of villains like trying to remove masks or helmets. If a helmet explodes, there’s always a chance it’ll happen again.” One of the cardinal rules of Batman’s teachings was that criminals were a cowardly and superstitious lot, and many of them were. Unfortunately, not all of them.

While Danny continued to stare at him, Dick laughed. “We watched your parents pull weaponry from out of thin air, but you’re shocked by this.”

“But it can…” Danny stopped mid sentence and rubbed his eyes. “You know what? Half of my parents’ inventions explode too. I’m going to stop thinking about it.” He pushed a few more buttons before grabbing the controls.

The Speeder lifted and smoothly drifted forwards. Danny tapped a green earpiece. “Jazz, can you hear me okay?”

Her voice came over a speaker system in the Speeder. “Loud and clear. I’ll do my best to keep Mom and Dad busy while you’re gone. Stay safe!”

“Ready to see the land of the dead?” Danny questioned as Jason and Dick moved forward to get a better view of the windshield. Before either of them could reply, he moved the controls forcing the Speeder forward as it slipped through the Portal.

Jason stiffened as they crossed the threshold. Images of being forced back to life and waking up in a pool of glowing green danced across his vision. Echoes of pain danced across his body. But it vanished almost as quickly as it came.

“Are you okay?” Danny glanced up at him. “I forgot that sometimes you can get an echo of what happened. I’m not sure if I just got used to it or if it stopped happening after a while.”

“Hood?” Dick steady gaze and uneasy tone showed his brotherly concern.

He shook his head. “Bad memories. It’ll pass.”

The Pit whispered, almost gleefully, as they got their first view of the so-called Ghost Zone. Swirling bands of green were only broken up by the site of floating islands and the occasionally floating door. In the distance, Jason could see almost familiar shapes. Were they stairs? Maybe walls? If it wasn’t for how active the Pit was, he might have been in awe.

Unlike the other times the Pit was so active, he wasn’t overcome with the obsessive thoughts. Instead, there was just recognition for something similar, like when he returned to Gotham after his time away.

As they traveled, Danny explained that the islands and doors often were claimed by various ghosts. Each area had become shaped by the influence of the resident ghost. Danny described some of them as they passed them. For example, one island contained a large manor building which Danny explained was a sprawling library owned by a ghost called the Ghost Writer. Apparently, the ghost did not appreciate intruders, especially if they caused any damage to his books. If he was honest, Jason wanted to peek inside. Maybe there were some rare first editions Alfred would like.

Soon, they started approaching what appeared to be a giant block of ice and snow, and the temperature inside the Speeder started to drop. Danny asked Dick to take the controls, “I just need you to keep it straight for a moment,” before disappearing for a few moments. He reemerged carrying two heavy coats.

“You’re going to need these,” he explained as he passed them out and reclaimed the controls. “This is the Realm of the Far Frozen, and it’s just as cold as it sounds. It’s one of the only places in the Ghost Zone where you can find a medical center.”

They touched down what seemed to be a few minutes later. Before he opened the hatch to the Speeder, Danny hesitantly explained, “Ah, you’ll hear Frostbite call me the ‘Great One.’ I might have helped stop the old ghost king from taking over both the Ghost Zone and Earth at one point.”

Jason shared a look with Dick. That was definitely a story he’d like to hear. While Danny didn’t seem too keen to talk about it, but maybe this Frostbite would.

Once they exited the ship, they found themselves surrounded by a group of ghosts Danny only could describe as looking like a cartoonish depiction of the Yeti. The one in center, who was distinguished by an icy arm which contained visible bones, moved forward and happily greeted Danny with a bear hug.

After escaping from the grip, Danny introduced them to the leader, now identified as Frostbite. He then gave a quick explanation as to why they were there. The yeti’s expression grew more and more concerned as Danny spoke.

“That is rather odd. Come,” Frostbite beckoned to Jason and Dick, “I will have my people run a few tests. I would also like to listen to your story. Perhaps that holds some answers.”

After leading them into what originally appeared to be a carved-out cavern in an icy wall, Frostbite led them to an intricately designed door which opened to reveal a sparking medical center. If he hadn’t just come from what appeared to be a frozen wasteland, Jason would have thought he walked into a state-of-the-art hospital. He hadn’t expected to see such technology in this place. It was also a great deal warmer than the icy exterior.

Frostbite instructed a few other of his yetis to get a few things ready before instructing Jason to remove his coat and shirt. With Dick and Danny present, it wasn’t really something he wanted to do. Neither of them needed to see that scar. However, Frostbite explained it would be easier for him to check for certain vitals.

After some encouragement from his brother, Jason just grumbled a bit before finally complying. The feel of the room, which was originally pleasant, turned tense as he heard gasps from those in the rooms. Yeah, it wasn’t normal for living people to have dissection scars.

“What… what happened?” Danny’s voice was barely audible.

“Told ya, kid, I was dead before I came back.” He gestured to the scar. “This is my permanent souvenir.”

“Little wing…” Dick didn’t pay any attention when Danny raised an eyebrow at the nickname. Instead, he moved forward to give a brotherly hug. “None of us knew…”

“And I wanted it that way.”

“I should have been there.”

“Don’t pull this fucking shit!” He snapped as he pushed his brother away. “What happened was my fault. I got duped and went in alone. Don’t you dare blame yourself for my stupidity.” He breathed heavily a few times as the greenish fog in his vision dissipated. Strong emotions were apparently a bad thing in this place. He really didn’t need to fall into a bout of madness in front of people who were trying to help him. “Don’t go telling anyone else. I don’t need anyone else blaming themselves.”

Frostbite politely coughed to remind them he was there. Once making sure everything was okay, he requested for Jason to explain what exactly happened to him. So, he did, with the least amount of detail possible. Danny and Frostbite winced several times while Dick hovered silently.

When the ghost pressed for information about the Pit, he looked to Dick for help. How much should he say? How much could he say? For him, it was the hardest part of the tale to come to terms with, and he still hated talking about it.

Dick seemed to catch the drift and took over in the explanations. He kept it brief. The Pit could both heal the sick and dying but kill the healthy. For most people, it temporarily enhanced their bodies but brought madness. He also talked about the color, that eerie glowing green.

“Being placed in that was how you returned?” Frostbite seemed horrified.

“Yeah.” Memories of coming back to life once again flashed across his vision.

“I have heard of such places,” the Yeti mentioned after some of his people ran a few scans. Jason had been allowed to replace his shirt. “They are pools of ectoplasm that form in areas where areas of the Infinite Realms leak into your world. But they are easily corrupted. I take it there are times where your thoughts and emotions become overwhelming?”

“You could say that.”

Frostbite nodded as one of his assistants handed him what appeared to be a printout. “While I am unsure how your unique situation caused this, I can see there was a permanent bonding between you and the ectoplasm from those waters. However, the corruption of it could cause what I could only imagine to be a type of obsessive madness in humans. Something similar can occur in ghosts if the ectoplasm circulating in their bodies becomes infected or poisoned.”

“I’m following so far.” The explanation made sense. Danny had mentioned exposure to ectoplasm could cause enhance emotions and cause obsessive thoughts. While it felt nice to have some proof his thoughts had been affected, he knew most of the havoc he caused couldn’t be blamed solely on that. “But why am I suddenly more ghostly?”

“I believe the corrupted ectoplasm in your system is slowly being filtered out by the clean ambient ectoplasm in Amity. This is the first time since…” the yeti frowned as he struggled with a word, “Ah… waking up, you’ve been around so much ectoplasm?”

“You can say ‘revived’, ‘returned from the dead’, ‘rose again’, whatever the hell you want.” He hated when people tried to dance around the topic. Sure, he was stingy about certain details, but he wasn’t afraid to say he died and came back. “But, I don’t think I have.”

Frostbite nodded. “For us ghosts, and those in between, like the Great One, being around ectoplasmic rich environments helps strengthen us. You can think of it like…” He frowned for a moment.

“Maybe like how we get nutrients from food?” Dick supplied as he rubbed his stomach.

That reminded him. They needed to get more of those Nasty Burgers before they left town, preferably without Bruce. Who ate burgers with a fork and knife? He guessed that was the one downside of being completely raised by Alfred.

The yeti nodded. “Yes, like that. Being away from places like this can weaken ghosts. The Great One is able to supplement with human food and isn’t affected as severely.”

“Wait, wait, wait! You’re saying I could have trouble if I leave Amity for long periods?” Danny almost sounded panicked.

“It’s a possibility.”

“Why didn’t this get brought up before?”

Frostbite almost seemed puzzled. “You never asked of it before.”

Danny smacked his face. “Of course that’s why.”

He partially tuned out Danny as he tried to piece together what Frostbite was getting at. “So, because I’m around more ectoplasm than usual, it’s accumulating?” he slowly asked.

“Yes!” the yeti replied with a clap. “As a result, you’re experiencing surges as your body grow accustomed to it.”

“Like what happened shortly after my accident?” When the attention turned to him, a greenish tinge came to Danny’s face. Was he blushing? “I fell through things a lot in that first month.”

“Is this going to be permanent?” To Jason, that was the more pressing manner.

“Probably not, but it is a possibility.” Not liking that answer, Jason pressed the ghost for more information. “The way you are now, you should begin to return to your normal once you leave the area.”

“The way I am now?”

“Yes, our scans show that you haven’t formed a core which you can think of as a ghostly heart. As long as that doesn’t form, your situation will improve. And with that corrupted ectoplasm being cleared from your body, it should help make any obsessions or intense emotions easier to control. However, I would recommend having a strong support system with you. Even among ghosts where our emotions and obsessions literally give us our afterlife, having those we trust around us helps prevent us from losing ourselves to it. Having been in contact with so much corrupted ectoplasm, I can’t imagine how intense those could have been.”

Jason nodded once. That also made sense. Having Roy and Kori in his life and slowly reconnecting with his family helped him bring back a clarity he hadn’t had since prior to his death. But, there was one thing about what Frostbite said unsettled him. “How or why would a core form? Would I be like Glowstick here if that happened?”

Frostbite frowned again. “I am unsure. The Great One and Plasmius are the only two halfas we have encountered in the last several centuries. The ones that were whispered about in the past have long since left your world and ours and did not leave any clues about how they came to be. We do know that intense and sudden ectoplasmic exposure created both the Great One’s and Plasmius’, but as you are already in a somewhat in between state, even being in this realm for too long could start that formation.”

That presented an interesting dilemma. Could he eventually become an entity like Danny? Just think of what he could do with those powers! It would be so easy for him to slip into Arkham and finally end the Joker’s reign of terror. By why stop at Joker? He could go after so many other mass murdering shitbags.

No, he needed to stop that train of thought. He wasn’t a good enough person to be able to handle responsibility like that. It would be too much power, too much temptation. He was activity trying to redeem himself, and he would lose everything he gained if he let himself side like that.

“Hood?” Dick’s voice and hesitant hand on his shoulder brought him out of his thoughts.

“I’m good.” He turned to Frostbite as he pulled his borrowed coat on. “Thanks for all your help, but I don’t think you want someone like me joining those ranks. Let’s head back.”

…

Danny didn’t speak after they boarded the Specter Speeder again. He worked in silence as he maneuvered the vehicle back into what seemed to be the Ghost Zone’s equivalent of the air before heading back towards the Portal. His motions almost seemed mechanical suggesting he might be upset about something.

Dick silently suggested that he say something to help. Like what? He wasn’t exactly sure why the kid was upset. Could it be because there weren’t many people like Danny? He had openly mentioned he was curious if Jason was someone like him.

“Are you mad that I don’t want to share your situation?”

Danny didn’t answer him. Instead, his hands tightened on the controls. At least he figured out what was bothering him.

Jason sighed and leaned against the wall. “Danny, I’m not a good person. Giving me that type of power would only end badly, for everyone. You don’t need someone like me ruining your reputation by proxy.”

“You should give yourself more credit.”

Did Dick really just say that to him? “Did you hit your head or something? You and Arsenal are the ones who like to remind me about the eight heads I had in a duffle bag when I began strong arming Black Mask. I also tried, repeatedly, to maim you and the others.” Maim was just a polite way of dancing around the fact he had tried killing is brothers. “You kicked me off a train because of that.”

“I tried to help you, and I said I was sorry!”

“Why? I was trying to kill you.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Danny finally spoke. His eyes danced back and forth between him and Dick. He eventually pointed at Dick. “You kicked your brother off a train, and you,” he turned towards Jason, “had heads in a duffle bag? What the hell?”

He just shrugged. “I needed to get the attention of some crime lords, and it made sense at the time.”

====================================

Notes: In the newer comics, Jason has what look like modified googles and something to cover his mouth as opposed to his tradition helmet. No idea why the change other than it’s probably easier to carry around than a helmet. If you’ve seen Young Justice Season 3 and what’s currently out of season 4, it’s a lot like what he’s wearing there.

Mentioned in the Under the Red Hood comic, Alfred has a collection of first edition novels and had a yearly book exchange which was not commonly known.

In the comics, the Lazarus Pits contain a chemical called Dionesium which is what gives it the restorative properties. However, impure Dionesium can cause the Pit Madness. In the Arrowverse, they say the Pit contains traces of the souls which have bathed in them which contributes to that madness. Both make sense... I personally like the soul concept better, but both explanations work fine in the context of this fic.

Yes, Bruce eats burgers with a fork and knife. That has been shown in the comics. And yes, Dick did kick Jason off a train during the events of "Battle for the Cowl".

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “It Can’t Hurt to Try.”

My brain wanted to write this today, and so this is what I have written. I hope you all enjoy :)

I realize I have sort of Neglected Adam’s past, though I am not sure how I did that, so today I wanted to write some more.

More than three years ago.

“Mom, you don’t have to really…. I’m ok.” Martha turned to look at Adam  and the expression on her face shut him up instantly. He slid back in his seat slouching against the car interior. Off to his left side, his new service dog, who he had named waffles, was lying politely across the seat, her head resting on his thigh, her service vest bright red in the noonday sun streaming in through the window.

The car rumbled under them looking out of place in a city of sleek hover cars. Their tires rolled to a stop at an intersection, as a crash nexus wove itself into existence before the waiting line of cars. Running red lights was a near impossibility in the city and had reduced vehicular accidents by 25%.

Marha turned to look at him over the back of the seat, “Adam let your father and I worry about finances, you just relax.”

He sat up in his seat again pushing his crutches to rest against the window, “But mom do you know how much those cost, I looked it up and….” “Shhhh.” Martha held up a finger, “Just sshhh, your father and I own the house and the car. We could make ends meet if your father was working at the Burger Barn, and I was sitting at home twiddling my thumbs.” 

Adam’s usually Laconic father grunted his agreement, “Besides, this is why your mother and I have a separate account for medical emergencies.”

“But what if YOU have a medical emergency.” he protested thinking about the farm and how easy it would be for his father to get caught in an accident with the massive farming equipment they used.”

“Im old.” his father said, though he wasn’t very old at all.

“What does that have to do with-”

“Boy, just shut up, you’re mother and I have made a decision because we love our kids, and if that means selling the damn house and living in a tent we are going to do it.”

Adam lapsed into silence again. His father’s tone broached no argument. A whimper came from somewhere below him, and he looked down to see that Waffles had scooted so her paws and head were resting on his leg, her tail beat against  the car seat, and she looked at him with big golden eyes.

Her paws were a might bit large for her, but that was because she wasn’t even a year old yet, but even so she was still the best girl. She whimpered again, reminding him to relax and he took a few breaths.

Adam wasn’t so good at dealing with stress these days, though Waffles turning up in his life had been a marked improvement. The doctors said he had finally turned a corner with his mental health, though they suggested he look into getting a real prosthetic if he wanted to recover any further.

They said it would be good for his morale.

He glanced down at his current prosthetic, no more than a black rod of metal with a spring loaded joint and a fake foot at the end. It was army issue, so complete garbage, and he still had to use crutches when wearing it with the amount he tended to trip. He imagined being able to run again…. To really do anything again, and looked down at his body, which had grown thin and skeletal over the past few months of PTSD recovery.

He hadn’t been eating all that much, and his desire to workout had faded with it, instead he had spent most of his time in a hypervigilant state of alertness that left little time for things like eating or working out. When waffles came along, that had morphed into him lying in bed for days on end sleeping on and off while listening to music or listening to his collection of old Star Trek movies on Repeat.

It had been a hard transition to being functional again, which just meant that he was eating now, and went on walks in the morning with waffles. 

He was determined to make it all the way, though he couldn’t say he approved all that much of his parents throwing away so much money on a fancy prosthetic. An older model would have done, but they insisted that they wanted the best. 

The car ground to a stop in the parking garage outside of the Elmridge University robotics lab, and his mother walked around one side to open the door for him as he adjusted his crutches and stepped out into the musty underground air. Waffles leaped out behind him, sticking tight to his left side.

“You good?” His mother asked, and he nodded limping his way after them as they made it towards the doors.

Students at this university had been working on prosthetic technology for the pat fifty years, and their minds had spawned some of the greatest breakthroughs in medical technology the world over. Now, they were asking for people like him to come and test their machines. However things didn’t always come cheap and you had to rely on being rich, or getting some kind of funding from a wealthy benefactor. 

Adam Vir, who was not rich and had no wealth benefactors was instead relying on his parents and their medical savings, which they had been squirreling away for the past twenty years or more. He estimated that the account would be completely drained by the time they were done here, and the thought made him sick to his stomach.

Waffles touched his hand with her wet nose, reminding him to breathe again.

They made it all the way to the doors and into the university hallway. Adam looked around with some interest. He had what might be considered the equivalent of a masters degree or higher in aviation, but he had never stepped foot inside a university.

He thought he would have liked it, and had to brush away the regret that he had never gone for real.

The flight academy had been enough though.

Though it was likely he would never fly again. Waffles whimpered and jumped up on her back paws seeing his distress and working to keep his mind off of it. He took another deep breath. She was right, he just needed to relax.

Together with his family they walked down the hall and into the waiting room of room 125 where they made him rest in one of the hard plastic chairs as they went up to the desk. He rubbed Waffle’s ears, and she rumbled at him lightly.

“And you all must be with Adam Vir.”

They nodded in agreement.

Adam looked up as the girl came out from behind the desk. She had long black hair tied up in a messy ponytail and wore a band T-shirt over a striped long sleeve shirt. She wore glasses, was his age, and was very cute.

He had to look down at the floor.

She knelt next to him, “Can I?” She asked 

Still looking away he untied the rubber band holding the pant leg closed and pulled it back so she could see the stump of his leg.

She pulled something from her back pocket and pressed it up against the old wound. It was cold and soft and he grimaced as he looked down. When she pulled back he realized she had been taking a mold of his leg. She smiled at him, “Just twenty more minutes and we can have you come back.”

He nodded and they let her go. His parents sat on either side of them, his mom took him by the shoulder and shook, “Isn’t this exciting.”

Adam gave a weak smile.

His father picked up a robotics magazine and began to read, showing Adam things of interest as he read them. Adam’s stomach churned with nerves.

After less than fifteen minutes, the girl skipped back into the room, “We’re ready for you.” She announced, and slowly, he moved to his feet limping ack behind the desk and following her down a short hallway and into a large open room.

Here there was a small indoor track, some obstacles, and even a physical therapy table.

A cluster of students sat around the table waiting for them, headed by an older heavyset professor with a short grey beard and a lanyard hanging around his neck.

He reached out to shake their hands as they approached.

Adam glanced at a sleek silver case sitting on the PT table next to the man.

The old professor grinned at him, “Are you ready?”

The students clustered inward eagerly. This was likely the first time one of their creations was going to be used.

Adam nodded nervously, and the man reached forward, snapping the case open and in to reveal….

Adam muttered in slight surprise. The leg looked, good, something straight out of I-robot. It was sleek and elegant with silvered matt titanium and plexiglass casing to fill out the shape of a leg. He could see the fibrous strands of rubberized metal that acted as muscle underneath the plexiglass.

“Wow.”

“Do you like it? My students worked very hard on this project, and the best part is the neron interfacing net that cradles the leg in place and suctions it onto the skin. All across the plexiglass fronting there are microsensors built to detect heat, cold, pressure and vibration. The entire foot is designed to work like a human foot and all the tooes can flex individually. He picked up the leg, reached down and grabbed the foot, behding it around the ankle with a movement as smooth as ice, “The ankle joint can rotate in all the proper directions, and the most revolutionary part, the interface, should collect signals being sent through your neurons to your missing leg, pick those up and interpret them to move the leg just as your own brain would, and better yet send feedback signals in the reverse direction.”

He clapped Adam on the shoulder, “In other words, it will FEEL like a real leg, how does that sound.”

Adam’s mouth opened and then closed and then opened again, “Um…. amazing but…. Impossible if I am being honest.”.

“Well, moment of truth isn’t it.”

He nodded sitting down on the PT bench and rolling up his pant leg again. He tried to ignore all the people watching him, and listened to the professor as he instructed him on how to put it on. It socketed right over his  old injury and as it did he felt an immediate and sudden vibration run through his body as if the leg were whirring to life.

And when it did he froze.

He stared down at the leg, and slowly, with all the memory his brain still had, he flexed the toes.

The sensation was instantaneous and glorious. He put his hand over his mouth fighting back tears that began welling into his eyes.

His parents gasped in delight and an overabundance of emotion as the others at back in silence. His mother hugged him tight as did his father, all three of them staring at the machine, which moved on his command. 

Before he knew it he was grinning, turning to look around at everyone even as he had to wipe tears from his cheeks.

He could feel again!

The relief was so complete and so overwhelming that he couldn’t pick between laughing or crying

“Take it slow.” The professor said, but he hardly heard him, and with a wobbly step he slowly climbed to his feet. He began to laugh and his parents laughed with him hugging him and shaking him with excited exceleration as he took his first step. He closed his eyes in near ecstasy as the foot bent under his weight, the ankle flexed,and the toes splayed out over the ground.

He dropped his crutches to the floor ignoring the urging of the professor who was only half heartedly telling him to slow down.

He took another step, and then another and then another, slow and wobbly at first but then muscle memory took over after that.

His brain remembered, it remembered and despite months with a missing leg, it woke up the part of his brain charged to deal with that movement, and despite what must have been atrophy after months of misuse, it began to fire again.

He broke into a jog, as his father ran next to him, and then the jog turned into a run, his father fell behind as he broke into a full out sprint around the small indoor track. Laughing the whole way as the leg matched him. The students here cheering and clapping and hugging each other as they watched him interact with their creation excitedly shaking each other and screaming.

Adam, forgetting momentarily how to stop running, ended up tripping on his good foot, flailing around for a moment and falling to the floor.

He didn’t stop laughing though, and crawled back to his feet, with all the ease he might have had when he had both legs.

Waffles  barked and wagged her tail furiously as she ran to join him, hopping and bounding over the floor as he played a game of chase with her immediately forcing the leg to its full potential as they made quick turns, stopped and started and leaped into the air. He ran up and down stairs and jumped over their obstacles feeling the shock through his feet and ankles.

Unfortunately for him, months of sitting on his ass hadn’t exactly made him all that athletic and he came to a stop eventually panting like waffles only to grab every one of the students in turn and hug them in an embrace so tight it might have fractured ribs.

He was so excited, so grateful, and so unbelievably relieved.

It was an incredible moment, for him, for the students, for his parents, and for his professor.

He limped into that building but skipped out on his new leg.

Getting in the car its as if he had taken a one eighty in personality. His quiet sullen demeanor from before was replaced with something his parents hadn’t seen in ages.

The ability to not shut up.

He talked a mile a minute in his excitement yammering fit to talk their ears right off, and they let him. It was good to hear him back to his old self for once. His father was smiling more than he had in a long while, and on his left side, facing away from his son and his wife, a tear rolled down his cheek.

***

He wasn’t overly sure what he was doing. 

He didn’t have high hopes that they would even take him back. After all, He was set to be honorably discharged later that week, seeing as the UNSC had finally gotten around to dealing with the men and women injured during operation Steel Eye, but he had decided not to do that. He wanted to go back, and he had the paperwork to prove he was mentally stable enough to do so.

Now it was just down to whether they would let him work with a missing leg.

He nervously made his way onto the fort Harmony base where he had been stationed so long ago. Off in the distance he could hear the dull roaring of jet engines as they readied for takeoff, and watched as columns of other soldiers marched in the early morning sun. Light was spilling across, warm and yellow over the dw colored grass as he made his way towards the central building.

He stepped inside and passed a couple other officers  in the hallway as he walked up to the offices.

He looked down at the paper he held in his hand.

He had only meant the captain once, and that was very briefly, but he hoped that the man would be willing to hear him out. He paused outside the man’s open door, and then peered inside. The captain was sitting at his desk frowning at the papers stacked before him, tapping his fingernail against the counter. Light glittered off his completely shaved head and dark skin.

He knocked quietly and stepped inside.

“Sir?”

The man looked up frowning at Adam without much recognition.

“Yes?”

“Um, Lieutenant Adam Vir, sir…. I was hoping to speak with you.”

The man sat back in his seat and frowned again, “Adam V-”

He paused, “Wait.”

He rummaged in his desk and pulled out a set of papers, glancing at the name at the top before setting them down, “Ah yes, Adam, I was just getting to your discharge for-” he glanced down at the paper again, and then back up at Adam, and then back down again. Adam stood politely behind the single wooden chair and waited.

When the man didn’t speak Adam awkwardly cleared his throat, “About those papers sir….I…. well I was meaning to talk to you about those.”

“Yes I was going to si-”

Adam shook his head cutting the man off, “No sir, I…. I don’t want you to sign them.”

There was a pause, “You don’t?”

“Yes sir.”

He set the papers down on the desk.

“You have the opportunity to be honorably discharged for services rendered and you…. Want to stay?”

He saw the incredulity on the man’s face as he spoke.

The guy must have thought he was stupid. 

The man looked over the desk at him <”Says you lost a leg during the Drev war kid.”

Adam shifted uncomfortably, “Well yes sir.’

“Then by all rights we HAVE to discharge you.”

“No, I got a new one.”

“A new one what?”

“I have a new leg, sir, just as good as the old one. I can pass all the tests, physical, mental whatever you want me to do sir, please, just give me a chance.”

The man stared at him, Adam stared back, “You’re missing a leg kid.”

“Not anymore I’m not. UNSC regulations say that people who have had stem cell organs from their own body transplanted don’t need to be discharged, well this is similar to that. I didn’t have a leg, and now I do, and one that works just as well as the old one therefore it shouldn’t matter.”

He didn’t mean to argue with the Captain, but well that’s what it kind of turned into.

The argument must have been loud enough to attract the attention of some of the other officers and a voice from the door behind them had both of them pull up short, “Is everything alright here.”

Adam turned and his eyes went wide, “Captain Kelly!”

She stepped into full view and his eyes grew wider. He saluted sharply, “Oh, sorry, Major.”

SHe looked at him with her head tilted, “I'll be damned, lieutenant, what are you doing back here.: She looked him up and down, “And in one piece or so it seems.”

“Advanced robotics ma’am…. Maybe you can help us?”

She frowned, “Go on.”

The Captain cut in, “The boy doesn’t want to be discharged. If anything that proves he must be smoking crack.”

Adam frowned, “No Ijust….” he trailed off, “I loved my job…. Before the, losing my leg, bit.” he turned to Major Kelly, “Please Ma’am i’ll prove it. Better than I was before, honest”

She frowned, “It is…. Unprecedented, but…. There aren’t really any rules regarding advanced robotics that I can think of. We will have to talk it over.”

Turns out talking it over meant months of arguing semantics with bureaucrats and even more months of testing and proving that he was, in fact capable of operating like normal. They tested everything, including his prosthetic’s ability to handle G forces…. And he finally got to fly again. It was only by a small margin that he managed to convince them to let him back in, and even then he was relegated to guard detail on what the human medical core was calling an oxyclinic, where a couple of enterprising humans learned that spooning aliens actually helped to treat some mental disturbances in other species like the alien version of depression.

Turned out it was pretty good for him considering he had developed a small fear of aliens since his last encounter. When he wasn’t guarding the clinic, he volunteered to work for them in order to overcome his fear.

He was slowly getting back to normal.

***

Major Kelly sat at her desk looking at the schematics for the new ship under construction. The UNSC Enterprise had been completely decommissioned after engineers determined her to have too many fatal flaws to allow her to fly again. Kelly had only been captain for a little over a year before she had been pulled, and this was her chance to get back on the horse. She looked down at the papers, the schematics and then the second letter from the UN which offered her a second alternative.

A promotion to Admiral, and control over what would soon be a rising fleet of UNSC ships.

It was a hard decision to make. Every fiber in her body wanted to fly again, to see the stars again, and she was halfway to writing her agreement on the captain’s contract when she stopped. She had to think about it, if she took the promotion and gave up the ship, she would never fly again…. But she would have control over the rising UNSC fleet. Under her control she was sure she could help those rising captains avoid the bureaucratic bullshit that was sure to come after them.

In essence, they had one chance to do this right, 

And more chances to get in good with the GA. If she took the position, she could fill it with someone she trusted to back the men and get the job done.

herself .

She stared at the two papers torn between her own desire and the path she knew that was right.

It was a matter of milliseconds that allowed her to agree to the promotion, and leave flying behind. It hurt every fiber of her being and even as she sat warm tears dripped onto the schematics of the ship that would have been hers if she had asked for it.

However, her decision made, she was promoted in short order as Admiral of the UNSC rising fleet, and thus had the power to make suggestions for who should take the ship in her stead. She made a decision pretty early on, and reached out a hand to the GA in helping to come to their decision. It was all about making a good impression on their newfound friends, and lending them the UNSC’s first operational ship under new fleet command would, not only give the captain of that ship the opportunity to school themselves in the ways of alien races,  but it would leave the GA with a greater inclination of friendship.

She was right in her assumptions, and the GA was more than pleased to have some say in choosing the human captain who would be lent out to them on a probationary bases, as a PR move and as a tactical manuver for the UNSC to learn more about these alien races.

Now she had to compile her list of possible candidates.

There were ten names on that list.

All of them had to be capable of flying the ship, at least and all of them had to have some experience with interacting with alien lifeforms.

Looking at her list, however, she realized that not many people on that list had those capabilities. Sure they could fly but most of them only ever met an alien in passing.

It was sitting in her office late one night agonizing over the names that one popped into her head. She sat up in her chair and stared past her desk lamp and out the window into the darkness.

It was a strange idea.

Crazy almost.

Probably ill advised, but, out of all the people she knew, he was certainly CAPABLE of flying a ship…. And he WAS the most experienced person hse knew with aliens. Perhaps THE most experienced person in the galaxy. 

But no…

He was so young, far too young.

But…. why?

It’s not like he hadn’t proven himself, he was loyal, unstoppable and personable, which goodness knows they needed when it came to alien interactions. Looking down at her paper there were more than half of those men and women she wouldn’t trust at a birthday party let alone at a GA diplomatic event.

She added his name to the list. It couldn’t hurt, could it?