#unseen-hacker

[airosuiren]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔒𝔫𝔢𝔰 𝔚𝔥𝔬 𝔑𝔬𝔱𝔦𝔠𝔢𝔡 𝔗𝔬𝔬 𝔏𝔞𝔱𝔢

A/N: Okay, so… You ever walk into a room where you were once unwanted, and every head turns because suddenly you’re everything they’re not? Yeah. That’s this chapter. 😌 This one’s for the readers who’ve leveled up in silence. Who were counted out too early, who walked out of the fire looking dangerous instead of damaged. This is [Y/N] stepping back into the space that broke them—and not breaking this time. Let’s be clear: this isn’t a reunion. This is a revelation. Grab your tea. Let’s shake a few foundations.

Thank You @arislia for this Idea!

And I'm sorry for not making this longer because I had this planned (I plan my series in google docs after tumblr deleted my old drafts). These will be shorter BUT, the next series I promise to make it longer!

𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 1, 𝔓𝔞𝔯𝔱 3

You weren’t supposed to stand out. That’s the irony. You had trained yourself to be unseen, unheard, unfelt—because the moment you started to feel, you started to hurt.

But when the League summoned their families to a secure location, the world you built in the shadows was forced into the light.

You arrived alone.

Lois had offered to fly with you. Clark had said they’d wait at the entrance. But you declined. You wanted them to see you walk in under your own power. No crutches. No borrowed names. Just you.

When you stepped through those doors, the reaction was immediate.

The Queens lit up like someone had flipped a switch. Ollie pulled you in for a hug, Thea waved you over, and even Dinah looked proud. Clark’s face softened. Lois’s arm went straight around your shoulder like it belonged there.

And the Batfamily?

They stared.

Not with joy. Not even with confusion.

They stared like you were a ghost. Like they were seeing something they’d buried come back to life and demand retribution.

You didn’t smile. You didn’t greet them. You turned away from them the way they once turned away from you.

Because if they wanted to pretend you never mattered, then they didn’t get to matter now.

Still, their eyes followed you.

And then the meetings started.

The League began dissecting the threat. Hackers. Leakers. Global-scale blackmail. Someone had infiltrated systems that were supposed to be airtight. It wasn’t just about identities anymore. It was about dismantling everything.

You knew how the media would spin it. You knew how Gotham’s elite would react. And most of all, you knew how fear worked when it had the public in a chokehold.

So you spoke.

You laid out a counter-strategy like you’d done it a thousand times. Because you had. In Metropolis. In Star City. Behind the scenes of political campaigns and corporate power moves. You’d sharpened your teeth while the people who threw you away forgot you even had a bite.

The room listened.

Clark deferred to you. Lois backed you. Oliver vouched for you.

Bruce stayed silent.

But you caught the flicker in his expression when the others nodded along. When Diana praised your foresight. When J’onn said you understood humanity better than most.

The others? Dick tried to pretend he wasn’t surprised. Tim’s stare was surgical, dissecting you in real time. Damian looked like he’d bitten glass.

And the new girl? She finally looked at you.

With fear.

You weren’t the quiet reject anymore. You were something else. Something dangerous. Something they didn’t make—and couldn’t control.

Later, in private, Alfred brought you tea. You almost cried at the gesture.

Almost.

He said nothing about the past. Just, “You’ve grown.”

You wanted to scream, I had to.

But you just nodded.

The truth was, they needed you now. And you were going to help. Not because they deserved it.

Because the world did.

And even in the darkest parts of you, that mattered more than revenge.

But they would never forget this version of you.

Not the one they raised.

The one they abandoned.

The one who rose anyway.

𝕭𝖔𝖓𝖚𝖘! (𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚊𝚢 𝚈𝚘𝚞 𝙻𝚎𝚏𝚝)

(this is kind of a bonus I thought of while writing...)

It had been late. Quiet.

The kind of quiet that seeped into your bones. The kind of quiet that made your footsteps echo like they didn’t belong.

You were fourteen. Maybe fifteen. You don’t remember the exact age—only the feeling. Raw. Unseen. On the edge of breaking.

Your ribs ached. Your shoulder throbbed. You’d taken a hit meant for Damian—an instinct, not even a choice—and landed hard on a rooftop ledge. Rolled too close to the edge. Limped all the way back. No call of concern. No one on comms. No “Are you okay?” Just silence.

It should’ve earned you a lecture at worst.

Instead, it earned you her.

The new girl.

Barely two weeks in.

Bright. Perfect. Adored.

You limped into the Batcave, helmet tucked under your arm, dried blood crusted over your eyebrow. You expected quiet, maybe concern, maybe just the acknowledgment that you existed.

What you got?

Laughter.

She was in your seat. At the computer. Wearing your gear.

The armor you'd trained in. The one Alfred helped custom-fit after months of trials. The one you’d stitched, cried in, bled into.

And she wore it like it had never belonged to you at all.

Tim leaned over her shoulder, pointing something out on the screen. Damian hovered close behind. Dick was saying something about how “clean” she moved in the field.

And Bruce?

Didn’t even look up.

You stood there, waiting. Expecting. Begging, in that small, desperate way you told yourself you’d outgrown.

Then, finally—his eyes flicked toward you.

And his voice cut through the cave like a scalpel.

“You’re benched. Permanently.”

Just like that. Like a weather report. Like an afterthought. Like you were a dented weapon tossed in a drawer.

You opened your mouth—“But—”—

And then Alfred was there.

With a tray.

Tea and towels. The same ritual. The same script.

But this time, he didn’t meet your eyes.

Not once.

You watched him walk past you like a ghost.

And then—then—came the final blow.

The girl in your gear turned to Bruce, tilting her head with practiced innocence.

“Was I a mistake too?” she asked softly.

A test. You knew it was a test. A way to secure her place. But you didn’t expect the knife that followed.

Bruce didn’t even hesitate.

“No,” he said. “But she was.”

He didn’t mean for you to hear it.

But you did.

And the sound it made in your chest wasn’t a crack. It was a shatter.

You stood there for maybe another full minute.

No one turned. No one asked you to stay. No one noticed the way your fingers curled so tightly around your helmet that the edge dug into your palm and drew blood.

You went to your room. Packed your gear. One piece at a time.

You stood in the center of that tiny space—bland walls, no posters, a bed that had never felt like yours—and realized you’d been living in a house, not a home.

You left the suit on the bed.

Left the tracker on the desk.

Left your voice in the hallway.

And shut the door behind you.

You never opened it again.

A/N: Whew. They called the meeting to fix a crisis—and walked into their biggest one yet: the ghost they buried came back golden, angry, and smarter than all of them combined. And let’s talk about that power shift. She didn’t gloat. She didn’t lash out. She just existed loudly in the place that tried to erase her. And they couldn’t handle it. This wasn’t revenge. This was justice with restraint. Power without apology. Presence that didn’t ask for permission. Next chapter? Let’s make them earn the right to say your name again.

—Your eyes-still-wet, hands-still-shaking, soft-but-spiteful author 🖤💫

Taglist: @feral-childs-word, @trashlanternfish360, @astro-girly1, @suneaterscape, @thatcatladywrites, @arislia, @kittzu, @ottjhe, @tinybrie, @wpdarlingpan, @ryuushou, @simpingpandas, @lettucel0ver, @moonxmio, @kneelforloki, @sirenetheblogger, @xzmickeyzx

Let me know if I missed someone!

[mariacallous]

“We’ve seen arson, sabotage and more: dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness,” warned Ken McCallum, the head of MI5, Britain’s domestic security and counter-intelligence agency, of the threat posed by Russia and the GRU, its military-intelligence agency. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets,” he said on October 8th. Other European intelligence agencies are equally concerned. On October 14th Bruno Kahl, Germany’s spy chief, said that Russia’s covert measures had reached a “level previously unseen”. Thomas Haldenwang, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence services, told lawmakers that an act of sabotage had almost caused a plane to crash earlier this year as he warned that “aggressive behaviour” by Russian spies was putting lives at risk.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has been accompanied by a crescendo of aggression, subversion and meddling elsewhere. In particular, Russian sabotage in Europe has grown dramatically. “We see acts of sabotage happening in Europe now,” Vice-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensones, the head of the Norwegian Intelligence Service, said in September. Sir Richard Moore, the chief of MI6, Britain’s foreign-intelligence agency, put it more bluntly: “Russian intelligence services have gone a bit feral, frankly.”

The Kremlin’s men have squeezed the West out of several African states. Its hackers, Poland’s security services said, have tried to paralyse the country in the political, military, and economic spheres. Russia’s propagandists have pumped disinformation around the world. Its armed forces want to put a nuclear weapon in orbit. Russian foreign policy has long dabbled in chaos. Now it seems to aim at little else.

Start with the summer of sabotage. In April Germany arrested two German-Russian nationals on suspicion of plotting attacks on American military facilities and other targets on behalf of the GRU. The same month Poland arrested a man who was preparing to pass the GRU information on Rzeszow airport, a hub for arms to Ukraine, and Britain charged several men over an arson attack on a Ukrainian-owned logistics firm in London. The men were accused of aiding the Wagner Group, a mercenary outfit now under the GRU’s control. In June France arrested a Russian-Ukrainian who was wounded after attempting to make a bomb in his hotel room in Paris. In July it emerged that Russia had plotted to kill Armin Papperger, the boss of Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms firm. On September 9th air traffic at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport was shut down for more than two hours after drones were spotted over runways. “We suspect it was a deliberate act,” a police spokesperson said. American officials warn that Russian vessels are reconnoitring underwater cables.

Even where Russia has not resorted to violence, it has sought to stir the pot in other ways. The Baltic states have arrested a number of people for what they say are Russian-sponsored provocations. French intelligence officials claim that Russia was responsible for the appearance of coffins draped with the French flag and bearing the message “French soldiers of Ukraine” left at the Eiffel Tower in Paris in June. Many of these actions are aimed at fanning opposition to aid for Ukraine. But others are intended simply to widen splits in society of all kinds, even if these have little or no link to the war. France says that Russia was also behind the graffiti of 250 Stars of David on walls in Paris in November, an effort to fuel antisemitism, which has surged since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Much of Russia’s activity has been virtual. In April hackers with ties to the GRU seem to have manipulated control systems for water plants in America and Poland. In September America, Britain, Ukraine and several other countries published details of cyber-attacks by the GRU’s Unit 29155, a group that was previously known for assassinations in Europe, including a botched effort to poison Sergei Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer. The GRU’s cyber efforts, which had been ongoing since at least 2020, were not just aimed at espionage, but also “reputational harm” by stealing and leaking information and “systematic sabotage” by destroying data, according to America and its allies.

Beyond Europe, GRU officers have been in Yemen alongside the Houthis, a rebel group that has attacked ships in the Red Sea, ostensibly in solidarity with Palestinians. Russia, angered by America’s provision of long-range missiles to Ukraine, came close to providing weapons to the group in July, CNN reported, but reversed course after strong opposition from Saudi Arabia. The fact that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, was willing to alienate Muhammad bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler whom he had courted for years, is an indication of how Russia’s war has cannibalised its wider foreign policy.

Everything everywhere

“What Putin is trying to do is hit us all over the place,” argues Fiona Hill, who previously served as the top Russia official in America’s National Security Council. She compares the strategy to the Oscar winning film: “Everything Everywhere All at Once”. In Africa, for instance, Russia has used mercenaries to supplant French and American influence in the aftermath of coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

Russia’s meddling in America takes a very different form. In May Avril Haines, America’s director of national intelligence, called Russia “the most active foreign threat to our elections” above China or Iran. This was not merely about trying to shape America’s policy on Ukraine. “Moscow most likely views such operations as a means to tear down the United States as its perceived primary adversary,” she said, “enabling Russia to promote itself as a great power.” In July American intelligence agencies said that they were “beginning to see Russia target specific voter demographics, promote divisive narratives, and denigrate specific politicians”.

These efforts are generally crude and ineffectual. But they are prolific, intense and sometimes innovative. In September America’s Justice Department accused two employees of RT, a Kremlin-controlled media outlet that regularly spews out Russian talking points and lurid conspiracy theories, of paying $10m to an unnamed media company in Tennessee. The firm, thought to be Tenet Media, posted nearly 2,000 videos on TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube. (Commentators paid by the company denied wrongdoing.) The department also seized 32 Kremlin-controlled internet domains designed to mimic legitimate news sites.

Russian propagandists are also experimenting with technology. CopyCop, a network of websites, took legitimate news articles and used ChatGPT, an AI model, to rewrite them. More than 90 French articles were modified with the prompt: “Please rewrite this article taking a conservative stance against the liberal policies of the Macron administration in favour of working-class French citizens.” Another rewritten piece included evidence of its instructions, saying: “This article…highlights the cynical tone towards the US government, NATO, and US politicians.”

Russian disinformation campaigns are hardly new, acknowledges Sergey Radchenko, a historian of Russian foreign policy, pointing to episodes such as the Tanaka memorandum, an alleged Soviet forgery that was used to discredit Japan in 1927. Nor are proxy wars or assassinations a novelty. Soviet troops were already fighting in Yemen, disguised as Egyptians, in the early 1960s, he notes. The KGB’s predecessors and successors have killed many people abroad, from Leon Trotsky to ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.

The genuinely new part, says Mr Radchenko, “is that whereas previously special operations supported foreign policy, today special operations are foreign policy.” Ten years ago the Kremlin worked with America and Europe to counter Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programme. Such co-operation is now fanciful. “It is as if the Russians no longer feel they have a stake in preserving anything of the post-war international order,” says Mr Radchenko. This period reminds him more of Mao’s nihilistic foreign policy during China’s Cultural Revolution than the Soviet Union’s cold-war thinking, which included periods of pragmatism and caution. Ms Hill puts it another way: “It’s Trotsky over Lenin.”

Mr Putin embraces these ideas. “We are in for probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time most important decade since the end of World War II,” he said in late 2022. “To cite a classic,” he added, invoking an article by Vladimir Lenin in 1913, “this is a revolutionary situation.” That belief—that the post-war order is rotten and needs rewriting, by force if necessary—also gives Russia common cause with China. “Right now there are changes the likes of which we haven’t seen for 100 years,” Xi Jinping told Mr Putin last year in Moscow, “and we are the ones driving these changes together.”

Russia’s foreign-policy strategy, published in 2023, offers the bland reassurance that it “does not consider itself an enemy of the West…and has no ill intentions”. A classified addendum acquired by the Washington Post from a European intelligence service suggests otherwise. It proposes a comprehensive containment strategy against a “coalition of unfriendly countries” led by America. That includes an “offensive information campaign” among other actions in the “military-political, trade-economic and informational-psychological…spheres”. The ultimate aim, it notes, is “to weaken Russia’s opponents”.

This does not mean Russia is unstoppable. It is increasingly a junior partner to China. Its influence has slipped in some countries, such as Syria. It does not always back up its own proxies—dozens of Wagner fighters were killed in an ambush by Malian rebels, aided by Ukraine, in July. And Russian subversion can be disrupted, says Sir Richard, by “good old-fashioned security and intelligence work” to identify the intelligence officers and criminal proxies behind it. The fact that Russia is increasingly reliant on criminals to carry out these acts, in part because Russian spies have been expelled en masse from Europe, is a sign of desperation. “Russia’s use of proxies further reduces the professionalism of their operations, and—absent diplomatic immunity—increases our disruptive options,” says Mr McCallum.

Russian meddling is intended to put pressure on NATO without provoking a war. “We also have red lines,” says Ms Hill, “and Putin is trying to feel those out.” But if he is truly driven by a revolutionary spirit, convinced that the West is a rotten edifice, that suggests more lines will be crossed in the months and years ahead.

[ljsarts]

Finally made a Never Stop Blowing Up Oc , Riley is a recycled Unsleeping city oc so I like to imagine they survived chaos in the city to get a calm job at Dave's world just to get sucked into more chaos as soon as they'd settled in.

Riley is a certified yapper who'll talk your ear off about how Perfect Blue and Truman Show actually cover the same themes of public perception vs real self and feeling watched by unseen eyes.

The rough concept of their Action movie hero counterpart is inspired by a combo of Wrench from Watchdogs, Ripley from Alien and a good old magic 8 Ball-

R1P is the silent co-protagonist of 'R1P and T3AR' a schlocky hacker heist movie playing on loop in the break room cause the tape got stuck in the player and no one can be bothered to fix it. Because of this Riley knows the movie off by heart which does not help her when she gets sucked into the film since the first thing she does is mess up a sequence from excitement and change the movies timeline.

The top image is made using the great template by @emptyjunior go give them a follow!

[thewertsearch]

@skelekingfeddy submitted: hey so i was reading through your homestucksona tag and i decided to draw some of your concepts, namely sahlee’s lusus, the midnight crew, and the Palace Historian! i also sprinkled in some of my own ideas (i mean i literally made a whole new exile LOL) hope you like it!

Holy hell, that is some top god-tier spritework. You've officially canonized my Grubsprite's design.

In fact, I don't even know if this was deliberate, but her wires look a lot like the ones in this picture of Sahlee. Above is the same image, without the shadow layer, and even the colors match.

The idea here is that Sahlee is using her psionics to interface directly with her technology. I like the idea that she's able to 'talk' to Grubmom over the network - they probably play a lot of video games together. Maybe it was Grubmom who told her about the most important video game of all.

It feels so right that DD is the best hacker in the Crew. Those glasses were actually part of Sahlee's as-yet-unseen alchemy binge - and unfortunately for her, he actually knows how to use the computer inside.

I love the Investigator, too. I think the catalyst for her Exile was her association with one particular Dersite - a Battlefield farmer who wished to end this pointless war.

By this point, the Investigator had pilfered several files from the Black Queen's private archives, and learned more than any rank-and-file Carapacian was ever supposed to know. She knew that her friend's uprising would be sabotaged by Paradox Space - so she suggested a more decentralized form of resistance.

Together, they worked on a tell-all news article about the true cost of the War. They didn't pull any punches, either - the article called Derse's entire raison d'etre into question, demanding to know what the Royal Plan even is.

"WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE WIN, EH?

AIN'T IT KINDA WEIRD THAT THE SUITS HAVEN'T TOLD US?

ALL THOSE BOYS IN MAROON... WHAT ARE THEY ACTUALLY FIGHTIN' FOR?"

It even dared to ask why they hated Bilious Slick.

Anyway, the Black Queen caught the article through the malware she'd hidden in PawnziBuddy, a 'virtual tyrant' that every Dersite is legally required to install. She canned the article, Exiled the Investigator, and turned the tabloid's server rack into a GristCoin mine.

HI also sent a copy to a Prospitian she trusted - but, oddly enough, that archivist vanished without a trace. Prospit is surely beyond the Black Queen's reach, so it was probably just an unhappy coincidence.

Sad, though - that document could have won Prospit the war. It's too bad that the White Queen never got her hands on it.

[thegildedbee]

Family/Laugh: May 12 & 13 Prompts from @calaisreno

The exterior nowheres that Sherlock inhabits can be charted by his footfalls as he wends his way through the precincts of temporary cities. The silent drift of assimilating interior nowheres, however, seems to leave no traces, even as he feels unseen changes taking hold. His suspension in the January North of a darkness that persists until late morning, and then quickly returns in the afternoon, intensifies his perception that he lives in a shadow-world, a lone dark figure extracted from the frozen rain that curtains his days. 

The patterns he seeks to capture as he hunts amidst the ones and zeros of cyberspace are likewise intangible – extended solitary vigils as his fingers command the keyboard to winnow through the tangle of codes – as well as tangible, of meetings with the technological mix of people here at Tallinn’s crossroads: software developers seeking the leading edge at corporate labs, security experts at NATO’s Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, the underground hackers who traverse the landscape of the digital realm’s hollow earth. Both the intangible and the tangible are intense efforts to spy glimpses of Moriarty’s covert presence in the spaces between the ones and zeros, summoning up the networks and nodes of the intersecting spheres of finance, and energy, and communications, as made manifest in trafficking, and counterfeiting, and hijacking, across the physical and human worlds.

He’s accumulated an abundance of leads, some he’s near-certain he understands, and others he’s yet to decipher – but it’s enough to reveal to him his next move on the chessboard: St. Petersburg. He’ll take the train from Tallinn, without needing to step out for border control, which is handled en route. He’ll be leaving Estonia under a new identity; he hopes to keep Lukas Sigerson in his back pocket for later uses, but it’s time to make his presence difficult to trace: it's time to step away from Mycroft’s grid. He’s left seemingly inadvertent clues to allow Mycrofts’s people to (think that they’re) following him, along a pathway that connects the nefarious doings of Mexican cartels involved in establishing meth labs in Nigeria for the Asian market. Their pursuit of him will be turned to good account in dismantling that nexus, even when they realize he is elsewhere. 

St. Petersburg is a hive of hacking activity, the physical site of the infamous Russian Business Network, which catered to the needs of cyber criminals. It’s not surprising that it is the city where Vladimir Putin lived, received his education, and joined the KGB, as an agent in its foreign intelligence wing, before tunneling his way to Moscow. Sherlock doesn’t believe that there are many degrees of separation between Moriarty and the dark internet of Putin’s hellscape. 

He arrives at the end of Tallinn’s usefulness on a Friday evening. As he packs up his kit in the office space he’s made homebase through a courtesy loan in deference to his Norwegian technology credentials, some of the younger workers have swept him up into their murmurating flock as they celebrate the coming weekend in search of alcohol, bar food, and music. In London, Sherlock would have begged off such a request, were anyone intrepid enough to suggest it, and he would have been unperturbed at whatever anyone might think. But he’s not Sherlock, he’s Lukas, at least for a short while longer, and although his persona is reserved, businesslike and uninclined to make small talk, Lukas possesses an average quantity of affability; and remaining unobtrusive is best accomplished by being amidst the motions of others, rather than making himself conspicuous by setting himself off from the norms of sociality. 

He did not, however, anticipate the karaoke session, which is putting a severe strain on the bonhomie he is channeling to Lukas, as it’s clear that he’s going to need to accede to accepting a turn in the spotlight, lest he put a damper on the good spirits of his companions. He nevertheless protests with a smile, holding out his hands, but any input he might have been able to exert on the decision-making disappears, when two of his impromptu friends conspire to tug him toward the microphone, explaining that all three of them will venture forth together, with a song they insist is dead simple to sing, and that the well-lubricated crowd will be delighted to join in with them in belting out the familiar refrain. Which is how he finds himself being carried along within a punchy, melodic stream that turns out to be excruciating emotionally, as the verses unfurl. He listlessly despairs, marooned, a hollowed-out laugh echoing inside his head in response.

. . . When I'm lonely, well, I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who's lonely without you And when I'm dreamin', well, I know I'm gonna dream I'm gonna dream about the time when I'm with you. When I go out (when I go out), well, I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you And when I come home (when I come home), I know I'm gonna be I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you I'm gonna be the man who's comin' home with you . . .

He’s exasperated at the universe conspiring to keep him unsettled, to deny him the solace of alone protecting him. He fears that he is fated to have any social contact whatsoever somehow conjure home and reminders of John. The song ends to raucous cheers, and the enthusiasm surges on, and he’s being importuned to name a new song of his own choice before being allowed to return to the table. He looks at the smiling faces helplessly, immobilized by the churning cacophony playing hide-and-seek inside his guts, incapable of conjuring up the simplest of answers. Undeterred, they jolly him along, prompting him to think of a film he’s recently seen, or club he’s been to, or a favorite television show. At the latter suggestion, his mind does slightly slip free, and there is John again, teasing Sherlock into watching another of his favorite shows, Sherlock pretending to be annoyed at being consigned to such a fate. He turns to the young people, and raises his voice to speak into the nearest person’s ear to be heard over the noisy crowd, and says with a question in his voice, Peaky Blinders? He seems to have pleased them, as they fiddle around to pull the selection, bouncing in high spirits and punching their fists into the air, as the music starts, a bell ringing out, and the slithering deep tones speaking of the edge of town, of secrets in the border fires, of a gathering storm -- and a tall handsome man, in a dusty black coat, with a red right hand. 

As Sherlock listens to the song unspool, his mind wanders back to the show's themes, reminding him of a line of thought he’d been considering the last few days – that to focus singularly on Moriarty and faceless confederates is not quite the right way to conceptualize the dead man's web: that there must have also been family members in leading positions, positions of trust. One of the deep divides between himself and Mycroft originated in Sherlock’s refusal in uni to agree to work for SIS. Mycroft knew that he would never be able to trust completely any of the professionals who worked for him – after all they are spies working for money. To be sure, he wanted Sherlock to sign on to be able to appropriate his intelligence, but even more compelling was the fact that never having to question the loyalty of a brother would have made him an asset par excellence. Mycroft considers getting what he wants to be an inviolable law of the universe, and Sherlock doesn't think his brother will ever be able to truly forgive him for the rejection . . . especially given Sherlock's devotion to the inferior endeavors of dedicating himself to a life of metropolitan crime-solving. Family; family is what matters. A Moriarty is gone; but there are other Moriarties yet to be unearthed. ........................................................ @calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @friday411 @peanitbear @original-welovethebeekeeper @helloliriels @a-victorian-girl @keirgreeneyes @starrla89 @naefelldaurk

@topsyturvy-turtely @lisbeth-kk @raina-at @jobooksncoffee @meetinginsamarra @solarmama-plantsareneat @bluebellofbakerstreet @dragonnan @safedistancefrombeingsmart @jolieblack

@msladysmith @ninasnakie @riversong912 @dapetty

.............................................................................

[decadeofjoy-au]

Okay I remember hixel’s story was playtime co noticed him and made hixel as a way to honor him only to turn him into a bigger body

but why

was he an orphan in playcare before then if not why was playtime co interested in some hacker

why make hixel at all

did hixel have a purpose similar to how huggy was security, mommy long legs ran the game station, Catnap spewed the red smoke & the doctor giving the scientists instructions on how to turn an orphan into a bigger body ?

the characters cool but I just had some questions

🪽HIXEL LORE DUMP! They took him and made him into Hixel because he had found out about the Bigger Bodies Initiative and was actively attempting to spread the news around to people inside and outside of Playtime Co. They tried to get on his good side by making a toy after him named “Hixel Pixel” and even making the toy its own show..but like any toy made by Playtime Co, they need a bigger body. In other words, they wanted to silence him.

Michael only knew that the bigger toys were alive and were made from some of the other orphans. Because of this, he was quick to not trust any adults including any caretakers. Nobody knew what was really going on despite him telling everyone because the adults just played it as him being “traumatized” and “so scarred from what happened to his family”. Eventually, they got fed up with him and decided that Hixel needed to be real.

Michael was led into a small room and locked inside. They filled the room with Poppy Gas to get him to fall asleep in order to finally get him so they could make him into a bigger body.

The first few weeks of being a bigger body, Hixel was incredibly unresponsive. He could move and function properly, he just simply didn’t respond to anything the scientist attempted to do. They even put a TV in his room and played his favorite show. He stared at the screen with a blank expression for 8 minutes before staring at the scientist who was in the rook behind the glass.

Hixel escaped around about 5 different times before The Decade Of Joy happened and was deemed as an unstable, intelligent and incredibly violent experiment. Especially due to his attacking method. In one notable case he was wearing the body of one of the scientist he had attacked and was tricking other scientist into letting him in certain places by hiding in the shadows and leaving his head unseen.

[geeky-nightphilosopher]

Okay, okay. You all are probably ANNOYED about my Leverage posts- and I was on the fence about posting this one because I'm only on season 3. However, I just have SO many thoughts and I need to process them. So- here it goes;

*takes a deep breath*

Leverage is home. Like, I don't- I don't know to explain it. In another post I said the show was intoxicating and that's still true. But it's also- it's also home. Maybe I'm the only one, but when I watch it- I feel like I belong. Which is ridiculous. I'm not talented at all- but Leverage is almost like a security blanket. It's- it's safe and warm... it's home.

The only thing I can think of why it's home is because of them. Because they make it feel like home. They make feel safe and like your being cared for. Like your not alone. Even if you don't think your good at something- Leverage has your back. It gives you a sense of security. Which is weird because their criminals. But- like they said; Sometimes the bad guys are the only good guys you get.

I mean- you have Nate Ford who is always two to three spaces in front of the bad guy. Who sits there and listens to victims and gives them hope. Who talks to his team and bounces ideas off of them- instead of talking down to them. He's the kinda guy that watches from the background and sees all sorts of angles. Gets into the minds of both the victim and assailant. And if the con goes wrong- he has a second one ready to cover. Whose weakness is an empty bottle in an occupied barstool.

You have Sophie. A terrible actress whose good at acting. She can play any part. Be unseen- while being seen. Whose brave, kind, and gentle- but can kick butt when needed. She's not a damsel in distress- but she'll play the part. And the thing about that part is; it's so convincing- even she believes it too. Despite that- she's honest and sincere, she'll tell you what she thinks. Her heart is gold. Her trust is thin. She's like a snake- hypnotizing. Her weakness is the love she gave to a man who thinks too much and feels too little.

You have Eliot. A man that- if you just look at him- you'll just shrug him off. He's like any other brute. Big and brawny. And that's why you shouldn't ever judge a book by it's cover. He's so much more than that. Yes. He's brawn. A real southern charmer. But he has a brain and a heart. He's that big brother and gives you hugs and you can't help but melt into the security of that feeling. That feeling of safety that you just know has an ocean of anger underneath. But your not scared, you can't be scared. Not of him. He's the kinda guy you run towards- because you know he'll keep you safe. And yeah- maybe he'll use his brawn to keep you safe, but he'll also use his brain and his heart. He'll get you out of the situation in one piece with a grumble and a growl. His weakness is his kindness and that's why doesn't let it show.

You have Alec. The brainiac. The hacker- who isn't all that much to look at (compared to Eliot,) at least not at first glance. Yet, there's something about him that screams safe. Just as much as Eliot. He's outgoing and kind. Smart and funny. And the way that he's got everyone's back- even when it doesn't seem like it. He's your go to- to find any kind of internet mistakes and he's a good shoulder to cry on. He's that brother who is dorky, awkward, and nerdy- but he's honest and sincere. His weakness is not being able to be there when it really matters.

And- and you have Parker. The thief. The master thief- that didn't belong anywhere. Nimble and lean as she flips and slinks through vents. She's the little sister the family didn't know they even wanted. Until finally they realized she was what they needed. She's bright and cheerful despite how she grew up. Her life wasn't easy foster care and street living is a rough life- but she still believes in good things; Santa clause, Nate, Sophie, and Eliot. Most importantly she believed in Hardison. She was on her own until she was found and working with a team. Then she belonged to them. Everything she had done- was so that they knew she loved them. Her weakness is having the ability to not get caught.

To end this; Leverage is an amazing shoe- because it reminds us that no matter our background. No matter how many times we've messed up and haven't belonged- we are all human. It tells us that we will find our home, our tribe, our safety. That no matter our weakness- we'll always have somebody who can take our weakness and become our strength.

I'm only on season 3. I'll more than likely have more thoughts come by season 4/ season 5. (If you agree or disagree- don't hesitate to message me!

[hand-written-dreams]

CRIMSON SHADE

Chapter 26

The shadow & the devil

Wherever you go,

that's where I'll follow

Nobody's promised tomorrow.

- ( the song of the chapter is 'Die with a smile' by Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga )

She grips the steering wheel tighter as the rain splatters against the windshield, the wipers chasing them away. The world outside is a blur of smeared lights and darkness. Her eyes burn, but she refuses to let the tears fall, not for him, not for herself, and certainly not for the fool she had been.

The ache in her chest intensifies with every mile she puts between herself and him along with the betrayal that claws at her thoughts.

She snorts, a hollow, bitter sound lost in the sound of the rain. The man she thought she knew, the man she once trusted the most in her whole life, is the same man who trapped her in this hell hole by stealing her leverage.

She's not angry at TheShadowMonster.

No, he was a stranger.

An online acquaintance she foolishly considered as a friend.

No, her fury burns for him.

The re-incarnation of devil himself.

The man whose gaze made her feel safe, powerful, almost invincible. The one who showed her the taste of freedom, under whose touch she bloomed as a woman. The one who whispered the language of sin in her ear, in her skin.

The man she had burned for with every inch of her being.

Her phone buzzes in the passenger seat, its screen lighting up with 'the devil'. She glances at it, her jaw clenching. The audacity. He's finally lived up to the name

That treacherous, deceitful man.

The car swerves slightly as she snatches the phone and shoves it into the glove compartment, silencing its incessant demand for attention. She doesn't need his words, his lies, or his excuses. Not now. Not ever.

She is angry, so God damn angry at herself. He had never lied about who he was. A self-proclaimed liar with an agenda as sharp and cutting as his mind. And yet, she had been foolish enough to believe she was the exception. That she was different. Special.

How naive. How utterly, devastatingly naive.

Memories surge unbidden...his voice, his caramel-brown eyes, the way he looked at her that night in his office like he never wanted to look away. All of it feels like a cruel joke now, a carefully constructed lie.

She's a mess of heartbreak and fury, driving in an empty street, caught in a storm she never saw coming.

Her mind struggles to reconcile the fact that the two men are one and the same. The one with the brilliant mind she envied and admired and the one with that gorgeous face she surrendered herself to.

She recalls the subtle yet brilliant messages left in the code. Messages only hers to decipher. A secret dialogue between two unseen minds.

And now, they feel like knives lodged in her chest.

Her mind reels, pulling her back to the nights spent at her computer, exchanging cryptic messages with the anonymous hacker she had called "Shadow."

(2 years ago)

She stared at the screen, her fingers poised above the keyboard, a smirk tugging at her lips. The loops of code she'd been stuck in had vanished, cleared as though by magic. But magic didn't exist in her world. Only skill. And someone had just flaunted theirs.

Her eyes narrowed. A hacker had stepped into her path and, rather than leaving her stranded, had wiped away her errors. The audacity.

She gasped when she realised it was none other than TheShadowMonster. She just couldn't resist.

Her ID trailed his, shadowing his movements with the confidence of someone who knew she was being watched....and didn't care.

She left him an encrypted message that would say "Hello" if he cared to decrypt.

Her message window pinged with a message.

TheShadowMonster: Why are you following me?

Oops, busted.

TheSwallow: Me? No. I'm just going my way.

But she kept trailing him. His annoyance practically radiates through the screen.

TheShadowMonster: Last warning.

TheSwallow: Can you bring me with you? I promise I won't disturb you. I'll just follow and learn some techniques.

He ignored her.

TheSwallow: Please.

He ignored her again. Rejected and annoyed, she decided to push further. Poking at strangers online was too much fun.

TheSwallow: You're a loner. I get it.

When his response came, it made her blink and then laugh.

TheShadowMonster: I'm a killer, too. I can trace your location and end you right now. Fuck off.

Her pulse quickened....not in fear, but exhilaration. She'd thrown out similar threats countless times before.

If he was a killer, she was a mafia princess.

Oh wait, she really was.

Let's play with him a little more. What's there to lose anyway?

TheSwallow: Hahaha...You're bluffing. You're probably some acne-riddled teenager hiding behind a laptop. Just look at your ID.

She knew he wasn't some teenager. She also knew he wasn't acne-riddled either.

What he could do no teenager could. Too ruthless, too dangerous. If he was a teenager, she needed to be far away from here cause he would be a very deranged teenager. Just hope that he was not. Teenager, she meant.

The silence stretched long enough for her to question her boldness. But he didn't make her wait.

TheShadowMonster: Let's see how long you last, Swallow.

Her grin widened. A challenge and an acknowledgement. He wasn't dismissing her. He was inviting her into the game, into a voyage.

And Khushi Sen Gupta never backed down from a challenge.

The thrill of danger wrapped around her like a second skin.

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

That first night, they locked into a relentless digital duel, an intricate game of hacking, her trying to outmanoeuvre him. Hours flew by in a dance of intellect and precision until both finally paused, an unspoken truce hanging in the silence.

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

The next night, she roamed in the same location at the same time where she encountered Shadow last night. She again sent an encrypted message, hoping it would find him. 'Is anyone here?'

She found him visible in the same location a few minutes later. So she followed him Again. He was far too intriguing to resist.

TheSwallow: Need a hand?

TheShadowMonster: No.

She scowled at the curt response, as if he could see her irritation.

TheSwallow: You've been circling at the same loop for thirty minutes.

TheShadowMonster: I am just observing. Btw why are you poking your nose into my business again?

TheSwallow: Poking my nose in your business implies interest. I'm just bored.

TheShadowMonster: Do you lurk on the internet all night waiting for me to come online? You must be really bored, then.

TheSwallow: What can I say? It's my hobby.

TheShadowMonster: Get a life or get some sleep.

TheSwallow: Are you always this bossy?

TheShadowMonster: Only when people need it.

TheSwallow: is it just natural talent?

She got ignored again. She huffed. She offered to help damnit.

No "thank you"s.

No acknowledgement.

Didn't mothers teach their sons manners these days?!

Maybe he didn't have one. Just like her.

TheSwallow: you are welcome btw. Why do I even put up with you?

TheShadowMonster: Because, secretly, you're impressed.

Secretly?! She's openly impressed.

Maybe because she was behind the screen, that's why she was so brave and bold. So she asked.

TheSwallow: Are you impressed?

No response. She's ignored again.

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

At first, he was nothing but an enigma, an arrogant shadow who dismissed her as a nuisance.

But she didn't give up.

She sent him encrypted codes at regular intervals every night.

And sometimes she got acknowledged and sometimes she got ignored.

But she knew he was watching her.

Always watching. Silently.

She kept coming back, drawn to his brilliance. He never praised her outright, but his grudging acknowledgement, spoke louder than any flattery ever could.

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

One night, She was stuck on a particularly intricate algorithm, one she had been working on for hours without progress, her frustration mounting. Her mind, however, kept veering toward him....the Shadow Monster....and ways to bait him out.

Then, as if summoned by her thoughts, his message appeared.

TheShadowMonster: You missed a step.

Her fingers hovered above the keyboard, her heart pounding in startled confusion. She glanced at the chat window, then back at her code. A slow smile crept onto her lips.

TheSwallow: No, I didn't.

TheShadowMonster: Check line 124.

Her eyes darted back to her work, scanning the lines of code until she spotted it, a mistake so subtle that anyone less meticulous would've overlooked it. Heat crept up her neck as she corrected the error swiftly.

TheShadowMonster: Impressive. Almost makes me think you have a brain in there.

TheSwallow: Do you have a degree in unsolicited advice or something? My brain is just fine, thank you. And next time, try not to stalk me.

TheShadowMonster: You'll have to stop being so interesting, then.

Her face turned hot.

TheSwallow: That almost sounded like a compliment.

TheShadowMonster: Don't let it get to your head. I don't do compliments. Just observations. You're tolerable...for now.

TheSwallow: You said I was interesting.

TheShadowMonster: Tolerably interesting.

Her lips twitched despite herself, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

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

What began as uncharted interest turned into a routine. Shadow had a knack for showing up when she least expected it, dropping hints and challenging her in ways no one else dared. He was brilliant, maddeningly.

It was so good to have a friend, even if it was online.

In a world where everyone lusted after her physical beauty, he saw her brilliance, which nobody saw and nobody cared about.

-----------

TheSwallow: What's the point of being brilliant if no one understands you?

TheShadowMonster: Someone's feeling dramatic tonight.

Her hands moved instinctively, typing faster than she thought.

TheSwallow: I'm serious. People either want to use you or bring you down. No one really gets it.

TheShadowMonster: Who cares? Maybe they don't need to get all of it. Sometimes, it's enough if someone gets just a part of you. I am sure you have a friend who does.

Yes, she had a friend in real life who got her to an extent. Her only friend. NK.

Is shadow a friend too. Yes, of course.

She hesitated, before typing the question.

TheSwallow: What part do you think you get of me?

There was a pause.

TheShadowMonster: The part that keeps coming back here, night after night, looking for something.

TheSwallow: What do you think I'm looking for?

There was no reply for a long time, but then it finally came.

TheShadowMonster: Someone who sees your brilliance. Because nobody sees it, does it?

The screen remained silent after that, but she knew he was still there. The quiet between them wasn't empty. It was comfortable.

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

Over time, the sharp edges of their exchanges softened. His dry humour made her laugh, his cryptic advice came when she needed it most.

He had an uncanny ability to spar with her without belittling her, to provoke her without ever crossing the line.

Then, there were the rarest moments of raw and unfiltered truth.

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

TheSwallow: I never thanked you for helping me when I was trapped that day. So thank you.

TheSwallow: Do you ever feel trapped?"

She had asked once, her mood uncharacteristically sombre.

TheShadowMonster: Every day.

He admitted, surprising even herself with the honesty of his reply.

TheSwallow: Same.

The words felt so uncharacteristically melancholy. So she tried to lighten up the mood.

TheSwallow: Regardless try not to stalk me next time.

TheShadowMonster: Excuse me?!

She signed off, giggling to herself.

Shadow saw her as the person she desperately wanted to be-someone smart, capable, and worthy of respect. He was the only person who ever did.

Until the caramel-eyed devil came along, a force of nature, a mystery, who saw in her everything shadow ever did and more, a hundredfold more. In his silence and his words, she felt understood in a way no one else had ever managed.

Oh, the irony, they are the same person.

The pieces fall into place, one by one, each more damning than the last, leaving her to question everything she thought she knew.

The rain is only a drizzle now. Her phone has stopped ringing a couple of minutes ago. She eyes the glove compartment, her hand itches to open it and see if there's any message from him.

Suddenly, a bike swerves in front of her car, forcing her to slam the brakes hard. Her heart leaps to her throat as the tyres screech against the wet asphalt.

It's Him.

Her grip on the steering wheel tightens. For a fleeting, irrational moment, she has the overwhelming urge to just run him over. Before she can even entertain the thought, he's off the bike, striding towards her, with an expression that sucks the air out of her lungs.

"What the-" Her words are cut off as he wrenches the car door open, his movements almost frantic. His strong hand wraps around her wrist, firm yet urgent, pulling her out of the seat.

"Hey!" she yells, struggling against his grip as he snatches her car keys with his free hand. "What are you doing? Let me go!"

His silence only fuels her fury.

He drags her a few feet away from the car before turning to her. His rain-soaked hair is in total disarray as if he has run his finger through it multiple times.

The rain blurs the broad span of his shoulders, his wet leather jacket clinging to his frame. The rain also dims the rich brown hue of his eyes yet the fury in them shines through like a flash of lightning in the distance.

"Stay right fucking here." His voice leaves no room for argument.

Blazing rage flares in her chest.

Like hell, she's going to listen to him anymore.

"Who the hell are you to tell me what to do?" She snaps.

Ignoring her, he strides back to the car with purpose. But she continues following behind him, "I don't work for you anymore. So you have no right to give orders to me."

She watches in confusion as he crouches to inspect every inch of the vehicle-underneath the car, the trunk, the seats. His movements are sharp and calculated, as if he's looking for something specific.

Then he opens the hood and freezes. She stops too. Her breath catches as she gets a closer look at what's beneath the hood.

"Is that... a bomb?" she whispers, her voice barely audible.

Her eyes land on the small device nestled in the car's engine. The numbers on the timer flash ominously: 4:55.

Her breath falters, legs trembling beneath her as the countdown ticks away mercilessly. She clutches his arm without thinking, her nails biting into his skin.

"We need to get out of here!!" she says, her voice rising in panic. "Start your bike. Let's go! Wait, let me get my phone and laptop!"

He doesn't budge. Instead, he turns his head slowly, his gaze dropping to her trembling hands gripping his arm. His eyes lift to meet hers before shifting back to the bomb nestled in the engine. "Just take a few steps back. Let me defuse it," he says, his voice is calm, maddeningly calm, as if they aren't standing in the middle of a life-or-death situation.

Her jaw drops. "Let you defuse it? Are you insane? The hell I am going to let you do that!!! Let's go!!!''

He doesn't answer her, instead he retrieves a knife from his ankle with an infuriating air of control. He leans over the hood and starts working on it like it's just another Tuesday.

"Do you really know what you're doing?!" Her voice is unusually high. It would grate on her nerves if she was not so freaked out. "We can just let it blast!"

He shakes his head, focused entirely on the bomb. "If we do that, we lose the chance to find out the culprit."

She stares at him, her heart pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird. "But...."

"Can you keep quiet? Five minutes... or 4:20, to be exact," he cuts her off without looking up. How's his voice is so steady? "Why don't you stand by my bike? Just to be safe."

Her fists clench at her sides as her frustration boils over. But she doesn't move, sticking to his side.

She's furious at him, at the bomb, at herself for not knowing what to do. But the fear creeping up her spine is louder than her anger.

For this infuriating, infuriating man, who stands there, claiming he can defuse the bomb. What if he couldn't? What if she was left standing there, helpless, watching as he...

The mere thought causes her heart to clench uncomfortably, almost painfully.

It shouldn't. But it does.

The seconds tick by, each one stretching into an eternity as he carefully exposes the wires. Cold sweat breaks out on her skin as she watches his every move, her mind racing with worst-case scenarios.

Her chest tightens as the timer hits 2:15. She bites her lip, hard enough to taste blood, her nails digging into her palms. "There's still time. We can run. If you cut the wrong one..."

"I won't," he says simply in his steel voice.

Then, he snips a wire.

Time stands still as she stops breathing.

And finally, the bomb stops ticking, enveloping their surroundings in an welcomed silence.

She exhales a shuddering breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. Her knees buckle, and she has to grab the edge of the car for support. Relief washes over her in waves, but it's quickly replaced by a white-hot fury.

"You're insane!" she yells, her voice shaking.

He closes the hood with a bang that makes her jump and then just looks at her like nothing happened. His attention goes back at the bomb in his hand as he puts it over the hood and keeps examining it.

Her anger flares anew at his nonchalance. "You're reckless, arrogant, and...and..."

"And you are alive." He interrupts her with a look. A look that sends a jolt through her, stealing her next breath. She hates the way her heart stumbles in her chest.

But his next question, causes her heart to tumble over.

"Are you okay?" His voice softens ever so slightly and a fire curling gently around the edges of her heart.

His words silence her. She fixes him with a glare, sharp as a blade, hoping it conveys the fury coursing through her veins and not the ache hidden beneath.

"You don't need to care about my well-being," She says, crossing her arm over her chest and looking away, suddenly feeling incredibly small.

"Why weren't you driving your usual car?"

A demand.

She doesn't answer. Instead, she starts walking toward the car, but he grabs her wrist, spinning her around.

"I asked you a question," he says, clenching his jaw.

"And I don't think it's necessary to answer," she snaps, yanking her wrist free.

The caramel-browns blaze like wildfire as he grips her upper arms, pulling her close.

"What do you think of yourself?" he growls, his voice a storm threatening to break. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you? Why the hell weren't you answering your fucking phone?" Each word lands like a crack of thunder, punctuated by a shake on her small, trembling frame. His eyes, blazing with fury, strip her of words.

"I need to find out who was trying to kill you. Did anyone ask you to take this specific car?" He continues, oblivious to the havoc his eyes are causing in her.

She huffs, brittle and defiant, then answers in a shaky voice. "I just took it from the garage first thing in the morning. I don't think anyone even noticed!"

"So fucking reckless," he growls, his fingers digging into her arms as if trying to shake some sense into her. His eyes darker eclipsing the brown, his breath heavy with barely contained anger. "You...you're a goddamn magnet for danger. Do you know what that is?" He jabs a finger toward the bomb.

Her heart flutters wildly, ricocheting like a trapped hummingbird under his firm grip. She squirms, the weight of his hands grounding her yet making her feel trapped. His touch sends her emotions spiralling-rage, confusion, a treacherous flicker of warmth.

She wants to shove him away. Then, she wants to kiss him senseless. Then she wants to smack him again.

A scream bubbles in her throat, raw and unspoken. Damn him for setting her whole world off balance.

How can her body react to him like that even after everything?

This man has finally turned her fucking insane.

Another shake brings her back to his words.

"It's a bomb made by the serpent. Only serpents make this type of bomb. Mr. Jha has a brilliant plan to bomb their own car in the political rally to throw the blame on the opposite and play the victim card...."

His eyes narrow, dark and forgiving as they land on her, "And you...." he hisses, "You are here roaming around with one of those cars and those irresponsible soldiers of serpents.....just let you drive away without checking. I swear, I'll fucking kill them all."

She stares at him as his words slowly sinks in, twisting her stomach into knots. His voice drops, raw and dark. "Do you realise what would've happened if I hadn't figured it out in time?"

"I thought..." his gaze holds hers trapped. "Do you even know what I'm going through? Do you have any idea how worried I was? What if...." He stops, his throat bobbing as he swallows hard.

His hands cup her face firmly, engulfing her smaller, delicate features in his broad, calloused palms. The storm in his eyes mirrors the tempest rippling through his touch, raw and unrestrained, teetering on the edge of control.

"What if something had happened, damnit? What if I'd lost you?" his voice rips through the air, a roar that rattles her bone.

Every hair end of her body tingles as his words wash over her. His words linger, echoing in the space between them, stretching and shrinking, settling into a rhythm of their own.

Her chest heaved with the erratic beat of her heart. The crack in his voice, the unguarded panic swirling in his eyes

It's too much.

But there's something in those darkened caramel orbs, that is part dangerous and part alluring.

She wants to capture it, bottle it up and keep it hidden away, just for herself.

Then the meaning of his words sinks in. If he didn't reach her in time, she would have been lying there in pieces.

Wait?!?

Was he telling the truth?

Or did he plant the bomb himself and now defuse it to gain her trust?

She isn't going to fall into his trap again.

With a jerk, She pulls his hands away from her face. Almost violently.

"And if that had happened?" she snaps, her voice icy yet shaking. "So what? So what if the bomb went off? Whatever happens to me...Why the hell would it matter to you?"

His eyes narrow. "Of course it matters, damn it!" he roars. She's never seen him like this. So unhinged.

"Why?" she challenges, her eyes searching his face. "Why does it matter?"

"Because..." His jaw tightens that looks almost painful. But he doesn't say anything further. Instead, he looks far away from her, locking his caramel browns behind an iron door as his fingers rake through his hair, disheveling it further.

She lets out a frustrated sigh. It's going nowhere.

"Stay the fuck away from me." she spits, spinning toward the car door. But before she can open it, his hand slams against the frame above it, pinning her in place.

A shiver runs down her spine, igniting every cell of her, from the tip of her hair to the end of her toe nail. She feels a flush creeps her neck, spreading across her skin as she feels the heat of him behind her, his chest just inches from her back, his breaths coming fast and heavy against her skin.

Her hand clenches on the car door as she tries to ignore the heat rushing unbidden through her veins.

She can feel him taking long, deep breaths as if trying to rein himself. She swallows hard, her throat suddenly dry.

"Don't talk to me like that," he murmurs, his voice dangerously steady.

"Why not? It's not like I owe you anything." her voice coming out softer now, almost unsure.

His hand drops from the door, but his eyes stay on her back, dark and unwavering. She can feel it. "You sure about that," his voice is cold now, a sharp contrast to the storm a few moments ago.

She doesn't reply, too tangled in her own mind, the whirlwind of confusion and anger. Before she knows it, he's stepping back, his voice softening, almost reluctant. "Go home. We'll talk when you're willing to listen to me. "

He opens the door for her and motions for her to get inside. "And Khushi, Don't make me wait. I'm not a patient man."

The gentleness in his tone disarms her, leaving her feeling raw and exposed. She doesn't dare look at him as she climbs into the car, her hands trembling as they grasp the wheel.

Silently, she drives the long road home, her mind fighting to stay focused. She tries her hardest not to glance at the rearview mirror, but it's an impossible task. Her eyes betray her, and there, in the reflection, is only darkness. Yet she knows he's there.

Like he always has been.

Like a shadow that never leaves her.

She can feel his presence.

And that presence, that undeniable pull, follows her all the way home.

Author's note:

Hello, dear reader!

So here it is. There's more to come, and I can't wait to share it with you!

This is easily one of my top five Arshi moments. What's yours? I'd love to know your favorites, so don't hesitate to share!

Until then, take care and stay tuned for what's next!

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@featheredclover @arshifiesta @phuljari @jalebi-weds-bluetooth @chutkiandchotte @chaiandtakkar @bigfatreader

[newreflectionswomensshelter]

the videogame #NewReflectionsWomensShelterVideoGame #Playstation7

Here's a concept for an online MMORPG inspired by mystery, adventure, and role-playing, with an emphasis on solving mysteries and dynamic social interaction. This game builds on elements of a detective-driven genre while incorporating MMORPG mechanics for an expansive, immersive world.

Title: Shadowscape Online: The Infinite Mysteries

Genre: MMORPG / Mystery Adventure Platform: Cross-platform (PC, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, and mobile).

Core Concept

Players become agents of the Order of the Shadowscape, a secret organization dedicated to uncovering hidden truths and solving world-altering mysteries. The game combines traditional MMORPG elements like exploration, combat, and crafting with unique mechanics like investigation, clue analysis, and social deduction.

Gameplay Features

Dynamic World

A vast open world with diverse biomes (urban cities, ancient ruins, haunted forests, underground labyrinths).

Day-night cycles, weather changes, and seasonal events impact the gameplay.

Investigation System

Players gather clues from the environment, NPCs, and interactions with other players.

Use tools like magnifying glasses, scanners, and enchanted artifacts to uncover hidden details.

Solve procedurally generated mysteries or world-changing story arcs with set narratives.

Class System Players choose from specialized detective archetypes:

The Investigator: Focuses on perception and deduction; excels in finding clues.

The Combatant: Combines brawling with solving action-heavy puzzles.

The Hacker: Expert at bypassing security and decoding digital information.

The Mystic: Uses magic to sense the unseen and interpret ancient lore.

The Socialite: Excels in persuasion, negotiation, and gathering intel from NPCs or other players.

Guilds and Factions

Players can join factions within the Order or rival groups, each with its own storyline and benefits.

Guilds allow players to team up and tackle large-scale mysteries, raids, or PvP scenarios.

Social Deduction and PvP

In competitive modes, players may need to identify traitors or uncover rival spies within their ranks.

Special PvP missions involve sabotage, infiltration, and defense.

Crafting and Customization

Craft detective tools, weapons, and gadgets from materials found in the world.

Customize avatars, from outfits to accessories like magnifying glasses and enchanted pendants.

Expansive Story Arcs

The game’s narrative evolves through major updates, with community decisions impacting the story.

Example: Solving a global mystery about a cursed artifact that’s destabilizing the world.

Unique Mechanics

Clueboard System

Players have a digital “Clueboard” to organize and analyze their findings.

Clues are categorized by type (e.g., physical evidence, testimonies, artifacts).

Use the Clueboard to form theories and unlock next steps in investigations.

Mind-Mapping Mini-Game

Solve puzzles by connecting events, characters, and clues in a visual interface.

Collaborative mind-mapping during team play for multiplayer investigations.

Procedural Mysteries

Infinite replayability with procedurally generated side mysteries and challenges.

AI-driven systems adapt mysteries to the players’ investigation style.

Dual Progression System

Traditional leveling for combat and skills.

Reputation ranking with factions and NPCs based on how well you solve mysteries.

Visual and Aesthetic Style

Graphics:

A blend of realistic environments with stylized characters and effects to create a timeless look.

Mystical overlays for clue-detecting moments (e.g., glowing trails, hidden texts).

User Interface:

A sleek interface with a dedicated "Detective Mode" that highlights clues and enables analysis tools.

Audio Design:

A dynamic soundtrack that shifts based on investigation phases (calm for clue gathering, tense for deductions).

Interactive sound cues for finding hidden objects or solving puzzles.

Multiplayer Modes

Team Investigations

Groups of up to six players collaborate on large-scale mysteries.

Divide roles for efficiency (e.g., someone interrogates NPCs while another examines crime scenes).

Guild Raids

Cooperative challenges against legendary enemies or unsolvable mysteries that require mass participation.

PvP Challenges

Compete in solving mysteries faster than rival teams.

Espionage missions where players sabotage or spy on other groups.

Roleplaying Servers

Create your own detective agency, invite friends, and design custom mysteries.

Potential Plot for Launch

Main Arc: The Shattered Veil

An ancient veil separating the mortal and mystical realms is breaking, causing chaos.

Players uncover a conspiracy within the Order that threatens the world’s stability.

Mysteries range from mundane crimes to supernatural enigmas.

Marketing Strategy

Pre-Launch Hype:

Interactive ARG (Alternate Reality Game) where fans solve real-world clues to unlock game lore.

Partner with streamers and mystery-based channels to generate excitement.

Post-Launch Events:

Seasonal updates featuring limited-time mysteries and rewards.

Collaborations with iconic mystery franchises like Sherlock Holmes or Nancy Drew.

Merchandise:

Branded detective tools and apparel.

A companion mystery journal for offline gameplay or planning.

Would you like a more detailed world map, storyline for the first expansion, or help drafting a pitch for potential backers?

Here’s a concept for a Nancy Drew-style detective video game series designed for the PlayStation 7 and Nintendo platforms, combining mystery, adventure, and modern gameplay mechanics with the support of Nintendo’s innovation and storytelling expertise.

Series Title: Mystery Reflections: Chronicles of the Reflection Crew

Genre: Detective Adventure / Puzzle-Solving Target Audience: Teens and young adults who enjoy mysteries, narrative-driven games, and clever puzzles.

Core Concept

Players step into the roles of a diverse group of amateur detectives solving mysteries around their community and beyond. Each mystery has unique challenges, requiring teamwork, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.

Gameplay Mechanics

Detective Roleplay:

Players choose a character from the Reflection Crew, each with unique skills (e.g., hacking, forensic science, negotiation).

Characters' strengths impact how mysteries are solved and offer replayability.

Investigation Phases:

Explore: Investigate crime scenes, gather clues, and interact with NPCs.

Analyze: Use tools like fingerprint scanners, digital decoders, and chemistry kits.

Conclude: Assemble clues into theories using a visual "Mind Map" to solve the case.

Puzzle Challenges:

Code-breaking, lock-picking, deciphering cryptic messages, and environmental puzzles.

Time-sensitive challenges add urgency to certain mysteries.

Dialogue Choices:

Branching dialogue impacts the story and how NPCs respond.

Some choices unlock hidden clues or alternate endings.

Co-Op Mode:

Multiplayer mode where up to four players control different characters, solving mysteries collaboratively.

Unique puzzles that require teamwork.

Visual and Gameplay Style

Graphics:

Stylized realism with vibrant, detailed environments inspired by classic mystery locales (e.g., eerie mansions, bustling cities, desolate islands).

Nintendo’s colorful aesthetic blends with PS7’s cutting-edge performance for stunning visuals.

Camera Mechanics:

Dynamic, third-person perspective with zoom-in modes for close inspection of clues.

Dynamic Environments:

Day-night cycles and weather affect exploration and clue visibility.

Plot and Structure

Game 1: The Whispering Lighthouse

Setting: A coastal town with a mysterious lighthouse rumored to be haunted.

Plot: The Reflection Crew investigates the disappearance of a marine biologist, uncovering smuggling operations and hidden treasure.

Puzzles: Decode lighthouse signals, unlock a hidden passage, and match biological samples to solve the case.

Finale: A high-stakes chase in the lighthouse during a storm.

Game 2: Shadows of the Reflection Manor

Setting: A sprawling estate with hidden rooms, secret tunnels, and a cursed reputation.

Plot: A famous artifact disappears during a gala, and the crew is invited to solve the mystery.

Puzzles: Solve riddles to unlock rooms, analyze historical artifacts, and outwit the thief.

Game 3: The Phantom Express

Setting: A luxury train where a high-profile theft occurs during a cross-country trip.

Plot: The team must solve the crime before the train reaches its destination, preventing the thief’s escape.

Puzzles: Use characters' skills to eavesdrop, hack compartments, and decode the thief’s plans.

Key Characters

Amy (The Strategist)

Skills: Leadership, negotiation, financial analysis.

Role: Mediates group decisions and handles tricky social situations.

Here’s a concept for a Nancy Drew-style detective video game series designed for the PlayStation 7 and Nintendo platforms, combining mystery, adventure, and modern gameplay mechanics with the support of Nintendo’s innovation and storytelling expertise.

Series Title: Mystery Reflections: Chronicles of the Reflection Crew

Genre: Detective Adventure / Puzzle-Solving Target Audience: Teens and young adults who enjoy mysteries, narrative-driven games, and clever puzzles.

Core Concept

Players step into the roles of a diverse group of amateur detectives solving mysteries around their community and beyond. Each mystery has unique challenges, requiring teamwork, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence.

Gameplay Mechanics

Detective Roleplay:

Players choose a character from the Reflection Crew, each with unique skills (e.g., hacking, forensic science, negotiation).

Characters' strengths impact how mysteries are solved and offer replayability.

Investigation Phases:

Explore: Investigate crime scenes, gather clues, and interact with NPCs.

Analyze: Use tools like fingerprint scanners, digital decoders, and chemistry kits.

Conclude: Assemble clues into theories using a visual "Mind Map" to solve the case.

Puzzle Challenges:

Code-breaking, lock-picking, deciphering cryptic messages, and environmental puzzles.

Time-sensitive challenges add urgency to certain mysteries.

Dialogue Choices:

Branching dialogue impacts the story and how NPCs respond.

Some choices unlock hidden clues or alternate endings.

Co-Op Mode:

Multiplayer mode where up to four players control different characters, solving mysteries collaboratively.

Unique puzzles that require teamwork.

Visual and Gameplay Style

Graphics:

Stylized realism with vibrant, detailed environments inspired by classic mystery locales (e.g., eerie mansions, bustling cities, desolate islands).

Nintendo’s colorful aesthetic blends with PS7’s cutting-edge performance for stunning visuals.

Camera Mechanics:

Dynamic, third-person perspective with zoom-in modes for close inspection of clues.

Dynamic Environments:

Day-night cycles and weather affect exploration and clue visibility.

Plot and Structure

Game 1: The Whispering Lighthouse

Setting: A coastal town with a mysterious lighthouse rumored to be haunted.

Plot: The Reflection Crew investigates the disappearance of a marine biologist, uncovering smuggling operations and hidden treasure.

Puzzles: Decode lighthouse signals, unlock a hidden passage, and match biological samples to solve the case.

Finale: A high-stakes chase in the lighthouse during a storm.

Game 2: Shadows of the Reflection Manor

Setting: A sprawling estate with hidden rooms, secret tunnels, and a cursed reputation.

Plot: A famous artifact disappears during a gala, and the crew is invited to solve the mystery.

Puzzles: Solve riddles to unlock rooms, analyze historical artifacts, and outwit the thief.

Game 3: The Phantom Express

Setting: A luxury train where a high-profile theft occurs during a cross-country trip.

Plot: The team must solve the crime before the train reaches its destination, preventing the thief’s escape.

Puzzles: Use characters' skills to eavesdrop, hack compartments, and decode the thief’s plans.

Key Characters

Amy (The Strategist)

Skills: Leadership, negotiation, financial analysis.

Role: Mediates group decisions and handles tricky social situations.

Elle (The Creative Problem-Solver)

Skills: Art interpretation, visual puzzles, and creative thinking.

Role: Solves artistic and symbolic mysteries.

Ayesha (The Tech Expert)

Skills: Hacking, coding, and surveillance.

Role: Handles electronic locks, computers, and digital evidence.

Matt (The Investigator)

Skills: Tracking, observation, and logic puzzles.

Role: Finds physical clues and connects details.

Zoey (The Muscle)

Skills: Physical tasks, map navigation, and athletic challenges.

Role: Handles physical puzzles, from moving objects to high-stakes chases.

Nintendo and PlayStation Features

Nintendo Switch:

Motion Controls: Use the Joy-Cons to examine clues, pick locks, or match puzzle pieces.

Portable Play: Seamless exploration on the go.

PlayStation 7:

Haptic Feedback: Experience realistic vibrations while opening safes or climbing surfaces.

4D Soundscapes: Immerse players with atmospheric sounds that signal hidden clues.

Marketing Strategy

Teasers and Trailers:

Cinematic trailers featuring gripping mystery scenes and team dynamics.

Interactive social media teasers that challenge fans to solve puzzles for exclusive content.

Collaborations:

Work with influencers in the gaming and mystery-solving communities.

Host live events where fans can solve real-life puzzles inspired by the game.

Merchandise:

Collectible action figures of the crew.

A companion Mystery Journal for players to track clues and theories.

Would you like a detailed storyline for one game, or assistance drafting a pitch for Nintendo and PlayStation?

[the-starry-seas]

My fellow Leverage fan! I have a question! Star Wars (specifically TCW era) Leverage au, who are you putting in which role on the team?

ooh okay I'm thinking 👀

Mastermind is Windu. That man is bonkers frickin smart and having had to handle Jedi and politicians and Force powers for so long? This team is a cakewalk, he's on vacation, he's enjoying himself. Critically lacking in family/Catholic trauma but he's having such a good time that I can't hold that against him.

Grifter is Obi-Wan. He has the perfect combination of looks (those eyes do half the work), steady temperament, gremlin behaviour with little provocation, and YOLO-ery to pull off just about anything he sets his mind to. (Briefly considered making him the hitter due to his canonical propensity to remove people of their limbs.)

Hitter is Jango. He's got shit to work out, he's good at what he does, and he'd look great with long hair. Surprisingly like Eliot in that he's got a circle of female acquaintances that he learns things from. Arguably never been one to try to atone for the shit he's done, but also arguably has the daddy issues thing down pat. Also at some point Eliot should have Obtained Child and this is my opportunity to make that a reality (kinda).

Hacker is Tech. Because I love him and also because look at him. He's the best at what he does! And he's already part of a weird renegade clone unit so he's got some team-oriented skills and is used to being up to weird shit. It's like taking a collie to a sheep farm, he's got a job and he's very good at it and he WILL be doing it.

Thief is Quinlan. His experience as a Shadow makes him good at finding things, and getting into and out of places unseen. Also I think canon Quinlan would really love the brain-puzzle of the lasers and locks and all that. He switches out museum exhibits just to give the curators a crisis over Who Did That. Also I think he'd get a kick out of jumping off buildings.

[onaravenswings]

Yo, Lancerblr

Figured I'd toss a few of these your way, grab some feedback. Haven't actually had a chance to play and stress test 'em yet, so I've got no clue how they'd fare in a combat situation, or if any of them are any good, really. Just threw together what I felt'd be neat in concept.

Even if this only gets one or two notes, I'm fine with that. Just felt like sharin'.

Personally, my favorite's split between Carrion Courier and Fog.

Beware, there are a LOT of words beneath the thing. Like, a-lot-a-lot-a-lot.

Here's Jane Doe, callsign Misnomer, with her mech Fog. She's a favorite, if you couldn't tell. Wanted for knowing a helluva lot more than she should and stealing a truly remarkable amount of prototype tech.

Mech Note:

"It's in the clouds! It's in the goddamn clouds!"

"Bank right, bank right, fuckfuckfuck FUCK-"

"I can't see, it's screaming, why is it so loud-"

"Sensors dead, I'm falling, shit, can't pull up!"

"Come into my parlor, said the crow to the spider to the fly."

» Jane Doe // MISNOMER « Spec Ops, LL9 [ SKILL TRIGGERS ] Act Unseen or Unheard (+6), Charm (+4), Get a Hold of Something (+2), Pull Rank (+2), Show Off (+2), Stay Cool (+6), Survive (+4) [ GEAR ] Light Hardsuit, Light Signature, Light A/C, Corrective, SSC Sylph Undersuit, Subjectivity-Enhancement Suite [ BOND ] THE BROKER Powers: SPIDER, CONTINGENCY PLANS, THE LEDGER

[ TALENTS ] Technophile 3, Hacker 2, Infiltrator 2, Ace 2, Skirmisher 2, Empath 1 [ LICENSES ] HORUS Goblin 2, HORUS Lich 1, IPS-N Caliban 3, SSC Dusk Wing 1, SSC Atlas 2 [ CORE BONUSES ] Kai Bioplating, Improved Armament, Mount Retrofitting [ MECH ] « FOG » IPS-N Caliban H:2 A:5 S:4 E:0 SIZE:0.5 STRUCTURE:4/4 HP:15/15 ARMOR:2 STRESS:4/4 HEAT:0/5 REPAIR:6/6 ATK BONUS:5 TECH ATK:2 LTD BONUS:0 SPD:5 EVA:13 EDEF:12 SENS:3 SAVE:16 [ WEAPONS ] INTEGRATED MOUNT: HHS-075 “Flayer” Shotgun FLEX MOUNT: Autopod / Thermal Pistol // Mount Retrofitting HEAVY MOUNT: HHS-155 CANNIBAL [ SYSTEMS ] Wandering Nightmare, Rapid Maneuver Jets, Neurospike, H0R_OS System Upgrade II, H0R_OS System Upgrade I

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And here we have Jane's former co-worker/war-buddy/mortal-enemy, John Blackacre, piloting the Carrion Courier. Spider-cowboy-mech. All the auxiliaries, all the close range brawl.

Mech Note:

"Okay, he's reloading, we can-"

SPANG-

"Okay, now he's reloading, get-"

SPANGSPANG-

"... Wait for it."

KERTHUNK, SCHERKERTHOOM-

"And he's reloaded. Fuck."

"How many of those things does he have?"

"... One, two, three-"

"Oh, christ."

» John Blackacre // SPUR « Spec Ops, LL9 [ SKILL TRIGGERS ] Act Unseen or Unheard (+4), Blow Something Up (+2), Charm (+2), Get Somewhere Quickly (+6), Read a Situation (+4), Stay Cool (+6), Word on the Street (+2) [ GEAR ] Assault Hardsuit, Archaic Melee, Light Signature, Smart Scope, Frag Grenades, Thermite Charge [ BOND ] THE WOLF Powers: GO FOR A WALK, BLOOD SCENT, POUNCE

[ TALENTS ] Gunslinger 3, Combined Arms 3, Exemplar 2, Tactician 2, Bonded 1, Grease Monkey 1 [ LICENSES ] IPS-N Raleigh 3, IPS-N Blackbeard 3, HA Iskander 1, HA Barbarossa 1, HA Genghis 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Gyges Frame, Integrated Weapon, Mount Retrofitting [ MECH ] « CARRION COURIER » IPS-N Raleigh H:2 A:3 S:0 E:6 SIZE:1 STRUCTURE:4 HP:21 ARMOR:1 STRESS:4 HEAT:0 REPAIR:6 ATK BONUS:5 TECH ATK:-1 LTD BONUS:3 SPD:5 EVA:11 EDEF:7 SENS:10 SAVE:15 [ WEAPONS ] INTEGRATED MOUNT: M35 Mjolnir INTEGRATED WEAPON: Chain Axe / Hand Cannon // Mount Retrofitting AUX/AUX MOUNT: Hand Cannon / Stub Cannon FLEX MOUNT: Hand Cannon / Hand Cannon HEAVY MOUNT: Kinetic Hammer [ SYSTEMS ] “Roland” Chamber, Grounding Charges, “Roller” Directed Payload Charges, Reinforced Cabling, Personalizations

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And here we have Anne Queen, codename Wreken, former pirate warlord and currently freelance mercenary. Finds both Jane and John creepy as all get-out-of-fuck and yet enjoys scaring the shit out of grunts. Absolutely charming.

Mech Note:

Exerpt from training exercise no.55638, JUN-30, 0537, begin play::>>

"... Hey, where'd squad five go?"

The sergeant answers with another question. "Y'see that big red circle that just popped up on your map reticle, private?"

"...Yessir."

The old Tortuga's head nods and extends a hand, holding up five fingers, slowly putting them down one after the other.

On the final finger, thunder splits the skies in the distance, once, twice, thrice, and then with a final sundering THOOM, the circle disappears, along with the markers within it denoting the remains of squad 8.

"Oh."

The older mech crosses its arms. "Yes, private. Oh."

Out of the corner of his eye, his face lights up red, and he feels the color drain from it.

"We're in the circle, sergeant."

The sergeant nods, again. "Correct, private. Now, what we do in this situation?"

He doesn't even wait for the order. The circle was very, very, very big, and his Saladin's legs weren't the fastest.

» Anne Queen // WREKEN « Outlaw, LL9 [ SKILL TRIGGERS ] Act Unseen or Unheard (+2), Assault (+6), Blow Something Up (+6), Pull Rank (+2), Stay Cool (+4), Survive (+6) [ GEAR ] Light Hardsuit, Heavy Signature, Heavy A/C, Frag Grenades, Stims, Thermite Charge [ BOND ] THE TITAN Powers: TRUE GRIT, NOTHING TO FUCK WITH, ABSOLUTE MEAT

[ TALENTS ] House Guard 3, Siege Specialist 3, Heavy Gunner 3, Walking Armory 3 [ LICENSES ] HA Barbarossa 3, IPS-N Caliban 1, IPS-N Raleigh 2, IPS-N Drake 3 [ CORE BONUSES ] Integrated Ammo Feeds, Briareos Frame, Reinforced Frame [ MECH ] « WARSPITE » HA Barbarossa H:5 A:1 S:0 E:5 SIZE:3 STRUCTURE:4 HP:30 ARMOR:2 STRESS:4 HEAT:0 REPAIR:6 ATK BONUS:5 TECH ATK:-2 LTD BONUS:4 SPD:2 EVA:7 EDEF:6 SENS:10 SAVE:15 [ WEAPONS ] INTEGRATED MOUNT: Apocalypse Rail MAIN MOUNT: Mortar MAIN MOUNT: Mortar HEAVY MOUNT: Howitzer [ SYSTEMS ] Ammo Case III, External Ammo Feed, Autoloader Drone, “Roland” Chamber, Siege Stabilizers, Armament Redundancy

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This is Cal Dera, callsign Crepescule. Nothing about her is reminiscent of faint rays of sunlight, more akin to its boiling surface. She specializes in punching straight through the frontline and making herself a very large fucking problem for everybody involved behind it. Walk into her zone? Melt. Attempt to go around or leave it? Get shotgunned to death.

Mech Note:

The 'tech stares. "What the fuck."

His co-shift nods. "Yeah, that tends to be what people say when they see her for the first time."

"I can feel the fucking heat from here, and we're behind triple reinforced walls in a vacuum. It's not even on yet?"

The co-shift shakes his head. "Nope. Reactor's not even burning yet."

"How the hell does this thing work near civilian centers?"

The co-shift paused in his preparations before eventually offering two words. "It doesn't."

He felt his mouth dry. "Ah."

» Cal Dera // CREPESCULE « Freelancer, LL9 [ SKILL TRIGGERS ] Assault (+6), Blow Something Up (+2), Spot (+4), Take Control (+6), Threaten (+6), Word on the Street (+2) [ GEAR ] Assault Hardsuit, Medium Signature, Heavy A/C, Thermite Charge, Personal Drone, Stims [ BOND ] THE PATHFINDER Powers: FREESOUL, LIGHTSPEED, MOMENTUM

[ TALENTS ] Ace 3, Vanguard 3, Nuclear Cavalier 2, Spaceborn 2, Pankrati 2 [ LICENSES ] HA Genghis 3, IPS-N Blackbeard 3, IPS-N Nelson 2, IPS-N Tortuga 1 [ CORE BONUSES ] Superior by Design, Reinforced Frame, Sloped Plating [ MECH ] « BEHEMOTH » HA “Worldkiller” Genghis Mk I H:3 A:0 S:2 E:6 SIZE:2 STRUCTURE:4 HP:22 ARMOR:4 STRESS:4 HEAT:0 REPAIR:5 ATK BONUS:5 TECH ATK:0 LTD BONUS:3 SPD:3 EVA:6 EDEF:10 SENS:5 SAVE:15 [ WEAPONS ] MAIN MOUNT: SUPERHEAVY WEAPON BRACING MAIN MOUNT: Deck-Sweeper Automatic Shotgun HEAVY MOUNT: Plasma Thrower [ SYSTEMS ] Spaceborn EVA, Explosive Vents, Auto-Cooler, AGNI-Class NHP, Reinforced Cabling, Siege Ram

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And since this is already quite fucking long, I think I'm going to stop here and leave whoever's willing to read through this word-vomit-spaghetti to chew through it.

Ciao, all. Let me know if any of these sound feasible, if you want.

[gravesung-moving]

quick and dirty bios for the unseen's inner circle (the sanctum)!

bc i just remembered sage and fletch are the only unseen creatures i actually have bios for.

*note — by default, these descriptions apply to the unseen as they are in shelter island. some details are subject to change based on verse. *note 2 — each member of the sanctum has a self-chosen tarot card that's left behind as a "calling card" at a particular job they claim responsibility for. in place of a stolen bounty, on top of a body, etc.

acheron ??? (he/him) — the poisoner

the emperor

dilf

calm, collected, honest but in a kind way. pretty emotionally intelligent.

as a rule, never pries into other people's business. lane = stayed in.

has a son who's in college rn! on good terms with his ex-wife.

ex-safecracker/bank robber

he makes poisons! has a little lab and everything

occasionally fletch will pull him out of retirement and make him go crack a safe. he complains about his knees

norah suman (she/her) — the engineer

the sun

lesbiab

has had a secret crush on seph for a couple years. designed her arms from the ground up, and the first point of contact when something goes wrong or seph needs a redesign/upgrade

dry humor, very blunt and often sarcastic

eyebrow piercing

habit of chopping off her hair when she's sad

makes the gadgets. makes explosives, modifies weapons, invents new shit, always thinking about new ways to do stuff. engineering as an art and a science at the same time.

also an up-and-coming tattoo artist!

orion aisa (he/they) — the forger

the moon

seph's twin brother

not a great fighter, hates using guns

eyepatch over his right eye. fletch took it when he and seph tried to escape as teenagers, along with ripping seph's arms off, which is a very normal and cool and chill reaction to have

trans lad. top surgery, took testosterone for a few years but then stopped. pretty satisfied with where he's at right now

excellent painter

suffers from hand tremors, though they fade when he paints

hector dionísio (he/him) — the muscle

the wheel of fortune

unpredictable and violent. unhinged.

will be having a drink with you and then at a hair-trigger provocation, he'll just turn around and start kicking the shit out of someone

scarily good fighter, way too fast for his muscular build

no one knows why fletch trusts him to be in the inner circle and not rat on them

unexpectedly very reliable as a teammate. he does his job very well

fixated on seph in a "constantly riling her so that she'll fight him whenever he wants" way

fixated on edith in a "why can't i land a hit on you. come here" way

pit fighter. so far undefeated

cody shimura (he/him) — the accountant

justice

the most guy ever

he's so tired.

retired hedge fund manager, went into crime because he did some digging, realized the finance industry was already in fletch's pocket anyway, and his ability to stealthily uncover those secrets impressed fletch enough to hire him on.

tries to be a plant dad but he keeps killing them

surprisingly well-trained with a gun

occasionally pulls out the most scathing one-liners in the quietest and calmest voice imaginable

sage / VECTOR (she/her) — the driver

the world

technomancer (arcane hacker)

pokemon superfan

harvard dropout

a pretty normal person, generally, probably the least traumatized out of the crew

can summon cars / motorcycles made of, essentially, compressed/hardened demon souls sourced straight from hell

also has normal, non-summonable cars / motorcycles that she likes to augment and fix up with norah's help

has a giant fluffy dog named Baby

fucking Maniac behind the wheel. the dog's name is a reference to baby driver for a reason.

if she knew about @tewwor's vector alias, she would make them matching shirts

edith winter (she/they) — the thief

the hermit

sneaky. quiet. wow shocker

fey changeling who's lived on earth their whole life, but is in contact with the human child they replaced

raised by wolves a gang, sort of collectively alongside her parents. it takes a village yaknow. they all had a hand in training her to be the insanely skilled thief she is — edith was probably the most valuable piece on their board, even at a young age

said gang was absorbed by the unseen and scattered across the world for resisting said absorption. one of edith's parents was killed in the conflict, the other was sent across the world but she doesn't know where

no one knows if they're bitter about it or not. they don't talk about it

acheron taught her how to crack safes

caro vitale / deadfall (he/him) — the fence

the hanged man

owner of the black stag, a bar and antique shop just at the northern edge of the city where metropolis meets highway meets forest.

can sell anything to anyone

no one knows a single thing about this man except for the fact that he's fluent in italian. he WILL lie if you ask him anything else. caro vitale is also not his real name

he got that thang on him (a club)

tattoos everywhere

ishal king (they/them) — the doctor

death

fae nephilim (an angel fucked an archfey and produced a very strange kid), exiled from the autumn court for death crimes before going into the human medical field as a surgeon.

nearly got arrested for experimenting with nephilim blood (their own, but whatever guys), faked their death, joined the unseen. now works happily and privately for fletch in their silly little lab.

mushroom garden

medicinal plant expert alongside their knowledge of modern medicine

ominous positivity

anah tannar (she/her) — the spy

the lovers, reversed

you know her! you love her! she's probably broken your heart!

local celebrity influencer

resident honeypot for any woman-attracted target

prefers to be flashy and stand out, but also insanely good at blending in and being invisible when need be

serial dater. never lets anyone too close, but loves to have a web of one-way connections to people who think they're her best friend or favorite ex, and/or owe her a favor (she has a book of debts)

a genuinely compassionate person underneath it all, she just leaned hard into her manipulative side after being used one too many times

persephone aisa (they/she) — the assassin

judgement

first lieutenant/right hand to amari fletch, and thus second-in-command to the unseen itself

sharpshooter, beat-upper, gunfighter, knife-swinger. if john wick can do it, so can they

cold, aggressive, hostile. deadly as fuck. if you follow this blog you probably came from hers so i won't go into too much detail SJDKHJKSD

amari fletch (they/he) — the leader

the tower (also the name they're publicly known by)

i swear they're not secretly thousands of years old i swearrrrr (yes they are) (they cheated death in a game of dice and bear the mark of cain for it)

think gus fring, netflix wilson fisk, silco — that type of person

spidery motherfucker, aka has connections eeeeverywhere. so many judges, cops, government officials in their pocket.

for the most part, fletch is satisfied with the world the way that it is. the unseen profits nicely, they have as much power as they need, and no one fucks with them (if they even know it exists)

if someone does fuck with him and his, however, he will not hesitate to make a violent and chaotic example of them for the rest of the world to see.

calm and levelheaded 99% of the time. 1% of the time, off-the-wall destructive

will take risks if they can see a benefit and the consequence of failure won't fuck up their plans.

extremely powerful in a fight (is not human) with enough raw strength to fully charge straight through a building wall by wall if they wanted to. but they don't. lmao

seph is their protegé (????) (i genuinely don't have a term for their relationship it's so fucked up and hard to describe), & they are very very possessive about it

[techit-rp]

Deep Dive into Wi-Fi Hacking: How Ethical Hackers Secure Your Wireless Networks

With our hyper-connected world, Wi-Fi is the unseen lifeline keeping us online today. From streaming your favorite shows to managing your smart home devices, Wi-Fi is everywhere. But have you ever stopped to think about just how secure your wireless network really is? What if someone could sneak into your network, steal your data, or even hijack your devices? Scary, right? That’s where ethical hackers come in—the unsung heroes of the digital age who use their skills to protect, not exploit. If you’ve ever been curious about how they do it, or if you’re considering a cybersecurity and ethical hacking course, this blog is for you.

The Dark Side of Wi-Fi: Why It’s a Hacker’s Playground

Well, face it: Wi-Fi networks are a goldmine for cybercriminals. Why? Because they are usually the easiest weakness in our digital defense. It has weak passwords, outdated encryption, and misconfigured routers. That's not to mention stealing your Netflix login. Hackers can use it as an open gateway to access more of your digital life.

Here's your scenario: You're having your favorite coffee at a quaint little café while making use of their free Wi-Fi. Well, a hacker within some tables from you is running Aircrack-ng or Wireshark for quite a bit on your data that's going by. Before you realize it, they have gotten your login credentials, credit card information, or even obtained access to your corporate emails. How scary does that sound?

Enter Ethical Hackers: The Good Guys of Wi-Fi Security

That is when the ethical hackers come in. Cybersecurity professionals use the same hacking tools and techniques as evil hackers, with one difference though: they work for you. Their job is to find a hole before a hacker does so that they may fix it before hackers can gain entry into your network.

How do they go about it? Let's dissect this:

Reconnaissance: Ethical hackers first gather information about the target network. They use tools such as Kismet or NetStumbler to identify the network's SSID, encryption type, and connected devices.

Exploitation: Once they have identified potential weaknesses, they try to exploit them. For example, if the network uses outdated WEP encryption (which is notoriously weak), they might use tools like Aircrack-ng to crack the password.

Post-Exploitation: Having obtained access, the ethical hacker calculates the potential damage that can be done. Could they have accessed sensitive files? Could they have launched a man-in-the-middle attack? This step will give them a sense of real-world impact from the vulnerability.

Reporting and Patching: They finally document their findings and collaborate with the owner of the network to fix the issues. It may involve updating firmware, changing passwords, or enabling stronger encryption like WPA3.

Why You Should Care About Wi-Fi Security

You may be thinking: "I am an average user, so why would somebody even bother with me?" The thing is, hackers don't discriminate. Whether you are just an individual, a small business owner, or part of a large corporation, your Wi-Fi network is a potential target. And with the emergence of IoT devices, such as smart thermostats, security cameras, and voice assistants, the risk is much bigger than ever.

Here's the good news: You don't need to be a tech genius to protect yourself. By learning the basics of Wi-Fi security or even enrolling in a cybersecurity and ethical hacking course, you can take control of your digital safety.

How to Secure Your Wi-Fi Network: Tips from the Pros

Want to make your Wi-Fi network hacker-proof? Here are some practical tips inspired by ethical hackers:

Use Strong Passwords: Avoid using common passwords, such as "admin" or "password123." Instead, use long complex phrase with letters, numbers, and symbols.

Enable WPA3 Encryption: The latest Wi-Fi encryption protocol is WPA3; if your router supports it, switch to WPA3.

Update Your Router's Firmware: Manufacturers in their official websites may have coming updates that address security vulnerabilities. Check and update the firmware on your router to a newer edition.

WPS: Wi-Fi Protected Setup is convenient but highly insecure. Just turn it off to minimize brute-force attacks.

Check Connected Devices: You would be surprised to know which device is connected to your network if you don't check it periodically. If something looks suspicious, investigate immediately.

Ready to Be a Wi-Fi Warrior?

If this deep dive into Wi-Fi hacking has piqued your interest, why not take it further? A cybersecurity and ethical hacking course can teach you the skills you need to protect yourself—and maybe even turn your passion for tech into a rewarding career. Imagine being the person who uncovers vulnerabilities, thwarts cyberattacks, and keeps the digital world safe. Sounds exciting, doesn't it?

Ethical hacking is not the art of hacking into systems, but understanding how they work so that such knowledge can be applied to strengthen their defenses. In a world that is ever changing with threats through cyber, it has never been a better time to learn.

Final Thoughts

It sounds like something out of a spy movie, but the truth is that Wi-Fi hacking is an everyday threat in your life. The good news is that with the right information and tools you can protect yourself and your loved ones from becoming cybercrime victims. However, whether you are a tech enthusiast or a complete beginner, a course in cybersecurity and ethical hacking will empower you to take the lead in digital security.

Remember the next time you connect to a Wi-Fi network: those invisible waves keeping you online can be the doors for hackers. Stay informed and vigilant, and maybe you will end up being that ethical hacker who saves the day.

So, stay safe and happy ethical hacking!

[luviddreqms]

Can you tell us more on inverted dreamswap characters personality traits

HELL YEAH

Cw: Mentions of drug abuse, alcoholism, and other stuff that may not sit well with you

Revion (Dream's invert) : He's that one guy that people tell you to avoid interacting with as much as possible. Revion wants to watch all of humanity burn and make life as uncomfortable as possible for what he sees as mistakes of creation. He flirts with people to objectify them and give people motives to become criminals. If he doesn't do these things to you, congrats, he likes you. This is partially Bex (Ani's invert)'s fault, Bex killed whatever sympathy Revion had left in him. Even if he looks dumb he is emotionally intelligent. It's how he knows what gets people to tick and why he likes people who don't fit into social norms personality wise. (Also, he's a big drug addict and a alcoholic)

Bliss (NM's invert): The smallest things set him off, and he thinks everyone is against him even when they're not, which is why he has no friends. He has roommates, but just because you live together doesn't mean you have to like each other. The way he dresses tells you a lot about how he thinks about himself, too. He also has a pet fox, Lenny (Kevin's invert), that he neglects, so the other two have to take care of her instead. Lenny is literally the sweetest angel (literally) that you couldn't believe came from the same household as Bliss. Bliss is pretty smart logically, though.

Jioo (Ink's invert): The sweetest person ever, very popular with people, many friends, but his kindness often leads to him being a people pleaser, which leads him ultimately into situations he never wanted to be in. He's the yes men of yes men. It takes a long time before he eventually reaches his limit.

Hallow (Cross's invert): Despite his cold exterior, everything about him stems from his insecurities. From the way he dresses to how he acts, it's to make sure he's as textbook definition normal as possible so that he doesn't leave any kind of impression to people that he's weird. He approaches things logically, and even if he's blunt, the things he says are technically fact. He's still human, and he still has interests. They're just hidden deep deep down.

Robyn (Finch's invert): He's loud, reckless, and more open. He has way too much energy than the average person and sometimes just says things without thinking. An act before you think kind of guy.

Patch (Error's invert): Remember fanon Error? The "UwU-boy" Error? That's how he acts. Now, also add a victim complex in there, and you have Patch.

I just wanna explain the surface level definition of a victim complex before we move on; it's when a person feels they are constantly victim. People who suffer from this can start blaming others for their problems, take things personally, feel unseen, and isolate themselves socially. Another thing: just identifying with some of these surface level symptoms doesn't mean you have a victim complex or any other mental illness. Please check with an actual professional, this is just to give an idea on how Patch's personality is.

Rust (Blue's invert): In silly terms; he comes the closest to matching Bliss's freak. In actual terms; he has anger issues. But he can be nice to people he actually likes. He also very much enjoys violence and is a masochist.

Deslor (Hacker's invert): He is not a fan of intimacy. Specifically sexual intimacy. He's just got too much on his plate for that. After all, being a doctor in an underground clinic while having your medical license revoked for malpractice is a taxing job. He takes his job seriously and is a germaphobe

Randall (Randy's invert): You mention being a dad to him once, and he'll look at you with disgust. To him, Deslor and Servie are annoying coworkers. To him, all that matters is that the job is done and that he's paid.

Servie (Bobby's invert): He's a very calm and soft-spoken guy. He's really popular and is actually in school, studying to be a dentist. He plays baseball as an extracurricular and prefers to be in the great outdoors than be inside cooped up in a house.

[vikenticomeshome]

Cyberchase - Revising Digit's Backstory (part 2)

The Hacker was more organized for the Gollywood bank heist than he was with the armored cars. He was the man in the recharger chair monitoring the situation, as he could not risk being seen. Digit did much of the covert work of quietly unlocking doors and drilling holes in walls, as The Hacker could not risk losing his most valuable henchman. Buzz and Delete were there for the crowd control and heavy lifting, as they were too stupid to be trusted with anything else.

The bank heist went well at first. The Hacker hacked into the security cameras and set them to only show a looping video on the security monitors. Buzz and Delete tore apart the alarm system as instructed. However, in their fumbling, they also tore apart the phone system, which wasn't part of the plan. Digit opened the vault without any difficulty. They vacuumed up Snelfu after Snelfu into a small fleet of remote-controlled Cybercoupes. As each Cybercoupe filled, it was sent back to the Northern Frontier via a different route. If a Cybercoupe was intercepted, it was set to blow-up to hide the navigational data. The Hacker quickly became a multi-millionaire.

However, even The Hacker could not anticipate everything. As the Cyber-sun began to rise, the guard watching the monitors realized that the cameras were still showing nighttime. The guard was not alarmed yet. They thought that maybe the cameras were malfunctioning. The guard attempted to call their supervisor, but the line was dead. Recognizing that they were cut off and fearing for their safety, the guard pressed the button to set off the alarm. Nothing happened. This confirmed the guard's fears that the system had been tempered with.

At this point, another worker was able to alert the Gollywood PD. The Hacker pulled everyone out. Digit was able to escape unseen, but Buzz and Delete were caught. The Hacker knew that he was in trouble, as Buzz and Delete would tell everyone who he was, and where his base of operations was. Without a proper ship like the Grim Wreaker, he became a sitting duck.

Digit was able to disguise himself as a guard, pick the lock to the holding cell, and bring them out. However, there was no time to ruin the security cameras. For the first time, Digit's face, albeit disguised, was associated with the crime. By the time Buzz and Delete were retrieved, they had mentioned the name "The Hacker", with an emphasis on the "The". But that name meant nothing in Gollywood, and the police had no idea where the money had gone.

However, the heist of the Bank of Gollywood was a big deal. Nine million Snelfus were lost. The armored truck heists were allowed to remain local affairs, but something this big went straight to Motherboard. At this point, The Hacker laid low. His money was hidden in Valussa. He sent Buzz and Delete away to a Cyber-Cheese factory, where they could blend in with many more Botopolis kit robots. The remote-controlled Cyber-Coupes were destroyed across Cyberspace. Then, all The Hacker had for transport was the slow pod that he was banished in. And all The Hacker had for an ally and caretaker was Digit.

Motherboard and Dr. Marbles were shown what little evidence remained. The two captured bots had claimed to have been working for someone called "The Hacker", but they had escaped before any further questioning could be done. There was also footage of the last time the bots were seen, where they were being led away from the prison by a guard. Motherboard and Dr. Marbles recognized Digit through the disguise, but they decided to hold that information back, as they were in disbelief over seeing him again.

The Hacker and Digit were put on trial for the crime, in spite of the lack of evidence. The prosecution presented The Hacker as a cunning mastermind causing chaos beyond what Cyberspace had ever seen, with Digit as his purpose-built tool. The Hacker presented himself as a sick Cyborg with a broken power supply living out his exile. He arrived in a recharger chair cobbled together from odds and ends that he (truthfully) needed to survive.

The entire Northern Frontier was searched for the Snelfus or any alternate forms of transport, but nothing was found. Without the two bots, the stolen Snelfus, or any reasonable transport to cross Cyberspace to reach Gollywood, the entire case against The Hacker rested on the idea that Digit worked alongside The Hacker during the heist. However, without the information from Dr. Marbles or Motherboard, they could not prove that he was in the guard uniform. Digit took the stand and denied any involvement for himself or The Hacker with the bank heist or the prison break.

As part of the questioning, Digit was asked about The Hacker's prior crime of stealing the Encryptor Chip, and whether he believed that The Hacker had tried to take over Cyberspace at the time. Digit's reply was "Well of course I do! I retrieved the chip and turned him in to Motherboard for it!". With the reveal that Digit had previously foiled The Hacker's theft of the Encryptor Chip, there was no way to convince anyone that he had helped The Hacker in the Gollywood bank heist. The prosecution's case imploded.

Though Motherboard believed that The Hacker had done it, she was bound by the laws. The Hacker and Digit were acquitted, and the Cyber-Constitution ensured that they could not be tried again for the Gollywood Heist. Shortly after The Hacker left the courtroom, Buzz and Delete quietly returned to him from the Cyber-cheese factory.

The Hacker's wealth was gradually retrieved from Valussa and used to fund the construction of the Grim Wreaker. There were times when Digit yearned for the old days when they both worked at Control Central, but any serious idea of leaving The Hacker had left him. He wasn't even sure when that had happened. Maybe it had been that first ride to Valussa. Hacker had been so quiet, trying to keep himself alive with what little power Motherboard had so cruelly marooned him with.

Meanwhile, Motherboard and Dr. Marbles were distraught. They realized at last that Digit had been instrumental in saving Cyberspace once already. There was no doubt now that he would have never gone willingly with The Hacker. No, their theory was that Digit had been abducted, they had failed to act, and that The Hacker had reprogrammed him to prevent further betrayals. They desperately wanted to save him, but forcibly reprogrammed borgs were an absolute nightmare of red tape to deal with. They needed time to build a case.

With the Grim Wreaker completed, and still millions of Snelfus left-over, The Hacker was ready announce himself to the world. But it wouldn't be another bank heist this time. With his money out of Valussa, and no further use for the site's armored cars, he had no reason to keep their lights on.

And so, The Hacker revealed his power to all of Cyberspace. Buzz and Delete were delighted, for what that was worth. Digit, on the other hand, found himself feeling sick. This wasn't an armored car dumping its money and having it blamed on rust. This wasn't a big bank getting drained. This was an entire Cybersite being conquered and dropping off the map. He thought back to the theft of the Encryptor Chip, the first and last time he had stood against The Hacker. Had Motherboard and Dr. Marbles been right to send The Hacker away after all? He thought back to that first armored car, when it had just been him and The Hacker. He had only wanted to get him the money to keep them both alive. It had seemed like no big deal back then, when The Hacker was so weak and desperate. The Hacker wasn't weak anymore.

But then, what was Digit supposed to do? The Hacker would surely punish him if he tried to defect now. And where would he go? He knew he couldn't go back to Motherboard. From the armored car heists, to the bank robbery, to freeing Buzz and Delete, to ruining the court case against The Hacker, Digit knew he was a bad guy now. Nothing he could do would change that. The Hacker had only had one chance, a chance that he had thrown away by stealing the encryptor chip. Digit knew that he had received many more chances than that, and he had thrown the last one away in that courtroom.

No, he had to do something to stop The Hacker. Even if he couldn't side with Motherboard, he had to side with Valussa. Digit decided to send a coded message down to Valussa. If they could figure it out, they would be saved. Maybe, just maybe, The Hacker wouldn't find out this time. A future of armored trucks and banks would be better than this.

At that point, Dr Marbles had arrived at Valussa to assess the situation. The circuits were scrambled, and it had been done by someone who knew how to make the repairs as difficult as possible. There was no doubt that The Hacker had done it personally. Still, without inside information, this was going to take ages to repair. Motherboard had insisted that she would be fine while he was away, and that his priority was to save Valussa. And so, he started from the site's endpoint, with its known power requirements. He needed to work out the correct position of each node in the giant tangled circuit.

And then the coded message came through. It was Digit's work. His writing style was all over it. But why was he sending it? Was this some sort of taunt? Surely, The Hacker would approve a taunt to be sent without writing it in code.

Still, the code wasn't hard to work out.

"MOVE MOON RAY LEFT TWO FEET"

Dr. Marbles read the message over and over again. Was this some kind of trick? Was it really this simple? Dr. Marbles made some calculations, this time starting from the moon. Yes, even among the mess of circuits, there was an alternate path there. Moving the moon ray left by two feet would re-activate the site. It was almost as if The Hacker had left an alternate path on purpose so that he could make a big show of turning on the lights later. Marbles gave the order, and the site was restored. After everything, Digit had saved Valussa.

Unfortunately, The Hacker was also able to break the code. He was aware of Digit's betrayal. And this time, he had two more henchman, a few million Snelfus, and a large ship. There was no reason to be calm this time. No, this time, The Hacker was enraged. After everything they had been through together, Digit had ruined him again. First, The Hacker had lost the Encryptor Chip, and now he had lost the very first site he tried to take over.

Of course, Digit needed to be caged. If this was some attempt to defect to Motherboard, then The Hacker had to quash that immediately. Digit was still his perfect machine, and he had given him all sorts of useful abilities. if Digit stood in opposition to The Hacker, it would ruin him.

But Digit was not so easily caged. After all, he still had his beak, purpose-built by The Hacker to open such locks. And so, he made his escape.

The Hacker refused to give up, of course. The Grim Wreaker roared past Valussa in pursuit of Digit. The only option available to Digit was Control Central. Sure, between the bank and the armored cars, he was terrified of what Motherboard might do to him. Still, if there was anyone that could cause The Hacker to flee, it would be her.

Buzz and Delete pleaded with The Hacker to turn away from Control Central, as they feared Motherboard's wrath. However, he would not listen. The Hacker was just too damn mad. What had started as a small show of power in an insignificant cybersite...what had started at armored truck robberies...had become a full frontal assault on her. This wasn't part of the plan. The breach wasn't there. The virus wasn't there. Motherboard was still the same bastion of strength as before. But Motherboard would not have his bird, even if Hacker had to crush it against the site's dome.

As both Digit and the Grim Wreaker neared Control Central, Motherboard opened a portal. With The Hacker closing in, Digit reluctantly entered the portal. The Grim Wreaker attempted to follow.

And Motherboard put her foot down.

And so, Digit was face-to-face with Motherboard again after so long. The dome of Control Central's main room reminded him of the bird cage he had just left. And he wasn't stupid enough to try drilling his way out of this one. Not when she had eyes all of the room. Her first question was "Are you hurt?". He knew his wing was broken. "I'm fine. Thank you," he replied. He felt her running medical scans almost immediately. "Your wing is broken," she said. He wondered when she had bought a medical scanner calibrated for Cy-boids.

Motherboard continued. "I can help fix it, but I need your permission to power you down first." Powering down seemed like a good idea right about now. Digit nodded, and Motherboard powered him down. When Digit awoke later, he was in his old bed. For a moment, he had some hope that everything had just been a bad dream. Maybe he would get up, join The Hacker in the Legacy Communications Array (LCA) for its near-constant maintenance needs, and everything would be like how it had been before.

But, of course, The Hacker was nowhere to be found. Everything Digit had done was real. And now, he was in Control Central. He wasn't really in the same room as Motherboard. No, Motherboard was the room, more or less. Her eyes were everywhere. Her sensors were everywhere. Every wall in the place had at least one layer of circuit boards behind it, hence the removable decorative panels.

With no other option, Digit arrived in the main control room. Dr. Marbles was at the keyboard, and Motherboard was on-screen.

To be continued

[chaotic-would-you-rathers]

Would you rather...

A: Gain a random psychic power for one hour (of the list under 'keep reading') whenever someone drinks your blood (only one at a time) B: Gain a random psychic power for one hour (of the list under 'keep reading') whenever you drink someones blood (only one at a time) C: Gain a psychic power of your choice (from the list under 'keep reading') but you can only use it for 24 hours a month (you can distribute the hours however you like) D: Gain a psychic power of your choice (from the list under 'keep reading') permanantly, with no time restricitions on use, however, you cannot control it fully and it will activate erratically (and dangerously) when you experience strong emotion, physical sensation or when you are drunk/half asleep/otherwise not fully in control

THE LIST: Telekinesis, Thermokinesis (harder to control than pyro or cryo), Pyrokinesis, Cryokinesis, Mind Reading, Telepathy, Levitation, Nucleokinesis, Chronokinesis, Hydrokinesis, Aerokinesis, Geokinesis, Biokiniesis, Precognition, Panoptic Vision, Eye Rays, Self-Regeneration, Healing, Electrokinesis, Barriers, Teleportation, Gravity Manipulation, Spacial Manipulation, Mass/size alteration, Shapeshifting, Mind Control, Sleep Induction, Resurrection, Duplication (making duplicate bodies of yourself you control), Possession, Dream Manipulation/Invasion, Dream Oracles, Unfathomability (ability to make yourself an incomprehensible eldritch horror), Insanity Induction, Ultra-Durability (sufficient to be bulletproof, survive a few min on the surface of the sun, etc), Toxin Creation/Manipulation (ability to create and modify toxins, inclusing your own body fluids/parts), Spacial Displacement (ability to teleport a selected area/object/being to a random location within a given area around yourself (area dimensions can be changed)), Automatic Reincarnation upon death (only while ability active, your choice will carry over into the next lives you live this way), Trans-dimensional teleportation, Undead Creation/Manipulation (if the ability stops being used, they return to corpses), Entropic Dissolution (ability to accelarate the entropy of a desired object at will, speed customisable, in other words, it ages things rapidly), Psychic Energy Shield (a 3m diamater bubble of protection around you, can protect against any external threat (including keeping air in etc), however, something that can become deadly after entering can still harm you, such as a person, and it only works while concious), Object Repair (ability to 'repair' inanimate objects, repair is subjective, so can also be used to return things to base components, etc), Astral Projection, Pain Induction, 'Perfect Memory' (ability to remember literally everything with no mental overload, when active, you will regain all forgotten memories), Universal Language (allows understanding and use of all langauges, even ones you dont have the body parts or brain structure/senses for, like animal or plant languages), Instant-Evolution (adapts you or a selected living organism to its current situation), Imperceptibility (ability to be unable to be noticed by things, living or mechanical, even if they look right at you or view a video of the time), Memory alteration (of yourself or others), Technological Manipulation (movie hacker powers, plus you can control any machine at will if you can observe it), ability to see through objects, ability to see that which is unseen (radiation, nonvisible light, sound, the underlying structure of reality, invisible ppl, etc), Invisibility, Plant Manipulation, Ansectral Power (ability to call upon the memories and skills of your ancsestors), ability to learn skills at 1000x the normal speed, and finally, ability to create food/drinks you have previosuly eaten/drunk out of nothingness