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makeste · 3 years

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BnHA Chapter 318: On Your Left

Previously on BnHA: The Hawksquad+Lurkers were all “well this sucks” and sat around a bit talking about how maybe they should actually come up with a new plan that is actually good, but then in the end they were like “nah.” Deku was all, “THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE ME THAT PULLS BENEATH THE SURFACE!! CONSUMING, CONFUSING!! THIS LACK OF SELF CONTROL I FEAR IS NEVERENDING. IT’S HAUNTING HOW I CANT SEEM TO FIND MYSELF AGAIN. MY WALLS ARE CLOSING IN.” Just, literally that whole entire song. All Might was all “Deku you should take care of yourself, try eating a thing,” and Deku was all “BYE, ALL MIGHT,” and just LEFT. He left!!! What the fuck!!!

Today on BnHA: Endeavor is all, “maybe if Deku didn’t listen to All Might he’ll listen to me instead.” Deku is all, “[doesn’t listen to Endeavor]” because, well, yeah. The Vestiges are all, “surprisingly, even we are a little concerned -- maybe you should get some rest, kid.” Deku is all, “((Ò ‸ Ó)).” The Vestiges are all, “holy shit.” Deku is all, “[wanders the ruined city streets terrifying the populace on account of him looking like Shelob had a baby with one of the Nazgul].” Some shriveled-up puppeteer villain asshole is all, “HORIKOSHI SAID IT’S MY TURN TO ATTACK DEKU TODAY SO I AM GOING TO SUMMON MY FRIGHTENED HELPLESS ATTACK MOB!!” Kacchan is all “WHADDYA MEAN THEY FOUND THE NERD!!! -- oh wait, that’s me, I found him. I found the nerd, you guys.” And just in time, too. I was about to owe a whole lot of people a whole lot of dollars.

so I have been super good about spoilers this week as always, but let me tell you guys, for the past 36 hours my dash filters have basically been nonstop “manga spoilers” this and “bnha 318” that, and so I’m coming in with a fair amount of hype here. your move, Horikoshi

oh, good! they got Endeavor to call Deku to try to talk him out of it. what a great and wonderful plan

“listen up kid, you haven’t slept since March and you are basically a walking biohazard right now, I’m just telling it like it is. didn’t you get shot like three times?? and there was a whole thing about how you urgently needed medical attention?? and supposedly we gave it to you, but I mean you haven’t even changed your clothes and don’t seem to have any fresh bandages or anything, so did we?? did we, really?? and also we all got blown up yesterday, so yeah.” hmm he’s making some reasonable points here you guys, but you sure do go on and on, Endeavor

oh he says foreign aid is finally on its way! I’m sure they’ll be very helpful. I mean in fairness they can hardly be worse than the home-grown heroes at this point

hey Enji, could you maybe try appealing to Deku the sixteen-year-old human boy, as opposed to Deku The World’s Last Hope? he does have value beyond his quirk. I know that’s always been an incredibly difficult concept for you to grasp, but could you maybe TRY, jesus

and also we’re worried about you as a person?? you’re just a kid and you’re pushing yourself way too hard?? you were going to say that part next, right. why the hell didn’t Hawks make this call instead

“don’t worry about me... I’m completely fine” Deku you do understand that saying it over and over again doesn’t actually make it true

and again with the rush!! all the rush rush rush!! we’re running out of time, we can’t let AFO and Tomura keep getting stronger, I have to end this now, there’s no time to rest, etc. etc. etc. just the constant pressure of this whole big countdown on top of everything else

holy shit, you KNOW it’s bad when even the Vestiges are telling him to chill

these guys are basically the walking talking embodiments of self-sacrifice; if even they’re telling him he needs to take five, then he must seriously be like half a step away from death’s door

OH SHIT LMAO

DIDN’T EVEN LET HIM FINISH HIS SENTENCE BEFORE HE SENT HIM INTO THE FUCKING SHADOW REALM WITH THAT FUCKING LOOK. HOLY FUCK. DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DIE TWICE. SHIT

(ETA: so I’m pretty sure this was just Danger Sense activating and so he cut them off to go do more hero stuff, but I’m gonna go ahead and stick to my original interpretation anyway lol.)

anyway so how’s everybody doing. we all good? En, you good? Banjou? Shino? I’m imagining you guys all curled up in a little ball on the floor right now lol. can’t say I blame you though, no shame

lmaoooooooooooo

“SHEESH.” sheesh indeed, lmao. “what in the FUCK was that”

see, this is why y’all need Kacchan. you need someone who’s not going to back down from him no matter what. if it’s a matter of out-stubborning Midoriya fucking Izuku, then there’s only one other person on the planet capable of that, and we all know it. don’t pretend like you don’t. I am not going to shut up about this! we’ve had our hurt so now what about SOME COMFORT, DAMMIT

“I’m afraid that he’s becoming influenced by my conscience” nah are you kidding Nana this is all 100% made-in-Japan pure original Deku right here

see, Banjou gets it. “that kid, he’s totally going on his own.” exactly. this was so inevitable it was basically scientific law

“well I for one don’t see the problem with Deku being so obsessed with saving everyone else that he pushes himself until his body and soul literally fall apart” okay, whose speech bubbles are these?? we’re about to have words

lol of course

well you always did prefer the direct route didn’t you. but even you can’t possibly think this is okay lol

dark AU!Kacchan please tell us more about your badass doomed timeline in which everything went to shit and you apparently had the same character arc that Deku is having right now except it somehow made you sexier instead of turning you into a rabid t-rex. I have so many questions

oh so now you want to help??? well -- good, actually. sorry if that sounded offended just now lol

(ETA: so at first when I got to the end of this chapter I was wondering if Katsuki B. had somehow summoned his alternate-universe counterpart through trippy OFA space telepathy lol. but in the original Japanese there’s no reference to “we”, so this appears to be a mistranslation. this line should probably read more like “if there’s something/someone out there that would be able to complement/complete the current Midoriya Izuku [it would be]…” which, oh hello, is that Horikoshi once again reaffirming that Deku and Bakugou complete each other lol. “guess what guys, the Vestiges ship it too" heck yeah. they know what’s up!)

look how admiring his boyfriends are. HORIKOSHI GIVE US THE REST OF THIS BACKSTORY ALREADY GODDAMMIT

“meanwhile somewhere in the depths of the ruined city, Deku was having a dance-off with the villains”

I like how the villains all have this “AHH WHAT THE FUCK” kind of body language to them lol. I mean if it were me, and an eldritch horror suddenly clawed its way from the shadows with its writhing glowy tentacles and pants-shitting nuclear death stare, I would probably just die on the spot. no need to stick around. only pain awaits

lol for a minute I thought this was Can’t Ya See-kun and I was like “WHAT A FASCINATING CROSSING OF PATHS” but it’s just some random girl

he seems genuinely confused lol

Deku it’s because you look like something that crawled out of a sewer drain, sweetheart

lol they just took his word for it?

so trusting. even though they’re immediately hauling ass anyway just to be safe lmao

“my appearance is frightening to others” no shit Deku it’s because you look like a fucking alien exorcism. you look like a Lich that got caught up in an oil spill my dude

NO NOT THE CHOSEN ONE ANGST AGAIN

I RAN OUT OF ESSAY JUICE FOR THIS ALREADY HORIKOSHI!! I’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR MONTHS NOW WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG!! BUT ANYWAYS, GOOD!! I MEAN, BAD, THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY. BUT YES

“ENJOY THIS MONTAGE OF DEKU BATTLING A RANDOM KAIJU AND WANDERING THE WOODS LIKE A DERANGED GREEN BABA YAGA” okay yes but sir, exactly how much longer is this going to go on. if it’s a matter of you wanting to make sure we get it, let me assure you that aside from a few stray chuunis who think that Deku embracing the Darkness is the coolest thing he’s ever done, all of us here in fandom fully comprehend that this is Not Good

-- OH SO IT’S LIKE THAT

really. with the flashbacks to his loved ones’ smiling faces and everything. not even gonna try to aim above the belt, huh

AND NO KACCHAN??! NO CLASSMATES?!?! IS HE PURPOSELY NOT THINKING OF THEM??? OR ARE THEY BEING SAVED FOR THE NEXT PAGE??? SO HELP ME, IF THE NEXT PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS “CAN PROTECT THEM”, OR EVEN WORSE, “CAN SEE THEIR SMILING FACES AGAIN”, I...

WHAT DID I JUST SAY

(ETA: my man did Sero and Kaminari fucking dirty lmao. I miss their smiling faces too omg.)

the sheer, unparalleled irony of him saying this while he stands there looking like the gargoyle demon from Fantasia got crossed with an umbrella that got struck by lightning. Deku :(

oi who the fuck is this clown

is he controlling this mob with his evil hair. “what if I made an exhausted, running-on-fumes Deku battle a brainwashed mob at Ground Zero.” Horikoshi do you just have like a checklist of horrible things you want to do to your protagonist

easy there Sasori

well joke’s on you buddy because he’s apparently “completely fine”, so

“here’s to hoping that you know more about AFO’s location than the others” jesus christ Deku you really have hung your mercy out to dry huh

now he’s forcing his mob of terrified prisoners to attack Deku ahhhh. sucks to be them. at least they’re not being controlled by bees

so Deku is saying that Sasori’s control can be broken with “physical trauma.” similar to Shinsou’s quirk I guess. but so does that mean he’s gonna have to hurt them? ( •﹏•)

NO NOT MORE SAD EYES

“DEATH BY EMPATHY!!!” HORIKOSHI NO

fuck. he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out

this is what happens when you nerf a character’s self-preservation stats in favor of spamming their bone-breaking stats instead. NOW ACCEPTING BRAIN CELL DONATIONS FOR A BOY IN NEED!! with your loving generosity we can hopefully help him live to the ripe old age of seventeen

OMGFGGG

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[grabs your hands] ლ(*꒪ヮ꒪*)ლ [swings you in a circle] へ(ﾟ◇ﾟへ)

THASSSSSSSS WHATSSSSSSS UPPPPPPPPPP

HORIKOSHI REALLY SAID FUCK THAT MASK (ノ°ο°)ノ YOU FINALLY LEARNED!! IT’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!

JUST FOR YOU KACCHAN, HORIKOSHI LEFT THIS ONE BAD GUY WHO’S STILL WEAK TO FIRE. GOD BLESS

IT’S YOUR COUNTERPART, KATSUKI B!!!! HOW WE DOIN OVER THERE IN THE TRIPPY COSMIC OFA SPACE REALM LOL. DO WE BELIEVE YET, FANDOM???

LIGHTS!!!!

INSTANT RESULTS!!! IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!!

(ETA: imagine what this must look like to Deku though. he’s been caught up in this dark cloud of despair and exhaustion that’s been building up over... I’m gonna go ahead and say “weeks”, because yeah. and now he finds himself here, in the place where All Might’s legacy ended and the torch was passed to him. and the world is in ruins, and he’s surrounded by frightened people who are all trying to hurt him -- because who isn’t trying to hurt him, these days -- and he’s scrambling to figure this all out, but meanwhile the weariness is finally starting to catch up to him, and so he’s basically just standing there in a fog of complete and utter misery.

and then all of a sudden through that haze, he hears the one voice that’s more familiar than any other that he knows. like, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he thought he was just imagining it at first. Kacchan showing up to save him right when he’s at his most desperate and feeling the most alone. Kacchan, showing up to save him.

this is the person he always looked up to as a child (to be fair he was quite a strange child lmao). the person who was even closer to him than All Might. the person he always thought was amazing. and bam, here he is now. appearing in the sky out of nowhere to one-shot the bad guy with a single blast (which, btw, that was his armor-piercing attack too lmao dslkjlk take it easy there kiddo). like, that must have felt absolutely surreal to him, especially coming at a time when he’s already half-delirious and barely hanging on to reality. he must have really thought that he was losing it there for a second.

but he’s really there. it really is him. and for this brief moment -- before the rest of the situation catches up to him, and he remembers about all of the fucked-up AFO stuff, and remembers why he was so afraid and why he was pushing everyone away -- for just this one brief moment, he’s too exhausted and stunned to do anything except to just react. just stands there, looking up at him in awe.

and you know, it almost reminds me of...

just. you guys. the character development. the freaking character development. someone who brings reassurance. someone who shows up and makes you think, “oh, it’s all going to be okay now, because [person] is here.” the role reversals. the growth. the payoff!! because who is the one person who always had faith that Kacchan would one day grow up to become an amazing hero like that. WHO IS IT. YOU ALREADY KNOW.

omg. anyways, bless you Horikoshi, my feels which have been on backorder since fucking September have finally arrived lmao. yes, good, thank you. worth the wait. it is always, always worth the wait. fuck yeah.)

“LOWFRIES” SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THE WHOLE GANG IS HERE, AHHHHHHHH (º̩̩́⌣º̩̩̀ )

BEAUTIFUL. WONDERFUL. SENSATIONAL. I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT JUMP IS ON BREAK NEXT WEEK. THIS RIGHT HERE WILL SUSTAIN ME

#bnha 318 #midoriya izuku #BAKUGOU KATSUKI #!!!!#twowy mctwoface #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha meta #bakudeku #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha

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giorno-plays-piano · 4 years

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The Void

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x mutant!Reader

Warnings: yandere, obsession, HYDRA’s experiments, brief mention of suicidal thoughts, captivity, home invasion, stalking, kidnapping.

Words: 2381.

Summary: Once an ordinary human, you keep running away from both HYDRA and Avengers, knowing what your powers will be used for. The problem is the Soldat picking up your trail.

P.S. The reader is somewhat dark-ish in this one.

________________

Carefully slipping inside the laundry room through a broken window, you landed on the cold concrete floor and shivered, hoping you could find a really warm blanket somewhere upstairs.

Although you still felt a bit ashamed breaking in the houses of other people like that, at this point it was the one and only alternative you had. Of course, there was always an option to submit to HYDRA or whoever else was hunting you down, but you didn’t really appreciated it, simply trying to stay away from both heroes and villains since to you they were all the same. You knew perfectly well once somebody captured you they’d be using you for murdering other people.

Thankfully, laundry room wasn’t locked, and you started wandering the house, peeping into each and every room. Watching photos of the family the house belonged to, you felt guilty again. These people weren’t at fault you were homeless and chased out from every damn place on the Earth, but you still took what was theirs just because you could find no other way to live. Well, at least you tried to leave the place as it had been prior to your break-in, except a broken window in the laundry room and canned beans you’d eat.

God, you could kill for a bowl of homemade chicken soup. You barely remembered eating it before HYDRA captured you a few years ago. Of course, they didn’t try to starve you there, but you couldn’t call what they’d been giving you real food either. Thinking of your cell and those meals made you squeeze your eyes shut and take a deep breath. Everywhere was better than there, so you needed to put your shit together and take whatever fate offered you.

It was getting late, and you glanced at the tiny window in the basement, wrapped in a big grey comforter you brought from upstairs. You never slept in the rooms of other people, not knowing when the rightful owners of the houses you broke in could come back. Generally, you didn’t have problems with people, either escaping before their return or finding your way out secretly without them knowing somebody was hiding in their basement. However, sometimes you had a feeling people hunting you were coming close, and you didn’t risk getting too comfortable. Today was one of those days, and you bit down on your lower lip. These ones were probably not HYDRA operatives - they’d never risk attacking you at night when your powers were at peak. Nevertheless, it didn’t mean whoever was coming for you was harmless. You had to be prepared.

That’s it. Somebody was approaching, you could feel it in your bones. It was probably the one and only thing you were grateful to HYDRA - you were nearly invincible in the dark.

Silently leaving the comforter on the floor near an empty can, you got up, moving to stand near the wall behind the door, hardened black mass blocking tiny windows and leaving the intruder only one way to get in. You hoped they weren’t bringing explosives as you still had a hard time compressing the darkness around them - a month ago it resulted in some serious damage done to the house where you were hiding.

But this time was different: there was only one man who came for you, A strange man, though. He had a metal arm, and his body… It was something you had never felt before. The man was like that Duracell bunny they showed in TV ad, enhanced to the point he was barely human, probably.

But he was still just a man, now all alone with a monster like you.

When he entered quietly, leaving the door barely open, you blew it off its hinges. You had very little patience - now you would have to have a sleepless night, trying to find a new hideout as far as you could from this place and hoping HYDRA wouldn’t track you down. Its operatives were way more creative in their attempts to catch you: that mirror box trapping light nearly killed you last time.

Wrapping your fists into black mass like boxing gloves, you punched the man, but he quickly moved away, apparently, more skilled in combat than you were. Well, whatever, you thought as the darkness disintegrated on top of your skin, and then the intruder got a direct blow to his stomach without you getting near him. Coming to you at night was a suicide.

You kept beating him down until he dropped to the cold floor of the basement, beads of sweat and blood shining on his skin as you pinned him down, completely unharmed. You did your best to avoid the vital organs, but it was probably unnecessary - you could literally feel the soldier regenerating while he laid down, staring at the ceiling. Was he HYDRA’s creation just like you were? Or did good guys make beasts like him, too?

“I won’t do anything to you,” you told him, coming closer to look into his surprisingly handsome face, “but I’ll kill whoever you send to catch me next.”

“HYDRA’s… coming after you.” The soldier muttered, coughing and wincing from pain as you towered above him.

“You or them, doesn’t matter much.”

A part of you felt remorse for beating the stranger so bad he couldn’t rip the restraints holding him down despite his enormous strength, but the other part made you remember you were the victim, not him. The only thing you ever wanted was living like a human being, not a lab rat or a weapon of mass destruction used by whoever hold you hostage.

Besides, if this guy didn’t know the nature of your powers before attacking you, now he certainly did. It was unwise to let him live - he would definitely let his masters know - but you couldn’t force yourself to end him. Killing wasn’t nice. You had never enjoyed it.

“Avengers can protect you.”

What? Did the man work for them, then? You smirked, shaking you head.

“Avengers can’t protect themselves. Now please be quiet and let me leave. We’re done for today.” Turning your back at him, you went to grab your backpack and then put a few cans in it to continue your journey, tired and upset you couldn’t rest despite travelling all day long.

“I can help you.”

You abruptly turned to face him still chained to the floor and clenched your teeth. This was what HYDRA’s men were telling you year after year. Helping you, that what they were doing.

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to plant spikes right through your tongue.” You hissed at him, going back and watching him with his pretty mouth finally shut. “If you wanna play a hero so much, go wipe HYDRA out and forget I’ve ever existed.”

The soldier stayed silent, and you exhaled angrily, marching through the basement to the stairs and quickly going up. God knew how many people could be waiting for you outside of the house - Avengers were usually gathering together on the missions, even you knew that from occasionally seeing them in the news.

Shit, it was going to be a long night.

________________________

One more month was gone as you continued to run and hide like the world’s top criminal, chased out of many cities where you could find peace for at least a couple of days. Now it was mostly one-night sleepovers anywhere you could find. You finally understood what being a mad dog meant - sometimes you thought you could kill for those canned beans you hated so much before.

Slowly, but surely you were running out of options where to hide. The only place now was the forest surrounding that little town where you relocated after your brief encounter with HYDRA two days ago. Forest was a bad place to be. You had very little skills allowing you to survive out in the wild for long. The more you thought about that, the more you realized you had, in fact, only one option left.

Suicide. Only then you could become truly free of that mad chase and ensure no one would use your abilities for killing others. You already had enough blood on your hands.

And still, when you though of black spikes piercing your head, you were shaking. It would be so much easier if somebody just shot you when you weren’t looking.

Huh, what a cruel world you lived in, you thought while finishing a can of chicken ham - God, you didn’t even remember when you ate something so delicious. It was harder to imagine killing yourself after a good meal, but you still considered the option, looking at the carpet with a dull expression on your face.

You were euphoric after your escape from that facility where you were held, and now you were thinking maybe it was better to just wither there like all those countless men and women before you, unable to contain their enormous powers in pathetic human bodies. What was the point of being so strong if you couldn’t have your life back? What were these powers for except the destruction? You’d gladly exchange your fantastic abilities on a chance to return home to your family. That is, if HYDRA let it be, which was unlikely.

You blinked, tired to the point you barely felt your own body. If they’d decide to come for you now, you probably couldn’t dodge the attack this time.

But it wasn’t HYDRA who came for you - with a syringe in your neck, you suddenly fell down to the floor, watching the handsome face of a man who had seemingly emerged from the wall behind you like a ghost. What was that? Was he like you, too? You didn’t sense it in him the first time, but maybe the soldier was more dangerous than you anticipated. Well, he certainly was, you thought as he carried you upstairs like a firefighter escaping the burning house. Would he lock you down in a cell, too? Would he let his masters experiment on you for the sake of humanity? Would he kill you once you closed your eyes?

Before the soldier reached the front entrance, you had already lost consciousness under the influence of the drag he injected.

The darkness that followed should had been calming, soothing, as you only felt safe in complete darkness, but you couldn’t find your peace: it was cold and lonely and scary when you were falling down deeper and deeper into the black void. Did he kill you, then? Was it the end? Would you spend your eternity in the dark?

It certainly felt like eternity before you woke up, still in the middle of nowhere, but feeling a soft mattress beneath your back. Your arms and legs hurt - it felt like you were tied up to bed. However, the fabric of your clothes was nothing like the ones you wore before the assault. It felt soft, and smelled pretty nice, too.

But you still saw nothing, nothing at all. Everything was pitch black.

Were you in a dark room? A cell? Whatever, you could work with it, you though and called the darkness as if it was a part of you.

And nothing happened.

You called again, then once more and once more, but the darkness didn’t free you. It didn’t answer to your plea - it wasn’t there at all.

Suddenly, you realized there was no darkness surrounding you as you heard a subtle buzz of dozen projectors directed right at you. The darkness was in your head because they blinded you.

You were screaming and crying and jolting on the bed, trying your best to break free, crush the metal headboard, do anything at all to just touch your eyes, discover what they did to you as you felt nothing but numbness and some tingling. Did they pluck out your eyes? Did they take them out because it would be easier to control you once you lost your eyesight?

You didn’t know whether you were still screaming when you felt a stranger’s hand on your cheek as he sat down on the bed. Exhausted and horrified, you tried kicking him, but the restraints kept you in place as he lowered his head to your face, “it’s alright. You’re safe.”

Oh, it was him. It was the soldier who had emerged from the wall of the house you were hiding the last time.

“What did you… do to me?” Breathing hard, you yanked your head to the side to avoid his touch. Huh, safe, that how he called it. HYDRA or Avengers, there had never been any difference to you.

“I had to temporarily blind and drug you. The effect will wash off in a few days.”

With that, you forgot how to breathe for a couple of seconds. Temporarily? Did it mean you eyes would be alright? Did he not pop your eyes out of their sockets?

“Please, calm down. I won’t hurt you.”

You stayed quiet, but not because the soldier asked you to. You just laid there, listening to the buzz of the projectors and thinking you would be able to see something again. For a few seconds you were filled with a bitter sense of triumph. Maybe you were crying again, though you couldn’t really feel the tears streaming down your face.

Oh, how could you wish to die? How could you even think of committing suicide? No, no, never again, even if you’d have to break each and every bone in the bodies of your enemies, and rip their heads off. Whatever it takes just never to return to that black void again.

“No one knows you’re here.” The soldier said somewhere close to your face, and you furrowed your brows. “HYDRA won’t find you.”

“Until you push me to the battlefield.” You sneered, still furious he did such a horrible thing to you, leaving you here like that.

“Avengers don’t know you here either.”

Laughing sarcastically, you fell silent as you felt his flesh hand touching your cheek and brushing the hair out of your face.

“Don’t worry, I will fulfill your wish.” You could smell the metal of his breath. “You won’t exist for anyone but me.”

_______________________

Tags: @finleyjayne @alexakeyloveloki @helenaeisenhower @villanellevi @hurricanerin @void-hoechlin @abyssaint @heeeyitskay @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @navegandoaciegas @rosalynshields @brattycherubwrites @sllooney @angrythingstarlight @soleil-dor @lookiamtrying @buckysbunny @iheartsebastianstan @stargazingfangirl18 @ninefuckingoneone

#bucky barnes #dark bucky barnes #winter soldier #yandere #mcu #mcu fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #dark bucky barnes x reader

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dercolaris · 3 years

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The tea party

Hey folks. Today there is something completely different than usual. No Scriddler, surprise, surprise^^ I wrote a short story a while ago to cheer up @weyoun, but sadly only in German. I wasn't so convinced about my English skills back then and successfully shoved the translation aside for the past few months, but hey - now it's finally done! Hurray! I hope you're not too mad at me, Ronnie, that I decided to upload your story on Tumblr and Archive of Our Own.

I rarely write about Ivy and Jervis, but the two characters are on my favourite list in the DC Universe. Especially Jervis is so pleasant to write. He's the absolute mad sweetheart of the rogue gallery in my opinion. I can only vaguely remember the song I was listening to while I was writing the story, but I think it was this one from Avicii:

https://youtu.be/Qc9c12q3mrc

Thanks again to you, @weyoun. I hope you can enjoy your little story now and maybe one day come up with a new idea that interests you. My ears are always open to you and I love to write for friends. Thanks also for beta reading the story, @shin-arei.

The red-haired beauty wandered through the deserted forecourt of the asylum and snorted softly under her breath. Escape was rarely the best choice, but on that cursed evening there was simply no viable alternative for her. Ivy growled bitterly. What were these sacks of meat all thinking, especially the male ones? The evening meal in the way too small canteen had escalated completely. After she got into a little discussion with Edward Nygma about the tasteless flower decoration of the tables, Jonathan Crane immediately got involved and gave his unasked opinion. When Harley, Harvey and Victor got on board, it was all lost. The botanist probably still had scraps of food in her beautiful hair. Her fingers slid through the long strands, actually found a loose spaghetti. She pulled out the sticky noodle in disgust and flicked it to the floor regardless. Absolutely disgusting. Ivy shook her head slowly, just stepped faster in the direction of the botanical garden. Normally she was not allowed to visit it on her own, but today it was more than safe to take this small risk and to be honest: who would stop her anyway right now? The guards were all still busy calming the food fight in the canteen. The redhead pushed open the glass doors of the greenhouse and took a deep breath. It was liberating. More than liberating. The air was saturated with the clear, filtered air of her favourites. Quieter than before, she slipped into the entrance area and let her fingers hover over the first tendrils on the sides. Fortunately, her offspring were doing well. In particular, the facility's caretaker went to great lengths to maintain the garden. A useful person. How surprising. Almost delightful. She felt the flowers and roots begin to tremble at her touch. The botanist smiled wickedly, breathed a little kiss on a loose leaf. She whispered softly: "Sweet little thing. You will grow big and strong one day, will you?” She released the sheet from her grip and strolled deeper into the long corridors. The background noise was impressive. Such a strong contrast to the typical noises from the penitentiaries. Ivy sighed softly and visibly relaxed. In this atmosphere she could completely forget all the trouble of the last hours. The redhead was just about to rest for a moment when she suddenly heard a low voice near by. She frowned and walked leisurely around the corner. The source of the noise still seemed to be hiding somewhere in the branching corridors. The words were an incomprehensible murmur and very hard to understand. After a few steps, there was also the faint clatter of dishes. The botanist was completely perplexed at this moment, but also slightly curious.

A few seconds passed before she finally found the stranger in the greenhouse. Pamela crossed her arms over her chest and examined the small man on the rusty bench in front of the bust. The blond, longer hair framed his boyish face and his contours were unusually gentle, almost delicate. Actually, the whole stature did not correspond to that of a powerful man, the small body size completed this impression. In addition to this realization, she immediately noticed the stubborn old fashion clothing. The green cloak was wrapped tightly around his narrow shoulders and the matching top hat sat a little at an angle on his head. He wore matching white leather gloves. Ivy bit her lower lip slightly. Jervis Tetch. She had overheard the guards' conversation when he was admitted in the facility. He was arguably obsessed with the story of Alice in Wonderland and had committed some unimaginable atrocities in adaptation to this book. Probably including kidnapping, rape and multiple murders. Another madman for the asylum. Ivy was just about to go the way back when the man's low voice nestled almost pleasant in her ear: "March hare, what's the point of saying this bad things? Naughty thing. We have to finish the tea first before we go back to these lewd rascals. If we go back at all. Maybe we'll just stay here and hide for the remaining eight months.” The botanist stopped dead in place, just sighed softly. That was expectable. How could it have been otherwise? There was a good chance that the young man would have trouble with the other inmates. It was his first stay in the clinic and this was always particularly tragic for most new inmates. Experienced patients weren't exactly squeamish. Luminaries like Jonathan Crane in particular broke inexperienced souls at lightning speed and the different villains had a perfidious joy in doing so. The redhead frowned. She had a big problem with the self-proclaimed Master of Fear. Jonathan was intelligent, no question about it and his expertise was certainly inexhaustible, but he went too far with his psychological games on some points. A large number of new patients had killed themselves because of him after less than five hours in the asylum. The older one always acknowledged this with a small smile, while the cleaning women cursed and had to work through the mess in the cells. Seen in this way, bets have often been made as to how long a newcomer would survive if he was put in the cell with the infamous Scarecrow. That the guards also took part in this spectacle made the botanist incredulous and very sick. The Arkham staff really wasn't interested in patient recovery - except perhaps some of the psychologists. She looked again at the young man on the bench.

After a while the redhead overcame her mental reservation and slowly sauntered towards the lonely inmate. At first he didn't seem to notice her. Ivy tried to crack up an honest smile and said carefully in his direction: “Hey. You're Jervis Tetch, I assume?” The addressee startled slightly, his eyes panicked like a deer. The botanist raised her hands soothingly and smiled a little more gently. The Mad Hatter relaxed only gradually, the opals still twitching wildly through the corridor. Apparently he was already planning his escape. Great. Two souls on the run from the large mob in the canteen. Pamela carefully came closer, made it clear to her counterpart that she did not want to harm him. As if in slow motion, she sat down next to him on the bench and continued softly: “Don't worry, I won't hurt you. Not all inmates here are barbaric fiends." Jervis looked down at his hands and played a bit with his fingers. After a short while he dared to look up, his blue eyes glittering slightly in the weak light. Finally he carefully lifted his fingers and ran two of them through Ivy's long hair. He mumbled cautiously: “My, my. You have such beautiful hair. As red as my queen's, but like silk and velvet. So beautiful. So pure. Cheshire Cat, just look. I don't even want to sew a hat for your head, that would completely disturb the aesthetics.” At first the botanist wanted to reject him more than harshly, but then quickly refrained from doing so. The expression in the blond's opals was strange. These did not contain any disreputable or even sexual intentions, as was always the case with such acts. The devotion and admiration for her hair seemed sincere. A short time later the young man added in a whisper: “What's your name? Tell me please. I need to know. The Hatter needs to know immediately. I've never seen such gentle beauty and your unique nature makes it perfect.” Pamela almost choked on her own spit. What had gotten into this guy? Or better: what got into her?

She didn't even know this man for two minutes. Nevertheless, he seemed to be familiar to her in a certain way and, contrary to her usual reason, she only smiled at his doing. His fingers were unexpectedly gentle with their easy play with the strands. Ivy replied muffled: “My name is Pamela Lillian Isley, but probably better known by my alias Poison Ivy. Eco-terrorist by trade.” The Mad Hatter smiled knowingly and only nodded slowly. He let his fingers slide out of her hair and turned away from her. The blond-haired man looked for something next to him on the bench for a moment, then suddenly held out a small white porcelain cup. It smelled suspiciously of black tea. The woman frowned, but picked up the cup and looked down at her moving reflection. Her greenish skin shimmered slightly in the pheromone-soaked halls of the botanical garden. The young man next to her whistled happily: “Hear, hear. Another participant in our small, private tea party. What a pleasure and beneficial surprise.” He took his own white service and swirled the black liquid a little, then drank the broth with relish. Ivy tried the tea too. It was bitter, but not in an unpleasant sense. Similar to a good coffee, but with a gentler after taste. The wonderland lover was certainly well read in the field and knew how to properly prepare tea. At least it tasted excellent. A certain silence fell between them, only interrupted by the low whirring of the insects around them. The redhead stretched a little and asked softly: “What brought you here in the first place, Jervis? You should be in the canteen for dinner. Not that it would bother me to enjoy your company here tonight.” To her surprise, the addressee slumped a little. The little figure appeared even a little smaller than before. The blond-haired man breathed his answer barely audibly: “They said to me that I shouldn't close my eyes tonight and if I do, the black man will get me out of the cell next to me. The lean man with the brown hair and the piercing eyes. After that I lost my appetite.”

Ivy gave a muffled sigh, resting her chin on the palm of her hand. He was talking about Jonathan. That was to be expected. So they had put Jervis in a cell with either Harvey or Edward, which were located right next to the Master of Fear. The botanist stroked the shiny porcelain. Both villains weren't exactly comfortable room mates for the first stay. Of course, that could no longer be changed. The redhead sat up and calmly replied: “That won't happen, Jervis. The so-called black man is also just a person in a silly scarecrow costume and he is locked in at night like everyone else. You don't have to worry, my dear.” The Mad Hatter blinked slightly, then sipped his tea in silence. He put the cup back on the saucer with a clatter and replied a bit lost: “What am I actually doing here? I should be outside and looking for my Alice. Now I'm going to spend eight months in these narrow corridors with other crazy people who don't even know how to make original English tea. It's sad. Almost to cry." Ivy clicked her tongue. At least the man seemed to understand that he was as mad as anyone else in the asylum and did not plead his sanity. The botanist crossed her legs, then replied calmly: “Perhaps you can convince some to learn, Jervis. Other inmates like me, for example. The tea tastes really fantastic and I would love to sit here with you more often.” The addressee perked up his ears. The cloudy eyes suddenly shone and a broad smile crept onto his unusually full lips. He refilled them both with some tea. While they were enjoying the second cup together, the loudspeakers suddenly rang out above them: “Jervis Tetch and Pamela Isley, return to your cells immediately. You have no business in the botanical garden. Especially you, Mrs. Isley, are not allowed there. You know the deal. Move!” The redhead groaned in annoyance and looked into the upper corner of the room. The small camera humming barely audibly, the red light glowed suspiciously. Without further ado, the woman rose and said quietly to Jervis: “We should go. If we don't act quickly, they'll drag us by the hair out of the greenhouse and refer us to an unpleasant electroshock therapy with the prison director Quincy Sharp.” The Mad Hatter nodded slowly, then took his picnic basket from under the bench. Where in the world had he found it? The young man carefully stowed the tea party utensils in the basket and pushed himself off the bench, still smiling happily. He took a few steps in the direction of the exit, then turned to Ivy and said happily: “Are you coming with me, Mrs. Isley? We don't have to walk the path alone and all of us would prefer your company on the way out. By the way, especially the Cheshire Cat is very fond of you. Maybe we can have tea together again tomorrow. This time in the canteen?” She couldn't help but smile again. Yeah, that wasn't a bad idea.

#DC #Batman #Poison Ivy #pamela isley #Mad Hatter #Jervis Tetch #ArkhamVerse #Friendship #Tea Party #Alice in Wonderland #For Weyoun

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chrisswearicho · 4 years

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My AO3 account BTW guys and links to my stories! They're all Doctor Who fics.

1) My Past Come Home. My Future Lead The Way

Summary: “Right.” Rory finally seemed to react, shaking his head a little as his hands flailed for effect, “right sorry. So I’ve gone to sleep, got woken up by the TARDIS going crazy and now we’re in a future TARDIS with a future Doctor who’s also a woman? I’m getting this right?”

Characters: 13th Doctor, 11th Doctor, 12th Doctor, 10th Doctor, 9th Doctor, 8th Doctor, 7th Doctor, 6th Doctor, 5th Doctor, 4th Doctor, 3rd Doctor, 2nd Doctor, 1st Doctor, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O'brien, Bill Potts, Nardole, River Song, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Lucie Miller, Ace, Peri Brown, Tegan Jovanka, Vislor Turlough, Sarah Jane Smith, Jo Grant, Jamie McCrimmin, Zoe Heriot, Ian Chesterton, Barbara Wright, Susan Foreman, The Master(Dhawan), The Master (Gomez) /Missy.

Chapters: 26/26

2) A Change of Mind

Summary: “What would your little friends think if they knew?”

“Who cares?” she scoffed with a roll of her eyes, “dropped them off at home. Good riddance as far as I’m concerned. This is between me and you. They were the Doctor’s ‘little friends’, not mine.”

“Who’re you then? If you’re not the Doctor.”

“Dunno yet,” she shrugged, seemingly pleased, however, that he was finally accepting that she wasn’t quite the Doctor, “I haven’t decided. You know,” she huffed out a heavy breath, “you’re wasting so much good running away time by asking all these questions. Maybe by the time I’ve caught you, you know, if you run away right now, I’ll have decided. Come on.”

><><><><

An alternate ending to my story 'My Past Come Home. My Future Lead The Way'. This will probably not make much sense if you haven't read that first if i'm honest. It's the alt ending where 13 becomes the Valeyard!

Characters: 13th Doctor(Valeyard), The Master(Dhawan), Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O’Brien.

Chapters: 2/2

3) Fear

Summary: “You think that I was some hard done by hero, like the Doctor?” the Not Doctor’s tone was taunting as she smirked at him, “You think they wiped my memory because of something they’d done?” she laughed suddenly, throwing her head back as though that was the most hilarious thing she’d ever heard. The Master’s hearts dropped to his stomach; he’d already put this much together but having it confirmed made him swallow nervously.

“So… why was your mind wiped?”

“Well, they couldn’t kill me. There’s no limit on my ability to regenerate. They couldn’t keep me trapped. No prison could hold me. But then they figured out a way to stop me. Ingenious actually, I will give them that. They simply caught me long enough to erase me, or they thought they had.”

Characters: 13th Doctor (Valeyard), the Master (Dhawan), Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O’Brien, River Song.

Sequel to A Change of Mind

4) Escape

Summary: “I know you said eyebrows Bill, but that’s just ridiculous!” The Doctor in the bowtie smirked as they all came to a stop across from one another, glancing from his future self to Bill who just rolled her eyes with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

“They were making up for lost time. Better to have too much than none at all.” The Eyebrows Doctor deadpanned and raised an impressive eyebrow of his own to his past self.

“Ugh!” the Doctor in the bowtie jerked back in clear offence, hand flying to his own eyebrows for a moment as his face scrunched up in annoyance to his future self, words stumbling around in his mouth as he tried to come up with a retort. “Shut up,”

Characters: 13th Doctor, 12th Doctor, 11th Doctor, 10th Doctor, Rose Tyler, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Bill Potts, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'brien.

Chapters: 14/14

Part 1 of a series that will continued next week anyway 😂

5) Search

Summary: “Time Lord society was, as I was taught, created by three people. Rassilon, the great engineer, The Omega, the mind behind Gallifrey’s scientific advancements and-” she cut herself off suddenly, realisation dawning on her face and her entire body seemed to jolt with the force of the realisation that occurred to her, “Oh!”

“Doctor? What is-” Yaz started but she was quickly cut off by the Doctor who flapped her hands at her desperately.

“Yaz! I love you but shut up a minute. Let me think.” The human obediently fell quiet and they all watched as the Doctor began to pace suddenly, her eyes still wide before she dropped onto the steps leading further into the TARDIS, the realisation giving away to shock as she mumbled out her next words, “I’m the Other.”

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

SEQUEL TO ESCAPE.

Now armed with the information that she knew Rassilon and Omega, back in the times of the Great Vampires, and even before, the Doctor knows what she must do. She needs to find Rassilon. She needs to find Omega. She needs to find out who she was and all it is that she forgot.

Characters: 13th Doctor, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair, Graham O’Brien, Rassilon, Omega.

Chapters: 10/?

6) This Is Where It Gets Complicated...

Summary: “Doctor!” He called out again, garnering a few looks from passers-by but he ignored them for now and began moving back the way they’d came, hoping to find either her or at least his grandson and Yaz if his initial search yielded no results, “Doctor?!”

“Oh hello! Hi? What is it?” Graham blinked, head turning at a male voice coming from his left and his frantic push through the crowds came to a stop as he looked at him, puzzled as to why he’d responded. The man was young looking, had dark hair that flopped over his face and looked as though he’d just stopped running his hands through it. He was dressed like someone three times his age in a tweed jacket and bowtie, but he pulled it off well enough, Graham supposed.

“Oh, sorry mate no. Not you, I’m looking for a friend of mine, they keep wandering off. The Doctor.” Graham didn’t stay still for longer than he needed to, waving the young man off as kindly as he could as he started walking again. He missed the slight grin that appeared on the guy’s face, but he definitely realised it when the man was suddenly at his side, helping him move through the crowds.

Characters: 13th Doctor, 11th Doctor, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'brien.

Chapters: 3/3 complete

7) Start Of Time

Summary:The Doctor falls from the TARDIS into Sheffield. But not in the 21st Century. Back in the 1970s where UNIT haven't been expecting their scientific adviser back after he regenerated and had his exile lifted. So who's this strange woman that's shown up talking about the TARDIS and searching for a Doctor?

An AU of The Woman Who Fell To Earth where the 13th Doctor gets tossed out in the 1970s and finds UNIT rather than her fam.

Characters: 13th Doctor, Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart, Mike Yates, John Benton.

Chapters: 4/?

8) The Chain

Summary: “Who am I?” he exclaimed indignantly, hands flying about everywhere as he spoke, his head turning to his two companions as if to look to them for back up in the indignation and then he spun back, “I’m the Doctor. So, who is it? Which one of you said that you were me?” They stared for another few seconds, all not knowing what to do before Graham reached out a hand and hit his fist twice against the large metal piping that ran up the side of the room and up through the ceiling above. It gave off loud metal clangs and he called upwards, his voice hesitant.

“Uh, Doc?” there was a thump and a curse from up above, the Doctor no doubt dropping something and her voice rang through, echoing through the metal chamber up above that she’d had to crawl into the look into the problem.

“What is it? I’m a bit busy.” The man in the bowtie paused suddenly, glancing upwards at the hole in the roof where the metal grating cover had at one point been sat. Now just a hole into masses of wiring and ventilation and mechanical shafts.

Characters: 13th Doctor, 11th Doctor, Amy Pond, Rory Williams, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'brien.

Chapters: 1/?

9) It Means The World

Summary: Then she realised the heavy silence that had followed her question. She found it strange, her conversation with Jo so far had been light hearted in nature so it was a big shift for it to suddenly feel like this. She looked away from the book shelf she’d been perusing through and back to Jo who was staring at her with sad, pity filled, eyes. The Doctor felt her hearts drop to her stomach and dread spread throughout her body at that expression. She knew it far too well.

“Doctor...” Jo started, her tone gentle, but the Doctor cut her off with a shake of her head.

“No.” The word came out whispered and Jo’s face only scrunched up further in guilt and pity.

Characters: 13th Doctor, Jo Grant, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'brien. Sarah Jane Smith (mentioned)

Chapters: 2/2 complete

10) 3rd Best Enemy

Summary: “Who is your greatest enemy?”

“The Daleks.” The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them and for a moment the room fell silent. The Fam all took clear obvious steps back as the Master whirled around to face her, his victorious grin giving way to clear offence. They were trapped in a truth field, not exactly like she could’ve lied to him if she’d tried. She did feel bad though, just a tiny bit, his ego might not be able to take this. She took a few steps to the left so she was between him and her friends and waited for him to splutter out a response finally.

Characters: 13th Doctor & The Master(Dhawan)

Complete

11) Can't Let Go

Summary: “I’m sorry I keep dragging you into my messes.” Jack’s gaze snaps back over to her, confused at her words, and even more confused at how she looks down at her feet. Her expression ashamed. She’s sat on the floor of this cell, one knee held against her chest by her arm, the other leg spread out in front of her. He frowns. He wonders for a second how the Doctor hasn’t figured out yet that he would follow her anywhere. Always has. Always will. He casts one last quick glance out the bars of the cell into the beautiful emptiness of space before he turns and moves until he can drop down next to her. Close enough that his arm almost brushes her shoulder but not enough to actually be touching.

Characters: 13th Doctor & Jack Harkness

Complete

12) Welcome Home

Summary:Instead of that though he reached for her face with one hand while the other slid around her comparatively smaller waist so he could tug her closer to him until her body was pressed up against the hard line of his body and his mouth was almost instantly on hers before she could even utter a greeting. She really should’ve seen this coming. She let him have this one, hands resting on his upper arms, as long as he didn’t push his luck. They hadn’t seen each other in a long while.

Eventually there was a loud, obvious, cough from across the console and they pulled apart, both turning to look at her Fam who were all staring at the pair with varying degrees of embarrassment or confusion.

Characters: 13th Doctor, Jack Harkness, Yasmin Khan, Ryan Sinclair & Graham O'brien.

Complete

13) Threatening to Stab? Not That Bad

Summary: “Threatening to stab someone isn’t actually stabbing them. There’s a difference.”

Characters: 12th Doctor, The Master(Gomez) / Missy & Nardole.

Complete

#Masterlist #My writing #Doctor who #Doctor who fics #Doctor who fic #Doctor who fanfic #Doctor who fanfiction #13th doctor #11th doctor #10th doctor #12th doctor #13th Doctor fanfic #13th Doctor fic #11th doctor fic #10th doctor fic

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deerlyloved · 3 years

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where the villains are the heroes

under cut: my bnha oc moxie, a ‘villain’

Moxie Stevens was as normal as you could get, you know, if you ignored his first name. Pretty average, brown hair he dyed an array of colors, brown eyes, pretty average looking dude, pretty average personality, intelligence, all of it.

Hallucinogen was another story.

Sure, Moxie had his funky traits; He loved cola flavored candy despite everyone else’s hatred for it, he came to Japan when he was 14 with his family even though he didn’t speak a lick of Japanese, he definitely dressed in a more alternative style… But nothing really compared to Hallucinogen, and nothing ever would. How do you compare yourself to a villain who just can’t be beat, who dresses like an anime villain, acts like one too, who’s quirk was so hard to snap out of that he almost beat Endeavor in a cage-fight until the police got there?

The answer was simple, you just couldn’t. Despite his claim to fame, Hallucinogen wasn’t a wanted villain, he was barely even known-- He had moments here and there, but it seemed like he kept his head down, didn’t really do much villainy outside of seemingly random bursts of action.

Moxie was just as equally unknown. No one paid attention to him, he could strip naked and set himself on fire and people still wouldn’t notice him. Not that that was particularly a bad thing, of course, Moxie found it was easier to navigate under the radar, just him and his snack sitting on the park bench, waiting for something cool to happen.

He had a pretty average life, too. Two parents, one other sibling, the perfect nuclear family, they lived in a little three bedroom, two bath house, Moxie had a pet cat… His family was happy, had normal jobs, did normal things. He was definitely the oddball of the family.

His dad could alter memories on a small scale, changing the color of something in one’s mind, but his mom had something akin to telekinesis, she could make people stop moving, or draw things to her if she tensed her hands. His sister could hypnotize people and suggest things to them all by fanning out her hands.

And Moxie, well, Moxie could do a lot.

His eyes wandered towards a man walking in the park, loudly talking on his phone. Just as he was about to pass in front of the boy, he snarled out a string of curses, and Moxie rolled his eyes, taking a drink from his can of soda as he curled his hand into a fist. The sound of the cell phone hitting the ground a few seconds later certainly brought him some joy.

That’s how it went. The only unaverage thing about Moxie was his quirk, he flexed, and people around him saw something terrifying of his choosing. He opted for spiders this time, it always worked, and watched as the man turned and ran down the path he came from. His fault for ruining Moxie’s quiet time.

Sure, you could say Moxie was evil, plenty had, but how evil was it to just wanted a little quiet, or for people to do their jobs? The boy had meddled with some less than ideal things in the past, mostly just helping to clean up after a big name, sneaking certain items back and forth on the street, but things really kicked into gear with one Hero-Killer Stain made his debut. His message got spread all across the internet, and Moxie found himself spurred into action.

Heroes were important. Heroes needed a place. Heroes were a hazard. Heroes were corrupt. These were all statements that co-existed in Moxie’s head-- He appreciated the work heroes did, even idolized a few of them, but any questioning of them was seen as a threat, akin to villainy, so Moxie had to make up a whole new persona just to navigate without a crowd of hero-simps coming for him.

He was walking now, the dropped phone in hand as he scrolled aimlessly through the browsing history, over various apps, even played a few of the games as he walked before he casually tossed the phone on some grass. Moxie’s own phone rang now, the default tune playing as he fished his old smartphone from his pocket and answered it. “Moxie.” He said simply, waiting for a reply.

“Moxie! I have a request!”

“Jeez, pal, I was supposed to have a day off,” Moxie replied jokingly, absentmindedly fiddling with his wallet chain as he walked, “But alright, just because it’s you.”

“Please get Magne a pint of ice cream.”

Moxie didn’t pause his walking, but he went quiet for a few seconds, mulling over the request in his head before he sighed, “You’re both drunk at her place, aren’t you?”

“Yes! No.”

“Yeah, I’ll get the lady something nice, don’t worry.” Moxie replied, “Be over in a few minutes.”

He heard Magne in the background, cooing her thanks to him, and he just replied with hums of affirmation before he hung up. Moxie was always called to help Magne out, and he didn’t expect anything less-- He helped her escape after all. Sweet girl, living her best life now that she was nice and safe, enough money to start her journey in life, her girlfriend was more than pleased with Moxie’s help too. Always thanked him when he showed up with a new gift.

He couldn’t complain, they were fun to hang out with, and he was always happy to help another good-hearted-villain.

Moxie scrolled through store listings on his phone, trying to find a nearby store, but his head snapped up with the shattering of glass as he looked across the street, watching some poor schmuck with a mutation quirk book it down the street, obviously battered a bit as he was chased by someone in a hero suit. He was going to ignore it, at first, because robberies weren’t his business, but then he noticed the formula clutched in the mutants hands and..

Moxie flexed, it was subtle but he did, eyes digging into the hero giving chase and following them down as they fell to the ground, completely sure that the concrete below had given way to an endless void. Others paused to stare, and Moxie tried to feign innocence and confusion as the hero shouted for help. Once he was certain the thief was gone, he relaxed, turning towards the store and walking in.

Moxie was a normal guy, you know? He bought ice cream for friends, he tried to do the right thing, and he always helped people in need. Who could blame him for that?

#moxie #my ocs #oc #writing #my writing #oc writing #long post #bnha oc

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ladyseaheart1668 · 4 years

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Endless Summer Book 4: Daughter of Vaanu (Chapter 52)

Description: As Alodia and Diego flee toward Northbridge, Zahra makes an astonishing discovery

Tagging: @endlesshero1122 @mysteli @feartheendlesssummer @whatmcsaid @xo-endlessmayhem-xo @tigerbryn11

Chapter 52: Stranded

Zahra

“...The Hydra is a myth. Look for the triumvirate. Crassus has betrayed Caesar and Pompey. ...JAKE!”

“You listening to that recording again?” Craig's voice is languid with sleep. I don't need to look up from the computer to know that he's in his boxers in the doorway with his hair adorably tousled with sleep, because that's how I left him.

“I've got it on in the background.”

“The background of what?”

“Iris and I are looking into the background of that plane Lundgren used to get Jake and Sean and Michelle to the island.”

He wanders over to stand behind my chair and absently massage my shoulders as I click and clack away at the keyboard. “I thought the cops or whatever had already looked into that?”

“They have. But all they've told us is that it wasn't one of ours. They didn't say anything about who it was actually registered to.”

“Maybe they're still trying to figure that out.”

“Yeah, I'm guessing they are, assuming they're not actually actively hiding something. Either way, I'm not inclined to wait for them to decide what we should know.”

I have the numbers I need. The tail number, and serial numbers for various parts on the plane. Now I just need to get out without a trace, and into another database where I can plug those numbers in to find their matches. Even if the plane was cobbled together from stolen parts—if that's even possible—I can trace the parts' histories and their last legal location. Hopefully, there is enough consistency to pin down a location where the plane was most likely assembled. Or where it was stolen from. Craig sits down in the chair beside me. I reach over to rub his shoulder appreciatively before returning to the task at hand.

I won't admit out loud that this chasing after airplane parts is mostly to occupy myself and make me feel like I'm doing something now that my progress with the Galatea recording has stalled. I've gone over it from every angle I can think of. But now I feel like I just need to step back and work on something else for awhile. Look at it with fresh eyes after a relatively simple task like tracking down the owner of a possibly stolen plane.

Craig nestles his head in his arms on the desk beside the computer while the numbers flash over the screen. He starts to snore softly. When Iris' hologram flickers to life and floods the room with blue light, Craig grunts and mumbles something unintelligible.

“Zahra,” Iris says, “I have found something that I believe you need to see.”

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I believe the plane was not assembled from stolen parts. ...However...if you will observe the information on the screen...”

I turn to look at the screen. I squint as I scan what Iris has projected there for me. Then I feel my eyes go wide.

“...Holy shit...”

Diego

We change drivers about an hour into the trip when we stop to refuel. After another hour, we change again. Conversation ebbs and flows as we speed along a dark and empty stretch of road that runs through what must be a forest preserve. When we speak, it's mostly about where we should go when we reach Northbridge. Estela and Quinn first, we decide. We don't know whether Michelle and Sean made it back from their honeymoon or not, or they would be our first stop. Actually, as Allie points out, if Jake was taken prisoner at the same time we were, it's possible Sean and Michelle were taken, too. Even more reason to try someone else first. If Estela and Quinn can't be reached, we'll seek out Aleister and Grace, then Zahra and Craig, then Tahira. The important thing is that we get Allie someplace safe while we try to get a handle on what's happened to Jake and if he can be located.

“Midwife said the wouldn't kill him as long as he could still be used against me,” she says softly. “...But...when they find out I've escaped...”

“He'll be that much more valuable,” I assure her. “And they'll want to use him to lure you out, which will probably make it that much easier to find him.”

“...What if they hurt him to punish me for escaping?”

My heart squeezes at her question. I can't say they won't. I can't ignore the possibility. But I also can't let her think escaping was a mistake.

“Allie...as soon as you're safe, my priority and everyone else's is going to be to get him safe. You know that, right?”

She nods. “I know. But it's not like not worrying is really an option...”

“Hey, I get it. But let me tell you something. When we first got back after the island, Jake was arrested almost the moment we set foot on American soil. ...We had him out in four months. And that was while we were trying to make up a semester's worth of college work.”

“...You're exaggerating.”

“Nope. Cross my heart, it's true. You can ask him yourself when you see him again. Which, by the way, is going to be before you give birth to his kid.”

“Well...it's certainly hard not to trust confidence like...” She trails off so suddenly that I can't help but feel a quick, hot flash of dread. I glance over to see her frowning.

“What?”

“Are...you messing with the light level on the dashboard?”

“What? I don't think...” I feel my stomach lurch as I get a good look at the dashboard and see what she means. The panel has gone dim. So dim that I can barely read the time on the clock, much less the GPS screen. The headlights aren't looking their brightest, either. My gut tells me to pull over. A worn dirt road just ahead of me drifts off the main road. The dimming headlights are just bright enough to illuminate it, and I just manage to pull off as the car abruptly stalls and dies, slowing to a stop. It's only once we've actually stopped that I realize my heart is pounding and my knuckles have gone white on the steering wheel. I carefully peel my fingers off the wheel and feel the tremors racing through my body as I put the gear shift in park. I look over at Allie. It's dark, without street lamps along the quiet road, but what little moonlight there is reflects off her pale face and shows me a stunned expression.

“Are you all right?”

“W-what happened?”

“The car kind of...lost power. And I think...” I experimentally turn the key, but nothing happens. I try again. I flick a few switches, try the key a third time. “...I've had this happen before. It's probably a bad alternator.”

“...What do we do? How do we make it start again?”

“...There's...there's a portable jump-starter in the back with the gas cans,” I offer, but the knot in my stomach doesn't loosen. “We don't need another car to jump-start with one of those, but...if I'm right and it's the alternator, it might not do any good.”

“It's worth a try...”

I nod, grabbing the flashlight that we found in the glove compartment the first time we stopped to refuel. I pop the hood and get out of the car, shivering at the blast of bitingly cold air that hits me. I rub my arms vigorously as I make my way around to the hatch at the back of the jeep. I'm not dressed for this weather. Maybe a native northeasterner wouldn't feel the cold so badly dressed in a sweatsuit, but I'm from southern California, and I don't stop hopping as I fetch the portable jump-starter and hook it up to the car battery, the flashlight's beam shuddering over the maze of parts and wires under the hood. Unfortunately, I'm proven right about the effectiveness of the power pack. The car stays stubbornly dead. I groan, pressing my forehead to the steering wheel.

“Cell phones,” I mutter. “We should have asked Midwife for cell phones...”

“I've already groped around the glove compartment for one,” Allie says apologetically. “Granted, the light in there is out, too. I could take another look with the flashlight, but...”

“It's worth a try,” I echo ruefully, and pass her the flashlight. I'm not surprised when it turns out she didn't miss anything. “...Shit. What now?”

“I guess we need to get out and walk.”

“Walk?” I repeat incredulously. “Walk where?”

“Follow the road we're on. Or the main road. The forest preserve can't be so big that we won't hit civilization after an hour or two.”

“But it's night. In the northeast. In late March. We're really not dressed for it.”

“There's the tarp that was over the gas cans. We can wrap up in that. Beside, the heat won't last in here if we can't keep the car going.”

“But we will be a little better shielded from the elements. We could wrap up in the tarp and wait until morning. At least the sun will keep us warmer.”

“But we'll lose our head start. We're only about two-and-a-half hours from where we escaped from. Granted, we'll be slower on foot, but at least we'll be moving. Come on, it's not like it's likely to be a lot more walking than we ever did on the island, right?”

“You weren't nine months pregnant on the island,” I can't help pointing out.

“...Yeah, I know. Not saying that won't make it harder. But when you weigh the options...I gotta say, I think we'll both be safer if we keep moving.”

“I guess splitting up isn't an option...”

“No way in hell.”

“Yeah,” I agree with a rueful smile. “I wasn't keen on that either. Just thought I should make sure we didn't ignore any options. Guess we're walking then.”

* * *

We opt to follow the main road, but stick to the shelter of the forest preserve to avoid being seen by anyone who might be on the road searching for us with hostile intent. Getting into the trees proved a challenge, as the incline up into the forest from the dirt road we stopped on was steeper and higher than we anticipated. With a little bit of help, and a little bit more panic from me, Allie made it up onto relatively level ground, but the going is till tough. The path is uneven, and everything outside the beam of the flashlight is a mess of black shadows with patches of navy blue.

Huddled under the tarp, pressed close together, the cold night air is at least a little more bearable. Still, my fingers, my toes inside my worn sneakers, the tips of my ears, and my running nose are all numb. I dab at the mucus trickling from my nose with the tarp draped over my forearm and sniff forcefully, hoping give myself at least a moment of relief. It doesn't really work. My breath is short with the exertion of trying to navigate an uneven terrain while pressed close to another person, and the cold, dry late winter air is like gaseous fire in my lungs. My throat is starting to itch. I don't even know how long we've been walking.

“Allie? You holding u—hpp!” Okay, clearly trying to talk was a mistake. The itching in my dry throat is suddenly unbearable, and I have to cough. And once I get started, it doesn't stop. I double over, hacking and coughing like a 20-year chain-smoker. I only vaguely feel Allie guiding me to the edge of the path to sit down against a tree and catch my breath. I collapse on my butt in the cold dirt and lean back against the rough bark as I draw in wheezing breaths and release them in another round of explosive coughing. She crouches down in a slightly awkward motion, and I feel her cold hand rest gently on the back of my neck as she places the plastic rim of a bottle to my lips.

“Here. Take a couple sips. Slowly.” I do as she tells me. Cool water flows soothingly down my throat, and I start to breathe a little easier.

“W-water bottle?” I question hoarsely when I think I can speak again without starting the whole ordeal over again.

“Found it behind the gas cans. Not a big one, but I thought I should bring it along. Been carrying it in my pant leg.”

I nod as she takes a sip herself. I can believe that the baggy sweatpants with their tight cuffs made a pretty nice pouch for what I can just about make out as a 20-ounce water bottle.

“Must have been cold holding it there, though.” I sense her shrug more than I see it in the swimming darkness.

“The heater in the car had warmed it up enough. And the heat from my body kept it at a bearable temperature. You feeling good enough to press on?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay now.”

“Good. But...actually, take a couple more minutes. I need to...um...well...squat.”

I laugh, which almost makes me cough again. “Say no more. Take the flashlight and yell if you need anything.”

* * *

Once we get moving again, I'm not sure how much more time passes before I first start to notice the space around us turning the slightest bit grayer as the first hints of light start to wink at a horizon obscured by foliage. I don't remember what time we started out on foot, but I can guess now that it's pushing six in the morning. I have no idea of the date or the day of the week. Hopefully civilization isn't much further. And hopefully it's a work day. More likely that people will be up and about at the buttcrack of dawn. By now, the exertion has warmed us up enough that we aren't huddled so close together, though we keep our hands clasped firmly to keep from losing each other. I think I can see a bit of a break in the trees ahead. I gently steer us toward it, and Allie follows my lead.

What happens next happens so fast that I'm not sure what happens first. One second, Allie is right beside me, her hand curled in mine. The next, I hear the sound of loose earth shifting, pebbles tumbling over each other. I feel a tug, our hands pulling sharply apart. I hear a human body hitting the ground, and my best friend's strangled cry of pain. I turn to see empty gray air beside me where she had been standing.

“Allie!”

I just manage to stop myself from diving into the space where she was. A good thing, too, as I realize when I swing my flashlight towards the sound of her whimpering and catch a flash of golden hair in the beam. She's lying on her side halfway down the inclined bank of what looks like a dry creek bed. From her position and mine, it looks like she put her food down on the edge of the incline and lost her balance.

“Diego!” she groans through clenched teeth. “Stay back, okay? It's really steep here!”

She's right. There is at least three feet of distance between us, but at least she seems to be at least somewhat anchored where she is.

“Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“...Yeah...” she admits, her voice a croak. My heart drops into my stomach with a sickening splash.

“What? How? Where? How bad?”

“Not entirely sure. I need to get up.”

“Right. Rightrightright, okay...” I look around frantically, spotting a solid looking tree that appears to be in a good position. “Allie? I'm gonna wrap the tarp around this tree and feed it down to you. Grab on, and then you've got something solid to hold onto if our hands slip.”

Between me and the tarp, we slowly and laboriously manage to get Allie back on level ground. She curls up on her side, gasping, her face twisted in a grimace. I rub her shoulder and brush stray wisps of hair off her forehead.

“Where does it hurt? Can you stand?” Fear seizes me afresh as a horrible thought worms its way into my head. “Is it the baby?”

“Baby's fine...” she manages to croak, though it sounds like it takes a lot of effort. “She's squirming away in there. It's my back, Diego. My lower back. I got cut by something...”

“Shit...”

I move to kneel on her other side and shine the flashlight at her lower back and shudder at what I find, my veins fizzing with anxiety. A long, jagged wound oozing blood in the fleshy part of her lower back, running from above her hip bone almost up to her last rib. As gently as I can, I put my thumb to the edge of the wound and lift just enough to see if I can tell how deep it is. Allie gasps sharply, letting out a whimper as she exhales.

“It...doesn't look very deep...but it's deep enough to be bleeding pretty badly.” I run my fingers through my hair, grabbing a fistful. The pain in my scalp feels somehow steadying. “I'm going to use the tarp to put pressure on it.”

“The tarp is filthy,” she protests weakly.

“I know. But it's all we've got right now.”

“We don't have time to stop. We have to keep going.”

“If you drip blood, that's just going to make it easier for them to track us.”

When she doesn't protest further, I help her sit up carefully. Quickly as I can, I find a relatively clean section of the tarp and press it to what looks like the deepest part of the wound. I fold and wrap and tuck until it feels like I have a sufficient enough bandage to last a little while. Allie doesn't protest when I pass her the flashlight and tuck myself under her arm to help her get to her feet.

“You're going to have to be in charge of the flashlight. I'm not letting you get away from me again.”

She laughs weakly, mirthlessly. “Wasn't actually trying to. Promise. ...Anyway, I don't think we have a lot farther to go. I think I can see a building up ahead.”

Alodia

The building that I see in the distance was probably at one time a cute little ranch-style house. With a brown-brick-and-stucco facade, gray-shingled hip roof with wide eaves, and a front-facing bay window overlooking the porch swing, it must have been like a fairy-tale cottage on the edge of the forest preserve. But as we get closer, and the sun lifts over the horizon, I realize it has probably been abandoned for at least a decade, if not longer. The rows of shingles have gaps in them like missing teeth. The windows that aren't cracked or broken are layered with grime. The facade is crumbling in places. But it's shelter.

There's a stabbing pain in the arch of my left foot. My legs and thighs throb with exhaustion. I have to pee again, and the wound in my back is burning. That's not to mention hunger and thirst.

“We have to get inside...” I croak weakly. “I need to rest.”

Diego hesitates for just a moment before nodding. He needs rest, too. And now that the sun is coming up, I think he's just as inclined to get out of the open as I am. We shamble up to the front door, and Diego knocks experimentally. When I look quizzically at him, he shrugs.

“Don't just want to barge in if someone's squatting here.”

But no one seems to answer. When Diego tries the door, it opens easily. We cross the threshold into a small foyer with cracked, filthy linoleum and peeling wallpaper patterned with strawberries that probably looked cute and cheery in its prime. The archway to our left opens into the kitchen. Just ahead is what looks like it used to be the living area. And then to our right is a hall that leads to the bedrooms. I'm not sure what I was expecting it to smell like, but it smells better than I would have expected. Dust, mothballs, earth, and just a hint of mold, but it's nothing overpowering, even with my sense of smell still heightened by pregnancy. Diego guides me into the living room, and eases me onto the dingy carpet.

“Here. At least you can lie on something a little more comfortable than tile while I look around.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Just...wanna see what we're dealing with...”

I don't miss the tremor in his voice, and I can guess what's worrying him. I reach out to grasp his wrist. “You shouldn't go alone.”

He shakes his head. “You're hurt. And exhausted. It's better if you stay here and rest for a moment.”

“At least don't go completely unarmed.” I glance around, and I catch a glimpse of the fireplace on the far wall. It looks like it was an old-fashioned wood-burning fireplace, rather than gas, unless the fireplace stand on the hearth is just for decoration. “Take the poker. For my peace of mind.”

“Twist my arm, why don't you,” he quips. “Lie down for a few minutes, Allie. You need some rest.”

I don't lie down until he actually takes hold of the poker. Even then, I take the water bottle out of my pant leg first so I can take a swallow. But once I am horizontal, whatever kept me going through our slow slog through the forest drains right out of me. My lower back is on fire, and the worn, ragged carpet feels coarse and greasy against my cheek. But I am so damn tired. The abandoned room around me fades into a gray fog populated by dancing ghosts.

I looked out the window, and I couldn't see. It wasn't too dark, it was just too foggy.

The voice is distant, buried inside my head, but it sounds like a child. I can almost see a child, too, cooing in a sing-song voice at a toy that they walk across the carpet. And a smaller sibling, naked except for a diaper, shrieking with delight as their parent chases them with a pair of footie pajamas.

“Allie?” Diego's voice draws me back from the warm, happy fog, and reality crashes over me in a chilly wave. I feel a shiver race down my spine as I force my eyes to open and look up at him. It's a good deal brighter than when we came in, and the light hurts my eyes enough that I can't fully focus. But there's still something in his voice and his grip on my shoulder that alarms me.

“What's wrong?”

“I think there is someone living here after all,” he says grimly. “There's no one here at this exact moment, but I found definite signs of life. Including generators, a mini fridge, a hot plate, and a Porta Potty. There are also mattresses in the bedrooms. And blankets. And I found a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“Is it stocked?”

“Fortunately, yes. Here's my plan: I get you into the bedroom. We set ourselves up in there with some food and water and blankets and stuff. Then we lock the door and hole up in there until nightfall. We can get some rest, and if the original squatters come back, there's a desk under the window inside, and an HVAC unit outside. It wouldn't be the easiest escape, but we could get out.”

“Or we could leave as soon as this cut on my back is cleaned and bandaged.”

“Look me in the eye and tell me you're up for that, and that's what we'll do.” But of course, I can't. I can barely even get my eyes to focus on his face. I need rest, and so does he. I exhale slowly, closing my eyes as my answer. “Yeah, that's what I thought. Come on. I'll help you up.”

I lean heavily on Diego as he walks me down the hall. I don't mean to give him so much of my weight, but if I'm honest with myself, I don't feel steady at all. The sight of a mattress on the bedroom floor, complete with pillows and blankets is truly a welcome one. Even if when I lie down, I discover that the mattress is far from new and that it smells faintly of stale sweat. A lamp clicking on behind me sprays the wall in front of me with harsh white light that crests over my dark, crisp-edged shadow. Diego helps me sit up just long enough to untangle myself from the tarp before I let my head drop back onto the pillow.

“...I still can't quite reach Varyyn,” I murmur softly as Diego gently lifts my sweatshirt away from the wound.

“Midwife did say it would take awhile. ...Seems like it stopped bleeding. ...But it also looks like it's a little deeper than I thought...”

I hear him rattling around with the first aid kit. Tears start to well in my eyes, whether in anticipation of the pain, or...everything else, I'm not sure. Maybe it's both. Probably. Last time I was in a similar position, Jake was with me. Everyone who matters was with me. Well...everyone except the baby in my belly. I think I felt stronger then, though. Sure, I was in pain and scared of everything happening around me. But somehow, the Celestial felt smaller and more intimate than this tiny abandoned ranch house. And the faceless enemy whose purpose at the time was still unknown didn't feel as close and threatening as the former Arachnid goons hunting me now.

A flicker of movement at the edge of my vision makes me suck in my breath. Diego has stuck his hand over my shoulder, fingers splayed in an invitation. I lift my hand to his and squeeze it firmly. I start to draw it back, but he gently tightens his grip.

“It's okay. I gotcha. I can do the cleaning one-handed.”

“Thanks,” I murmur.

“You ready?”

“Go for it,” I reply tightly, screwing my eyes shut. “Let's get it over with.”

I manage not to flinch or cry out, but I kind of fail at breathing slowly and deeply like they've been teaching me in my birthing classes. My breath hitches in my throat, and I'm crying by the time Diego sticks a few piles of gauze pads to my back with first aid tape. Diego is quiet as he strokes my hair comfortingly.

“...Thanks,” I say at last, my voice hoarse. “Thanks for doing that.”

His hand pauses on my head. “...You protect me, Allie,” he says softly. “It's what you do. It's what you've done all our lives. But we both know you can't be the strong one all the time. I know I'm not a naturally brave person, but I'm always going to protect you when you need me to.”

“You're braver than you think you are,” I whisper, squeezing his hand.

“You just get some rest, okay? I'll fix us something to eat.”

Zahra

As usual, I'm already at the office by the time Aleister comes in at eight in the morning. He's maybe a little surprised to find me in his office instead of mine, but he doesn't show it with more than a raised eyebrow.

“Good morning, Zahra,” he says as he closes the door. “What's going on?”

I flash the file folder in my hand. A paperclip keeps the pages inside secured to the flap. “I had a feeling the cops were hiding something from us with regards to the plane that took our friends to the island. I was right.”

“I see.” He sits down at his desk. “Do we know who owns it?”

“Yeah. But that's kind of the least of our worries. I ran the tail number, serial numbers on the parts, everything they had that I could think of. They all came up attached to a single plane. ...A plane that is currently in pieces in the custody of the NTSB. And what pieces aren't in their custody are at the bottom of the ocean.” I push the folder across the desk toward him. “...All the numbers match a certain plane that crashed in 1996. ...The same one that Alodia's parents were on when they died.”

Aleister flips open the folder and scans the pages inside, his eyes alternately widening and narrowing as he takes in the information.

“...I would say that's impossible,” he says slowly, “...but I think we both know that's not true. Even if the how escapes us.”

“I'm a little more concerned with the why. Why use that plane specifically? If they didn't want to use a currently existing plane, why use the one that killed Alodia's parents? Why not a different plane from the past?”

“Perhaps they needed one with a connection to Vaanu. The one that killed his human form perhaps has more of the energy they need.”

“Yeah, I guess. ...I mean, it's all speculation at this point.”

“Did you relay this information to Jake and the others?”

“Nah. I mean, Craig knows because I tell him pretty much everything, but it doesn't seem like this is gonna do much to help actually find Alodia here and now. I feel like this tidbit can wait until they're done with their part.”

“Hmm. I suppose there is wisdom in not throwing them any potential red herrings when time is of the essence. What about the recording? Have you gotten anywhere with that?”

“I'm stuck,” I admit. “I figured out that the recording was mostly spliced, but then there was that cry for help that wasn't spliced...but where do I go from there? I mean, I guess I could isolate the background audio for any potential sound signatures that could give me an indication of where the recording was made...but that's kind of a long shot, even with Iris to help.”

“Truthfully, I am a little more interested in the coded message before that.”

I shrug. “Seems to be a code in keeping with your dad's Greco-Roman obsession. I looked up the First Triumvirate on Wikipedia, but didn't get much that was useful.”

“The relationships between the key players certainly don't seem to reflect history if Crassus is betraying Caesar and Pompey. Crassus and Caesar were steadfast allies. Historically, Pompey was the odd man out.” He sighs. “Ironically, I expect Alodia would be very helpful in figuring out the message.”

“She is our resident history buff,” I agree. “...But...maybe history isn't what's important here.”

“I expect not,” I agree. “But you sound like you're thinking of something specifically.”

“Your old man's a megalomaniac. He's interested in building himself up as a god. Maybe we should be focusing on mythology rather than history.”

Aleister frowns thoughtfully. “I don't disagree with your assessment of my father. But if the message is from Alodia, wouldn't history make more sense?”

“You're assuming it is from Alodia? If that's the case, why go through the trouble of splicing her voice together?”

“Perhaps as a distraction to anyone else who might be tracking her? If nothing else, the fact that her cry for help was not spliced suggests she knew the recording would somehow reach Jake.”

I'm still not sold on the idea, but whether Alodia sent the message or not is not my point. “Even assuming the message is from Alodia, that doesn't necessarily make what I said wrong. Don't forget she was the Endless. She succeeded in making a god of herself to the Vaanti. She knows how to build a mythology.”

“...She knows how to build a mythology from facts,” he says slowly. “...She knew what my father was planning. She knew he could be stopped if we had the Vaanti's help, and she knew that she needed to change the Vaanti to protect us.”

I raise an eyebrow. “Now you're the one who sounds like you're onto something.”

“As the Endless, Alodia built her mythology around what she knew would happen in the future. It's hardly an uncommon scenario to play out when one imagines traveling to the past, is it?”

I shrug. “Probably not. People imagine a lot of things when they imagine time travel.”

“Right. What if this message is the same sort of thing in reverse?”

“...In reverse? Like, building facts from mythology?”

He frowns, shaking his head like he's trying to dislodge a bug from his hair. “No...not quite. Or perhaps.” He blows upward, briefly lifting a few strands of pale hair from his forehead. “I think the metaphors are rather getting tangled up in themselves.”

“Yeah, probably,” I agree slowly. “But I think we're ultimately ending up on the same page. ...It's not history or mythology that's important here, but both together, right?”

“Yes! Precisely!” He snaps his fingers. “Ancient Rome's history is littered with apocrypha, especially about high-profile figures like Caesar and Pompey and Crassus. History and myth are already difficult to distinguish.”

“Okay, so what do we have to go on? I guess we can assume that Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus represent three different people. Or...factions. Seems likely one of them is Rourke.”

He nods. “I would put money on Silas Prescott also being represented. Given their long-standing rivalry, I would have considered him and Father to be shoe-ins for Pompey and Crassus...but the message states that Crassus has betrayed Caesar and Pompey, and based on what Grayson told us about his holiday encounter with his father, I think it's more likely that Father and Prescott are working together.”

“Right. If Grayson's suspicions were right, and we're right about what Rourke is ultimately planning, then Prescott has probably gotten in on the Janus Project somehow. From what Tahira said about their showdown, it seems like all Prescott wants is his wife back.”

“And if Father is to be believed, he can deliver that.”

“So, if Rourke and Prescott are Caesar and Pompey, who is Crassus? Who betrayed them?”

Aleister sighs, slumping back in his chair. “That is the question, isn't it. The possibility that we have an ally out there is tantalizing.”

“They might not actually be an ally,” I warn. “We might have a common enemy, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're on our side.”

“I suppose not. ...But returning to Caesar and Pompey for a minute, I think I might have an inkling which is which.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Caesar was the one who made himself dictator. He's primarily remembered as the politician, while Pompey is primarily known as the general.”

I snort. “I think I see where you're going with this. Your old man's Caesar, right?”

He smirks. “Precisely. And when you consider their respective foils, it makes even more sense. Alodia is my father's foil, both as herself and as the Endless. Especially as the Endless. The Endless succeeded in building herself up as a god, and thus prevented him from doing the same. Meanwhile, Prescott's foil is Tahira. He raised an army of criminals to take down her band of superhumans. All in all, they project a more militaristic image than the Endless and my father manipulating and influencing to gain power over each other.”

“Which is pretty much what the First Triumvirate did, isn't it? Manipulate and influence and all that?”

“That's pretty much what Romans did.” He chuckles, but there's enough of a pause beforehand that I don't think he's chuckling at the comment he just made.

“What?”

“Julius Caesar had two known children, a son and a daughter. And a few illegitimate children who were suspected to be his, but two that are widely accepted as his: a daughter, Julia, by his first wife, and a son by Cleopatra called Caesarion.”

“As in the Cleopatra?”

“The very same.”

I can't help myself. “Which kid do you think you are?” I ask with a smirk.

He laughs. “Oh, without a doubt, I am Julia. Born to his wife, but ultimately useless to him. No doubt he considers Estela his Caesarion.”

“Even though you both rejected him in the end.”

“Well, it's hardly a perfect parallel. Caesar never even publicly acknowledged Caesarion was his, and Olivia Montoya hardly shares my father's ambition. For another thing, Julia was married to Pompey in order to cement the alliance with her father.”

I snort. “Now that seriously tangles the metaphor. We'd have to rethink every...” I trail off as I realize that Aleister is suddenly sitting ramrod straight, his eyes wide. “...Uh...Aleister? You okay there?”

His eyes lock with mine. “...Blair. Blair Hall. ...Blair Hall is Crassus.”

Michelle

I check Tahira's wound every time we stop the car to refuel and eat. I have found her to be a very easy and relaxed patient, in spite of the rough environment. Clearly, she doesn't share her cousin's fear of medical procedure. She stretches out in the backseat of a car as I press gently around the edges of the wound with vinyl-clad hands.

“You're healing nicely,” I tell her. “Not quite ready to have those stitches out yet, I think, but it won't be long. Any pain?”

“Not anymore. I just need to be ready to fight by the time we find Alodia.”

I carefully peel off my gloves, discarding them in a portable biohazard box. “I can't make any promises. Particularly because I don't know how long it's going to take us to find her. But you are healing faster than an ordinary human being would.”

“Guess that's all I can hope for. ...I tested my powers at the last rest stop. I managed to fly and tear a branch off a tree with my bare hands, so I think we can safely assume those are intact.”

I pause for a moment. “...If this is too personal a question, feel free to tell me off. But if you did lose your powers...do you think you'd be okay?”

“Ultimately? ...Yeah. Probably. Frankly the worst part would be feeling helpless. I mean...before I got my powers, I was a business woman. I did some volunteer work in my spare time, and I worked out, but I never felt like I could really protect people from anyone who wanted to hurt them. Honestly, that's something I admire about Alodia. By all accounts, she's been a fighter all her life. The type of person who wouldn't hesitate to face down a criminal or a bully, with or without superpowers. On the night I got my powers, my friends and coworkers and a hundred innocent people were threatened by armed robbers, and my instinct was to comply with their demands so that they wouldn't hurt anyone.”

“That is a very sensible reaction,” I say firmly.

“Yeah, I know. And it's still the advice I would give anyone in a similar situation. But it's still nice to feel like I don't have to take that advice myself anymore.”

“I get that,” I concede and smile wryly. “And I certainly don't mean to imply that Alodia's courage shouldn't be admired. Actually, she's usually very good about recognizing her limits. But she won't hesitate to risk everything if she thinks there's half a chance of protecting her loved ones. ...Right now, she's a prisoner, and most likely, her best friend is with her. ...I don't know whether her being pregnant makes me more or less worried about that.”

Tahira sits up carefully, raising an eyebrow. “More, I should think. Right?”

“Well...in most ways, yes. Her being pregnant makes her situation a lot scarier to imagine. But I'm at least reasonably sure she's not going to take any undue risks when her baby depends on her to be healthy. Still...if they try to control her by threatening Diego...there are a few ways that could go. One, we find Diego hurt very badly. Two, she submits to protect him, but the stress has other ill effects on her health. Three...she fights back...”

Tahira puts a hand on my shoulder. “Michelle, I may not know her as well as you guys do, but I know her well enough to know how much that child means to her. She's not going to be reckless.”

I nod. “You're probably right. If I am honest with myself, it's the second option that seems most likely. The problem is that stress could negatively affect her baby as much as her. There is no safe way to keep a pregnant woman prisoner...”

Tahira squeezes my shoulder, grinning. “Well. Then it's lucky we're coming to rescue her, isn't it.”

Alodia

I'm dying. I can feel my body going cold as the blood drains out of me from the hole the bullet tore in my side. Jake's face swims above me, and I am vaguely aware of his hands on my face and hair.

“Come on, Princess, stay with me.” Agony flairs as the world tilts sickeningly around me, and I hear myself cry out. “Shhh. I'm here. I gotcha. I know it hurts. I'm right here.”

“Entry and exit wounds,” I hear Michelle say. “Straight through. Shit, I really hope this works...”

Darkness is creeping in at the edges of my vision. Suddenly, I feel myself growing warmer, and the pain starts to dull, replaced by a pleasant tingling sensation. The darkness recedes and the world reasserts itself. Jake has me cradled in his arms, and Michelle is beside us with one hand on my belly and the other on my back. A healing leaf under each palm repairs my torn flesh. Within ten minutes, I am breathing painlessly. Jake smiles down at me, tears still shimmering on his cheeks and eyelashes.

“There she is. Welcome back, Princess.”

“Hey,” I croak.

“How're you feeling?” Michelle asks.

“...Probably not up to running a marathon. But probably not dying, either.”

“Yeah, I bet. You've lost a lot of blood, so you'll need to take it easy. Unfortunately, I don't think a transfusion is possible. But at least what you've got left is staying on the inside.”

Jake eases me upright, and that's when I see that I'm not the only one injured. I frown.

“Michelle, you're bleeding...”

Michelle glances down at the deep gash on her lower leg and winces. “Yeah. Looks worse than it is, though.”

“It could still probably use a healing leaf.”

“Unfortunately, those were the last ones.” She shrugs dismissively. “I'll wrap it up. That should hold it until we get back to Elyys'tel.”

“...It isn't going to.” As I say it, I realize with terrible certainty that I am all too right. This is a memory. I have lived this before. I know what happens. Over the next two days as we journey to Elyys'tel, that wound will fester...

“Don't,” Michelle says firmly. “Don't linger here, Alodia. Don't think twice.”

“About what?”

“You're going to figure out soon what you're remembering. It's going to be used against you. ...You know what you are to us. What you were made to be. Let that be your strength. Not your sorrow.”

“Michelle...”

“Come on, Alodia. We need you.”

Diego

I found a couple pots in the kitchen. I used them and some of the bottled water supply to make us some ramen on the hot plate. We cleaned our hands with alcohol wipes from the first aid kit and ate with our fingers straight from the pot. Then while Allie slept, I went through the house and locked every door and window. The front door wouldn't lock, but I stacked up a pyramid of canned goods behind it to give us a warning if someone decides to come in. Only then did I lie down on the mattress beside Allie to get some rest myself.

The space heater I found isn't very big, but with the door and windows closed it's enough to bring the air to a tolerable temperature, and its hum is soothing. Exhaustion takes over, and I drift off almost immediately. I'm not sure what time it is when I wake up, but it's dark again. I find the flashlight beside me and ease myself out from under the blanket. I won't disturb Allie just yet, but we should probably get moving soon. But first, I want to make sure we can go out the door. I'm not going to make my injured, pregnant friend climb out the window if she doesn't have to. I grab the fireplace poker from beside the door and creep out into the hall with my flashlight shining.

I'm painfully aware of how much I'm shaking as I creep through the house, thoroughly checking every room. My breath is shallow with anxiety, my throat tight. I swear my heart is about to hammer out of my chest, especially when I have to creep into the cobweb-infested basement. But every room is empty. The cans behind the door are undisturbed. Relief floods through me as I return to the bedroom. I lock the door again when I get back in. No good letting our guard down. We're safe now, but that could change pretty quickly.

“Allie? Are you awake?” She makes a noise that's a cross between a moan and a whimper, like she just woke up from a bad dream. “It's okay. It's just me.”

“...Diego...?”

“Yeah. I'm gonna turn the lamp on, okay? It's dark out.”

“...We escaped. We hid in an abandoned house.”

“Yeah.” I flip on the lamp. Her back is to me, but I still see her flinch as the light floods the room. “How're you feeling? We should probably move on before either the original squatters come back or Fiddler and her goons show up.”

“...I don't feel right...” Her voice comes out in a weak whimper. Something cold trickles down my spine.

“Allie...?” I make my way around to the other side of the mattress and feel my breath catch in my throat. Allie's face is ashen in the harsh light of the lamp. Tiny beads of sweat glisten on her forehead.

Oh, no...oh, please God, no...

The thought comes before I consciously realize what's happening, but deep down, I know. I drop to my knees beside her and reach out to press the back of my hand to her brow. I almost yank it back when I feel the heat coming off her skin.

“Shit! Allie, you're burning up!”

“...I'm cold...”

“It's chills. You have a fever.” I leap up to move to the other side of the mattress again. “I'm just going to check your wound. I'm gonna have to move the blanket.”

She moans, but she doesn't protest, though she does shudder violently as I expose her back. I carefully peel back the pile of gauze and first aid tape. I can't help sucking in a sharp breath. The skin around the wound is swollen, glowing an angry shade of red. I cautiously press the skin with my fingertip. It's hotter than her forehead, and she flinches at my touch, whimpering.

“Oh, God...Allie, hang on, okay? I'm gonna clean the wound again...”

I fumble for the first aid kit, pulling out an alcohol pad and a tube of antibiotic cream as I try to swallow my fear and doubt. Keep going, Diego. Just take care of her. Keep her safe.

But she's not safe. We're not safe. And now our situation is worse.

God help us. What are we going to do now?

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thegeminisage · 3 years

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you know how on paper “sam and dean kill god” sounds like an amazing idea and then the execution just falls flatter than a pancake? s13 is the reverse of that where the concept SOUNDS bad but the execution is just so good and sexy truly i think the first 5 eps of s13 are the best of all the post s5-material. the first episode alone which i am rewatching right now is like. chefs kiss opening

like we begin the season with just sam and dean, on their own, after cas got stabbed with an angel sword right in front of them and mary pulled lucifer through a portal into an alternate reality and got trapped there with him

so it’s just them, and cas’s corpse and after sam leaves dean next to castiel’s corpse to go check on the kid he finds like this whole ass grown adult, who is capable of speech but does not know what the FUCK is going on. and dean comes up and tries to shoot him and of course he attacks them and then fucking vanishes

they eventually catch up to him like in town, where the police picked him up cause he was wandering around naked asking for his father. they set you up real good on this one because he’s confused and scared and lashing out and asking for, ostensibly, the god damned devil himself

but then while sam and jack wind up in the same jail cell alone sam is actually the first person to talk to jack like a normal human, despite being terrified of him because that’s LUCIFER’S KID

and jack is like, yeah i’m looking for my dad but lucifer isn’t my father's name. my father’s name is castiel and sam’s like Ah Fuck he’s just a KID whose mom died and father vanished and who everybody thinks is gonna go darkside. and he’s like, Relating. meanwhile dean wants to shank him to avenge cas and mary lol

furthermore, dean spends this entire episode insisting to sam that no, mary can’t be alive, lucifer surely tore her heart out, and that she and cas are both gone for good. there’s a bit where he prays to god and begs god to bring cas back, and of course gets no answer, and he goes nuts and hits the wall until his knuckles bleed

and when they finally rescue jack and get him back to this house he was born at, they like. have to walk around and let him see the bodies to say goodbye. his mom’s body, and castiel’s body. and dean starts getting them ready for the pyre himself - he takes a last look at cas’s face and then binds the cloth around him to burn him

and sam and dean at the funeral say goodbye to jack’s mom, their own mom, cas, and there’s this feeling of ah god we are really alone in the world and the music swells and the camera pans up to watch the smoke go into the sky and it fades to

mary who is very very much ALIVE in her little alternate reality

and it’s SOOO good like the transition from utter despair to this one little spark of hope, especially because sam’s been insisting the entire episode that she could have survived...like every time...i die. here look at this clip

youtube

like we go from THAT to learning mary is alive after all. the despair vs the hope, the MUSIC, hello?? HELLO???

#s13 is good. i have more thots coming soon #personal #liz watches spn #edit i'd like to add also that the previously for this season was accompanied by the second best metallica song #and almost feels like watching a fanvid #SO GOOD

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treatian · 3 years

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The Chronicles of the Dark One: Breaking the Curse

Chapter 5: Old Somebodies

Tonight was the night.

He'd been waiting well over a week for an opportunity like this, ever since he'd confronted Regina at that Apple Tree of hers. He was starting to believe that the day might be months off or might never arrive, and he'd have to prepare for the future with educated guesses. But here they were.

He'd been busy in the last few days. After twenty-eight years, there was a lot to catch up on, and doing it in such a way that Regina might not notice anything different about him meant he had to be creative about how he acquainted himself with this new world. He wanted a way to be aware of who was around him, to let himself know who was in this town, who they were here, who they'd been at home, as well as any stray information that he happened to know about them. He wanted to be prepared and knowledgeable, and to do that, he had to unite his old self with his new self perfectly. As it turned out, his ledger was the key.

The books he kept, the same ones he used to keep track of rent, were as good as having the town census. With human eyes, it took a long time to go through name after name after name. Still, it was all worth it in the end, especially when he remembered that if Regina was capable of watching him in his house, all she'd see was Mr. Gold obsessing over his finances, something very "in character" for his alternate persona. Name by name, he went through his books. Often, he knew little about the individual, but there were more than a few that he was able to place.

Albert Spencer, a full-time lawyer, working crimes he didn't dare bore himself with-that was King George, James' and David's adoptive father.

Doctor Whale, a physician at Storybrooke Hospital-in fact, was Doctor Frankenstein, from the Land Without Color. Apparently, Regina had brought over a few individuals that were not in their land.

Tom Clark, owner of the Dark Star Pharmacy, the only pharmacy in town. Mr. Clark was teased by many for being rather short in stature, but on this side of the Curse, he knew that was neither bad luck nor ailment. In reality, he was Sneezy, one of the seven dwarves that always seemed attached to Snow White.

He studied his lists carefully, forming a checklist in his head of all those he wanted to know and needed to know and making sure they were accounted for. He found the other seven dwarves. Ashley Boyd, his "girl of ash," was currently very pregnant and working odd jobs, so she didn't have to live with her step-mother and sisters. It seemed Jefferson had kept his name of Jefferson and was secluded in a mansion of sorts close to the hospital and police station. Sheriff Graham was Regina's hunter, faithful to her only because he reckoned that she still held his heart captive somewhere safe. Kathryn Nolan was Abigail, King Midas' daughter, and David Nolan's supposed husband, not that anyone knew where David Nolan was at the moment. Sidney Glass was the Genie that Regina had used to murder her husband.

The name Sarah Fisher was the only one that made him stumble. Sarah Fisher, owner of the ice cream shop across the street. He'd given her a loan to get it, but…he remembered that. She wasn't like the others in Storybrooke that he had fuzzy false memories of. Her coming to him for a loan to start her shop, her opening day, Mr. Gold remembered those. They'd happened here in Storybrooke after they'd been here; years after, he was almost sure. But nothing in Storybrooke ever changed. For twenty-eight years, everyone had only ever had their single loop that they followed. No one ever struck out on their own or followed their dreams or got their happy endings, which meant…

Sarah Fisher hadn't always been in Storybrooke. She hadn't been brought here by the Curse. In actuality, Sarah Fisher was Princess Ingrid, the scared little Elemental from Arendelle he'd met so long ago. And this…this was very valuable information he now possessed. Until she made a nuisance of herself, it was information to keep close to his chest and play only when the time was right. Though, he was also fascinated to learn that Ingrid's niece, Anna, was among the missing.

There were a few others that joined Anna on this list of "missing people." Of course, "unknown" was perhaps a better word for it. Though he knew most people in Storybrooke, he had to admit he didn't know them all. There was an entire realm of people here; the Dark One hadn't dealt with all of them in his time, and thanks to Dove, neither had Mr. Gold. It was possible Anna was one of the faceless names he'd looked over and didn't know it. But he was disappointed and more than a bit nervous at who was on his list of unknowns.

For a while, David's name was at the top of that list, though he hadn't panicked when he realized it. His memories of when he'd awoken told him he was not a paying member of society, and shortly after he'd begun his search, he'd had Dove go to the hospital and locate a John Doe that matched David's description. A picture later, it was all confirmed. David was located even if he was the only one who knew it.

Also among the unknowns; Archie Hopper's unknown friend with dark hair who knew Baelfire, and Cora. Regina had claimed to have killed the woman when they were in the Enchanted Forest, so he supposed it was possible that was why she was missing, but he'd always doubted that she'd actually done the deed. So where was she now? More than likely, she was still in Wonderland. Dead or alive, that woman would be the last person Regina would want around here, and at the moment, he didn't care which it was so long as she wasn't anywhere near him. The Apprentice, Merlin, King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, all of them were missing, and he couldn't recall seeing Princess Aurora or her Prince Phillip anywhere in town. But the most important person on his unknown list at the moment was the one that held something extraordinary of his inside her. Maleficent was missing.

He was certain, or at least almost certain, that she'd been carried over in the Curse. He knew that she'd still been in the Enchanted Forest when he'd been captured and taken to his cell. He'd been planning on her being here; that was why he'd had David leave his egg with his potion inside her! So where was she?

After days of consideration, he had a hunch, one theory that had come to him as he glanced across the street at the empty library, missing his Belle. He knew everything about this place, everything about his land and especially the library that Mr. Gold had considered knocking down more than a time or two. He'd seen the blueprints for it. He knew that in that library, there was an elevator; mostly, it was to be used for going up to the clocktower, but it could also go down. Down…Mr. Gold had no idea where "down" went to. The town legend had always said there was a dragon beneath the library. It was just a stupid story that children told to scare their classmates. Poppycock, Mr. Gold considered it. But suddenly, he remembered all those times he'd walked to his shop in the snow and cast that irritated glance over to the library. Why was it that the area around that library always seemed to get less snow?

It was worth an investigation. But how to pull it off? Regina was suspicious of him enough as it was, but she couldn't prove anything, and that was how he wanted to keep it. If the elevator was what he thought it was, then there might be magic on it. It might alert Regina to the fact that he used it, and he might be able to come up with some story or excuse, but at that point, he would be playing with fire.

He thought of a hundred different scenarios, dozens of different plans which might allow him to investigate, but all of them came back to one lesson the Seer had always taught him-it had to be the right time.

Well, it seemed the right time had finally arrived. He was keeping Dove happy and rich these days, paying him to watch Emma Swan, who was currently living in her yellow car on the street because no one was willing to invite the Mayor's wrath and let her stay with them. Last night, something had happened, something that nearly made him erupt in a fit of giggles when he found out. John Doe, David Nolan, Prince Charming…at Henry and Emma's behest apparently Mary Margaret had gone to read to him last night. The result?

John Doe was awake.

Dove didn't know the entire story. There had been some speculation in the hospital earlier in the night. Mary Margaret had insisted that he'd woken, but the medical staff had assured her that he hadn't. But sometime in the middle of the night, he'd wandered off in nothing but his hospital gown. Damn near the entire town had shut down today to go looking for the missing man, just as they had more than a decade ago, though no one else seemed to be able to remember that clearly. Naturally, much to what he was certain was Regina's disappointment; it was Emma and Mary Margaret who had found David in the woods.

Hopeful that a moment was coming, he'd stayed in his shop, hoping that the timing might be right. And then it arrived, a single text message from Dove. "Things are crazy here. The Mayor just showed up with a woman she claims is John Doe's wife. No one saw this coming. Everyone has questions."

That was good enough for him. Regina was busy. Good and busy, for the next several minutes at least. From the back of his shop, in a black bag that held all his magical potions, he grabbed a thick paste he'd been working on for just a time like this. Water, ground limestone, and salt. In their world, it was the essence of natural magic. He just hoped it would cancel or dull any protective spells that Regina might have on that elevator. With any luck, the commotion at the hospital would keep her busy enough not to notice. He grabbed a flashlight, a thick ring of keys that let him into nearly any home and establishment in Storybrooke, and he made sure his gun was tucked into his pocket. Then, quick as he could, he limped across the street to the library.

The door whined so loud at being opened, he wanted to cover his ears. But he pressed forward. Though the library did have electricity, he didn't turn the lights on and made sure not to aim his flashlight at any of the boarded-up windows. The last thing he needed was Regina getting a hint that something was wrong because some snoopy shop owner had seen something they shouldn't have. He smeared the paste he'd made over the frame of the elevator best he could and felt something tingle in the air. He hoped it was the Curse, desperate for more magic to keep itself going, taking the bait, and releasing any wards there might have been on the thing. Then he opened the doors to the elevator open.

The elevator car wasn't where it was supposed to be but rather stuck halfway down the shaft, further inviting those who wished to use it to simply leave. He wasn't fooled by it. He used the handle to inch the rattling metal cage up to where he was and then pretended not to gulp as he got into it, closed the doors, and opened a hidden panel that contained the emergency controls. Then he lowered himself down the shaft and into the mines below Storybrooke.

Ten minutes later, he was sitting in his car, huffing and puffing at what he'd seen and how he'd hurried to vacate the library before anyone knew he was there. He sent a text message to Dove and confirmed that Regina hadn't left yet and everyone was still there at the hospital. Relief spread through his body as he leaned his head back against the seat and tried to breathe.

He should have turned on the car and gone home, but he was suddenly aware that his hands were shaking and his feet felt unnaturally light. He tried to tell himself it was because he had hurried, that this body was far less capable than the body he'd had in the Enchanted Forest, but deep down, he knew it was something far more cowardly making him shake. It was what lay at the bottom of the Storybrooke Library.

At the bottom of the elevator, there had been an impossibly large cavern. It had been dark and damp, but cold. Fear kept him from taking a single step off the elevator platform as he circled his flashlight around the darkness. The light glinted and fractured over something shining and glass. It was an artifact he recognized, one that he was shocked to see found it's way over…Snow White's infamous glass coffin. He swallowed as he moved the beam of light again. Across a crack in the cavern floor, he was met with the sight of two glowing yellow eyes the size of large dinner serving platters. A low rumble had vibrated in his chest and across the walls of the black walls of the cave as those eyes had risen in height, and he'd quickly closed the elevator doors and pushed the metal cage to move faster back to the library.

A dragon was living under the library in Storybrooke.

He'd found Maleficent.

#Rumbelle #Rumple #Rumpelstiltskin #Dark One #Mr. Gold #Regina Mills #Evil Queen #Emma Swan #Mary Margaret #Snow White #David Nolan #Snowing #maleficent #ouat #ouat fanfiction #fanfiction

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aethelflaedladyofmercia · 4 years

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What Might Have Been - 17

@goodomenscelebration - Theme Prompts

Continuing to post as many as possible in one evening!

If you missed a chapter, they are all available on AO3!

CW for briefly described but very bad injuries; and for creepy abandoned towns

For those who need a reminder: “Crowley” is our Crowley, while his “mirror image” is the Alternate Universe version. “Aziraphale” (or the “Guardian of Humanity”) is the Alternate Universe angel, while “Kasbeel” is ours, in disguise.

I apologize for that being confusing.

Holiday

“Tell me about the angel.”

Crowley’s mirror image slumped against the wall, looking blankly at the space between them.

It was the only thing he ever asked. He never spoke of his own Aziraphale.

At first, Crowley had thought it was a trick. He’d kept his responses vague, evasive. What do you want me to say? Smug bastard with white wings. The mirror image had simply nodded.

Over time, Crowley started telling stories from their past, short ones, ones he thought over carefully, to ensure they wouldn’t reveal too much.

He likes oysters, way too much. Just. Salty, briny disgusting oysters, and he’ll eat a dozen of them in one sitting. Slurps them, too.

He can’t stand Charles Dickens. No idea why. Might just be that his customers are always asking for him, but I think they met once.

He’s been trying to learn to pull a coin from someone’s ear for over a century. Still drops the damn thing half the time. Isn’t it only supposed to take ten thousand hours to learn a skill? He’s coming up on a hundred thousand hours I think, and he still can’t get the fingers right.

And then, somewhere along the way, he stopped even guarding himself that much.

“He helps people,” Crowley said, turning his leg, which was still stiff and sore from the last torture session. The floor around him was black with demonic blood. “Even…when it’s really not worth it, even when there’s something way more important going on. One time, we were at this little restaurant in Italy. I turn my back for a minute, and there he goes, off washing dishes. He hates doing that sort of stuff, you know, always leaves them in the sink until I take care of it. But the girl in the back had been sick, and he sent her home and took over the job himself. Didn’t even use miracles, by the way, and couldn’t figure out how the machine worked, so he did it all by hand.”

“What…” the mirror image asked. “What was the more important thing?”

“Oh, uh, I’d been planning to ask him something. Not important what. We picked up the conversation later, but, um, he really ruined my first attempt.”

A hundred and forty miles to London.

Alone, Kasbeel could fly the distance in just under five hours. He would be exhausted, but he’d had a lot of practice the last few years.

He was not alone.

A Roman legion could walk twenty miles a day, setting up camp every night and breaking it in the morning. They could have made it in a week. Harold Godwinson had crossed from Yorkshire to Sussex in a little more than that.

But Kasbeel wasn’t leading an army.

He was leading nearly three hundred tired, hungry humans, most of them young, through enemy territory. Where they could be spotted at any moment and taken from him.

He took a deep breath, and walked through the crowd.

“Patrick, how’s the leg? Healing well? Ollie, make sure you hold onto Jennifer’s hand. Mrs. Sherwood, that’s not too many children? Please let Mrs. Kumar know if you need help. Amiyah, why don’t you move up to the front where we can see you? Alex, please, stay with your group, I don’t want to ask you again.” He greeted as many as he could, clasping shoulders, grasping hands.

When he reached the front, Lyla was waiting. She’d arranged her hair to hide the Mark on her cheekbone, as many did if they could. He bit his tongue and didn’t say anything. It was her choice.

“Are we ready to go?” she asked, tilting her head towards the highway, cutting south towards London.

“I believe so.” He glanced at the sky, black, filled with stars once more. It was comforting, and frightening. What else would change? “Let’s get as far as we can before sunrise.”

Ishliah had never seen the world before the apocalypse. Just barracks and training until the day the war started, then fighting, and fighting and fighting.

What spread before her now was almost incomprehensible. Little short plants growing everywhere from the ground, a vibrant, impossible green. And the taller ones – the trees – reaching almost to the top of the wall, branches spreading thick with fruit. Little animals sat in the branches, singing, not as varied or interesting as the singing of angels, but music nonetheless.

All that, and the sky above, brilliant blue again – it was almost enough to bring tears to her eyes.

“Ishliah of the Seventh Battalion. Welcome to New Eden.”

She turned, and her heart stopped in her chest. That face – she knew him, would never forget it, though now he was in uniform, flaming sword in hand. But the pale curls – the round face – the blue-grey eyes…

“You…” she managed, weakly.

“That would be the confirmation I need.” He stepped closer, still smiling. “I am Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate, Principality of Earth and Guardian of Humanity. I believe you met someone claiming to be me, three years ago, according to your report.”

“That…it really was…you?” Her hands began to tremble, and she wondered if this was what fear felt like. She never felt it on the battlefield, but this was much, much worse.

Ishliah had lied in that report.

“No, it was not.” He patted her on the shoulder. “And I don’t believe many others understand what you truly witnessed. I don’t fully understand it myself, but I mean to. Now. You said this angel…” a screen appeared in his hand and he scrolled down, lips pursed as he read. “Here it is. He took you into a hidden room and tortured you for information? Is this true?”

“Yes?” She cleared her throat and tried again. “Yes. There was a great deal of pain and…he asked me questions…”

Something caught her eye down in the garden. A group of humans, being led to a smaller walled area not far away. The human in the lead was shouting, and they all seemed to be bound together on some sort of chain.

“Even here we have our troublemakers,” Aziraphale said, with something like regret. “Sometimes the children don’t grow obediently as we’d hoped, and sometimes the Retrieval teams make mistakes when identifying the Elect. Not often, but we have been very busy lately.” He nodded towards the smaller walled section. “The holding pen is their last chance. Gabriel will arrive in a week to deliver the final Judgement on them.”

“And…if they’re found wanting…?”

“They’re cast out, of course. Far from here. The Eastern Gate, you understand, is purely ceremonial.” He gestured to the outer wall beside them.

Ishliah glanced down to see, not quite directly below them, a single stone missing from the completely smooth face of the wall. It hardly looked large enough for even a young human to slip through. She checked the inside curve of the wall. No breaks there – the missing stone didn’t even reach all the way.

She looked up again to find the Guardian scrolling through her report with pursed lips. “Ishliah. I wonder if, perhaps, you weren’t completely honest in what you said?”

She clenched her jaw, the fear suddenly reaching a height she had never suspected. Was this why traitors deserted? She would do anything not to feel this way again…

But the Guardian merely smiled, stepping close, lowering his voice. “My dear. Do not worry. What you witnessed was…truly extraordinary, and of course you thought no one would believe you. But this is no longer an isolated incident. There have been…other reports, curious ones, and yours doesn’t quite line up. But if you tell me the truth now, all will be forgiven.”

Her eyes slid again to the holding pen. “All?”

He rested a hand on her back, turning her away, until she faced him and only him. “Now, Ishliah. Tell me about the angel.”

“Tell me about the angel.”

Crowley tried to sit up straighter. His leg had healed, but now there was some great gaping gash across his stomach, and the way his manacled arm hung kept stretching the wound.

“He’s a complete hedonist. Foods. Wines. He goes to the barber every month. His hair doesn’t grow, he’s never had a beard, and he never even changes his look. I have no idea why he does it, except to have someone wash his hair and buff his nails. But he always comes out smiling, like he’s found the secret to peace on earth.”

“Nh,” the mirror image said. Crowley looked up to find he had a hand pressed to the bleeding wound on his neck. But it hadn’t sounded like a noise of pain. “I…uh, yeah. I know the look.”

“He likes to spoil me, too, when he has a chance. Trying to cheer me up, I think. I don’t tell him when it works, though. I’ve got a reputation to maintain. One time in Rome, there was this place with oysters—”

“Stop.”

Crowley looked across the cell, but his mirror image might as well have lost interest, tugging himself towards the corner to sleep.

After three days of travel they reached Burton-upon-Trent.

The gang of wanderers divided into teams to explore, looking for supplies: food, medicine, clothing, shoes, anything that could be used as a weapon. Kasbeel and Lyla walked together with Squad A down the empty street, hot with the kind of blistering heat that only comes on a sunny day. Barricades were put up here and there, signs of the Marked painted on the walls, but no one came out to challenge them.

“I don’t like this,” Lyla muttered. “I don’t want to fight, but…where is everyone?”

All of the villages they’d passed had been abandoned. Apart from the angelic patrols, England was apparently empty.

Kasbeel shook his head. “The Sainsbury’s should be up ahead. Why don’t you…” he trailed off, looking at a few unbroken windows up the side of the street. “Why don’t you go on ahead? I have something to investigate here.”

Two hours later, Squad A emerged with four shopping trollies loaded with cans of soup, vegetables, powdered milk – everything they thought might still be edible after seven years. Lyla doubted it would last them more than a day or two.

No sooner had she stepped into the overly-bright day – she’d forgotten how painful the sun could be – then she heard a shriek, a high-pitched scream of a small child.

She spun, grabbing a can of food, ready to throw it at whatever angel, demon or human threatened her people –

The wanderers had gathered in the parking lot of the carwash across the street, and jets of water filled the air. She could still hear the children shrieking, but everyone else looked relaxed, calm, many of them smiling.

“What’s going on?” she demanded, prepared to push her way through the crowd, but they parted, pressing her forward until she saw the set up.

Four chairs, padded and high-backed, stood in a line across the parking lot. In each one, a child sat, dripping wet, while behind them the adults scrubbed and combed their hair, snipping with delicate scissors. They passed a hose up and down the line of chairs, rinsing the children off.

On one side, Alex had mastery of a single hose, waiting until a chair was free. “Next!” Ollie ran up, bouncing eagerly for his turn. Alex turned on the hose and drenched him, from head to toe, while the little boy shrieked, jumping up and down in the water. “Alright, you’re clean, go get your hair cut.”

On the other side, Kasbeel had set up a small table with two chairs. He sat on one side, and delicately rubbed at Mickey’s nails with an emery board, a pair of glasses she’d never seen before perched on his nose. “Ah, Lyla, you’re back. Join the queue, but be careful, many of the older customers are finding Alex’s methods a little intense.”

“What are you doing?” Lyla shoved at the table, causing little bottles of nail varnish to rattle. “You could have been helping us find food, and instead you’re – you’re wasting time!”

“I most certainly am not. Time is a precious commodity, you know, and ought never to be wasted.” He put down the emery board. “Do you want a color, Mickey? I think the pale pink would look wonderful.”

And Mickey – tough, stoic Mickey, veteran of five battles in the demonic army, Mark emblazoned on his brow for all to see – asked, “Can I try the gold? I like the way it shines.”

“Of course. A wonderful choice.”

“Look at me!” Lyla slammed her hand onto the table again. “What is wrong with you? We need to get everyone ready to move, we’re still weeks away from London. We don’t need—”

“My dear, you most certainly do need.” Kasbeel pulled off the glasses, brows snapping down. “Look at our people. They’ve been living in the mountains, in the dirt, covered in their own filth. It isn’t right.”

“So what? Who cares how we look? Humans lived like that for thousands of years. Our ancestors didn’t need to be pampered, they survived with the bare minimum—”

“Oh, no, who told you that?” Kasbeel shook a jar of nail varnish and began applying the first coat to Mickey’s nails. “I was there, and I can tell you. People bathed. People spent hours on their hair, and their eyebrows, and their nails, and elaborate henna tattoos, although I wasn’t able to find any supplies for that. It isn’t about wanting to look good, or to impress anyone. It’s about taking care of yourselves.” He blew a breath across Mickey’s nails, encouraging them to dry. “Being clean, being groomed, it makes humans feel human again.”

Lyla’s lip curled in disgust. But she looked back at the crowd, the smiling faces, the way the kids splashed in the puddles with bare feet, the way the adults laughed behind the stolen salon chairs, passing the hose back and forth. The teenagers all tugged at each other’s newly-short hair, running their fingers through it, marveling in how light it felt on a hot day.

She hadn’t seen her people like this. Hadn’t seen anyone like this. Not in so very long.

“Fine. If that’s what you want. And since we’re clearly going to spend the rest of the day here, I might as well look for a place to sleep. Something that’s actually necessary.”

She stormed up the street, past the shattered windows of the salons and nail parlors, past the Sainsbury’s again, and around the corner. She kept walking until the sounds of the crowd at the carwash were long gone, then just stood, quietly, in the street.

She wanted to scream, until the knot in her stomach was gone. But she wasn’t a kid anymore, and she couldn’t find the voice for it. So, she just stood there, in the street, fists clenched.

Until Kasbeel’s hand landed on her shoulder. “Would you like to talk about it, my dear?”

“Talk about what? I told you – I’m – I’m looking for a place for us to stay.”

“There were plenty of townhouses in the other direction, you know. And I’ve already sent a team to explore them. Unless you think a, er, door stripping establishment would make a better place to spend the night.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m mad, I feel like I don’t have any control over my mind. I’m just – I have a million thoughts racing in my head and I can’t even slow down long enough to actually think any of them, I just know we have to keep moving.”

“You’re afraid,” he told her. “You’re stressed, and although I forget it sometimes, you are still very young. I shouldn’t ask so much of you.”

“I can handle it!”

“Yes, you can. You handle it very well, taking care of the others, taking care of your brother before that. But, you know,” his hand rested under her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. “It’s perfectly alright to take care of yourself, too. Indulge a little. Let yourself be happy. They deserve it. You deserve it. And it will make you feel better.”

“I just…I’m not sure I can relax anymore. What if they come for us while we’re all standing around, or—”

“If they do, I will be ready. I promise. I have not let my guard down for an instant.” He wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, rubbed her back like a child. “That fear you feel. You know if the angels come back, there’s nothing you can do, but you want to be ready anyway. Your mind is telling you to find a solution that doesn’t exist. I’m sorry. But there is something you can do, I think.”

“What’s that?”

“There are many of my former colleagues who believe that anything which makes humans happy is a sin. I believe it is always worth indulging, just a little, to show them how little you care.”

“Oh. And one other thing.” Gabriel wasn’t happy. He often wasn’t happy these days. Bringing about the end of the world, it seemed, was more complicated than anyone had expected.

Aziraphale kept his face carefully blank.

“We have reports of a gang of hundreds of humans moving south, but the scouts can’t seem to get near it. Vanishes every time they try. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

“Yes. I’ve been following up on these rumors for some time. The circumstances appear to me, well, nearly incomprehensible.” He hesitated, but only for a second. “It would appear these humans are being led by a rogue angel, posing as a scout or a messenger.”

“Rogue? You mean a deserter?” A brief flash of anger in Gabriel’s eyes, but it quickly vanished, smoothed over by something calm and patient. “Well. At least my best agent is already on this. Glad you took the initiative. Now. Tell me about the angel.”

The mirror image didn’t say anything today. He wasn’t a mirror image, either. He’d angered the angels who had come in earlier, refusing to cry out as they hurt him. Shoftiel had left him as a serpent, coiled mutely on the ground, and then they’d turned to Crowley.

“I can tell you about the angel,” Crowley offered. His throat was still raw from the screaming. They hadn’t even asked any questions, simply given him back his wings and broken every bone in them. It hurt, worse than almost anything else in the last three years. He wondered if it would ever stop hurting.

The serpent lifted his head, then let it fall heavily.

“He…he…” Crowley closed his eyes. It was so hard to think of a story. Not just the pain. His mind longed to be blank. “He is so soft. Like a cloud, like a warm blanket, like a pile of feathers. And that’s all most people ever see of him. A fool and a pushover and a – a – a lazy pleasure seeker who likes his books and his chair and his food. It’s what he wants, though. He wants to be soft.”

He closed his eyes and tilted back his head, ignoring the way his wings felt like a thousand pieces of shattered glass.

Far away, an angel led a troop of humans down the motorway. He laughed as he walked, carrying one of the youngest on his back. In the week of travel, they’d grown dirty again, their nails had lost their color, their clothes become faded and stained. But they still smiled, still tossed their heads, running fingers through their hair. The young woman beside him had hers cropped almost completely off, exposing the Mark on her cheekbone.

Suddenly, the angel stopped walking, his eyes locked on the sky above. None of the others had heard or sensed anything, but he knew what was coming. Three hundred humans gathered close in the shelter of his wide white wings, and his eyes took on the color of steel.

“But then…when he needs it…when the things he cares for are threatened…he isn’t soft at all.”

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duhragonball · 5 years

Text

Dragon Ball Z 280

World is fuck, so I’m gonna write about DBZ for a while until the Benadryl kicks in.

Last time, Goku fought Majin Buu, but he wasn’t doing so great, so he upped the ante by going Super Saiyan 3.

This is where I regret falling behind on the manga way back in the Red Ribbon Army Saga, because the Buu arc is where the anime and the manga really start to get off-track from each other. I mean, the same plot points are followed, but in the manga, Goku fights Buu as a Super Saiyan 3 the whole time, while in the anime, he starts at SSJ2 and ramps up to SSJ3... twice. So it’s kind of hard to match up exactly which parts of the anime version are direct adaptations of the manga. They’re probably all there, but I’d really need to do a side-by-side comparison. A project for another time.

This has gotta be one of the best damn episodes of the whole shebang. Goku and Kid Buu are just whalin’ on each other, and this isn’t even the climax of this arc.

Starting out, Goku deals some pretty heavy damage to Buu, and he has some difficulty reassembling himself. But that’s about all Goku ever does to the kid. I mean, if Perfect Cell took a hit like that, he’d just be dead, or so badly wounded that it would take barely any follow-through to finish the job. But with Majin Buu these kinds of enormous blasts are just chip damage at best.

Something else I want to do one of these days is go back and try to figure out when they screwed up Dende’s Buu-Saga character model. I think most of Dragon Ball Super depicts him as a child, as if he never aged after the Cell Games, but I think that only happened because they were screwing him up as far back as 1995.

Here’s the thing, though: Why was Dende so short in the Cell Games? He had aged four years from however old he was in the Namek Saga. Piccolo Junior was fully grown by age three. Maybe this is the Namekian life cycle. You grow into an adult when you’re three, then you turn into a kid again, then you grow into an adolescent about 11 years after that, and then you just sort of switch back and forth for a while. It’s a good thing Piccolo’s off-screen for most of his life.

Yamcha and Krillin are watching this from the Grand Kai Planet, courtesy of King Kai’s telepathic vision. Why isn’t anyone else grabbing a Kai by the back?

And they’re even screening this fight in Hell, which seems kind of strange to me. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here, but we’ve got pay-per-view in the commons.

Hey look it’s Cell! And Dr. Gero. You think they talk much at all? Think about how much it must suck for them. Gero was maybe the only other person Cell ever respected, because he trusted Gero’s grand design for him as the perfect being. And Gero must have viewed Cell as his ultimate hope for avenging the Red Ribbon Army. And then they bump into each other in hell, which proves that they’re both failures. All Cell really accomplished was to kill Goku, and now he’s not even dead anymore. I have to figure Cell/Gero interactions in Hell are pretty uncomfortable. At the same time, who else are they going to hang out with?

Why are all these guys still in their bodies? Everything that happened to Vegeta in this arc implies that letting Vegeta have his body after death is a big deviation from the norm. Episode 195 introduced the idea of DBZ’s hell being like this big Arkham Asylum for all the bad guys. I guess technically all those episodes with the dead Ginyus in the Frieza Saga did the same thing, but you could argue that they hadn’t been dead long enough to lose their bodies. Here, now, we’re looking at characters that have been dead for over seven years. I think the premise in Resurrection F was that the damned get to keep their bodies while they suffer, until they finally learn to let go of their past lives and move on. And I can see why Frieza’s such a bitter fuck that he’d still be holding on for over a decade, but what’s Recoome holding out for? Just get reincarnated as a cockroach or something and get it over with.

Also, why is Gero a cyborg in this scene?

And why isn’t Frieza a cyborg? I mean, he wasn’t a cyborg in Episode 195 either, but that seemed to suggest Gero would be fully human in hell, and he isn’t. And if Gero does get to keep being a cyborg, then why couldn’t he keep his hat?

Anyway, Goz and Mez recognize Goku as the guy who messed with them way back in the Saiyans Saga. Hey, why aren’t Raditz and Nappa in this scene? I watched an AMV where they edited Bardock into this, which seems like a good idea. Did they just not go to hell? I find that a little hard to believe.

Anyway, all the bad guys are salty as fuck to see Goku alive and fighting, and Frieza’s actively rooting against him. He’s just jealous because Buu’s doing better against Goku that he ever could.

Meanwhile, over on the classy side of the villain crowd, Cell wonders who Goku’s opponent is, since he’s clearly impressed to see anyone give Goku a tougher battle than himself.

Then Babidi shows up and announces to everyone he used to be tight with Majin Buu. Actually, he claims Buu was his servant, and that he taught him how to fight, which... yeah. I guess he did help Buu practice punching people’s faces off.

This whole moment feels a bit contrived. Babidi’s been down here for a couple of days already. I don’t know how long they’ve been watching this fight. I would imagine the oni switched it on somewhere when Vegito was on deck, so it kind of feels like Babidi was sort of hiding around back, waiting for someone to ask about Buu, so he could jump out and go “Oh, funny you should ask about that! I was Majin Buu’s master for like six hours, nbd.” I almost wonder if he paid Cell five bucks just to set this up. Cell demanded payment in singles, because he wanted to spend it on the vending machine. He’s a sucker, though, because hell may have a big screen TV, but the bill changer on their vending machine hasn’t worked in 10 million years.

Anyway, everyone’s impressed, probably just because Babidi has the inside track on Buu more than anything. You gotta figure most of these guys have heard it all before, and at least Babidi has a newer story to tell. Everyone’s probably sick of hearing how Frieza ate that crab while he killed Vegeta.

But then Babidi wanders off, and in private he cusses out Buu for, you know, killing him, and he roots for Goku to win. Wait, is Bibidi in hell too? You’d think they could catch up on old times.

Meanwhile... well, this shot had pink and yellow energy trails moving across the planet, and it looks pretty cool, but this screenshot doesn’t quite do it justice.

Kibitoshin is worried about their planet, but the Elder Kai insists that it’ll take more than this to wreck it. I want a woman who believes in me the way the Elder Kai believes in the sturdiness of the Supreme Kai Planet. That sounds kind of masochistic when I put it that way. Moving on.

Writing about all those other villains, it starts to come into focus how little I have to say about Majin Buu. I dig the guy, though. Critics complain that he doesn’t have much on personality or motivation, and they’re not wrong, but I think that’s part of the point with him. Godzilla doesn’t give touching speeches in his movies, but he remains a popular character because of the sheer spectacle of him. He’s a force of nature, a symbol of immense power that the human characters can barely comprehend.

In Buu’s case, he’s just this stubborn, impossible obstacle to peace in the universe. So much has gone wrong, and we could wish it all back the way it was, if only someone could beat this pink little turd. He’s got some personality, but his main purpose in this story is to just be there for the other characters to interact as they deal with the problem.

For example, while all this action is going on, Mr. Satan is basically helpless, but he reassures Bee that he’ll protect him, even though Satan thinks this whole adventure is a dream. This says a lot about Mr. Satan. Yeah, Bee had a big part in reforming the Fat Majin Buu, but he means a lot to Mr. Satan as well. It’s easy to write off Satan as a coward and a fraud, but even when he’s retreating into denial, he still wants to be a hero, even when the rest of the world is dead, even when his only audience is a little puppy. And you could have a moment like this with Mr. Satan regardless of the villain, but I think it stands out better when the bad guy is Kid Buu, who doesn’t get in the way with any big speeches or characterization moments of his own.

Back to the fight, Buu gets the drop on Goku, so he decides that this is no time to hold back...

So he drops a Super Saiyan 3 Kamehameha on the little creep. Yeah!

It blows Buu to pieces, but then the pieces just turn into mini-Buus and they all shoot back.

Goku tries to power up for another round, but suddenly he runs out of gas and collapses.

So Vegeta rushes to his side and offers to switch in. Yeah, this whole part is filler. In the manga, Vegeta only gets one turn, and this ain’t it.

However, I think some of Vegeta’s lines during this scene are lifted from the part of the manga where he fights Kid Buu later. So it’s a little weird here. I’m curious how Dragon Ball Kai handled these episodes, because when they started that project it seemed like their goal was to edit out most of the filler from the original DBZ anime, but in some cases that just isn’t practical. Like Pizza and her entourage in the Cell Games. They weren’t in the manga, but they appear in almost every Mr. Satan scene that was in the manga, so Kai had to leave them in, because the alternative was to painstakingly edit them out of every shot. Here, you may not even have that option. You could edit Goku vs. Kid Buu down to just one uninterrupted string of action where he’s fighting at Super Saiyan 3. Cut out this intermission with Vegeta, cut out the opening bit where Goku fights at SSJ2, but I don’t know if the fight choreography would still make sense.

Everyone watching is horrified that Vegeta can’t even land a blow, and Buu starts openly mocking his lackluster performance. What I don’t understand is why Vegeta would even try to fight Majin Buu in his base form. I mean, the real reason is probably because this fight is filler, and Toei didn’t want it to detract from when he actually fights Buu in the next episode. But it makes Vegeta look kind of stupid. He knows better, and we know that he knows better.

So Buu quickly overwhelms him, and he’s all set to fire a ki blast to finish off. Why doesn’t Vegeta just transform to escape it?

But then Goku jumps in and ruins Buu’s shot. He’s still in base form too, but I sort of buy this, because he snuck up on Buu. Even so, this sort of fast-and-loose attitude with power levels is exactly the sort of nonsense Toei did all through Dragon Ball GT, and one of several reasons why GT sucks. It’s not as bad in filler scenes like this one, interspersed among stories based on the manga, but once there was no manga to work from, they just decided there were no rules, and Base Form Goku was almost interchangeable with Super Saiyan 4 Goku. They just used whichever character design they preferred that day.

Vegeta’s astonished, because he thought Goku was down for the count, but he’s already back up and demanding to tag back in.

But Goku ain’t done yet. This is probably the other reason Toei had Vegeta fight in base form here, so it would make it look cooler when Goku defiantly powers up to continue his effort. And yeah, it works. I really do love this scene, but it’s a pretty egregious example of filler scenes messing with the flow of the story.

Goku ramps up to Super Saiyan 2, then back to 3, and we pick up where we left off. And that’s awesome, but the main idea of this fight is that Goku’s having a hard time fighting at this level. To have him drop out of SSJ3 early, then immediately get back up and resume SSJ3 like it’s no big deal... well, that undermines that premise. I guess you can make an argument that it supports the premise, because having Goku power down twice in this fight only emphasizes how volatile SSJ3 really is, but... I dunno.

Anyway, Goku goes back to fighting Buu, and you know, that may be the real reason Toei did that whole bit with Vegeta tagging in. The alternative is to just have SSJ3 Goku fight Buu for two and a half episodes straight, and that would get dull, no matter how well they animated it. You can have spectators observe the battle, and that’s a great way to break up the action, but a moment where Goku rescues Vegeta adds some drama. The manga didn’t do this, but it didn’t need to, because this fight was much shorter in print.

I guess that’s the main defense of filler. Sometimes, it’s not about padding the anime, or working the studio’s “agenda” into the story, or anything sinister like that. Sometimes it’s just a matter of pacing.

Anyway, in either version, Vegeta watches Goku fighting, and quickly recognizes that Goku is the only one who can fight Majin Buu now. At Vegeta’s level, he’d only get himself killed.

Then he has this whole flashback of his relationship with Goku up to this point, and unlike most flashbacks in this series, this one features all new art, which is pretty awesome. Honestly, they could have used old footage from the Saiyans Saga, but they had already done that recently during the Babidi Saga, so maybe Toei figured they couldn’t do that trick again so soon. Or maybe they knew DBZ wes winding down, so they wanted to do something special while they still could.

Not surprisingly, Vegeta’s main recollection of his first fight with Goku are the parts where Goku beat the shit out of him while using Kaio-ken times three. That fight had a lot more to it than that, and it’s easy to forget that Vegeta dominated most of the battle, mainly because Vegeta himself doesn’t see it that way.

Then we get this part where Vegeta has kittens over Goku beating Recoome, and he begins to suspect that Goku is the Legendary Super Saiyan. Would have been awesome to see another shot of Luffa the Golden Ape from episode 66, but I guess that wouldn’t make a ton of sense in this context, especially now that we know what Super Saiyans actually look like.

For instance...

Vegeta considers that Goku’s secret might be that he’s motivated by a need to protect his loved ones, but even if that’s true, Vegeta has his own loved ones now, so they’d be even if that were all it was. I love how surly he looks here. “Dammit, I can’t believe I care about these stupid people! Now I gotta blow myself up if things get out of hand.”

Also, Vegeta’s observation ties in well with that filler scene from a moment ago. Goku was exhausted, but as soon as he saw Vegeta in danger, he pulled himself together and found the strength to defend him. Goku cares as much about Vegeta as the others.

But the real difference, Vegeta observes, is that he always fought for the fun of it, and for the satisfaction of killing his enemies. Goku, on the other hand, fights primarily to improve himself. That’s why he keeps pushing himself harder, and why he keeps seeing results. It’s not about winning, it’s about not losing. This seems to be a trend with Goku, where he usually says things like “I won’t lose” or “I ain’t lost yet,” instead of “I’m going to win.” Vegeta’s classic mistake is to assume that he’s already going to win, and then he crumbles when things start to go wrong.

And critically, this is why Goku doesn’t kill people if he can avoid it. Well, he killed a lot of Red Ribbon guys, but most of them were cowards and no real match for him. King Piccolo pushed him too far. After that, Goku’s been pretty light on killing enemies, and that’s probably because he reached a point where he became so strong that it got harder to find worthy adversaries. Vegeta would kill his enemies just to watch them die, but in doing so, he denied himself the opportunity to face them in rematches. This was something I read in a Superman comic once, where Superman overpowers an evil-universe version of himself, and he makes the point that his doppleganger kills all his enemies, so he only ever has to fight them once, where Superman has to stay sharp, because he has to mess with those guys over and over again. Same deal.

And you’d think Goku might have killed Vegeta after he surpassed him, like when he became a Super Saiyan, or when Vegeta went Majin, and no one would have blamed him for putting the bastard down. But Goku never did. Not because Vegeta was no longer a threat, but because he knew Vegeta could still catch up to him some day and challenge him again. Goku believes in Vegeta, even when Vegeta doesn’t believe in himself.

It’s like Goku knew Vegeta woud start to turn into a good guy. See, this is where I take issue with criticism of the dub, way back in Episode 36, when Goku asked Krillin to spare Vegeta’s life. The subs focus on Goku’s desire to beat Vegeta on his own, while the dub spends more time on Goku’s hope that Vegeta might see the light if they show him a little mercy. And you can argue that the dub is cramming their own take into the script, except their take doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Funimation’s take in Episode 36 is Vegeta’s take in Episode 280. Call it foreshadowing, or call it putting the cart before the horse, but the line itself isn’t out of bounds, because Goku did hope that Vegeta would learn the value of mercy, and and Vegeta knows it.

Again, let me pause to note that this big epiphany by Vegeta is much more effective when the bad guy is as flat as Kid Buu. We’re not missing anything during this fight because they’ve just been hitting each other, and Buu bites Goku for like half a second while Vegeta reflects.

The main point of Vegeta’s monologue here is that he’s always struggled with the idea of Goku as the antithesis of what he thinks Saiyans ought to be. And yet nothing succeeds like success. Goku’s stronger right now than any Saiyan in the last thousand years. Hell, right now, Goku’s the only Saiyan alive. Vegeta’s dead, and so are all the others. If his kindness is such a noose around his neck, why is he still breathing? Why is he the only Saiyan who figured out how to turn Super Saiyan 3? Why is he the only one who could bite Majin Buu on the head and get away with it? Because Goku’s metal as fuck, that’s why. Because kindness isn’t a weakness at all. It never was. If anything, it’s the lack of kindness that got all the other Saiyans killed.

And maybe Vegeta has to think about that a while longer, but he knows this much, Goku’s better than he is. He’s the best.

But he’s still not beating Buu anytime soon.

There’s a cool spot here where Goku hits him and his upper body stretchs out from the impact, and he waves hello to Mr. Satan before snapping back.

And by “waving hello” , I mean “fires more of this pink crap out of his hands.”

And this right here is the last shot of Cell, I think? There’s some more Frieza coming up, but I’m not sure if we see all the villains again or not.

Babidi’s watching from way back there, because he’s shy. I think Cell would hang out with Babidi. He’s pretty sociable, right?

Anyway, this fight rules, not just because of all the great action and fluid animation, but because of all the cool stuff going on around it. Everyone’s learning an important lesson about friendship today, thanks to Goku punching the crap out of this pink thing. That... sounds vaguely dirty. Let’s move on.

Oh, well, the episode’s over. That’s kind of awkward. Uh. Goodbye!

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beerecordings · 5 years

Note

“come here now” w/ anti and jj??

okay!! so this is based on My Brother’s Keeper but not canon. It’s just something that might have happened if Schneep and JJ had had more time together when Anti had them both, with inspiration from some throwaway line in one of the chapters about how Anti once sedated JJ so heavily he could not move because he was so distressed about a nice dream he’d had. I’ve been thinking about it for a hecking long time and finally wrote a snippet up. Thanks for requesting, anon! I hope you will enjoy :)

Tws for mentions of torture, overdose, and abuse

TUMBLR PLEASE FIX READ MORES AND SPACES AHHHHH

The dapper man is used to nightmares.

He sits up in his bed, a ratty blue blanket pulled tight around his shoulders. There are crickets chirping a symphony outside his bedroom window.

He cries until his chest shakes like a sound wave, until his face is dripping and his throat is sore. Soft, gasping breaths imitate sobs in his throat.

He's used to nightmares. He's used to them. But sweet dreams?

Dreams where a boy in a blue mask reaches out, and holds his hand, and promises him that everything will be better, everything will be okay, I'm sorry you're in pain, don't cry, I'm here, I'm here, little brother, you don't have to be afraid anymore –

Sweet dreams are cruel.

“Oh, Dapper boy. What's the matter, mo stoirin?”

That makes him more dangerous than ever. Anti doesn't like to be interrupted from his work. Anti doesn't like to be interrupted one bit.

“Nothing,” signs Dapper.

Anti pulls his face together from glitches and sparks. One of his eyes is black. “Don't lie to me,” he says very softly, and smiles too wide.

“It was just a dream,” says Dapper. Tears prick his eyes again and he sinks back into his bed, weeping quiet and snuffling.

“Oh, puppy.” Anti wanders over to him and tumbles into bed at his side. His icy hands soothe down his hair and ghost over his ribs. Dapper shivers, but he's grateful for the touch, and makes it known with a teary smile.

“What a sweet boy you are,” says Anti, giggling. “You've been having a lot of bad dreams lately, huh?”

“Yes,” Dapper knocks, rubbing at his eyes.

“Yeah, you've been interrupting me a lot.”

The grip around Dapper's back is suddenly a little too tight. He curls lower in Anti's arms, his mouth trembling. Every neuron in his brain tells him he's in danger.

It's true, though. Panic attacks, dreams, fainting – Dapper often interrupts Anti.

“Sorry,” he signs against his brother's chest. “Sorry, I'm sorry.”

“Good,” Anti says, running his fingers over Dapper's collarbone. “You've been a pest. But we can do something to make it stop. Does that sound nice?”

Dapper blinks. He can almost feel the boy in the blue mask reaching out to touch his hand. But the cost of angering Anti – knives that leave tiny cuts on his stomach, poison that makes his flesh fall off, long weeks of hunger, hunger like a gunshot wound – is too high to be worth a sweet dream.

And anyway, sweet dreams are cruel.

“Yes,” he says, blinking up at his brother. “You can make the dreams go away?”

“We'll see,” Anti answers, smoothing his hair down. He rises from Dapper's bed. “I've never tried this before. Curious to see how it works. Stay here, I'll go get it.”

Dapper swallows and buries himself in his blanket, shivering. It's a cold night, but spring is coming, so maybe it will warm up soon. Then he can go outside again. Anti hasn't let him leave the house in weeks because of the cold, except once when he accidentally locked him outside for so long Dapper's fingers turned black. He'd cried and cried, terrified and suffering, but Anti had laughed for a good half-hour. He often laughs. He often watches.

“Here we are,” murmurs the demon, stepping back into his room with his medicine.

Dapper's blood rushes out of his face. “No, Anti, please, I don't like needles!”

“Oh, honey, I know, but you have been such a little terror, and big brother needs some peace and quiet. Unless you want me to get sick, puppet. Do you want me to get sick? Or do you want Mr. Jack and his friends to win, since I can't work while you're here crying? What if they found us while I was sick, Dapper? You don't want to die like that. Jackie's been trying to kill me for so long, oh... he'd put a knife right in my heart and scatter my frequency across the whole world. You'd never see me again. Is that what you want?”

Fear makes Dapper's heart bounce at double speed. “No, no. I don't want that. Don't go.”

“Well, then, you'd better stop whining so much and lie down. Listen, this is going to feel nice, okay? I promise.”

Dapper stares at the needle, pupils blown wide.

“Come here,” says Anti.

So sweet. Too sweet.

“Now.”

And Dapper gets to his feet and holds out his arm.

The needleprick is a firework in the bend of his elbow, but he bites down hard on his lip and refuses to cry.

And it is rather pleasant, a moment later.

“There you go,” says Anti.

Dapper's never gotten dizzy lying down before. His mouth and his head are full of chocolate syrup. It's pleasant, and vaguely alarming. Gentle hands run over his neck.

“Anti?” he signs, reaching out to touch his brother's wrist.

Anti is laughing. Dapper's vision blurs at the edges. His brother leans down and presses their foreheads together, so all Dapper can see are his deep black eyes, burning with static.

“Go to sleep,” Anti hushes. Dapper's head swims.

He's falling deeper and deeper into water, dazed, stiff, shaking, but numb at least, maybe even warm, maybe even happy, but he can't be sure. His stomach churns and he tries to swallow, but it's difficult to move.

“Tired,” his hands try to sign, but he can't form the whole word. Not that it matters. Everything around him has faded far from his reach. Except Anti.

Anti is always close.

“Go to sleep,” he whispers.

Watching Jameson Jackson's eyes roll back in his head makes Anti's being cackle with energy, and he purrs like an overheating computer, running a hand through Dapper's hair. Oh, but this stupid little creature is his favorite plaything in the whole world.

“Poor baby,” he laughs, and pinches Dapper's cheek hard enough to bruise. Lost deep in the sedative and limp as a killed fish, Dapper doesn't so much as twitch. “You need to stop trying to make big brother angry, or one of these days I'm going to forget about breaking you into obedience and slit your fine little throat open.”

But he still has plans for the dapper man with the carving knife and the pocketwatch. Anti isn't ready to kill Jameson just yet.

“Sleep tight, doll.”

Jameson sleeps tight. Jameson does not dream. In the morning, Jameson does not wake.

***

Sun breaks cold over the Brighton countryside, but Schneep doesn't notice. There's no light in his prison cell.

He hasn't had anything to drink for days now, and his throat feels like the outside of a cactus. The gentle skin of his palms has split from the cold. His soft hair is ragged from the demon's hands running through it. He wants to go home.

Chained to the rebar pole in the middle of the frigid cement prison, Henrik sighs, long and low, and puts his head down.

There's nothing he can do. Anti has him tight.

The lights flicker on with the slightest cry of Anti's power, too bright, burning right through Schneep's white and blue flesh. All he can do is close his frail eyes.

“Doctor,” says Anti.

Schneep can't remember the last time he heard his name. Anti never uses it. Day after day, there is nothing but frost, suffering, and sorrow. Oh, he'd do anything to be home. He'd do anything for a cup of water.

“Doctor,” Anti repeats, angrier.

“What do you want?” Schneep croaks, and bursts into rough coughing. He knows he's getting ill. How could he not in a place like this? His face is sticky with blood, and he keeps his head down. What's the point of looking when Anti is only here to beat him into submission one more time?

Long nails dig into Henrik's chin and he gasps as his head is yanked up and his eyes meet Anti's, black and green. For a moment, the demon only snarls at him, his teeth gritted tight together, his eyes dark, but the expression falls away and so do the handcuffs holding Schneep fast to the rebar.

“Come upstairs,” echoes Anti's voice, quiet from every direction. “My dapper doll needs your faux expertise, my good doctor.”

***

The others tried to get to Jameson before Anti did.

None of them posted the video. None of them recorded it. It just appeared, and with it, the little one, the dapper man with the easy smile and the bright eyes. All alone with a pumpkin and a demon.

Anti snatched him away within minutes of his creation. He left blood behind and little else, so the others mourned, and said that poor Jameson had died before he lived, and tried to move on.

Now, watching his little brother shiver and choke on a cot in an abandoned house in the Brighton countryside, Schneeplestein realizes the only reason they ever accepted that he was dead was because the alternative was worse.

It would be better to be dead than to be Anti's pet.

“You've given him far too much,” says Henrik, brushing Jameson's hair back and lifting up his eyelid, finding his pupil blown wide. “You've given him far, far too much.”

Jamie's mouth is blue, his face white. He breathes like a stuttering car engine and shivers like a songbird in the snow.

“Antihistamine? Is this what you said? You gave him an antihistamine?”

“Yeah,” Anti's voice echoes from somewhere near by. He's bored of having a physical form. He's bored in general, Schneep thinks, and hates him.

“Do you understand that he could die?” he snarls.

“But you won't let that happen, will you?” returns Anti, slyly. “I mean, he wouldn't be the first patient you lost, but...”

“Shut up,” snaps Henrik, because fear makes him bold and always has. “Shut up.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Antihistamines dry everything out. He's got mucus in his throat and lungs. Go get him some water.”

“Ha! You are funny, doc. Give me an order again, it was cute. You go get him some water, puppet. There's snow outside.”

Henrik glares at the nearest glitch. “He needs to be held sitting up so he can breathe.”

“Oh, I can do that!” Anti reforms in a flickering of red and black pixels, his eyes dark and his arms outstretched. “He wouldn't like you touching him, anyway. Very wary of strangers, you see.”

Handing Jameson over to Anti –

Handing Jameson over to Anti is the most horrible thing Schneep has ever done. But the glitch is gentle with him now, gentle, gentle, sitting against the wall, his form whole and unflickering, one arm around Dapper's stomach, one hand rubbing patiently at his back.

The little one coughs, gasps, relaxes against his brother's shoulder. Schneep watches as though frozen from the doorway.

Anti presses a kiss to Dapper's hair and smiles sweetly, turning his mismatched eyes up to meet the doctor's.

“Oh, so sorry,” he says, and a giggle echoes through the hallways of the decrepit house. “Did you want a chance to hold him?”

Henrik flees.

Downstairs.

Across a rotting wood floor.

Out the door.

Into the snow.

And the cold morning wind whips his hair like an angry crow, stinging at his bruised face and diving beneath his torn shirt. His heart quails and cries out. He could gasp for the cold, for the fresh air, for the sunlight. For the little brother sitting upstairs in Anti's lap.

You could go, says a voice in his head. And he could. The highway is only a couple miles away. It's almost spring and no longer as cold as it once was. The cuts on his face might catch the eye of a sympathetic driver. He could go to a hospital and call his brothers, call Jackie, and weep into the phone: I'm here! I'm here! Please come get me, come sit with me and be warm at my side, my brothers, come take care of me and tell me you will never let him have me again!

But upstairs is Jameson Jackson, his missing brother, wrapped in Anti's arms and in his power, struggling to breathe, overdosed on sedatives, lost in adoration of a monster with black eyes.

You could go, says the voice in his head, louder and more desperate. You could go. Why should I have to be captive for his sake? I've only ever tried to help other people. It's not fair.

No, it's not fair. It's not fair, but it's not fair for Jameson either.

Henrik is a man, not a mouse. Henrik is a doctor.

With hands that do not shake, he brings Jameson a handful of snow, and makes him swallow it, so his lungs can clear and his chest can open.

“That's a little better,” says Anti, surprised. He touches Dapper's wrist for a pulse. “Isn't he breathing better? Go get him more. Oh, he's waking up.”

And this is unfair too, because he's in pain. He's in pain.

“Anti,” sign his shaking hands. “Anti, Anti, it hurts.”

Jameson is in the middle of the sun. He can't breathe, he can't think, and something slams into his skull again and again, echoing the rapid beating of his heart. There's a rock in his chest and his stomach is seething. He can't see anything but the blurred face in front of him, and, with a silent cry on his mouth, he reaches out for Schneeplestein.

“It's okay,” promises Schneep.

He's clutching Dapper's hands before he even realizes what he's doing.

“It's okay, I'm right here.”

Anti watches.

“I'm right here,” says Schneep. “You're going to be okay, little one.”

He knows better than to say Jameson's name. He knows better than to look at Anti. He keeps his eyes fixed on Jamie.

“Just a little sick, huh? Well, not to fear. We're going to get some water in you, maybe some medicine, we're going to keep you breathing okay, and then – well, and then, everything will be alright, ja? Don't be frightened. It's okay.”

Dapper clutches his hands. Hot tears run down his thin face. He nods.

“Yeah,” says Schneep, cursing his eyes for filling up too. “Yeah, it's okay.”

“Does it hurt?” asks Anti.

Dapper nods, but Anti's looking at Schneep, and smiling.

“Yes,” says Schneep. “But that no longer matters.”

***

The dapper man is used to nightmares.

But sweet dreams?

Dreams where he wakes up, and someone gentle is leaning over him, massaging his chest, giving him water and medicine, murmuring his name, soft and warm, promising everything will be okay, everything will be okay, Anti went back to work and here I am, your brother, though you do not know me, perhaps someday you will, and we will be family, holding him, holding him, holding him –

Sweet dreams are not so bad.

#jameson jackson #antisepticeye #schneeplestein #tw overdose #tw torture #tw abuse #bee writes #long post

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incorrecteragonquotes · 5 years

Text

Eragon Movie Recap Part 7: Raiding Party

Prepare yourself for something shaped vaguely like a daring tale of adventure, rescue, and camaraderie.

We pick up where Part 6 left off. Eragon knows a nonzero number of things about magic. The Ra’zac are dead. Brom was a Dragon Rider back in the day. It seems that our team is finally making some good progress.

We begin back at Durza’s fort. He’s sitting at his desk, casually reading a nice, big book. We aren’t told what it is, but we do get to see a couple of pages, and there’s definitely at least one pentagram in there.

A party of Urgals enters the room, lead by that one guy whose foot Durza stabbed before putting him in charge of the operation. Presumably, they’re here to report on the failed ambush at Daret, but Durza speaks first - he already knows what happened. He is just that spooky. And he is not pleased.

Durza expresses his displeasure by poking the lead Urgal with a fingernail and waiting for him to drop dead. I would like to take a moment to observe that Durza’s fingernails bear a very strong resemblance to Galbatorix’s. Maybe they share a manicurist, or they taught each other their favourite nail care techniques over a long weekend? It seems that Durza likes to use his fingernails as an offensive magical weapon, though whether he does this to use magical fingernail properties or simply for the aesthetic is unclear.

After a few moments, the lead Urgal does indeed drop dead from the fingernail poke. Not one to waste time, Durza promotes another Urgal to team lead. The Urgal accepts this change, but is clearly nervous about being addressed directly by the spooky man. Ultimately, the Urgal just stands there looking tired.

Durza is also tired. He is tired of waiting for Eragon to die. He is tired of other people’s failure to force this event. So Durza takes matters into his own hands. Or rather, his own fingernails. He visits Arya on her table and gives her a Magic Poke Of Doom.

Meanwhile, far away, Eragon is sleeping. Suddenly, he experiences a vision of Arya unlike any he’s seen before. She’s meandering oddly around a misty, green-tinged, dream-like forest. Then, cementing this vision as different from all that came before it, Arya addresses Eragon directly. She asks him for his name and he answers, entranced. She takes a moment to inform Eragon of her plight and adds some additional infodump details for good measure. But wait! Unbeknownst to Eragon, Arya’s entire appearance was staged by Durza. With his intel planted and trap set, Durza ends the transmission.

Eragon wakes up from his info session and immediately begins preparing to leave on his new quest to rescue Arya. Brom, holding his trusty sleep knife, wakes up at the commotion. Eragon knows more now than what Brom has told him, and Brom recognizes this straight away. He questions Eragon, and tries to hold Eragon accountable for his dodging of the question, but is met with predictably poor results.

Brom tries to explain the gravity of the situation and the magnitude of the decision Eragon is making. They’ve nearly reached the Varden, but Arya is being held in Durza’s fort in Gil’ead, which is in the opposite direction. Eragon is worried that Arya will be killed if he doesn’t rescue her, but Brom reminds him that as a military operative she is prepared to die for her cause. He makes a compelling argument - all of the Varden’s sacrifices up to this point have been for Eragon’s sake, so Eragon’s plan to walk into Durza’s fort jeopardizes everything the Varden has worked for.

Eragon, naturally, fails to listen to Brom’s concerns in any meaningful capacity. Saphira tries to vouch for Brom, but is met with no more success. Eragon throws a few scathing remarks at Brom, including a claim that Brom has forgotten what it means to be Dragon Rider, before departing with Saphira, leaving Brom behind as they fly towards Gil’ead.

After soaring speedily over the countryside, our dynamic duo touch down on a rocky hill with a good view of Gil’ead. It’s unclear how long the flight took, but from the editing I’m willing to guess it was one long day of flying, which isn’t actually all too bad. What is bad is the fact that Eragon and Saphira are still disagreeing. Eragon has done some scheming, and he figures that he has to do the infiltration at night, alone. Saphira protests - after all, they can’t be much of a team if they aren’t both there - but Eragon spouts some nonsense about strength and ends the discussion.

Under the cover of night, Eragon disguises himself in a very loosely-fitting cloak and tries to blend in. Perhaps one does indeed simply walk into the enemy base. Things are going pretty smoothly, but Eragon is semi-subtly being stalked by another dude in a loosely-fitting cloak. But wait! We’ve seen him before. This is the mysterious stranger from Daret! What’s he doing? His presence here can’t be a coincidence, but does it really matter what Cloak Man is doing if Eragon consistently fails to notice him?

Before we move on, I would just like to take a moment to appreciate that Eragon’s walk into the fortress is one of the best atmospheric moments in this movie. The fort is this looming, menacing entity filled with mystery and danger. As our hero passes the point of no return, he comes to understand the meaning of this place - the lines of chained prisoners drudging their way through the corridors, the cloaked figures staring and whispering behind their masks, the torchlit hallways filled with the echoing commands of the prison wardens. It’s a very intriguing setup, and it would be amazing if only it had a little payoff.

Walking through the fortress, Eragon finds a big, circular hallway-room. He’s alone in here, so he decides that disguises are for chumps and takes off his hood. He wanders around for a bit before activating dragon-o-vision to locate Arya. What a pleasant surprise! They actually did use it more than once! Eragon draws his sword, uses magic to open to open the cell door, and is immediately greeted by Arya telling him that he really messed up.

Durza walks in and confirms Arya’s warning. He insults Eragon for a bit, talking about how underwhelming the new Dragon Rider is, and then he and Eragon begin to fight. It is immediately clear that Eragon is thoroughly outmatched.

Eragon fights with both sword and magic, but Durza fights with smoky Shade teleportation, magically flying weapons, and magically flying weapon racks. Understandably, Eragon can’t keep up. When Eragon begins to show signs of magic fatigue, Durza mocks him before dramatically launching a spear at the now-defenseless adversary.

Before the spear makes contact, however, Brom dives out of a hallway and into the spear’s path, saving Eragon by taking the blow himself. This raises a few questions. If Gil’ead was so problematically far out of the way, how did Brom get here on horseback nearly as quickly as Eragon and Saphira? They had a ludicrous speed advantage because of their flight. And surely a resourceful, experienced fighter like Brom would have a better method than this for deflecting a single spear. Why was this his first choice? This action made sense in the book because the lack of alternate options was justifiable, but this isn’t the case here. As such, Brom’s injury here strikes me as very contrived.

Eragon tries to salvage the situation by throwing Brom’s sword, Zar’roc, at Durza. Durza deflects the projectile easily and quips about Eragon’s incompetence, but wouldn’t you know it! Eragon did something smart! Eragon uses the quip time as a distraction, readying his bow and shooting Durza in the face. Defeated for now, Durza dissipates, smiling. This impressive maneuver wasn’t performed by Eragon in the book, but I guess the guy has to look useful somehow.

With Durza no longer a threat, Arya is free to move from her rock. She and Eragon support Brom as they struggle towards an exit. Soldiers are coming from every direction now, and there’s no use in attacking them. But just when things are starting to look dire, Saphira saves the day by weaponizing the ceiling. Most of the soldiers are taken out by the falling rubble, and Saphira deals with the remaining few herself.

As Arya and Brom get ready for flight, Eragon looks up to see Cloak Man on a balcony, aiming an arrow in his direction. But don’t worry! He was only aiming for a stray soldier immediately behind Eragon, not Eragon himself.

At Cloak Man’s suggestion, Saphira leaves with Eragon, Brom, and Arya. Cloak Man stays behind, but he seems to have the situation under control. Guards fire arrows at Saphira & friends as they leave. Eragon makes a big deal out of how they need to climb higher, Saphira makes a big deal out of how she can’t carry this much weight, and none of the arrows hit anyway. And so, our heroes fly out into the night, hearts heavy with their bittersweet victory.

That’s it for Part 7! This part covered about 9 minutes of screentime. So much happened this time! We got to see our first Shade Showdown, Arya got to do something new, and more exciting changes are on the horizon. As always, thank you for reading, and in particular I would like to thank you for your patience - it’s been a while, but I’m thrilled to finally be able to share this latest part with you all. And in case the sparse update schedule has you worried, I want to make it clear that the Recap will eventually be completed - I have no intention of abandoning the project early, life just gets in the way of things sometimes.

Remember to tune in next week when we visit such questions as “are evil fingernails part of the standard villain kit?”, “does Cloak Man know the secret to teleportation?”, and “who’s responsible for replacing the weapon racks in Gil’ead?”. See you then!

#eragon #inheritance cycle #eragon movie #is it just me or does half the cast know how to teleport #eragon movie recap #eragon shadeslayer #durza #brom #arya drottningu #saphira #murtagh #long post #sorry mobile users #mod zar'roc

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profoundnet · 5 years

Photo

Header by @cryptomoon and is available on merch from her redbubble store. You can use all those fancy emojis (and more!) on our Discord server!

The Masterpost is open for all creations by ProfoundBond members which are posted in their entirety during that month.

MEMBER CONTRIBUTIONS FOR SEPTEMBER 2019!

Featuring works from Arielaquariel, @saywhatjessie, @nickelkeep, @mittensmorgul, @andimeantittosting, @banshee1013, hvnlyangel80, @wingsandimpalas, and @lunastories!

Masterpost below the cut.

Arielaquarial - ArielAquariel

The Proper Care and Feeding of Houseplants (G, 9.5k)

Cas is a YouTuber who makes videos primarily about plants. Dean is the unwilling recipient of a fern. Despite his mediocre efforts to keep the thing alive, it's only a week before its knocking on death's door. Desperate to save it before his brother finds out, he stumbles onto Cas's youtube channel.

Tags: Meet cute, youtuber castiel, Missouri always knows, alternate universe, fluff

JessJesstheBest - @saywhatjessie - JessJesstheBest

He’s a Little Bit Country (T, 8.5k)

"Tell me what we’re doing here today, Clarence.” Castiel shifted on his feet, moodily, but answered her in a grumble. “We’re putting on a concert benefit for Planned Parenthood.” “Right! And why is that?” “Because this country is run by a monster who is trying to take away the reproductive rights of women and we need to raise money to continue to fund our program which helps women have agency in their own bodies." Or the one where Castiel, as part of planned parenthood, puts on a joint punk and country benefit concert where he meets Dean Winchester, the handsome country enthusiast who is also an asshole.

Tags: Ace!Cas, Punk!Cas, Planned Parenthood, Cas has tattoos and wears makeup

Hey Baby (Uhh, Ahh) (G, 3.5k)

He had a pretty significant following already from NXT but… this was the big leagues. This was Monday Night RAW. To make his prime time debut during the Monday Night RAW after Wrestlemania was how you knew things were happening. This is where shit got real.

Or a Dean and Cas's first match against each other as professional wrestlers (Prequel to "Nobody Puts Baby In A Corner")

Tags: WWE au

nickelkeep - @nickelkeep - nickelkeep

Paradise by the Dashboard Light (E, 7k)

"It's not our viewers I'm worried about." Castiel groaned and walked to his room.

Balthazar laughed as he headed outside to the car. "I guess I'll have to edit this video. I'll consider this payback for when he put grape juice in my wine bottles."

Castiel stood in the doorway with a pot of water and a suction cup dildo in his hand. "Is there anyone around?"

"Just me. Now come on. You don't want that water to get cold, do you?" Balthazar goaded.

"No." Castiel rushed to the car as quickly as he could, hoping he couldn't be seen. "I swear, I hope none of our neighbors are subscribers."

Balthazar took a few steps back as Castiel poured the water over the dent. After the pot was empty, Castiel handed it to his brother and aimed the suction part of the dildo into the center of the dent. He counted down, "Three. Two. One," and slammed it into place.

Tags: AU - Modern, Strangers to Lovers, Semi-public Sex, Sex on Baby, Morning After Sex, Public Nudity, Sex Toys Not Used in the Way They're Supposed to Be.

What About Us? (M, 9.5k)

Dean ran his hand down his face and headed back to his bedroom. He pulled out “Sweetcheeks'” information and grabbed his phone. After double and triple checking the number, Dean pressed the call button. He wasn't sure what to expect but took a deep breath in and out for each time the phone rang.

After several rings, the voicemail picked up:

Hello, you have reached the voicemail of Castiel Novak. I'm sorry I was unable to take your call at this time. If you could please leave your name, your number, and the reason for your call, I'll be glad to call you back as soon as possible. Have a wonderful day.

Dean frowned. The guy sounded like a decent sort. It also meant that he had probably been the other guy. As the tone sounded, Dean let out a heavy sigh and left his message.

"Hi, Castiel. I'm probably the last person on the planet you ever want to hear from, but my name is Dean, and I think we need to have a talk. It's about April. My number is (555)-555-6767. That's my cell. I'll have it on me all day, so please call as soon as you can. Thanks."

Tags: Modern AU, Infidelity (Not Dean or Cas), Implied Domestic Abuse (Not between Dean and Cas), Author is not a Lawyer, Slightly Dubious Interpretation of the Law, Revenge is Best Served Hot, Implied Queerphobia, Car Destruction (Not Baby), Happy Ending

Stay With Me (E, 7k)

Cas nodded and followed after Dean as they made their way to the elevator. They took the ride up in silence, Dean trying his damnedest to not stare and admire Cas. He knew that Cas humored him for the evening, listening to him rant about issues in Modena. But the looks he received in return, the smiles, the genuine interest. If there was any interest returned, Dean was screwed.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened, letting them off onto their floor. They walked the few feet to their shared room, with the single bed and the probably not-as-comfortable couch. Cas unlocked the door and opened it, and Dean followed inside, turning to close it and lock it.

As Dean turned back around, Cas was already sitting on the couch, taking off his shoes. He walked closer and looked at the bed before looking at Cas. "So, I was thinking."

Cas looked up. "About?"

"We're adults, right? It's a king-size bed. There's room for both of us on there. There's no need for you to sleep on the couch. It's not like you were kicked there for doing something wrong. You haven't done anything wrong."

Tags: AU - Modern Setting, Archaeology/Anthropology, Strangers to Lovers, There Was One Bed!, One Night Stand, References to Recent Events (Lovers of Modena), Angst with a Happy Ending

Something So Magic (T, 5k)

About halfway through cleaning and treating the wounds, the cat started to stir. It let out a very confused sound meow, causing Dean to chuckle. "I know, right? Last thing you know, you were outside with a big bad bird swooping in over you." The cat turned to look at Dean. "Aren't you a bright little guy? Sorry, I figured that out while cleaning you up." Dean tended to a final spot along the cat's rear leg. "Almost done, and I can get you something to eat."

The cat chirped in response and tilted its head.

"All done." Dean held up a finger and turned his head before sneezing. "Sorry little guy, I'm allergic to cats. But you do need some strength. I'm pretty sure I've got a can of tuna or something around here." Dean wandered over to the kitchen area and looked through his cabinets.

The cat rested it's head on its paws and watched as Dean dug through his rations. "Here we go. One can of tuna. I guess that's a little cliché, but you work with what you've got." Dean opened the can and drained out the excess water. "While we eat, I'm gonna look for a spell to heal you up a little more so you can be on your way, okay?"

Tags: AU - Modern with Magic, Witch!Dean, Familiar!Castiel, Light Angst, Fluff, Spells and Enchantments, Happy Ending

Use Both Hands (E, 2.5k)

“I’m still not going to talk about it, Sam.” Dean’s back was to the door, and his head was resting in his palms. “I’m not in the mood.”

“Would caffeine help, Dean?”

Cas’ voice caused Dean to whip around and look at the door. “Uh. Yeah, it’s um...” Dean ran his fingers through his hair. “It’s appreciated, Cas.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Dean.” Cas set the coffees and the bag of pastries down on the table before carefully pulling one out of drinks out of the tray. He crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to Dean, handing him the cup. “Sam told me that you were suffering from some head issues.”

“Son of a bitch.” Dean let out a half-hearted chuckle before taking a sip of his coffee. “Of course he’d say that.

Tags: Canonverse, Love Confessions, Sammy Ships It, Pray for Sammy, Porn with a Little Plot

mittensmorgul - @mittensmorgul - MittenWraith

It’s Lily Dale (T, 14k)

They were at it again, Sam thought to himself as his eyes closed and he tilted his face up toward the heavens for mercy. He squeezed his eyes shut, knowing full well there was no mercy to be found in Heaven, but maybe silently hoping the ceiling might cave in on him and put him out of his misery. It was an old bunker, after all, and who knows if they actually repaired all the damage from the grenade Dean fired off in there a few years back? It could happen, but unfortunately, sitting at a table in the library researching for a case-- any case that would give him an excuse to leave for even a day or two-- was probably his best bet. Even worse, the three hours Dean and Cas had been out running the long list of errands he’d invented to get them out of his hair for a while hadn’t been long enough for him to find that precious, precious case.

Tags: Alcohol, Love Confessions, Fluff and Humor, Sharing a Bed, Misunderstandings, Long-Suffering Sam Winchester, Background Case, Curses, idiots to lovers

Eleven (T, 2.5k)

It's been eleven years since a hunter an an angel walked into a barn... it's time they gained some perspective on how incredible the last eleven years have been.

Tags: Feelings Realization, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Castiel (Supernatural) Talks About Feelings, it's all just a bunch of feelings

andimeantittosting - @andimeantittosting - andimeantittosting

Friends With Benefits With Tentacles (E, 7.5k)

Dean's never been embarrassed about his porn collection before, but that was before he found Cas holding his prized copy of Sweet Princess Asuka and the Tentacles of Pleasure. Dean finds himself sweating bullets—because this is Cas, sweet, nerdy Cas. Cas, his friend. Cas, his roommate. Cas, his—only slightly out-of-control—crush.

Cas, with his big, blue eyes and muscular arms and perpetual sex hair.

Cas, with his tentacles.

The last thing he expects is for Cas to suggest they experiment together.

Tags: Alien!Cas, Consentacles, Friends with benefits to lovers, Roomates, Miscommunication

Banshee1013 - @banshee1013

Toes In The Sand (SFW)

"Toes In The Sand', Art created for the Suptober Art Challenge (Days 4, 5, and 6), with accompanying fluffy ficlet.

hvnlyangel80 - hvnlyangel80

Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe (M, 7k)

Holiday Prompt Challenge: Dean Winchester loves the holidays. Every Year just after Thanksgiving at the local mall they have a contest and give away something fantastic. This year it is a 1967 Chevy Impala and not just any Impala, It is Baby, his Baby.

The contest is called 'Kiss Me Under The Mistletoe'. You have to kiss someone for as long as possible lips cannot break. Last lips touching win Baby and 10g's. The trick is you are blindfolded and you wander around until they tell you to 'Kiss me under the Mistletoe ' Dean will do anything to get his Baby back. ANYTHING.

Enter Dr. Castiel Novak College grad with too many student loans to his name, he needs the 10g's and could care less about the car. He signs up for the contest and when the buzzer hits he feels the most sensual pair of lips. Cas does not know how long it goes for but he wants more of this man.

When the blindfolds are removed what will be their reaction to the other? They say there is magic when you kiss your soul mate under the mistletoe. Do you believe in magic Dean Winchester? Time to find out.

Tags: Castiel and Dean Winchester First Meet; Professor Castiel (Supernatural); Mechanic Dean Winchester; holiday fic; Meet-Cute; Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss; Castiel (Supernatural)'s First Kiss

Wingsandimpalas - @wingsandimpalas - WingsandImpalas

Watching from the Window (T, 2k)

Castiel's neighbour is singing again and it takes all of his willpower not to laugh. It’s not that he's a bad singer, quite the opposite, in fact, he's brilliant. It’s just that without fail every time the man steps into the shower he will power belt of all things: Disney songs.

Tags: Getting together, Neighbours, Dean is in a band, Disney songs

Lunastories - @lunastories - LunaStories

Only One Fucking Bed (T, 2k)

Dean and Cas get a call from Sam requesting their help on a ghost hunting case he'd been working on. They head off to meet him but end up at the wrong cabin. As if that wasn't enough, there was only one fucking bed.

Tags: fluff, there was only one bed, cuddling

#dean winchester #castiel #destiel #deancas #spn #profoundnet monthly masterpost #profoundnet #september masterpost #member fic #member art

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lon3lynation · 4 years

Photo

Chapter 4: Road Regrets

Previous Chapter

"We drive until the gas is gone And then walk until our feet are torn Crawl until we feed the soil Film the whole thing

It's all business in the left-hand lane Drive there and then drive back again Escape can't be the only way to escape

So I've gotten used to coffee sweats Still getting used to road regrets And hell I took you up on all your threats to leave"

Road Regrets by Dan Mangan.

Visiting Maymont and its 100 acres the day before had been an engaging experience. Touring the elaborate Mansion had taught her the history of the estate and of the Gilded Age era. Lexa tried but failed to envision herself living in such a lavish home during the early 1900s. If she had lived during those times, she'd bet that she possibly would have been institutionalized for loving the fairer sex and daring to fight for equal rights. Morbidly enough, she could picture herself in a mental asylum, a guinea pig for the barbaric experiments to 'cure' her but only succeeding in breaking her mind. If her imagined alternate lives paralleled her own, then the pain was to be a recurring theme.

What a tortured soul.

Lexa laughed.

If Anya was around, she would tell her to stop acting like such a pathetic masochist and to be more present. It was something she had been unable to kick. Her mind often wandered to her past, the pain never-ending as she visited old memories, both good and bad. It was difficult to forgive or forget after it had drastically impacted the life she once knew and irrevocably transformed the person she was.

Melancholy had become an old friend of hers and she didn't know how to let go.

It was always lurking around but she was grateful that it didn't stop her from feeling other things alongside it.

Admiring the garden's' vibrant flowers and rushing streams had left her with the feeling of contentment. It had her looking at her surroundings more closely and reflective of how things could appear differently to others.

Her favorite moment occurred when she came across one of the black bears that were on the grounds. There had been an older couple, a man and a woman, taking a photo of the wild bear from a distance. She chose to stand next to them to observe the black bear pacing and how her appearance didn't escape its attention when the animal briefly paused to look at her.

"Oh, I can't help but feel nervous when he stops and stares at us," the older woman had said aloud. Lexa simply hummed in response before clasping her hands behind her back.

She didn't shy away from gazing at the bear. She admired the thick dark fur, deep brown eyes, its lumbering gait and how he eyed her in return. Before long, the older couple were taking several steps away from her when the bear began closing the distance between them.

Lexa stayed where she was, hands still behind her back, eyes alert on the approaching bear. It sniffed the air and grunted when he got a few feet away from her.

She knew the nervous couple behind her thought the bear was likely stalking her but she believed differently. There was a shared curiosity between them.

In time, the black bear simply plopped down on its bottom, curiosity finally sated and focused its attention on eating the berries off the shrubs.

"How were you so calm during that?" the other woman questioned.

"We had a mutual understanding," Lexa had murmured, the curve of her lips raised in a subtle smile.

At the memory, Lexa found herself softly smiling yet again as she dug her fingers into the sand by her sides. Maymont had been yesterday. Now she was in Virginia Beach. She strolled the boardwalk, sampling from food vendors here and there, before finding herself longing to be closer to the water.

So, she sat on the beach, feeling the warm sand against skin and clothes. Only then did she realize that she desperately needed to go shopping for swimwear. Her overstuffed backpack could only hold so much and she had figured that whatever else she needed, she could get during her trip. A suitcase would be nice, too.

Deciding that she'll go shopping likely after traversing the Blue Ridge Parkway, Lexa reluctantly accepted she will have to deal with odd tan lines for the time being. Pulling her fingers out of the sand, she wipes them off before reaching into the pocket of her shorts for Clarke's cellphone.

When it flashed on, she scrolled through her previous exchange with Clarke after she finally made the decision to continue with the conversations.

'If you think I'm going to hit the acceptance stage, think again. As for your other text, there wasn't much imagining done once the idea you could be some big buff mean looking criminal who can convincingly disguise their voice came up.'

'Shame. Also a shame? How unattractive your mind suddenly made me. I can assure you those specifics are incorrect.' Lexa responded back, at the time feeling partly amused and a little bit offended.

'I feel so very assured. Perhaps I can be convinced if you tell me your name?'

'No.'

'You can't keep telling me no!'

'Yes, I can, Clarke.'

Lexa was quickly finding out she quite liked telling Clarke "no". It was oddly satisfying to frustrate the girl to the point where she was positive that Clarke was shouting curses at the screen. Anya wasn't one to get easily frustrated by her. The few times she did, it hadn't amused her because it left her feeling like a disappointment. It was nice to have someone to rile up and it not be taken too seriously. It was something she planned to do as often as she could. It was almost payback for being convinced to continue with the calls and letting Clarke falsely hope she could get her car back someday.

It truly didn't make any sense to her as to why the Jeep hadn't been reported stolen. Out of all the possible scenarios she thought of, it never occurred to her that the person she had stolen from would reach out to her. It made her a bit uncomfortable because never before was she forced to face her victims after robbing them. After the deed was done, she always made herself scarce, never seeing the unlucky victims again. Now she knew the victim's name of her latest crime and being confronted with what she had done.

But Clarke wasn't like any of her other victims, was she? After all, the others most likely would have gone to the police.

Clarke was an anomaly.

Lexa didn't know what to expect in her predicament with the other girl. She hadn't a clue what could happen tomorrow, next week, or the upcoming months. Things could happen, change or come to an end. There was no way of knowing what she'd get out of the calls with Clarke and how long it would last. For now, it lessened the chance of getting caught with a stolen car.

Good or bad, all Lexa knew was whatever may happen in the future, she couldn't deny the fact that she was intrigued by Clarke. They had only spoken a couple of times and the woman was already getting her to open up a little. Not necessarily with Clarke, but with herself.

She felt daring and playful to the point it could be almost taken as flirting. It had her acting in ways that reminded her of her younger self before all the hurt that happened to her. She thought those traits were long gone but she was slowly finding out that they were only buried and waiting to be rediscovered again. Perhaps there were still a few things left of the person she used to be.

She just needed to peel back the layers of scar tissue, ignore the pain, and reclaim what she missed about herself. It didn't all have to stay connected to her ancient wounds. She could find a place where it could be free of the scabs.

There was a lot of self-reflecting work to be done but that's exactly why she wanted this trip. It was a much-needed escape to finally take the time to look at herself and figure how to move past her history. It had been holding her hostage for too long.

Lexa was still very reluctant on facing those memories head-on in hopes that she could finally make peace with it. She wasn't quite ready to dredge it all back up. There were still infinite miles left for her to gather the courage to do so. It needn't be rushed or it'll only cause her to continue to run further away from herself and leave it festering.

She has done enough running for over 6 years. It was time to sort her shit out for good.

With a sigh, Lexa stood up from the sand and gazed at the blue ocean, noticing a few surfers waiting for the perfect wave. She had been so occupied with her own thoughts that she had barely noticed the others chatting and sunbathing around her.

It amused her thinking how teenage Lexa would be shocked that she turned into such a lone wolf with only her thoughts for company.

Lexa brushed away the sand sticking to her bare legs before unknotting the plaid long sleeves shirt from around her waist to shake out. Once free of sand, she retied it back around her before deciding it was time to go to her next destination.

Blue Ridge Parkway.

Back on the road again, she drove with the radio off and the windows down. It was refreshing to hear only the wind, the traction of tires on the road, and her own breathing. Noise has been a constant melody in her life since leaving home. Between sharing public buses with several talkative strangers and going unnoticed in crowds as she scoped out potential targets to pickpocket, she hadn't realized how much she had craved the quietness.

She was feeling lighter, free of tension, and finally beginning to feel what she believed was happiness poking at her well-guarded walls. It was time to let them form enough cracks to let it in and savor the feeling. It's been too long since she had felt truly joyous about life in general.

It was invigorating.

By the time Lexa arrived at the mountain ridge, she was ready to relish the winding roads and scenic views of the region. It would be a lengthy drive that could take days to complete but it was a journey she wanted to take. She wanted the new and memorable.

The accidentally stolen cell phone vibrated with new text messages as she spotted a visitor center. Keeping her eyes on the road, she opened the texts and glanced at them. They were from Clarke, of course.

'It's a new day which means more bugging the hell out of you to return the car to me, thief.'

'Come back to New York.'

'Don't you feel guilty yet? Do the right thing.'

Lexa shook her head in amusement before placing the phone down to respond to later. She parked near the center, deciding more information and a map was needed. She entered the building and was quickly offered a brochure of areas she could stop and see or stay the night along the Blue Ridge. In the back, it had small cropped maps but she wanted to be able to fully track how to experience the most of the ridge and where it would take her in the end.

Her inquiries eventually directed her to the gift shop. It was filled with all sorts of souvenirs with Blue Ridge Parkway in bold letters on them. The maps were in the corner and she quickly ripped the plastic to unroll the map. It showed the whole length of the mountain chain which was exactly what she needed.

After rerolling the map, Lexa came to a sudden stop a moment later when she realized that she was about to exit the shop without going to the cashier. It took another moment for her to process that she had sneakily hidden the map under her clothes without giving it much thought. It happened so effortlessly that she barely noticed what she had actually done.

She had felt the itch for a brief moment but ignored it because it wasn't needed in this situation. She had money to pay for it. It was just a map from a gift shop full of cheap souvenirs.

And yet her body still went through the motions to steal a stupid map.

Feeling slightly annoyed with herself, she smoothly pulled the map back out and made her way to the cashier to pay for it as she had originally planned.

Beyond ridiculous.

Lexa was back in Clarke's car with the map spread out across the steering wheel to see where her route would take her. However, her mind kept replaying what had almost happened earlier. It was kind of unsettling that stealing was something her body could now automatically do without much thought. It was just idiotic that it occurred inside a gift shop of all places.

She shouldn't have had felt the itch to steal in the first place.

It was only a few days ago that she had successfully stolen a car. The plan was to use the money she had saved up and that she would pickpocket some more cash once it was running low. That should have held her over for a while before craving the rush again. Maybe she needed to look back into joining an underground fighting ring to ease the excessive energy that was stirring within her. Obviously, due to her lifestyle, her body didn't know how to handle downtime.

Shaking her head, she reached for Clarke's phone to text the girl back. A distraction was needed.

'I feel entirely guilt-free, thank you. How much rejection do you think you can take all summer? Because I am not turning back around.'

Lexa smirked at Clarke's ongoing attempts to get her to return the car. She liked the woman's determination and wondered how long she could continue denying what Clarke wanted before she grew tired of it.

'Nice try, though.'

Looking back at the map, Lexa decided she'll drive Blue Ridge into North Carolina. She was content with the idea of enjoying the sights of the mountain scenery during her drive that would likely last more than a few days. There was no time limit set for her. Lexa could take in every moment without the weight of a large ticking clock on her shoulders.

Hearing the alert of two new text messages, she set aside the map for the phone.

'I see it'll take me a lot more to convince you. I don't think I appreciate how many miles you are going to put my car through.'

'Can you at least humor me and share a clue of your location or name? I'm going to get tired of thinking up synonyms for criminal.'

Lexa huffed out a small chuckle with a response at the ready to further toy with Clarke. Admittedly though, the idea of giving Clarke vague clues for her to obsess over seemed fun.

'Stranger danger!'

'Hey! That's my fucking line.'

'Calm down, Clarke.'

'Is being an asshole your default state?'

'Maybe.'

'I'm going to call you now.'

Lexa just managed to read the last text before the phone in her hand blared with an incoming call from Clarke.

"You know, you're keeping me from beginning a very nice long drive." She answered the phone after a slight hesitation when she suddenly felt nervous.

She pushed it aside.

"Hook up the Bluetooth then. It's in the glove compartment."

Lexa let out a quiet "oh" before placing the phone to her left ear to reach the glove compartment with her right hand. She pulled it out and begun to connect the Bluetooth as Clarke continued speaking.

"So, are you seriously not going to give me any clues?"

"I guess I could humor you for a minute," Lexa forced an exaggerated sigh. "It'll take me many miles but I'm sure the scenic views at this particular altitude will make it a memorable experience. I think I'll get views of the whole region. I'm looking forward to it."

Hearing Clarke trail off into a thoughtful hum, Lexa knew instantly she was trying to get an idea of where she was. She gave details, tiny ones, but rather generic enough as it still wasn't going to pinpoint what her location was to Clarke.

"Like scenic with trees and winding roads, oh, Raven asked if you are near a body of water?"

Lexa was positive she was hearing the sounds of someone typing away on a keyboard. She chuckled softly, pulling the wired earbud from the glove compartment and placing it on.

"I guess I'll find that out soon enough. Who is Raven?"

"Oh, um," the sound of typing paused before two hushed voices were heard. "Shit, sorry. She's a friend and now she thinks you're going to come murder us. I forbid that, by the way."

She started the engine after everything was connected, her excitement rising as she began her drive through the winding parkway.

"You forbid me?" she scoffed. "That'll definitely be enough to save you from certain death."

"Shut up."

"Is it a habit of yours to share your name and your friends' names with criminals? I'm pretty sure that should be discouraged."

She paused, hearing no defense coming from Clarke. She continued.

"I have your name, your car, and your phone. I bet I could easily find out where you live. What if I was more than a simple car thief? Someone that could come back to rob or hurt you and your friend without a single care."

Clarke doesn't waste a second to respond.

"But that's not you, is it?"

Lexa stopped breathing.

"What?''

"You may have learned a little about me but I've learned a bit about you too from our talk. I know that you didn't steal the car to make money off of it since you said you weren't going to have it taken apart and that you simply needed a car to drive to wherever you wanted to go. You could've easily said otherwise or nothing at all."

Clarke's confidence was growing.

"There's also the fact that before you abruptly ended our call, you actually sounded like a second away from saying you're sorry. That to me doesn't sound like someone that's a hardcore criminal and is unapologetic about it."

Lexa didn't know what to do about a stranger sounding so confident in her observations of her. She barely had a whole clear picture of herself. It was unnerving to hear Clarke sound so sure and correct at that. Was she more transparent than she realized?

"Seems like we're breaking down all the barriers here."

"Huh?"

"I didn't really care how inconvenienced I would make the person I stole from feel. I am sorry for putting you into this situation."

"Did you really not feel bad at all for whoever you were going to steal from?"

"You're going to regret asking that. I didn't really feel too bad. I think if I had to redo it all over again, I still would have done it."

"Oh."

Lexa could sense the disappointment.

"Did that finally give you the reality check you needed, Clarke?"

"Maybe but unluckily for you, it also made me even more curious to learn more about you."

Lexa's fingers tightened on the steering wheel before she released a pitiful groan. The girl was going to be even more determined than ever.

"Hey, did you know that in Michigan you are never more than 6 miles away from a body of water?"

"I did not know that, no."

"Is that where you are?"

Looking in the wrong direction.

"Nope. I can't say I've visited there yet. Clarke, you're not going to pinpoint my location with the details I've given you. Tell your friend to stop wasting her time."

Clarke huffed through the phone.

"You can't blame me for trying to figure out where you and my car are located."

"As long as you know that you will fail each time. That's something you're going to have to come to terms with."

"I think you're underestimating me, carjacker. I don't easily give up on anything that I want, ever."

"Sure, I'll try to remember that."

Lexa tapped her fingers against the wheel, driving the slower speed limit while silently admiring what seemed like an endless amount of trees on one side and the other an open view of the region. She always figured herself to be a city girl though there were times when it made her feel overwhelmed and claustrophobic. With nature surrounding her with its lack of buildings and people, it was amazingly peaceful.

"So...," Lexa eventually muttered after the pause in the conversation.

"So, can I ask if you even have a destination in mind for this trip of yours?

"Not really. Isn't that the point of a cross country road trip?"

"A road trip usually ends where it began."

"For others, maybe. They have a home and a life to return to. I have nothing in New York waiting for my return. I'm free to travel as far and wide as I want until I decide if I want to settle somewhere."

"Well, what if you did have something?"

"Have what something?"

"Something that you could return to."

"If I did then I guess I would return to wherever that something was. But I don't. It's only been me since I left my foster home years ago. That's never going to be my something and I've no plans to ever go back to where I was no longer wanted."

"Clearly there's a story there that -"

"That I won't be telling you."

"That you won't be sharing, right. I figured that much. What about the years you've been on your own?"

"Throughout the years, I've been nothing more than a hopeless wanderer. It's not like I've made any close connections with anyone."

"You never made any friends?"

"Not really. Well, except for one woman about 5 years back when I was trying to make an honest living and it wasn't getting me anywhere. She stole my wallet, I chased her down, and then she became my friend and mentor in how to live a not so honest lifestyle."

"I guess that's one way to make new friends. She's the one that got you into committing crime? It doesn't sound like she was a good influence on you."

"You're only saying that because if I hadn't met her then maybe we wouldn't be in the predicament we are in now."

Not sure of what to make of the sudden silence on the other end of the line, except that she was most likely correct, Lexa offered up another comment.

"Besides, she taught me how to survive in this world and I'll always appreciate what she has done for me."

"Are you still in contact with her?" Clarke finally responded.

"Not lately. I haven't seen her in months. She's like me, also the sort to wander off to wherever her feet take her."

She wondered how far Anya had traveled and what State she was in now. Were they close in distance or too far apart? Perhaps it was time to try reconnecting with her and find out where she was located now. She would happily drive the distance to see her mentor again.

She did miss Anya, her stories, and the shared understanding they had of each other.

"Well, I think I revealed enough to you today."

"See, I'm already proving myself right that I'd get to know you little by little with each phone call I make to you."

Lexa wouldn't admit out loud, but Clarke was slowly becoming familiar to her and she made it too easy to open up. It made her want to be all the more stubborn.

"I guess this is something I'm going to have to get used to, hm? Keeping you penned into my daily schedule."

"Yeah but there's time and I'm pretty confident that I'll even get you to look forward to these calls."

The thing was that Lexa was already starting to look forward to speaking to Clarke.

It was going to become problematic.

"Overconfident, I think you mean. I'm gonna let you go now since this drive is calling for my full attention."

"Alright, well, have a safe drive then, stranger. I'll speak to you again tomorrow."

"Tomorrow. Enjoy the rest of your day, Clarke."

After saying their goodbyes, Lexa finally disconnected the call and yanked out the Bluetooth earbud. That was enough of Clarke for today. Her eyes wanted to feast on the breathtaking sight that the line of trees finally revealed. Between the bright sunny afternoon sky and the chain of mountains that stood in the distance, it felt like Lexa was witnessing a true masterpiece coming to life.

She eventually pulled over to the side after an hour of driving and left the car sitting idle to stand near the guard rail. Inhaling the fresh mountain air, she sighed out contently, shoving her hands into her pockets. It was quite a view that was way more magnificent than the pamphlet pictures made it out to be. She was glad that she hadn't missed out on learning about the parkway.

This was the beginning of her making a new memory of every place she would get to visit. Lexa was going to savor it all. She was allowing herself new and better memories to hopefully replace the ones that still left their ugly mark on her. Wasn't she deserving of that?

There was only one little irritating feeling that was bugging her as she stood and took everything in. Something was missing. It was telling her that this memorable view shouldn't be admired alone but for it to be shared with someone.

Her imagination briefly visualized a blonde someone standing next to her, gasping in awe at the mountains, and cockily pointing out that she was right about Lexa being near a body of water when she spotted a river glittering down in the distance. It was a scene Clarke would like, she imagined.

Lexa groaned quietly, rubbing her temples to wipe away the picture her brain produced.

She had been right.

Things were most definitely going to get problematic for her.

#There's Distance Between Us #clexa au #clexa #Clexa TDBU #clexa fanfiction #clexa fanfic #clexa fic #myfic #my writing

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